Carceral Nation tag:carceralnation.com,2008-11-26://5 2010-03-09T14:18:01Z Ancient Danger in a Human World Movable Type Pro 5.01 Liberals Cheer Ken Starr tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.4065 2010-03-09T14:17:32Z 2010-03-09T14:18:01Z Who knew Ken Starr -- of cum-stained blue dress infamy -- would be the new darling of the liberal press this morning after he leapt to the defense of Justice Department lawyers venomously labeled the "Al-Qaeda 7" for providing legal... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Ken Starr -- of cum-stained blue dress infamy -- would be the new darling of the liberal press this morning after he leapt to the defense of Justice Department lawyers venomously labeled the "Al-Qaeda 7" for providing legal counsel to accused terrorists, and against Liz Cheney, the conservative and vile offspring of Dick.

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When you do the right thing -- like standing up for falsely accused lawyers -- you should not be applauded or celebrated.

Doing the right thing non-negotiable because it must be done.  When something is required of us, we should not expect, or give, special treatment.

Doing the right thing is sometimes unpopular and always trying in that the task unmasks our values and morals in the public square for mores examination by strangers.

Doing the right this has no political alliances or set religious dogma.  Doing the right thing is the necessary human requirement to do no harm and to protect each of us from each other.

Ken Starr doing the right thing should not be news -- though it is -- but it must not be admired because that method of thinking encourages bad behavior that, when corrected, is celebrated.

We should be celebrating people who go beyond the ordinary right and into the unexpected exceptional fantastic like doctors who heal sick children without expecting a paycheck, police officers who step beyond required duty to follow up and care for a suffering family, or a PATH train engineer who saves the legs of a young boy and refuses to accept any honor other than continuing to do the right thing.

We must begin to assume again that the all of us will, once again, do the right thing by default -- and while we appreciate the notion of preserving community standards and tightening the effects of belonging -- we should never be so depraved to give credit for a stand that should have been upright from the start.
]]> Oh, the Woe of Disabled Evildoers tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.4051 2010-03-02T13:18:08Z 2010-03-02T13:18:51Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com we learn the disabled can be just as devious and evil as their able-bodied peers.  David Paterson is the current, non-elected Governor of the State of New York -- he came into power when Eliot Spitzer was ousted over a hooker scandal -- and as a Black and Blind man, we put as much hope in David Paterson as we did Barack Obama to bring some safety and sanity back to governance.

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ALBANY -- Gov. David A. Paterson personally directed two state employees to contact the woman who had accused his close aide of assaulting her, according to two people with direct knowledge of the governor's actions.

Mr. Paterson instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein, to ask the woman to publicly describe the episode as nonviolent, according to a third person, who was briefed on the matter. That description would contradict the woman's accounts to the police and in court.

Mr. Paterson also enlisted another state employee, Deneane Brown, a friend of both the governor and the accuser, to make contact with the woman before she was due in court to finalize an order of protection against the aide, David W. Johnson, the two people with direct knowledge said. Ms. Brown, an employee of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, reached out to the woman on more than one occasion over a period of several days and arranged a phone call between the governor and the woman, Mr. Johnson's companion.

After the calls from Ms. Brown and the conversation with the governor, the woman failed to appear for the court hearing on Feb. 8, and the case was dropped.

These accounts provide the first evidence that Mr. Paterson helped direct an effort to influence the accuser.
We are shocked, but not surprised, by Paterson's behavior.  He should've known better than to be so involved in the private misdoings of his staff.

Paterson also knew he was a marked man.  Obama wanted him not to run for Governor and Paterson dismissed the President.

We Who Know New York Politics knew it was only a matter of time before the foundation around Paterson began to mysteriously chip away and crumble:  It has; it did.  Paterson is now nothing.

Now, Andrew Cuomo is free to run for Governor and win -- giving Barack Obama a strong ally in a major State -- and none of this woe had to come to Paterson if he'd only lived up to his bright promise and proud family history of leadership in politics by doing the right thing and bowing out of the race for re-election. 

