It seems that here jail collect calls are $2.50 for the first 10 minutes and $0.25 per minute after that. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.
On the other hand, since we're talking prison contact, the story about the father-daughter dance in Virginia was totally adorable and inspiring and has in fact been replicated elsewhere since.
I haven't had to take any of the kids placed with us to visits in jail/prison either because the parent didn't want the child to see him/her there or because the state hadn't authorized visits, so I don't know how that works around here.
If the 8th Amendment is still a thing, no visitations at all for everybody seems like a violation of it.
At its best, it's good that it facilitates long-distance visits.
This is way, way too generous. This policy has no "best" aspect.
That's depressing.
Telephone calls where I am are expensive. They are going to get an e-mail system. The per message cost is high but cheaper than a stamp.
Nationalize the prison industry.
What is this universe we fell into where those words in that order are consistent.
I tend to think that the people of the future -- if there are any people of the future -- will condemn us most harshly for our imperial adventures, our treatment of animals, and our treatment of prisoners. (Not to mention dentistry.) But then I realize that the internet is filled with cat pictures, and the ensuing searches bring a smile to my face!
Some of the pictures of cats are probably going to fall under Things Condemned For, Treatment of Animals.
Not to be all smug about it, but if I didn't eat meat, I would be a vegetarian for ethical reasons and not for my health.
6: It's all basically the same problem. We don't care to protect the rights of those with less power.
I hope in this instance, a lawyers' group funds research to show that this policy is detrimental to prisoners, sues on their behalf, and takes a cut roughly equal to the funding they distributed.
8: Well, yeah, mozzarella sticks and fries are still vegetarian.
Right, but if I weren't eating mozzarella with pepperoni, I would be eating the kind made with non-animal rennet. Because those are the sorts of counterfactual-ethics I have.
3 says everything that needs to be said about this.
How is facilitating long-distance visits not a real thing? The crazy part is that they've ended in-person visits, but the former is an actual benefit.
The 3 years that I was a vegetarian it actually was on entirely ethical grounds, and I missed meat (especially pork) the entire time. I went back to eating meat because I changed my mind about the ethics, though I'm still kind of torn.
I mention this not to establish my moral superiority, but to lament the loss of any sort of willpower that would make this even possible for me these days (only a handful of years later).
13: There's no reason they couldn't have done the long-distance visits without ending the in-person ones, is there? (I haven't read the article.)
When I was a vegetarian it was for aesthetic reasons. I thought saying this made me sound less likely to throw red paint on people, but mostly it made me sound pretentious. It was true, though. The idea of chewing up animals is gross. It's just that ten years later I decided it wasn't gross enough to overrule my genuine enjoyment of chicken-fried steak. I am vast and contain contradictions and animals.
I am vast and contain contradictions and animals and whatever it really is they use to make chicken-fried steak.
I am vast and contain indifference about what's actually in it.
Especially vast lately. Though not thanks to chicken-fried steak, which I haven't seen on a menu out here.
Actually, I'm 100% in sincere agreement with 8. My doctor has been after me to go vegan, but my health is just not a big enough motivating factor at this point.
I wonder what everyone will say when I keel over from an embolism or heart attack in five or six years? I hope nobody blames themselves. This dysfunction is all me.
I have now had many chicken fried steak fryers pointed out to me, at the risk of violating SOOBCFS.
Depends on how you interpret the eat/mention distinction.
Yay, I'm on the teo & Smearcase show! And, as is typical under the circumstances, about to go to bed. I'm not good at napping but today sure seems like a good time to try before I have to take the girls to a bouncy house/indoor waterpark birthday party, ugh.
I knew someone in the Bay Area who had a favorite diner that served chicken fried steak. There's hope, Smearcase.
The first dinner I made for my family was CFS. I was eight and my mother had a bad back, so she yelled instructions at me from the living room. She doesn't measure, though, so it was up to me to figure out how much "some" flour and salt is.
Not a huge fan of CFS, but my husband discovered I had reversed my position on eating animals (to his great delight) when he came home and smelled bacon I had cooked in the kitchen.
I feel like that should be a metaphor or something. Really, though, we should probably go back to talking about the OP.
Jesus specifically endorsed prison visits (Matthew 25:37). Why does the prison industry hate Jesus?
To 2, don't we only have the second amendment now?
Thank you for the link in 1, Thorn. Father-daughter dances are notoriously not our thing here, but in a culture where they're normal, and those girls pine for a chance to participate, I think it's great that they can.
It's, like, the only father-daughter dance I've ever been in favor of. Normally they seem kind of creepy and stupid.
The sad truth is I don't think I'd enjoy OBCFS anymore. I mean I'd enjoy eating it but not the hours of discomfort following. It is sad to be estranged from deep fried foods.
it was up to me to figure out how much "some" flour and salt is
Obviously, "some" flour is the same volume as "some" salt.
