Dear Sis
Well, I feel so much better now because I've been duly inspected! A large group of visitors (some politicians, some prosecutors and a handful of prison inspectors, escorted by a raft of high-ranking prison guards) just passed through our cellblock, touring the central dayroom, pausing to peek into our cells. Being on death row you quickly become acclimated to such tour groups coming through, but I never lose the feeling of being an animal in a cage, like the monkey house at the zoo, with curious visitors pointing at you, staring at you, whispering among themselves. In Florida, we'd get about two tours a week; often they were college kids from the nearby University of Florida at Gainsville, male and female, either criminal justice majors or law school students. Invariably, they just pour out onto the wing, without prior notice or warning, trooping by the cells while some escorting guard gives them a running commentary on who is in the cell, what he did to get on death row, etc... On more than one occasion I (as well as others) have been on the toilet, only to look up and see a tour group walking by, staring in at me on the toilet. Sometimes it's embarrassing, other times it's enraging. Normally I mind my own business and basically ignore the visitors, but I've been caught on the toilet before and been in a bad enough mood to hurl a few choice obscenities at them. Living in a cell is like existing in a fishbowl - you've got zero privacy.
For the last month or so I've been watching the media-induced hysteria over the avian (bird) flu and the possibility of a deadly pandemic sweeping the world and killing millions and millions. While I don't discount the theoretical danger of a pandemic popping up one day (it's happened repeatedly throughout history) it's important to separate fact from fiction. The fact is that this avian flu is in fact a deadly threat - to birds ! The disease is spread from bird to bird and only occasionally (and only following extended intimate contact) from bird to human. In order to become a pandemic the virus will have to mutate to a different form that can be spread from human to human. While this mutation is theoretically possible, the fact is that it has not happened yet. There isn't a single case of human to human transmission yet. As long as the virus remains a bird-to-bird virus, with only an occasional bird-to-human virus, there can be no pandemic. Everything else is hysteria, and the media is blindly fanning these flames. It's all part of the post-9/11 trend to encourage citizens to live in fear. Our government (aided by our sensationalism-driven media) relentlessly promotes fear in our society, convincing the gullible to live in a constant state of fear. Either fear of terrorism, or crime, or disease - whatever is convenient. Just be afraid! And once you choose to live in fear, you've ceded to the government the responsibility to take care of you. This is exactly what the government (this administration in particular) wants: "Be afraid! Live in fear! Only the government can protect you! Give up your civil rights and freedoms so the government can protect you from the evils of the world! "More and more, this country is becoming a nation of sheep, incapable of thinking on their own, a society of trembling cowards. It's discouraging to watch this transition occur before my eyes in the span of a handful of years...
Alright, Sis, I'm outta here. It's time for me to hit the hay. I'll call you soon. Meanwhile, give the puppy a tummy rub for me!
Love & Peace,
Bill
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
October 3rd 2005
Dear Sis
I was reading my USA Today as I do every evening, when I saw a little advertisement (for lack of a better word), or notice (a more appropriate term) from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. They run these every day/issue, in the back of the Life Section along with a photo of a missing child, listing the child's name, age, description and where they're missing from. I see these notices every day and they are always heartbreaking. I hate looking at them, 'cuz each one represents some lost kid, and you know that a certain number of them have been murdered. Occasionally I'll stare at one of the pictures, wondering what could have happened to the child, wondering if he or she is alive, or possibly being held somewhere, in some basement or a cage, under imaginable conditions. There are so many missing, and you wonder, where could they all be? It's a sad commentary on our society.
I'm sitting here on my bunk, half-watching the Monday Night Football game (Carolina is beating Green Bay pretty convincingly and another of those interminable drug commercials just went off the air. It's all part of the inexorable medicalization of America, with the huge, multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies bombarding us with slick commercials attempting to convince everyone that they are suffering from some sort of medical malady (real or imagined) and that the only solution is to ask your doctor for a prescription for the comany's miracle drug. When you watch these commercials and pay attention to what is being said (and implied) it is almost comical. But the results are a matter of record as more and more Americans march to their doctors, after self-diagnosing themselves based upon these ads, and demand to receive the prescription. It's all a very well organized and orchestrated game plan by the drug companies to convince us that drugs are the answer to all that ails us. I'm old enough to remember when drug companies were prohibited from advertising prescription drugs on TV, but the drug companies successfully lobbied congress and the FDA to repeal those prohibitions and now the drug copanies spend millions and millions on advertising. And there's a direct correlation between the increase in advertising and the increase in prescriptions, and the BIG increase in profits for the companies. The profit margin for the big pharmaceutical companies is staggering.