Now the legacy of David Paterson becomes investigations against him, accusations that will maul his staff and he has zero hope of recovering any sense of his good family name.]]> Black and Dead in Omaha tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.4036 2010-02-23T13:42:10Z 2010-02-23T13:42:56Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com brutal reality of the Plains states, and here's evidence of violence against Blacks in Omaha, Nebraska stretching back to September 29, 1919.

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Omaha police officials say they are addressing reporting problems that for years have kept Omaha statistics out of the FBI's detailed homicide database. "We believe this issue has been going on since the 1990s, but we're aware of it now and it will be corrected in the future,'' Deputy Chief Mary Newman said.

In addition to the statistics it compiles each year on crimes in cities and states, the FBI puts together the Supplemental Homicide Report. It includes details on murders, including age, sex and race of victims and offenders and types of weapons used.

Omaha police had significant problems in the early 1990s when it sought to computerize its crime statistics. While those problems were resolved, the statistics on homicides the department sent on to the state from that time forward did not include some information the FBI requires for the homicide data.

As a result, the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice did not forward the Omaha statistics on to the FBI. The lack of Omaha data led to a recent national study severely under-ranking the level of black homicides in Nebraska.

Things aren't getting better in Omaha. 

Here's a recent city snapshot over a five-day period:

A teen gunned down outside a bowling alley.

A 15-year-old shot in the face while walking to a bus stop.

A man shot dead inside a home.

A young woman shot in broad daylight, followed by a rolling gunbattle through north Omaha streets.

The surge of violence left three dead and another gravely wounded and heightened the tensions in several Omaha high schools, but more than that, it underscored how Omaha's streets in recent years have become among the deadliest places in America for blacks.

Fueled by gun violence in northeast Omaha, Nebraska has the third-highest black homicide rate in the nation, according to the latest compilation of detailed national homicide statistics.
How do we stop the death and violence in Omaha?

Do we add more police officers?

Do we crack down on crime by arresting more residents?

Should we pay to send the impoverished and uneducated to school?

Let's hope the people of Nebraska take to the streets to save their fellow citizens.  The high homicide rate of Blacks in Omaha is a human shame that can never be wiped away, but there must be some way to cure the urge to kill each other.
]]> Dumb Like Me: Populism as Political Punishment tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.4024 2010-02-16T17:02:38Z 2010-02-16T17:04:21Z Here is a headline from the New York Times published on November 21, 1922:... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com New York Times published on November 21, 1922:

]]> Sarah Palin gave a Populist speech promoting the uprising of the citizenry against a repressive government:

Sarah Palin declared "America is ready for another revolution" and repeatedly assailed President Barack Obama on Saturday before adoring "tea party" activists. They make up a seemingly natural constituency should she run for president.

"This movement is about the people," the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee said as the crowd roared. "Government is supposed to be working for the people."

Palin note Democrats' electoral losses since Obama took office a year ago with talk of hope and promises of change and asked: "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for you?"

Her audience waved flags and erupted in cheers during multiple standing ovations as Palin gave the keynote address at the first national convention of the "tea party" coalition. It's an anti-establishment, grass-roots network motivated by anger over the growth of government, budget-busting spending and Obama's policies.
Palin cribbed her speech from the palm of her hand:


Here's how the New York Times described Hitler's Populist rise in 1922:


Here's what Sarah Palin said on February 6, 2010:

The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat then . . . as the U.S.S. Cole was attacked . . . our Embassies were attacked . . . It was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a PROFESSOR OF LAW STANDING AT THE LECTERN!
When charismatic people attempt to take power on the backs of a Populist movement -- the threat to the people is quite real -- because every megalomaniac believes they are the predestined chosen one anointed to lead a people into the victory of a promised land, and it doesn't matter who bleeds or dies on the way there.

Populism -- a political movement that relies on direct identification of the people with the candidate -- is always required to fail as a political movement because the people unwisely only wish to see "someone like them" reflected in the values and policies of the candidate.  Nothing else matters but the "we'll show them!" mantra that has destroyed many civilizations.

Populists -- always clever, cutting, and shiny -- claim to have the best interests of the people in hand, but they are really only serving to advance their own, narrow, and hateful position that will create, for them alone, the power to publicly punish their enemies and to create private wealth for family and sycophants. 

Political opportunists who believe they carry the will of the common folk are phonies in need of exposure.  We require leaders who are smarter than the middle of us and who are more heavily invested is salvaging the goodness of everyone instead of conveniently demonizing the political minority for polling place profit.

When a politician tears down instead of building up -- we must first always wonder why nothing of value is offered in-between the destruction of ideas.  They ask us to follow and to blindly do their bidding in the field -- but to what end and for what harvested price?  Where are they leading us beyond the pathway of their own self-aggrandizement and monotheistic view that they alone are the only one capable of punishing the non-believers?  Retribution without universal human ascension always fails the values test.

Populism always ends up shattered in the sky and rotting in the ground as the charismatic leader is ultimately revealed to be nothing more than a tone-deaf pitch pipe -- effectively conjured for show by shadowy co-conspirators -- crafted only to sing for the hateful sad and to bemuse the lonely misbegotten who are all forever willing to follow the fallow field into the riverbed for drowning.

The trick of surviving the destruction of viral Populism is to unveil its bleeding underbelly before it infects the rest of us with a hatred that incarcerates, and then kills, everyone in its midst.
]]> Dying to Live the Carceral Artist Life tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.4008 2010-02-09T15:23:04Z 2010-02-09T15:23:17Z J. D. Salinger, John Hughes, Greta Garbo, and Thomas Pynchon. Writer, director, actress, and another writer -- but what do they have in common? Simply put, they all are, or were, seekers of intensive privacy even though they live(d) public... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com intrusion of cameras or interviewers.

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In an age of people like Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag -- who came from absolutely nothing talented -- and just became famous for being in a string of "reality" television shows that were all about as real as the average film about alien invasion.  The brief glimpses of clips I have seen of the shows involving them have been as far from any reality I have known as possible -- where are the struggles with life, or the feelings of genuine emotion to be found? Certainly not on those false television programs.

Today, the average artist does not shun the paparazzi -- indeed, some seek to be found by the tireless camera wielding thugs, explaining the rise and explosion of "reality" television programs such as "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" or, even worse, "The Girls Next Door."

I long for the days -- though they seem not to be coming back any time soon -- of celebrities who scheduled interviews with magazines in exchange for having their privacy respected.  Instead, we will contend with more and more talentless celebrities and celebrities that want nothing more than for you to have access to every second of every day of their life -- whether you are interested or not.]]> NYPD Knows You Are Your Cellphone tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.3995 2010-02-02T13:11:56Z 2010-02-02T13:11:49Z You are your cellphone and the New York Police Department knows your phone identifies you better than a fingerprint or an identity card because you can be marked and tracked throughout your life in real time and the breadcrumbs... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com New York Police Department knows your phone identifies you better than a fingerprint or an identity card because you can be marked and tracked throughout your life in real time and the breadcrumbs of your history in movement and communication can be recorded, saved, and used against you for future prosecution -- and it may not be legal.

]]> A recent internal memo says that when cops make an arrest, they should remove the suspect's cell phone battery to avoid leakage -- then jot down the International Mobile Equipment Identity number.

The IMEI number is registered with the service provider whenever a call is made. And that data could allow a detective to match, for example, a cell phone used by one suspect to a phone used by another.... civil libertarians are alarmed by the new policy since normally a warrant is needed to obtain information such as calls made or numbers in an address book.

New York Civil Liberties Union associate legal director Christopher Dunn said it appears the NYPD is "taking phones apart to get information" without warrants. "It's hard to believe they feel there's a real need to take out the battery to prevent leakage," he said. "Instead, it looks like they're doing this to circumvent the warrant process." Should recording an IMEI part of the booking process?

Should the NYPD be allowed to download the call history from your phone and any documents or other data stored on the phone?

Or are the NYPD going too far to entrap you in future crimes by digitally associating you in a known time and place in an indeterminate future?
]]> Militarized Anthrax and Drum Delivery tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.3990 2010-01-29T15:55:49Z 2010-01-29T15:59:00Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com media have trained us to fear Anthrax even though it is a naturally occurring substance found in the soil of any working farm.  Militarized Anthrax is not the natural Anthrax you find on a farm.  Anthrax that has been militarized means that is has been "ground up" into the tiniest possible spore form for easy transmission in the air via the wind for inhalation into the lungs.  Once Anthrax gets inside your body, your chances of survival are not very good.  Militarized Anthrax is a silent killer that takes a bit of time to develop in the body as a cause of death, so marking the time and point of infection is more difficult, and that makes Militarized Anthrax an effective, invisible, assassin.  Anthrax, and its natural danger to humans, is all around us all the time.

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There are other, less obvious, but still lethal, ways to spread Anthrax infections -- and the cause is usually due to unwitting transference between dead animal skins and living human flesh.

On February 23, 2006, we wrote about a New York Anthrax Scare due to infected goat skins.  In 2007, two people in Connecticut were treated for cutaneous Anthrax infections from African drums made from animal skins; and just last month we had a unique case of gastrointestinal Anthrax poisoning via an animal skin drum:  

Officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was one of the nation's only reported cases of gastrointestinal anthrax, an extremely rare form of the disease that typically occurs in people who eat infected meat.

Investigators found traces of anthrax on two African drums and an electrical outlet in the room where the event took place, Dr. Talbot said, and are theorizing that the woman swallowed spores that were aerosolized by the drumming. The state has not identified the woman because of privacy concerns.

Dr. Talbot said the anthrax detected on the drums was a naturally occurring strain that frequently appears in soil. Animals that ingest contaminated soil can pass the disease to people who handle their hides. Most of the drums at the session were made with animal hides, she said.
These episodes of infections between the animal world and the human realm are haunting reminders of the ongoing battle between nature and industrialization -- and we must always be vigilant when we decide to mix the dangers of the old world with the pleasures of the modern and let's shiver together that the day never comes when Militarized Anthrax finds its way into a an animal skin drum for microscopic, terroristic, delivery.
]]> When the Chief of Police Violates Privacy tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.3958 2010-01-19T14:19:07Z 2010-01-19T14:57:33Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Chief of Police for Lincoln, Nebraska.  As a child of Lincoln, I enjoy reading his fantastic blog called, "The Chief's Corner."  I was recently alarmed when I read an article written by Tom that rehashed the offensive/silly/inappropriate email usernames people use to inquire about employment with the Lincoln Police Department.  I was shocked to see the email usernames of applicants revealed in public on Tom's blog because that is in the least a violation of privacy for those making an inquiry, and perhaps, even a more serious ethical violation of a vested public city official.  I was unable to find the recent article that shocked me, but doing a search on Tom's site led me to a dead link for this page written on December 2, 2008 where Tom Casady revealed live email usernames of the inquirers -- figuring our the entire email address is not that hard and often doing a Google search on a unique username alone can reveal a lot.  I have blurred the email addresses contained in that article:

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Now would be a good time to repeat my annual warning about the digital footprints you leave with email, photo sharing, blogs, personal websites, facebook, myspace, and so forth. Do not mash the enter key and send something that could cause regret when it surfaces down the road at an inopportune time.
Tom is absolutely right -- but he didn't follow his own advice and cover his footfalls fast enough -- and his warning now invites the making of a great detective story.

A year later, you can still find his original blog post by doing a proper Google Search for the article and then clicking on the link for the Google Cache to see the article "as it was" before it was deleted.

Even though that article link was dead, it still lives in the Google Cache:


I did a little extra searching and actually found this year's version of the "let's make fun of the LPD job applicants" blog post -- it looks like this is a yearly feature for the Chief -- and I'm sure all the old articles are in the Google Cache if one would care to keep digging. 

Here's the blog post dated January 14, 2010 that initially alarmed me:


Once again, the Google Cache reveals the Chief's visible digital footprint in full:


It appears someone wise got to Tom Casady after January 14, 2010 and instructed him to delete all his previous articles mocking the applicant email usernames and that's a good thing -- though I wish he'd written a recantation blog post that explained why he removed the articles and also included an apology for revealing private user information.

The trouble is, Tom Casady didn't go far enough.  He left the Google Cache intact. 

Here are the instructions for removing content from Google and the Google Cache -- and he will have to follow that process for each and every article he wants removed.

Does Tom Casady know about the Wayback Machine?

Does the Police Chief know about the Bing cache and the Yahoo! cache and all the other internet search spiders that visit his side on a daily basis?  Write once, cache forever.

Tom Casady is a pretty transparent guy and that's what makes reading his blog so wonderful and joyous:  He's a straight shooter.  Let's hope the Chief sees the cache light and confesses the why of how he didn't follow his own prescient advice about not leaving behind digital breadcrumbs for the finding. 

We also need to get Tom -- and Lincoln Crimestoppers -- off Blogger and onto a proper and more serious writing platform.

The lesson we must all take away from this experience is that if the Chief of Police can get caught in the Google Cache -- so can we all -- and that's why we must remain diligent and open in our wont to make the public world a safer place online.

I have saved PDF copies of my finds revealed here found in the Google Cache -- just to preserve the record and the integrity of this article -- but my hope is that soon you will click on the Google Cache links in this post and find them dead and forever gone.  On Google... that is...
]]> Bra Colors Bring No Cure for Cancer tag:carceralnation.com,2010://5.3911 2010-01-13T13:19:18Z 2010-01-13T13:19:51Z You are sitting with a female friend, enjoying a cup of tea and talking about the musical styling of Duffy and the peculiar nature of coated guitar strings and how people could come to use them over normal cutting edge... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com Duffy and the peculiar nature of coated guitar strings and how people could come to use them over normal cutting edge strings. Your friend then tells you that she wants to tell you something very important and stands up, walks around the table, and sidles up next to you.

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Rather, she takes hold of the top of your head and pushes it toward her now slightly lifted shirt top, nearly thrusting your face into her cleavage. "Look!" she says, "It's blue with white polka dots!" She releases your head and you snap back, mystified by this strange experience -- but not nearly as much as you are when she is finished speaking again. "Now we're another step closer to curing breast cancer!"

Though this might seem like complete insanity if it were to happen in the world we inhabit, it happened over and over again in the digital world of Facebook. People were exposed multiple times per day, sometimes unknowingly, to the exact color (allegedly) of the bras worn by their friends. It became big news last week as it happened over and over again -- all allegedly in the name of raising awareness for breast cancer. There's just one little problem with all of this.

It does nearly nothing to actually raise awareness. Let us think critically for a moment about who sees the updates with color. There are the people who are aware of the significance of the color update right away -- they are well aware of the existence of breast cancer as well. Then there are the people who do not understand why their friends are posting colors. These people are friends with the ones that are fully aware of the existence of breast cancer. Almost all of them save for a handful are aware of it as well.

Is it worth this inane and intrusive information sharing to get one or two cave dwellers to be aware of breast cancer? Never mind that this does nothing to actually find a cure. I have a few friends who have posted interesting tips for helping prevent cancer. The likelihood of these tips helping the people who read them is significantly greater than the useless non-information of bra color that imprisons us in cute convenience than in really doing anything proactive and substantial.
]]> Truth in Search tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3647 2009-12-09T14:03:00Z 2009-12-14T22:00:11Z There's a notion floating about the internets that the only place we are truly honest with ourselves is found in what we type in a search box.... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com truly honest with ourselves is found in what we type in a search box.

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Has Google replaced the Catholic confessional and the intimate family secret?

Do our private search wants results over time come to define us more precisely than our publicly expressed wants and needs ever could?
]]> A Rat's Life Ends in a Penn Station Bloodbath tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3633 2009-12-01T16:55:02Z 2009-12-01T17:02:59Z Rats have a rough life in the Big Apple. They are feared, even hated. In many subway stations there are signs warning people to be careful because rat poison has been sprayed in the area. A few months ago, I... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com Rats have a rough life in the Big Apple. They are feared, even hated. In many subway stations there are signs warning people to be careful because rat poison has been sprayed in the area. A few months ago, I walked into a subway station and watched a rat that must have been about three quarters of a foot long just walk around as though he owned the place -- with no problem. That was not the case last Friday, when people in Penn Station proved that even though we have passed the time of the gladiators, the mentality has not left us.

]]> commotion as I entered the station but I dismissed it, thinking people were just rushing to get to their train. This turned out not to be the case, however. There was a small group of people that kept on moving about with no particular direction and a few of them seemed really upset for no apparent reason.

Eventually it became clear enough why people were getting agitated and it came in the form of one person yelling out, "There's a rat!"

As soon as that person yelled out that there was a rat, the real panic began. It took me a few minutes to identify the actual location of the rat. People kept on pointing and screaming at the rat as though it were a bomb that was ready to detonate. At this point things really started to get ugly.

One or two people went to a police officer that was on duty and said something to him -- probably to tell him to please do something about the rat that was running around terrorizing people. One person, then a few, and then more and more people started yelling out at the police officer -- for him to kill the rat. "Kill that thing!" one woman shrieked. The police officer picked up one of the signs with its large weighted base and started chasing the rat around.


As the officer followed the rat, people started to gather towards the officer and rat and cheered him on, encouraging him with rather vitriolic language to destroy this foul rat. I shuddered as I wondered what would happen to me if I were to lunge forward with a suggestion to try to relocate the rat, or to perhaps try to kill the rat in a more humane way if at all possible than a large weighted sign base.

I thought of the story of Aaron, brother of Moses, who attempted to quell a large crowd that wanted a replacement deity rather than wait one more day for Moses to come down the mountain -- he feared that if he didn't give in to their requests, he would be savagely murdered. I did not want to be brutally beaten -- verbally or otherwise -- in my attempt to find a little bit of humanity for the sake of the rat who probably was just out and about looking for a snack.

The rat eventually made its way into an elevator, where the police officer -- with increasingly loud excited cries for blood from the Penn Station Arena -- cornered the rat. The rat, incidentally, could not have been longer than the average handsbreadth of an adult male. This was not the sort of rat you would see dancing around the stage during The Nutcracker Suite.

The police officer raised the sign nearly over his head and brought down the base on the rat. He must not have been satisfied because he proceeded to do this at least three or four more times. When the rat fully stopped moving, I was expecting some kind of applause from the Arena but there was none -- people just stopped looking and went back to doing what they were doing as though nothing had happened.


The intercom in Penn Station buzzed and a request was made for a cleanup crew. A simple cleanup crew, as though somebody had accidentally dropped their milkshake and needed a good mopping rather than the horrific bloodshed that actually took place. The manner in which the crowd went from frenzied to pacified was astonishing, like a piranha swimming peacefully after satisfying its bloodlust. 

I stood there, perhaps ten feet away, shaking in disgust and anger. I didn't know what to do but took a few pictures on my iPhone that you've seen here.  Sorry they didn't turn out particularly well, most likely due to the fact that I was trying not to be too obvious about taking them and risking the wrath of another madding crowd.

When I got to my mother's house, I tried explaining what had happened to my mother and stepfather but they had no sympathy whatsoever for the rat. They said that it deserved to die and that rats carried diseases and infected people. I wasn't sure how better to express that there are different ways to remove a rat but I certainly failed to communicate it to them.

When I lived in Seattle, I knew a few people who actually owned rats as pets and they were some of the most adorable, quirky, fun loving little critters. They would probably be even more horrified than I was at the behavior of the officer and the crowd -- perhaps they may have even stepped up to the defense of the animals, feeling a stronger connection to them.

It's interesting how people can easily make the distinction between animals which are adorable and cuddly and therefore should not be killed and animals which are disgusting and therefore should be exterminated. I don't feel that I am qualified to make this sort of distinction.

Every year people publish articles about the horrors of animals that are eaten in "exotic" countries -- they cannot bring themselves to believe that there are people who have no problem eating cats -- but these same people have no qualms sitting down to a nice Thanksgiving meal of turkey, bison, and many other animals that are not nearly as cuddly or cute as a cat.]]> I Know Who Killed Wendy Hile tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3618 2009-11-16T16:16:17Z 2009-11-16T16:17:00Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com
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Every so often over the years since Wendy's death, I would do a web search for "Wendy Hile" -- searching for shared remembrances of her awful death and for updated details on the status of her family and her murderer.  My searches always came up empty and the memory of Wendy Hile continued to haunt me.

Then, over the weekend, I searched again for Wendy and found this thread on Topix -- and all the gory details and searing pain and unending healing were returned to me with the same spite and hatred we all held for her killer so many years ago.

Wendy's killer was her neighbor, and ours, Mark Goldsberry. 

Mark, it seems, served 14 years in prison for raping and murdering Wendy and dumping her dead body in a field near Table Rock, Nebraska. 

Mark spent less time in prison than Wendy was alive and he now has a family of his own and a good job allegedly working for the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Did Wendy Hile get justice for her rape and murder?  Is 14 years enough of a punishment for Mark Goldsberry's crimes? 

If Mark raped and killed Wendy today -- would he ever see the free light of day again?  Or would the electrocutioner's hand have found his head?

A crime like Mark's can never be abided in a small town neighborhood -- and so, back then, the search was on to pin a reason on Mark's rape and murder -- because if a reason couldn't be found, then that meant Mark's upbringing, his environment, his parents, his family, his neighborhood, and all of us, were all were factors in the evil that formed Mark... and that would never be acceptable to the community.

So... it was determined somehow... that Mark Goldsberry's rape and murder of Wendy Hile was somehow influenced by some sort of head injury he had suffered... and while that reason could never bring Wendy back to us.... it was enough of an excuse to lift the neighborhood -- the rest of us -- from the hook of blame for her killing.  Mark was sick.  Mark was injured.  Mark didn't know what he was doing...

...hushing up was always better than showing down...

... so we tried to come to terms with the excuse that Mark didn't mean to rape and kill Wendy and dump her body in a field and keep it all a secret for three days... Mark was really not like us... even though he was among us... maybe Mark had no memory of his actions... Mark couldn't be blamed for a premeditated murder and the rape of Wendy... all after he invited her into his car on a rainy day for a ride to school.

We all still hate Mark Goldsberry and there's no way any of us who knew Wendy could ever believe that her life was worth 14 years in prison -- and so we all continue to suffer in silence -- but bound by our shared experience of the living terror that we learned can lurk in our neighbors and bind us to our darkest disappointments.

Mark Goldsberry not only raped and killed Wendy Hile -- he stole the childhood innocence and the assumed security of an entire neighborhood -- and for that, he will be eternally damned and there is no escape from all of us who remember Wendy Hile because we will never forget who killed Wendy.

Mark Goldsberry killed Wendy Hile.
]]> Ndamukong Suh and the $18,000 Cat tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3609 2009-11-05T15:04:52Z 2009-11-05T18:12:41Z Ndamukong Suh -- "Mr. Suh" to you and me -- is a 6'4", 300 pound, defensive tackle on the University of Nebraska football team and possible Heisman Trophy candidate. A couple of days ago, Mr. Suh crashed his 2003 Land... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Ndamukong Suh -- "Mr. Suh" to you and me -- is a 6'4", 300 pound, defensive tackle on the University of Nebraska football team and possible Heisman Trophy candidate. A couple of days ago, Mr. Suh crashed his 2003 Land Rover into two parked cars at 2:20am.  He was not driving drunk.

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If you are familiar with animals, you know it was likely a cat Mr. Suh swerved to miss because cats -- unlike dogs and raccoons and coyotes and squirrels -- are genetically self-entitled and have an inbred sense of "right of way" that belies any sense of a human, or even existential, comeuppance... especially at 2:20 in the morning.

By swerving to miss that cat, Mr. Suh did $10,000.00USD damage to his Land Rover and an additional $8,000.00USD worth of damage to the two parked cars.  Mr. Suh reported the crash to the police immediately after it happened.  He did the right thing all around.

A monster on the football field, Mr. Suh has proven his heart is tender and his sense of rescue and respect are pure and undeterred by any social or monetary penalty.

That stray cat Mr. Suh did not kill is now valued at $18,000.00USD -- but the sacrifice he made in favor of the living and the lost has no real human cost -- and we hope Nebraska coach Bo Pelini will reward the goodness in Mr. Suh's kind deed instead of punishing him for being out so late at night.
]]> Pricking the Heene Hoax tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3588 2009-10-19T14:01:06Z 2009-10-19T14:09:42Z The Heene Balloon Boy Hoax has gone on long enough to demonstrate nobody really tells the truth any longer when pressed for a confession of fact; and the experience confirms the mainstream media will swallow any hollow story plowing fallow... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Heene Balloon Boy Hoax has gone on long enough to demonstrate nobody really tells the truth any longer when pressed for a confession of fact; and the experience confirms the mainstream media will swallow any hollow story plowing fallow ground as long as it flies and implies some sort of innocent death.  

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The fact that the Heene Hoax might have been helped along by a media company is especially ugly:

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden announced Sunday that he's seeking charges, including felonies, against Richard Heene and his wife, Mayumi. Alderden said the stunt two weeks in the planning was a marketing ploy by the Heenes, who met in acting school in Hollywood and have appeared on ABC's reality show "Wife Swap."

"We certainly know that there's a conspiracy between the husband and wife, you've probably seen some of the e-mails and some of the things on the Internet suggesting that there may be other conspirators," Alderden said.

Alderden said documents show that a media outlet has agreed to pay money to the Heenes with regard to the balloon incident. Alderden didn't name the media outlet but said it was a show that blurs "the line between entertainment and news."

It wasn't clear whether the deal was signed before or after the alleged hoax, or whether the media outlet was a possible conspirator.

"Let's call it (my statement) short of speculation that a media outlet was in on the hoax, but let's not discount the possibility," he said.
Let's hope Heene will at least have to pay back the $14,000.00USD spent for the military helicopters involved in his faux balloon chase.

I don't know how Richard Heene could have believed this hoax would turn out any way except horribly for him and his family, and the fact that he was trying to sell himself as a scientific reality show host confirms that the total rejection of his proposal was sound and moral:  What sort of scientist can't predict -- using the scientific method, logic, humanity, and basic parenting prescience -- that a balloon hoax of this magnitude that purposefully destroys an innocent son can only burn in the sun and founder into the ground?
]]> FTC Kills the Shills tag:carceralnation.com,2009://5.3576 2009-10-07T13:41:04Z 2009-10-07T13:44:24Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Federal Trade Commission demands bloggers must reveal if they are paid for a review or if they are provided free products in exchange for a review.

]]> Sniffing Out Sweetheart Site Hosting Deals" -- we revealed the decaying underbelly of blogs, websites and other online writing that were nothing more than vested shilling for a company under the guise of being an independent voice.

Few online readers realized a writer was selling them something with an interest in promoting the company or the product in a quid pro quo for a good review.

I'm not sure how much bite the FTC will put on the bloggers -- it seems the only thing that would need to be disclosed is that the product or service in question was provided for free -- and I'm sure the better writers out there will spin their freebies into an everlasting and evergreen argument that they "cannot be bought or bribed" even though they live their life getting free stuff.

You can been keenly assured in knowing our policy in the Boles Blogs Network is, and has always been, to pay our own way for the products and services we choose to review and, if someone does us a solid, then we fully disclose that relationship in the article.

Can you hear the disquieting sound of company logos and product hotlinks being ripped from blogs and websites around America?  That's actually a really good thing in the depths and it will shine the surface of reviewer integrity even brighter in the days to come.

We thank you, FTC, for doing the right thing to help protect online readers everywhere by freeing all of us from the shackles of backroom deals and shady trading.
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