I get a ton of press releases, and I tend to ignore most of ’em, but one subject header that’s been catching my eye lately is “Death of inmate in custody.” In fact, William Hayes at the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention has sent me five such press releases since August 16, including another one today.
That kinda strikes me as a lot.
Checking my email archive, I usually receive only two to four such emails from King County a year. So five dead inmates in a six week span, that’s weird. And more than a little disturbing.
Maybe we need a tax on PR?
@1: I think that is an excellent idea. All press releases need to be reported, and a fee of $1:00 per each recipient. Maybe it could be less for emailed press releases, in order to save trees. Lets say $1:00 for every mailed press release, 25¢ for each email.
Why stop there? Lets tax them at 9% of their income if they send any press releases. And make sure that 9% is not deductible on their income tax form by calling it an Excise tax.
Seattle Weekly recently had a feature on inmate death at the King County jail: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2.....-darkness/
Well, they made bad choices, so they died. Personal responsibility, blah, blah, blah. I have a job and I’m not in jail, blah, blah, blah. Parasites, welfare queens, blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to pay for stuff, especially someone elses healthcare, blah, blah, blah. If the other were more like me, i.e. white, blah, blah, blah. I said it, ergo it is so.
@5 Great post.
@5
You forgot to throw in the obligative reference to Kant or Proust or G.K. Chesterton. Lost very much believes in the transitive property of coolness.
If that Comuniss traitor FDR hadn’t destroyed America, those men would have never gone to prison, but instead would have become successful, suburban small business owners.
Kant, Schopenhauer, Socrates, blah, blah, blah.
I am a christian, so there.
@8 “I am a christian”
You sure fooled me. I guess anyone can call himself a “christian” these days.
GOP Candidate Threatens Reporter With Physical Violence
Carl Paladino, a rich businessman and Teap Party darling who won the Republican nomination for governor of New York, told a New York Post reporter yesterday, “I’ll take you out, buddy!”
Paladino is upset by the paper’s coverage of his extramarital affair with an employee who gave birth to Paladino’s out-of-wedlock daughter. Paladino asserts the paper should be investigating his Democratic opponent for extramarital affairs.
What a fucking asshole.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2.....-reporter/
That is a disturbing figure on King County jails. As @5 pointed out in great sarcasm there will be those (assholes) who say more or less “so what” these are “felons”. Careful there Jesus followers. Not everyone in jail deserves DEATH. People end up in jail for a lot of reasons. Martha Stewart. The last Republican Gov of Illinois (George Ryan) and hopefully the current Democratic Gov of Illinois (Blago). You can end up in jail for drunkenness, writing bad checks, arguing with a cop, etc. Not everyone in jail is evil or a murderer. Many of theme just made stupid choices, but not choices that deserve death.
P.S. To point out how bad Illinois governors are, Six Illinois governors have been charged with crimes during or after their governorship. And in a striking effort of fairness…it’s not a political bitch since 3 were Republican and 3 were Democrats. Turns out it’s not the party that corrupt, it’s some combination of breathing in corn pollen and lake Michigan water.
@5 and 8, Very funny. Campbell’s Condensed Lost, now with just the Talking Points(TM) and none of extra stuff.
@7 “throw in the obligative reference to Kant or Proust or G.K. Chesterton”
And a dash of Kierkegaard and Rousseau.
@8 You’re on a roll.
@9 “You sure fooled me.”
Apparently he did. It’s the “Campbell’s Condensed” version of Lost. I only wish that I’d come up with it.
@13 Oh, and a sprinkle of Camus.
As much as I would like to take the “bleeding heart” position on this, having experienced the inside of a big city jail prevents me from doing so.
Big City Jail, is full of hard core drunks, junkies, rapists, burglars, car thieves, killers, wife-beaters, kid-beaters, muggers, armed robbers, schizophrenics, bi-polar sociopaths, superduper deliberate assholes, obtuse 40-something spoiled rich-bitch crybabies who couldn’t take an order to wipe their ass without going ballistic and smearing their shit on the walls and all over their own faces.
Seriously.
It is unfortunate that people die while incarcerated. But bear in mind, such people as I have described above, do not take care of themselves, ever. They eat nothing but the junkiest of junk food, they drink extraordinary amounts of alcohol, they shoot bizarre combinations of mostly random chemicals into their arms or dicks or necks with hypodermic needles that have already been used by 25 other people before them. They smoke chunks of soap and tattoo each other with sharpened paperclips that they keep hidden in their cheeks or assholes or shoes.
They don’t brush their teeth, ever, they rarely bathe, and they sure as shit ain’t gonna let you tell them that maybe, just maybe, if they took a bath and brushed their teeth, cut down on the booze and started eating something that doesn’t come in a plastic bag they could change their lives a little for the better, and not have to go to jail all the time.
That maybe, just maybe, they might have a little better attitude if they actually took a little time to really feed and care for their bodies. That they might be able to think a little more clearly, and be a little more patient and have a little more compassion for the people around them, if they only started taking care of themselves a little better.
Most will not ever do this, even to save their own lives. They do not give a shit. They would rather be drunk all the time. They would rather be the bad guy, because it’s so cool to sit in a little concrete box with perforated metal covering the door.
They are the ultimate libertarians. They know this, and brag about how they’re so free, that nobody ever tells them what to do. They will openly boast of how they’ve never knuckled under to “The Man” and gotten a real job, because “The Man” is probably a fucking Jew Bastard anyway.
People die in prisons and jails, mostly because they’ve abused themselves to the point of death.
I have a hard time sympathizing. I’m an outspoken, radical atheist. But I believe in Darwin. Some win, some lose. There is a point where there is nothing more anyone can do to save a life, and there probably shouldn’t be after a certain point.
@9 – Typical. Once again the angry contempt which the left displays for Christianity is on full display. I and other white male Christians are the most despised, victimized and oppressed people on the planet.
I blame Steve. He is FDR’s evil spawn.
We incarcerate a significant number of people for non violent offenses in this state, especially young people who are members of minority cultures. It would be nice to know the details around these events and not just flippantly write them off.
@15 I tend to agree. We have a very nasty and predatory criminal class. But that’s really nothing new.
@16 “He is FDR’s evil spawn.”
Hey, I resemble that remark!
@15
Hedley Lamarr: I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and ….. Methodists.
@ 19
In other words, Capitalists.
The thought that everyone in jail (not prison mind you) must be bad to the bone, begets the same sort of painting of “others” with a broad stroke to dehumanize them. Jails are also holding cells for the innocent who have no access to bail; they are holding cells of those awaiting trial judgments; they are holding cells of those who are being investigated for fraud trying to avoid issues such as foreclosure and credit defaults. Lumping them all together is callus and merely promotes the inhumanity.
Jails are also places where those who plead guilty to lesser crimes are put, albeit it entirely innocent of the crimes, because public defenders make deals with prosecutors for swift justice outcomes. Jails are filled with the poor while the rich, who are equally as evil, run free. Jails are the first and last fronts in class wars, and don’t any of you forget that.
@21 “Jails are also holding cells for the innocent who have no access to bail”
That happened to me once long ago. Seattle City Jail. I was arrest on false charges. Even from my background of detention halls and whatnot, I thought it possible that I wouldn’t last the night. There were over a half dozen guys in my cell that looked like they could kill for sport, and some nut who going on and on about how he could converse with plants. It seems a stretch to me that the jail has gotten better since. That’s why I hear where Deathfrogg’s coming from. But I see the exceptions. I was one of them.
Someone had racked up a bunch of negligent driving without a license tickets on a Ducati and was using my name. When I was pulled over one day the cops arrested me for it and took me to city jail. Hmm, I had a friend with a Ducati. After I got out, and before I could accuse my friend or anything, a guy from Seattle with the same name was killed in Vietnam. This gave me pause. Going before the magistrate, I tell him, “You’re not going to believe this, but I think this other Steve who just died in…” Next thing I know, he’s telling me that he knew him, he was the kid’s scout master, that he had a Ducati, that he was wild, and so on. So he lets me off. A year later I’m in a small Colorado town and the utility won’t hook me up, saying I owe them money. WTF? Later I hand my driver’s license over to the guy doing my car’s emissions test and he says, “Hey, I knew a guy with that same name and he was from Seattle too!” “Huh? Did he recently die in Vietnam?” “Yeah, in fact, he did!”
the cato study released recently says we can save about $27 billion in state and local epxenditures for war on drugs. This would be about $200 million in king county if can assume it’s pro tanto based on population. The cuts right now are $60 million, less than a third what we spend for the war on drugs.
So we’re going to fire child advocates, to keep the war on drugs.
I guess the salaries of judges, prison guards and laywers are more important than children.
Re 6
Umm. Well, considering you probably wrote it, that seems a bit arrogant, but okay.
Re 7
Yeah. When I was in school old fashioned writings by folks most of my peers had never heard of were SO cool. I think nerdy is the word you’re struggling for. It’s the one I heard most often at any rate.
In general,
4 out of 10 for actual attention to anything I’ve ever written. For starters, I’ve frequently expressed my disdain for Rand, lostinaseaofaynrandfantasies. I’ve never mentioned and don’t care for Schopenhauer. While I enjoy Socrates and Proust, I’ve never mentioned either. Frankly, I didn’t think you folks would get the references.
6 out of 10 for originality and a weak attempt at satire.
6 out of 10 for amusing the easily amused.
-This rating system brought to you by lostinaseaofblue and Fox news.- Please visit my sponsers and support your local Tea Party candidate.
Have a nice evening Steve. Try again, and maybe I’ll give you better ratings if you can realize some improvement.
“Have a nice evening Steve. Try again, and maybe I’ll give you better ratings if you can realize some improvement.”
Wrong, dumbass. I have a fixed IP address and I’ve understood from what Goldy told me long ago that the site administrators here can easily verify my location (Goldy has done it before) as well as the origination of other comments. Go ahead and verify with Goldy, Lee or Darryl. Reference this comment. If they say that was me, I’ll donate $500 to whatever charity you name, and $500 to HA. If that wasn’t me, you donate $500 to a charity of my choice, as well as $500 to HA.
Put up, or shut up.
Steve,
Put up or shut up? Okay. Fine. You win. It’s just that lostinaseaofaynrandfantasies sounds so like your usual style. My fault.