Alright, Sis, I'm gonna kick back and watch the rest of the game. (I think we're watching Brett Favre's swan song this year. He needs to seriously consider retiring, I think). Give the puppy a tummy rub for me!
Love & Peace,
Bill
I was reading my USA Today as I do every evening, when I saw a little advertisement (for lack of a better word), or notice (a more appropriate term) from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. They run these every day/issue, in the back of the Life Section along with a photo of a missing child, listing the child's name, age, description and where they're missing from. I see these notices every day and they are always heartbreaking. I hate looking at them, 'cuz each one represents some lost kid, and you know that a certain number of them have been murdered. Occasionally I'll stare at one of the pictures, wondering what could have happened to the child, wondering if he or she is alive, or possibly being held somewhere, in some basement or a cage, under imaginable conditions. There are so many missing, and you wonder, where could they all be? It's a sad commentary on our society.
I'm sitting here on my bunk, half-watching the Monday Night Football game (Carolina is beating Green Bay pretty convincingly and another of those interminable drug commercials just went off the air. It's all part of the inexorable medicalization of America, with the huge, multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies bombarding us with slick commercials attempting to convince everyone that they are suffering from some sort of medical malady (real or imagined) and that the only solution is to ask your doctor for a prescription for the comany's miracle drug. When you watch these commercials and pay attention to what is being said (and implied) it is almost comical. But the results are a matter of record as more and more Americans march to their doctors, after self-diagnosing themselves based upon these ads, and demand to receive the prescription. It's all a very well organized and orchestrated game plan by the drug companies to convince us that drugs are the answer to all that ails us. I'm old enough to remember when drug companies were prohibited from advertising prescription drugs on TV, but the drug companies successfully lobbied congress and the FDA to repeal those prohibitions and now the drug copanies spend millions and millions on advertising. And there's a direct correlation between the increase in advertising and the increase in prescriptions, and the BIG increase in profits for the companies. The profit margin for the big pharmaceutical companies is staggering.
Alright, Sis, I'm gonna kick back and watch the rest of the game. (I think we're watching Brett Favre's swan song this year. He needs to seriously consider retiring, I think). Give the puppy a tummy rub for me!
Love & Peace,
Bill
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Sept 25, 2005 - Hurricane Rita winding down...
Dear Sis~
Hurricane Rita has pretty much played itself out and from what I'm seeing on my little 5" TV, the damage was considerably less than anticipated. Still, if you are one of the victims who has lost all of his/her property, or the house, or a loved one, there is no consolation in the storm's reduced fury, nor any wisdom in the old adage that pain, disappointment and conflict are just the universe's conduit to life's reality... Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, with the increase in the number and severity of hurricanes in general, it is clear to me that global warming is definitely a contributing factor. Whether mankind's actions are behind global warming or whether it is just some sort of normal, cyclical thing may be debatable, (though in my mind the issue is settled; we are screwing this planet up!) but the reality of global warming is not debatable. We'd better get used to more hurricanes like Katrina, because they're coming.
Remember when we were kids in Miami and we rode out (and played outdoors in)hurricanes? I remember especially Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Betsy in 1965, because they were so powerful and they hit Miami squarely. Still, I played outdoors during both (yeah, I was always doing stupid stuff, wasn't I?) Now, can you imagine what the result will be when a Katrina-sized storm hits Miami Beach and Miami head on? It will be catastrophic, especially on Miami Beach, where no point of land is higher than 10 feet above sea level. Hurricane Andrew was bad, but lots of folks don't understand that the main brunt of Andrew hit Homestead and Florida City, 25 miles south of Miami. If it had hit 25-30 miles farther north, it would have been twice as worse. And one day, that will happen.
I'm not much of a TV watcher; usually I check out the news and Discovery Channel, and an ocassional movie. But being in a cell 24 hours a day, well, I watch more TV than I otherwise would. Anyway, I decided to check out some of the new TV drama series which are making their premiers and I was universally disappointed, even disgusted, at how so many of them were police/detective shows which involve the most despicable and outrageous criminals/ suspects conceivable. In particular, these shows feature female victims (usually kidnapped) who are horribly tortured and murdered. Then the graphic details are featured in the program. One new show is called Killer Instinct and it is representative. It features shallow, wooden characters mouthing lousy dialogue, plodding along through predictable plot scenarios. The common denominators are always unbelievably psychotic torturers/killers who dismember, rape and torture female victims. The unspoken (and none too subtle) message is that maniacs lurk everywhere, and that your typical criminal is a psychopathic murderer who must be hunted down and shot dead by the hero police who are handicapped by their scrupulous adherence to the criminals' constitutional rights and the "liberal judges" who seemingly live for nothing else except to release obviously guilty murderers on legal hyper-technicalities. And when the cops "bend the rules" by beating confessions out of suspects or fabricating evidence, the suspect is always obviously guilty so as to reinforce that the ends justify the means. I've yet to see one of these shows (like NYPD Blue or Law and Order) where they arrest the wrong guy and then beat a false confession out of him or fabricate false testimony, as happens in the real world. But besides that, what really bothers me about these new shows is their focus on graphically showing women being tortured and maimed and murdered, over and over and over. There's a real sickness to it, and I wonder who patronizes these brainless shows. It says something about us as a society when every night on every channel the 3 major networks feature such mind-dead tripe which caters only to our basest instincts. It's sad and disappointing.
OK, Sis, enough babbling for now...Keep your chin up and a smile on your face!
Love & Peace,
Bill
Hurricane Rita has pretty much played itself out and from what I'm seeing on my little 5" TV, the damage was considerably less than anticipated. Still, if you are one of the victims who has lost all of his/her property, or the house, or a loved one, there is no consolation in the storm's reduced fury, nor any wisdom in the old adage that pain, disappointment and conflict are just the universe's conduit to life's reality... Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, with the increase in the number and severity of hurricanes in general, it is clear to me that global warming is definitely a contributing factor. Whether mankind's actions are behind global warming or whether it is just some sort of normal, cyclical thing may be debatable, (though in my mind the issue is settled; we are screwing this planet up!) but the reality of global warming is not debatable. We'd better get used to more hurricanes like Katrina, because they're coming.
Remember when we were kids in Miami and we rode out (and played outdoors in)hurricanes? I remember especially Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Betsy in 1965, because they were so powerful and they hit Miami squarely. Still, I played outdoors during both (yeah, I was always doing stupid stuff, wasn't I?) Now, can you imagine what the result will be when a Katrina-sized storm hits Miami Beach and Miami head on? It will be catastrophic, especially on Miami Beach, where no point of land is higher than 10 feet above sea level. Hurricane Andrew was bad, but lots of folks don't understand that the main brunt of Andrew hit Homestead and Florida City, 25 miles south of Miami. If it had hit 25-30 miles farther north, it would have been twice as worse. And one day, that will happen.
I'm not much of a TV watcher; usually I check out the news and Discovery Channel, and an ocassional movie. But being in a cell 24 hours a day, well, I watch more TV than I otherwise would. Anyway, I decided to check out some of the new TV drama series which are making their premiers and I was universally disappointed, even disgusted, at how so many of them were police/detective shows which involve the most despicable and outrageous criminals/ suspects conceivable. In particular, these shows feature female victims (usually kidnapped) who are horribly tortured and murdered. Then the graphic details are featured in the program. One new show is called Killer Instinct and it is representative. It features shallow, wooden characters mouthing lousy dialogue, plodding along through predictable plot scenarios. The common denominators are always unbelievably psychotic torturers/killers who dismember, rape and torture female victims. The unspoken (and none too subtle) message is that maniacs lurk everywhere, and that your typical criminal is a psychopathic murderer who must be hunted down and shot dead by the hero police who are handicapped by their scrupulous adherence to the criminals' constitutional rights and the "liberal judges" who seemingly live for nothing else except to release obviously guilty murderers on legal hyper-technicalities. And when the cops "bend the rules" by beating confessions out of suspects or fabricating evidence, the suspect is always obviously guilty so as to reinforce that the ends justify the means. I've yet to see one of these shows (like NYPD Blue or Law and Order) where they arrest the wrong guy and then beat a false confession out of him or fabricate false testimony, as happens in the real world. But besides that, what really bothers me about these new shows is their focus on graphically showing women being tortured and maimed and murdered, over and over and over. There's a real sickness to it, and I wonder who patronizes these brainless shows. It says something about us as a society when every night on every channel the 3 major networks feature such mind-dead tripe which caters only to our basest instincts. It's sad and disappointing.
OK, Sis, enough babbling for now...Keep your chin up and a smile on your face!
Love & Peace,
Bill
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