(I should probably add that I've attended father-daughter dances in high school, one of which featured my dad telling my secret girlfriend's dad that he didn't care if they WERE playing Village People songs, he didn't think the two of them needed to dance together. Sigh. But we also had mother-daughter teas, so it was creepy and stupid but not entirely sexist.)
I'm not a fan of CFS, but have you people tried Idaho fried steak? Yes, it's a thing.
I mean I'd enjoy eating it but not the hours of discomfort following.
So this is totally not on topic, but due to this happening to my husband frequently for no apparent reason, we are now following the low FODMAP diet. I had a ridiculously hard time adjusting to the idea of no garlic, leeks, or onions (and was uncharacteristically bitchy about it) more than anything else. Now that I'm on board and understanding how the diet will work long term it's not nearly as dire as I thought. But, I really wish all the lists of which foods are ok and which aren't floating around were consistent. (Also, that the presence of the offending molecules made sense. Why celery and not celeriac? Why cauliflower and not broccoli? etc)
I'm always willing to try a weird diet it it works but it is frustrating when it seems totally abstract. Once I went to an acupuncturist and herbalist or whatever and I was supposed to eat only yang foods unless it was yin and most of it was unguessable and lists on the internet, shocker!, not entirely consistent.
Why celery and not celeriac? Why cauliflower and not broccoli?
Celery and celeriac strike me as much more obviously different than cauliflower and broccoli!
He can eat any food that sinks?
I've had too many glasses of wine to be sensical.
lists on the internet, shocker!
I know, seriously. I find it annoying because this is a supposedly scientific diet for IBS sufferers, and there still isn't a decent resource.
41: Really, Apium graveolens var. rapaceum strikes you as massively different from Apium graveolens var. dulce?
I mean, I think they are the same degree of relatedness as cauliflower and broccoli.
43: I mean just looking at celery, and the root of the celery cultivar whose roots we eat, the two trigger more of a "these are totally different things" reaction than broccoli and cauliflower. You can use your italics and scientific names all you want; I'm just a country boy at heart and the way I call it doesn't diverge from the way I see it.
I'm just a country boy at heart
Interesting way to describe Orange County.
(While I grew up amidst broccoli fields, I have yet to see celeriac growing.)
I was born in far Kansas, you know, or possibly far Missouri.
Besides, what I am at heart is, I assert, independent of where I was raised.
37: Not dire? Maybe I've been doing it wrong, because it is SO much harder to eat the way I'd prefer. 1.5 years in, I've capitulated on "mostly vegetarian" and am sick to death of making homemade stock sans onions for every little thing. Making tasty vegetable stock without leeks, mushrooms, or onions is basically impossible. Very occasionally, I just cook a batch of caramelized onions and add them to my portions of everything. It makes me incredibly, unreasonably grumpy. I love food and miss so many things. Like legumes.
For the most official list, I check Monash. They're slowly going through quantitating FODMAP content in basically everything. and they have an app, because I struggle to remember which berries are OK and which aren't and whether farro is or isn't.
Everybody who is anybody comes from Nebraska or a state peripheral to it.
Do you like their app? We were debating buying it, as reviews are mixed. We figured they're probably the most accurate as it is their central idea, but I find their website difficult.
I think the other thing that makes it not so dire is knowing that my husband is probably more of a borderline cases; there's plenty of things on the list that he's been eating without trouble but which we have currently removed just to make sure our sense is correct. Plus, well .... I'm not the one who absolutely cannot eat the stuff, so I probably have a different perspective. Also, we're not vegetarian.
In addition, I have been reading lots of blogs saying - perhaps correctly only for them - that once they've gotten into the rhythm they can have specific high-FODMAP things when they want, but have to be careful to not overdo it on multiple 'bad' foods.
(PS I might contact you off-blog for suggestions, if you don't mind!)
I don't use their app, actually. The one I use is free and called "Food Intolerances" from Baliza. It lets me write notes on stuff, which I like if there's a brand that's OK.
The boyfriend should probably look into better living through pharmaceuticals but is unhappy at the prospect of CNS active drugs. I feel bad making things he can't have, so there are huge numbers of foods that we no longer eat. Do feel free to ask me elsewhere.
54: Thanks for the app recommendation! Will ask anything else elsewhere so as not to clutter up the thread.
Could one of you link to a good overview of this pormap thing? My dad has complained about onions and everything like thrm for years, which we all laughed about, but now my sister and I both have IBS-like things going on. Wikipedia is only somewhat helpful.
Try here for a general overview and here for food guidelines. Typical is to follow the rules very strictly for two weeks to see whether things improve, then re-introduce one type at a time to pinpoint which ones are a problem, like allergy testing.
Getting (sorry) back to the OP, actual phone calls from prison are charged as though they were sent by Pony Express through Siberia: expensive. It's entirely possible that the insane per-minute rates mentioned are cheaper than actual calls.
Repeating something everyone here knows, there is a whole Prison-Industrial Complex out there that benefits from and promotes this sort of extortion.
Thanks, ydnew. I will consult with my scientist sisters and see what makes sense to present to my mother. I'm still going to pretend that this is all about my father because I dearly want not to have a delicate digestion.
I got a bunch of collect calls from the county jail the other day, but for the first 4 calls, the reception was too bad to tell who was calling.
Good luck, JM. I think the science on it looks pretty reasonable myself, but I think it's getting to be sort of trendy and overhyped as the solution to too many diverse problems.
It may indeed be overhyped, yet my dad has claimed for years that he didn't just dislike onions, they caused him actual intestinal distress. He is also generally a meat and potatoes sort of old-school, which may help to excuse our mockery. Anyway, this is the first thing I've seen to give a cause to my Dad's complaint, so it caught my eye. God, I hope I can still eat onions and garlic, which I adore.
Onions are my favorite vegetable. This would be hard.
My mom and brother can't handle onions and the like, which is tragic.
At least everyone who has threatened your mom used a gun instead of a root vegetable.
63: Really? I mean, they are useful, but somehow having onions be your favorite seems like...saying the dictionary is your favorite book.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Dictionary-lover.
Maybe too soon? I'm drinking so I have trouble telling.
I can handle it. Though I'd also drinking, though maybe not as much as I'd like to be.
Some guy came in, had one beer, and left. I didn't see the point. If you just want one, stay home and drink the vanilla extract.
The earlier part of this conversation is confusing if you live in a country where CFS only means Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
I can't remember the last time I cooked anything that wasn't breakfast or a dessert and didn't include some kind of allium. I feel deeply sorry for those who can't enjoy them.
My mother and I both eschew onions and garlic (I can tolerate a little more than she can) but can eat leeks in moderation. She does have IBS and has by trial and error arrived at a set of foods which don't set it off. (Porridge is fine, wheat bran too harsh, "hard" lettuce is out, and so on.)
It's kind of difficult to say to someone who's making food, "I can eat it alright but will be farting stinkily for 24 hours (onions) / will be slightly nauseous and then awake all night with it "repeating" on me (garlic)." People are bemused by the onions thing and treat the garlic thing as some kind of moral weakness.
I didn't know it was possible to eat without farting stinkily.
Having prisons that aren't run by the state is a hallmark of a barbaric regime. We [the UK] have also been going down that road since the 1990s.
re: 6
I tend to think that the people of the future -- if there are any people of the future -- will condemn us most harshly for our imperial adventures, our treatment of animals, and our treatment of prisoners.
Yeah, I don't think 'we' [within which I very much include the UK] are going to be judged at all well by the future. In fact, I expect the future to (fairly) think of us as pretty fucking despicable.
I'd add climate change to the list. And, in the UK, the wanton destruction of the post-war social democratic legacy by successive Tory _and_ Labour governments.
You guys are so cute with your assumptions of moral progress.
75 should have ended with a "laydeez".
re: 77
Well, there is that, I suppose. The future could judge us as not having the balls to properly crush our enemies, see them driven before us, etc.
Depends on how far a future, innit? I've been reading a bit about "late antiquity". The people who immediately inherited control of the territories of the Western Empire had a very complex and contradictory relationship to it, which evolved over time. In the "High Middle Ages", people looked back to the heyday of the empire as a lost golden age, but hadn't a clue about late antiquity except through myths like the matter of Britain and the matter of France. Then you get Whigs, Marxists, Pomos, whatever, approaching the later empire through their various ideological sunglasses.
We'll get the same treatment eventually.
80: Are there any particular books on late antiquity you've read that you enjoyed?
81. If you have some background, start off with these three, written from differing and partly incompatible perspectives, become totally confused, and then spend some time cruising the web reading whatever you can find until you decide what you think about it all. Sorry that's a bit vague, but I'm not an expert, nor am I a particularly disciplined reader.
If you're completely new to the topic, you should actually begin with Peter Brown, who more or less invented the concept of late antiquity a generation ago (so it's a bit dated), and then read Bryan Ward Perkins, who began to challenge the paradigm. Walter Goffart is an important contributor too.
Sorry some of those link to Amazon UK. If you only read one, make it Wickham.
Ostrogorsky is old and dry, but still a good reference on the Byzantines. You might read him as sort of general background before getting into the current thinking.
I'm very weak on the Byzantines, mainly because I don't like them very much, and especially their interaction with Islam, which is the critical moment in the east. The above stuff is more about Franks and Goths and Romans in Gaul, Iberia and Italy. Britain is another thing again, although it's worth remembering that the Kingdom of Kent was essentially a Merovingian protectorate for many years.
