The United Prison Industry States of America

This is an astounding number.
2,319,258 real live humans in prisons and jails in America today. The figure includes Federal prisons, State prisons, and local jails. Roughly translated, the number means one in 99 Americans is behind bars.
Looking at the number in a global context, the United States now incarcerates more people than any other nation [...]

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Male vanity run amok

We were browsing Longs the other day when I walked over to the magazine rack to see if one of the mags had a nude on its cover.
Let’s face it, ladies. Men aren’t really interested in feminine camouflage. No man I know cares the least about the shade of your lipstick, your rouge, or your [...]

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He coulda been da boss

We’ve argued for a long time that Alex Tourk coulda been, shoulda been, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. In fact, I’m so certain of my belief in his capabilities that I am actually reserving the capital letter M, as in Mayor, for Alex. The other guy is merely someone wandering around [...]

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Somebody out there likes Emily Morse

This isn’t a stream-of-consciousness thing. You have to be conscious for that. No, this is like someone wandering alone in a forest, trying to find a way out.
Even Robert Frost had two roads that diverged in a yellow wood when he chose the one less traveled. I feel like someone who has been airlifted from [...]

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Family Secrets?

Any horse thieves in your family? Any eccentric great aunts?
Or how about your ethnicity? Are you Irish, Italian, Japanese, Greek, or Tahitian? Or maybe Chinese, Filipino, Scotch, or American Indian? A little bit of everything?
More than likely, you’re the latter. An individual today who is 100 percent anything is rare, perhaps non-existent. Humans, after all, [...]

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Come on down. Let’s play gotcha.

Politics is one of our interests, and I suppose by some stretch of the imagination that we could characterize tonight’s debate between Hillary and Barack as politics.
Our tendency is to place it in the category of game shows. The show in this case lends itself to several titles. We could call it “Gotcha,” which would [...]

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We live by degrees

I didn’t know this, but apparently there are degrees of patriotism.
The latest take on the matter popped up in connection with Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations. He isn’t “sufficiently patriotic” according to Republicans looking for a chink in his armor.
The evidence of Barack’s sins? He didn’t place his hand over his heart while singing the National [...]

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