In response to Paul's journal about prison workers: Paul's initial comment was asking whether a person who worked at a prison where death row inmates are being held is just evil. I responded that they weren't inherently evil, but more likely worked there due to environtmental pressure and reinforced opinions about crime, penalties, and criminal justice. First off, most prisons are located in rurally isolated communities whose fiscal base has been systematically weakened through decades of sustained attacks, namely corporatization of small farms/business, declining industrial factory needs, etc, which leads to inevitable shortages in other areas, like education, affordable housing, etc. Therefore young workers often have little choice when faced with this job market; they can take up the failing family farm, work at Walmart, or work at the prison.
Now we all know what happens when young uneducated poor kids need something to do, that's right, sex and...babies (rural communities are not far behind inner cities in teen pregnancy rates). So you now have your 18 year old worker who needs a job and has a newborn to support. Next there's the fact that our uneducated kid has most likely grown up in a house with guns, a family that supports capital punishment, and maybe an uncle or two who already works at the prison. To him (or her, but most likely him) this is not a moral choice, this is just another job to make ends meet.
Well, Paul says that he can just move. Where is he going to go? He has no skills, no connections, no money saved up, he might have a kid and girlfriend to support, and all his family is right there. This is not an easy choice to make or carry through with.
So what's my point? I am not trying to advocate our current system, in fact, I think our system is one of the worst in the "civilized" world. I hate capital punishment and think it's barbaric and outdated, inhumane. What I think is that to blame the individual is not the right course of action. We need to blame the system that got him where he is now and focus on providing education, affordable housing, and job opportunities. If we fix these problems not only do we get an educated class of people who can start asking the moral questions of whether his job (and moreover his entire view of our criminal justice system) is right or wrong, but we also get someone who is less likely to commit the crimes to end up in jail in the first place. So, that's what I tried to explain to Paul. It ended up being very similar to an argument we have had about the individual guilt of armed forces members, which is also a good topic. There you have it, please feel free to comment on ya'lls journals too. Interjournal debates are neato.

PS: Gambling sucks.

Every one needs to see it, I agree. Go to Nick's journal. Nimoy rocks!

Oh and today's word of the day is:
mazy MAY-zee, adjective:
Resembling a maze in form or complexity; winding; intricate; confusing; perplexing.
What the fuck, mazy? give me a break.

OK, just one more thing. The Vagina Monologues...very good. Rented it from the library on a whim and it was great. Liberate the coochies!!! Cunt cunt cunt cunt cuuuuuuunnnnnnnnt!

Well I wanna respond to Holly's journal too!!! Waaahhhh!
I wanna say that ummmm, gender sucks. To me it's all about putting people in boxes, about conforming and shaping. People don't want to be in the boxes, they just mostly don't realize that they're in there, and if they do, can't see a way out. Do straight boys like always being macho? Is it even fun most of the time? What girl wants to wear horrible feet-deforming shoes and stuff dry scratchy toxic cottonballs up themselves? That's the real paradox, that all these things aren't fun, being your own gender is so much more fun, and liberating.
That's what I think, everyone should have to be their own gender. Pick and choose what you like about guys, about girls, about puppies, about fucking tranvestite dyke martian salespeople. Whatever floats your boat. And then, once you've decided on a base structure of your own identity the test comes. Go out and try it on. Does it make you happier? Now maybe it's not so easy. There are many hidden traps. It's hard to see what comes from inside and what comes from outside. Do you want to be a certain way because it's fun, good, and productive, or because enough commercials have washed through your head that you think it's normal? You must always be vigilant. Our ultra-propagandic society has ways of getting bizzare ideas into our heads without us even noticing it. We all feel it; the omnipresent "conform". It floats above, beyond, through, and into all of us in many forms. We need to recognize it, and squarsh it. Don't let it take you, or make you. Be yourself, whatever that is. I pick flunderbummox. So if you wanted that one, too bad.

This will be part of the journal below when I get home (I'm on the sidekick now, how exciting).
Thinking more about gender, thanks a lot Holly, and especially about armpits. Holly says it's weird for her to shave her armpits; they're supposed to be hairy, they're supposed to stink. How weird is it then that society's getting weird enough that maybe I would be hotter if I shaved them, and noone's supposed to smell, except of flowers and spearmint. Fucked up. I wanna take super models and put them next to the apes on the timeline. How are they more fit? How did we end up here, where beauty is defined as being as far from natural as possible. What the fuck is beauty? My fingers are cramped. G'day and WTF.

I wrote my journal last night at like 11 so I only got a star for a half hour. So read the journal below, I even learned some Illustrator just to make the bloddy graphics. Well, I also want to post my outrage that we have barred non-Iraq-war-supporting-countries from receiving any contracts for the rebuilding of the country. It's so obvious what it's really all about. If we cared about Iraq we would give the contracts to the lowest bidders and not to those closest to our Administration. Grrr.

Lots of stuff has happened. Sodom has been captured. Why aren't they dancing in the streets over there, hell, why aren't we?
The media has decided not to cover half of the democratic candidates. I watched the debate: too much trivialness, too much talking about nothing to do with how they will run the country (which Kucinich pointed out a couple times). Oh yeah, Halliburton has been found overcharging the public (that's each and every one of us little ole taxpayers). Bush will look into it, and make sure it ends up good. Okay... this is why nations against our war can't have the contracts, only our friends can cheat us I guess. We made some radio clippies. Some fun, others boring, most disturbing. The lord of the rings played on the radio, and on the TV. I think I messed up my video game and will never find all my dressspheres. Ugghh. Mariokart though has had just about all of its secrets ripped out; we got some new super characters, a boo (ghost) and big man-eating plant. That's it for now, maybe something will hit me later, careful.