we re off. im excited to leave for ny bc i know it ll be more fun coming back to b-lo. have fun times, gang..

on the discussion about the prison workers.. i think the root of the evil lies in the prison industrial complex and the fact that people have to even rely on the prison system to exist in order to have jobs, not so much that the workers are evil. im not trying to skim the discussion by talking about the larger system, but there is something inherently messed up when you set up a society to accept the fact that prisons go up at the rate they do, and then hire people to work as guards on the 'right' side of things, to take care of people who are on the 'wrong' side.

government subsidies go a long way into encouraging certain types of businesses. its not any accident that private prisons are being built. just like the military industry. companies actually get tax breaks to form certain kinds of businesses, there is incentive for them monetarily if they set this up in their communities, and beyond that there's profit to be made. in that scope of things, the evil seems to come from higher up. especially nowadays, with the use of prison labor and the profit margins of prisons (everyone makes loot, including the telephone companies that overcharge for phone calls to the family). but this is what's set up, and it's as terry said, people end up facing job opportunities like wal-mart, the failing family farm or working at the local prison.

when you think of what is to be gained by building this kind of system and cycle.. the profit motive, the ideas of how to handle crimes and punishment.. the people who build prisons no doubt believe in inherent good and evil being able to be distinguished by lines that we can draw. if youre on one side of the bars, you're good; the other side, you're evil.

and when you get down to the level of guards, it prolly isn't a pretty picture-- especially in believing in these lines of right and wrong. im sure there are a lot of prison guards and executioners who do end up leaving the job. but for people who do it every day and may get desensitized to the lines of right and wrong... it makes me think of the famous psychology study which showed that having some sort of role that youre expected to fulfill can go a long way in how things play out.

the stanford prison experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/) is a very famous study done at standford u. in 1971, a prison simulation which had to be cut short because of the shocking way people fulfilled the roles. a group of college students were placed in a prison setting; half of them were told they were the guards, and the other half were told they were prisoners. within a couple of days they were all acting very much in the roles they were placed in; the guards starting beating on people, the prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.

while one study isn't definitive of anything concrete, it's interesting to look at what happened and at the remarks of one of the main researchers, Philip Zimbardo. The following three paragraphs are his words:

"After observing our simulated prison for only six days, we could understand how prisons dehumanize people, turning them into objects and instilling in them feelings of hopelessness. And as for guards, we realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from the good Dr. Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde.

The question now is how to change our institutions so that they promote human values rather than destroy them. Sadly, in the decades since this experiment took place, prison conditions and correctional policies in the United States have become even more punitive and destructive. The worsening of conditions has been a result of the politicization of corrections, with politicians vying for who is toughest on crime, along with the racialization of arrests and sentencing, with African-Americans and Hispanics overrepresented. The media has also contributed to the problem by generating heightened fear of violent crimes even as st
at
is

ti
cs show that violent crimes have decreased.

There are more Americans in jails and prisons -- both men and women -- than ever before in history. According to a recent Justice Department survey, the number of jailed Americans more than doubled during the past 12 years, with over 1.8 million people in jail or prison as of 1998."

again, this one study is not necessarily indicative of anything concrete. but i have to ask, or wonder.. how does drawing distinctions of what's right and what's wrong affect how people act, what happens when we create a prison society where we're putting them up at rates faster than we put up schools? and rachel's point about the army and getting money for an education.. this is where our society's priorities are fucked, and i think it's more of what's being offered out there rather than the fact that people definitively believe they may enjoy being prison executioners or in the army.

hope i see you all before its time to go home for yuletideness. been extremely hibernatory as of late. but december holidays always means old friends returning to buffalo for short stints. tomorrow is here. oh janet!

here, take a sec and visit this (http://www.afa.net/petitions/MarriagePoll.asp) for the anti-gay American Family Association's petition. they're gonna present the results of the poll to congress. i've been seeing this in a bunch of places, but m cho's blogger site tells me.. "they were trying to show that 99% of the populace were against gay marriage." -- help skew it the correct way..

and here's a damn funny 30 sec ad called 'bush sucks' (http://www.bushin30seconds.org/vote/view.html?ad=868Y6N35o8EMDwVLpq1.JXZpZXctMTg0)

the voting for moveon.org's bush in 30 seconds commercials starts today. you have to register first in order to vote, and you can do that here (http://www.bushin30seconds.org/login/register.html?errors=require_login). the winning commercial will be televised during the week of the state of the union address; there are over 1,000 ads to choose from, to be narrowed down to 15 finalists. whoo.

i'm wire-lessss and can move all over the house, thanks to paul and the gang. now that means i no longer have to starve to death in my room because i can't bear to be away from my precious. i can also now do numerous things while still attached to my computer: cook, watch movies, shower, walk the dog. there are no limits to my powers now.

more on genderbending later, but for now, peaches rocks (http://www.peachesrocks.com/)

"
again last night i had that strange dream
where everything was exactly how it seemed
concerns about the world getting warmer
people thought that they were just being rewarded
for treating others as they like to be treated
for obeying stop signs and curing diseases
for mailing letters with address of the sender
now we can swim any day in november
"

i've figured it out, i have been awake for exactly 21 hours out of the past 4 or so days. thats quite an accomplishment for me.

ah inter-journal conversing.. sounds like its time for a genderfucking party..

"In Miami, police unleashed unprecedented fury on demonstrators -- most of them seniors and union members. Is this how Bush's war on terror will be fought at home?" (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/12/16/miami_police/?ref=http://www.sa%0Alon.com/src/ads/powells/salon4.html)

i was chatting with paul, and he sent me a picture taken with his new sidekick cam. it's of his cousin, whom he's always admired, and for the past few years has very much wanted to be like. here's the pic: