Criminal law continues to be one thing I love to read about. For instance, this story about William Heirens, written in 1989, blows the mind: so, so many injustices allowed to stand, all because "it's really the publicity surrounding the case..." Sadly, the Lipstick killer died in prison at the age of 83 as possibly the world's longest serving prisoner.
During his time in prison, Heirens became the first Illinois prisoner to earn a college degree behind bars (he had been attending the soul-crushing University of Chicago prior to his 'conviction'), earned a certificate in electronics and then taught TV repair to other inmates, managed 350 inmates at a prison garment factor, organized classes for inmates, set up an educational program and advised prisoners on education and law, taught art to inmates after becoming a watercolor artist and calligrapher, and founded a self-help group in prison. He received glowing reviews from all who came into contact with him - despite this, he was denied parole over 30 times.
It really says something when even the sensationalist trutv.com - which has retold stories of serial killers that in actuality have little to no evidence in a highly sensationalized manner(toy box killer) - retells the conviction and trial in a fashion to demonstrate the utter unfairness and pre-determined outcome of the case.
UPDATE
Also, forgot to note - but he finished serving time for his sentences in 1983: retributive justice, and one of the reasons the post the other day about the society of friends/rehabilitation would be a better standard (here, using the counterfactual that Heirens were actually guilty). sad yall.
15 March 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN
An article about the creation of Grand Theft Auto. I've never really played it - instead mostly played crazy taxi - but the development process is a cool read.
I want to watch this movie. I know it's gotten some poor reviews, but the two write ups I read are designed to catch the attention of film geeks:
nytimes:
n+1
both articles are great to read together - the n+1 one realllllllly does not like the focus that other newspapers like the times have put into the appearance of the young woman:
amen to that, n+1, one of my recent fav magazines.
I want to watch this movie. I know it's gotten some poor reviews, but the two write ups I read are designed to catch the attention of film geeks:
nytimes:
One of the knots that Ms. Dunham requires you to untie while you’re watching “Tiny Furniture” is the extent to which she is playing with ideas about fiction and the real, originals and copies... One hint, though, might be the character’s unusual first name, which suggests that Ms. Dunham, at the age of 24 and herself a recent graduate, has read the social theorist Walter Benjamin’s 1930s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” one of the most influential (and commonly classroom-assigned) inquiries into aesthetic production and the mass reproduction of art...Cinema, in other words, might spark critical thinking.
Certainly the character of Aura encourages critical thinking about female representations. American movies are filled with cruelly unlovable, unloved women, usually ugly caricatures. For her part, Aura can be a drag, self-indulgent, whiny and passively, aggressively irritating. But it is Ms. Dunham’s refusal to put on a pretty show, to doll herself up, that is the movie’s boldest stroke. In her rejection of visual pleasure (the unlovely, unadorned, badly lighted digital images add to the anti-aesthetic) you can see a feminist argument about narrative cinema in bold action. Classical Hollywood films, this argument goes, turn desirable female images into fetish objects for male pleasure, which among other things tames women. Female stars are created to be looked at; Aura invites your gaze, and troubles it.
n+1
In The Art of Fiction, Henry James explains that in the English novel “there is a traditional difference between that which people know and that which they agree to admit that they know, that which they see and that which they speak of, that which they feel to be a part of life and that which they allow to enter into literature.” The same applies to film today, here, in America. Because we speak about “body issues,” Dunham was made to speak about them, too. But what actually makes Tiny Furniture a daring film is that it talks about class and privilege. What makes this boldness radical is that it treats privilege positively: instead of implying privilege’s existence via its absence, Dunham makes it present, as a material experience that offers specific pleasures and advantages. She doesn’t speak truth to power, but from it, which these days is as rare, and as necessary.
both articles are great to read together - the n+1 one realllllllly does not like the focus that other newspapers like the times have put into the appearance of the young woman:
Even positive reviews noted Dunham’s appearance—a fact over which she has slightly more control than who her parents are, but less, say, than the actual content of her film. Fans praised Dunham’s radical frankness, her fearless telling of the truth...In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis classified Dunham as a “body-based artist”... That leaves Dunham with very little time to say anything else. Taken together, the responses to Tiny Furniture spelled out a single message: if a young woman wants to talk about her life, she better be talking about her looks. Having a body is the only experience she is allowed to take seriously.
amen to that, n+1, one of my recent fav magazines.
14 March 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN
A horribly depressing, but truly fantastically written story about a boy named Lance Butterfield, a football career, and an abusive home life. And can I say that I seriously hope that the prosecutors have evolved a bit more in their beliefs regarding domestic violence and defenses for survivors. Here's another story with a few additional details, including more about the entire family and community supporting Lance.
The tale of a Sotheby's girl. Insight into the art world - galleries against auction houses, strategies for selling art, objectification and a confusing refusal by the company to meet with labor demands. From the article:
The tale of a Sotheby's girl. Insight into the art world - galleries against auction houses, strategies for selling art, objectification and a confusing refusal by the company to meet with labor demands. From the article:
In my interview, I told my future boss that I had never been able to imagine an idea that could be best expressed by painting it. “But,” I added, making exaggerated eye contact, “appreciating art doesn’t mean you can send effective emails. I can write. I can make your job easier for you.” This is the best thing to say in an interview if you are young and unqualified to do anything other than maintain a personal blog. I started three weeks later...As far as I can tell, here's a cached image of that shoot.
“Oh, good. She’s blonde,” said the photographer. I made a face at him. “For the contrast.” He sighed. “You’ll stand out against the purple.” I followed his instructions and approached the painting, gazing up at it from a few feet away at a quarter-angle to the camera. I shifted my weight subtly from one hip to the other and pretended to see things on the canvas that I hadn’t before. Standing next to the painting, I was a live specimen of powerlessness: in service of sums of money too great and too senseless for me to comprehend. “Back up a little,” the photographer instructed. “No, that’s too much. Yeah, stay right there. I need you to look diminutive.”
13 March 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
bizarro world: the tale of a man doing an interview with video game nerds who discovers his wife may be able to beat the world record in tetris.
i was going to write about the java programming language, since i've started using it this year, but it actually seems like it may be boring for other people. instead, a case of mass hysteria. and another, which i read about long ago, but this one involving laughing.
Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and ends. A Janus word or autoantonym is a word that has two opposite meanings at once. A prime example is the word dust, which can mean both to remove something and to sprinkle it on. Another hotly contested example is the term literally, which may mean both in reality, actually or metaphorically or figuratively.
There's been a lot of press about solitary confinement lately. Hopefully this is a larger part of reforming US criminal justice systems - the stories contained within are truly terrible. Interesting facts I didn't know relate to my absolute favorite religious group.
Solitary confinement began as a social experiment from a Quaker-inspired philosophy offering an alternative for more severe forms of punishment (cutting off limbs, death penalty). Beginning in the 1790s, society began to regard some criminals as rehabitable; prisons built from that social perspective began to encompass more than just punishment as their goal. One strategy was particularly revolutionary: solitary confinement. For instance, in 1829, the first prison was built containing cells built for solitary confinement. However, it was discontinued after a number of prisoners committed suicide, went insane, or were no longer functional in society. It started to gain traction in California in the 1930s, memorably shown in The Birdman of Alcatraz, a film that took great poetic license with its subject.
Twenty nine years ago, in 1983, a prison first used the modern 23 hour lockdown in Marion, Illinois. Six years later, California built the first Supermax prison. Now, over 25,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement in the United States, with possibly 80,000 more in restrictive confinement, and not all are crazed individuals unable to socialize with any one else (and, indeed, the Dart Society Reports article identifies some additional human desires, such as reading materials, that may be denied to such inmates). In addition to - like a lot of the criminal justice system - being ineffective and a waste of resources, many question whether isolation should be classified as torture.
And, in a twist that shows why i love me some Society of Friends, the American Friends Service Committee continues to work for prisoner rights, including to limit the use of solitary confinement.
**Update**
It would appear the reason for the rise in publicity was because of a UN report on Monday. From the Times article:
And here's a quote to get you to hopefully explore all of the above articles, from the Dart Society Report's article:
And finally, some of the article ties into one of my favorite social movements, prison rebellions and strikes.
i was going to write about the java programming language, since i've started using it this year, but it actually seems like it may be boring for other people. instead, a case of mass hysteria. and another, which i read about long ago, but this one involving laughing.
Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and ends. A Janus word or autoantonym is a word that has two opposite meanings at once. A prime example is the word dust, which can mean both to remove something and to sprinkle it on. Another hotly contested example is the term literally, which may mean both in reality, actually or metaphorically or figuratively.
There's been a lot of press about solitary confinement lately. Hopefully this is a larger part of reforming US criminal justice systems - the stories contained within are truly terrible. Interesting facts I didn't know relate to my absolute favorite religious group.
Solitary confinement began as a social experiment from a Quaker-inspired philosophy offering an alternative for more severe forms of punishment (cutting off limbs, death penalty). Beginning in the 1790s, society began to regard some criminals as rehabitable; prisons built from that social perspective began to encompass more than just punishment as their goal. One strategy was particularly revolutionary: solitary confinement. For instance, in 1829, the first prison was built containing cells built for solitary confinement. However, it was discontinued after a number of prisoners committed suicide, went insane, or were no longer functional in society. It started to gain traction in California in the 1930s, memorably shown in The Birdman of Alcatraz, a film that took great poetic license with its subject.
Twenty nine years ago, in 1983, a prison first used the modern 23 hour lockdown in Marion, Illinois. Six years later, California built the first Supermax prison. Now, over 25,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement in the United States, with possibly 80,000 more in restrictive confinement, and not all are crazed individuals unable to socialize with any one else (and, indeed, the Dart Society Reports article identifies some additional human desires, such as reading materials, that may be denied to such inmates). In addition to - like a lot of the criminal justice system - being ineffective and a waste of resources, many question whether isolation should be classified as torture.
And, in a twist that shows why i love me some Society of Friends, the American Friends Service Committee continues to work for prisoner rights, including to limit the use of solitary confinement.
**Update**
It would appear the reason for the rise in publicity was because of a UN report on Monday. From the Times article:
In a report presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Juan E. Méndez, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture and other abuse, called for a ban on solitary confinement except in limited situations and singled out the United States for its reliance on the method.
And here's a quote to get you to hopefully explore all of the above articles, from the Dart Society Report's article:
Prisoners strike up relationships with the critters that crawl in through their air vents. One man used his own hairs to try to repair a moth’s injured wing in hopes of facilitating its escape. Mohammed Saleh — convicted of having co-conspired in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — lost his daily hour of outdoor recreation for three months at ADX because he saved bread crumbs to feed blackbirds in his exercise pen.
And finally, some of the article ties into one of my favorite social movements, prison rebellions and strikes.
12 March 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN POST TWO
This is a simple answer to a complex question: Should I go to grad school?
This, however, is a little more complicated, with checklists and whatnot.
And finally, this is the most complex of all, and is my current favorite read.
This, however, is a little more complicated, with checklists and whatnot.
And finally, this is the most complex of all, and is my current favorite read.
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN
adventures of a teenage polyglot. this article was fascinating - and i was reading it aloud to officemate - and then it became even cooler when it name dropped someone i met in istanbul (video includes my second favorite time dancing in taksim square).
yesterday was a very sad day, but the upside is that i now have a full suitcase - literally - of very nice clothes and somewhat surprising fond memories of sbarro pizza.
t minus 6 days until my sister and her husband come, and i'm so beyond excited! curry and curry and curry and maybe even mr. turkey! and curry! and hot peppers! and spices!
Fake meat: I'm not a big fan. I guess it's fine for those who like meat, but for me, I just get so grossed out by it.
one of my favs from last weekend: "can you start talking to him again? when you don't talk to him, he stands staring."
yesterday was a very sad day, but the upside is that i now have a full suitcase - literally - of very nice clothes and somewhat surprising fond memories of sbarro pizza.
t minus 6 days until my sister and her husband come, and i'm so beyond excited! curry and curry and curry and maybe even mr. turkey! and curry! and hot peppers! and spices!
Fake meat: I'm not a big fan. I guess it's fine for those who like meat, but for me, I just get so grossed out by it.
one of my favs from last weekend: "can you start talking to him again? when you don't talk to him, he stands staring."
09 March 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TEN POST TWO
Models Wanted! (Nişantaşı, Istanbul)
Date: 2012-03-07, 11:10AM EET
Reply to: xrdsh-2888969814@job.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
We are an online fashion retail company looking for male and female models of all shapes and sizes.
If you are interested please send us a full-length photograph, a facial shot and for females please send a picture of your feet wearing open toed shoes if possible, not a necessity. Please also include your dress and shoe sizes.
When replying with the attached required pictures please also include what available hours you can work to and from, as well as your contact information.
Per days' work we will be paying 60TL.
Date: 2012-03-07, 11:10AM EET
Reply to: xrdsh-2888969814@job.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
We are an online fashion retail company looking for male and female models of all shapes and sizes.
If you are interested please send us a full-length photograph, a facial shot and for females please send a picture of your feet wearing open toed shoes if possible, not a necessity. Please also include your dress and shoe sizes.
When replying with the attached required pictures please also include what available hours you can work to and from, as well as your contact information.
Per days' work we will be paying 60TL.
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