I tend to think that the people of the future -- if there are any people of the future -- will condemn us most harshly for our imperial adventures, our treatment of animals, and our treatment of prisoners.
Maybe, though I think we might be let off the hook for that. History is so full of moral atrocities that we'll be in good company.
I'd add climate change to the list.
This. And maybe some future antibiotic-resistant plagues. I think when people look back at civilizations that collapsed, they focus on the mistakes that could have been avoided. People are willing to accept that humans are kind of evil, but stupidity is still inexcusable.
63: Me too! Vegetable buddies!
85: The new Wm. Gibson novel actually delves into these questions in a fairly engaging way. It's definitely kind of an old guy novel, which is great for old guys like me. I still like Count Zero the best though.
I'm pretty sure history will find us boring, and our whole era will be skipped over except a few paragraphs.
68: Speaking of too soon, Lee decided today she wants to see a movie (Dear White People) and wanted to know if I could ask my parents to take the girls. I realized I'm not willing to do it on short notice for no great reason, but a friend stepped up and will do it and so we have a date, I guess. I am very grumpy and unhelpful-feeling today, but maybe that will change.
she wants to see a movie (Dear White People)
Daughter and boyfriend gave us an account of the movie, which they liked, at brunch today. Apparently uses on-screen text to represent text and blogposts and the character's reaction to them, as is done in Sherlock.
It occurs to me that a traditional drama where characters' interaction with one another in the same space is the sole means of moving the story would not be able to represent reality as we experience it today. The dimension of commentary, of simultaneous interpersonal interaction and text and internet input needs to be represented somehow.
Following the death of Jesus Christ, there was a period of readjustment that lasted for approximately one million years.
I'm old enough that I don't think I count a video 'visit' as a visit. But I guess if you're in solitary supermax high-profit-margin hell, for which, yes, the future will judge us very harshly, every little bit helps.
87: I dunno; global warming might get us a chapter in the history books. If there are still books and historians.
The movie was as okay as I expected it to be, but we had a date night with no vomiting and no felonies, so that's a huge win! And now Lee has gone out to a bar with the babysitter so I can stay home and get ready for my school-related obligations over the next few days. It's possible we're independently not good at dating.
It's possible we're independently not good at dating.
Mumbles under breath "...must not make inappropriate comment about Lee at the bar with the babysitter ..."
The babysitter is super straight and not my type anyway and I've always wanted Lee to be happy and satisfied so if it were what she wanted.... but the babysitter's boyfriend is the bartender, and so nothing excessively untoward is likely to go on.
I mean, assuming that's where you're going with your comments, that the babysitter might think it was a great date where she makes 30 bucks for watching our kids and then gets to go out with her beloved Lee, but I'd be surprised.
Yay for a non-disastrous date, though. I'd probably have developed an aversion to dates after your last one if I were you.
I couldn't really check my phone because that would have been inappropriate in a theater, but admit I hung onto it so I'd really, truly be sure if it vibrted. And drank a gin and tonic, because the independent theaters are much more fun than they used to be.
I only just now watched sherlock to entertain myself while having bronchitis (which, I think I have pleurisy again arrgh?!) and I think that the on-screen floating words method of representing texts/emails is uncontroversially the best and ought to be the new default method. camerawork focusing on people typing into their phone/reading their phone screens is a waste of everyone's time and causes uneven jolting in a film/TV show, as if the camera were riding over an uneven surface as it pans first across the characters, and then the phone, and then a reverse shot for reaction, and then the phone again. also, benedict cumberbatch is, as advertised, the hottness.
86. I started off thinking the new Gibson ("The Peripheral," for those following at home) was his best in years, but for some reason by the end I was less enthused. Possibly it was too many rabbits emerging from too many hats in the final segments, although to be fair, I believe you could see the tips of their fuzzy ears earlier if you were reading carefully.
It's still one of his better books.
100: it's well up to the level of his other recent stuff. I still rate the Sprawl books and "The Difference Engine" as his best, but the other books are good too and I would say "The Peripheral" is actually a bit better than the Cayce Pollard books, for all that the quasi-villain in Zero History has his own ekranoplan.
101. I concur. The Cayce Pollard books are a master class on how to write mainstream novels that look like science fiction, or perhaps the opposite. Still, they didn't engage me the way "Neuromancer" et al. did, or "The Difference Engine." "The Peripheral" is up with them; my quibble is I was hoping for a new "best" after reading the first third or so.
I may re-read it soon to confirm that all the lapine ear-tips are really there: I know some of them are.
I don't think it's fair to expect Gibson to invent an entirely new genre of fiction with every book, though. He's invented two, that's enough for a career.
102.1 is true, but I really like them in a different way from the earlier stuff. Maybe that's the mainstreaminess.