Lost your love of life? Too much apple pie


Bonnie Prince Billy at last weeks show at Ottobar, Baltimore, Maryland

* Fafblog! interviews the U.S. Consititution. excerpt:

FAFBLOG: It's true - 9/11 changed everything, even math and Jesus.

CONSTITUTION: And that's why I've had to change to make America stronger and safer over the last four years. Treason against the United States is no longer defined as 'levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,' but as 'lookin' funny.' The Fifth Amendment has been modified to 'Fuck 'em.' The Eighth Amendment has been modified to 'Fuck 'em harder.' And instead of 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States,' the president is now 'Gilded Child of the Sun and Eater of the Stars Whose Every Whim is Law.'

FAFBLOG: But how will we get people to enforce these new founding principles when judges want to stop them?

CONSTITUTION: Only Bill Frist can save us now, Fafnir. Bill Frist, or violent revolution.

FAFBLOG: Good thing I still have the right to buy an AK-47! Thank you and good luck.

* Daytona Beach News on prison populations and drug laws. excerpt:

Experts attribute the growth nationwide to the harshness of drug laws, a trend to give prison time for other convictions and the fact that inmates are more likely to serve longer sentences. Nearly half the inmates in this country are doing time for drug offenses.

Are we safer for it? Proponents of incarceration would argue that we are. The violent crime rate has been steadily dropping. But there are compelling reasons to doubt that the American lock 'em up mantra actually improves the safety of our cities and neighborhoods. The U.S. incarceration rate has been growing steadily for the past 30 years, but the crime rate began to decline only 10 years ago.
...
But a smarter approach would look at the policies that have put so many behind bars. Mandatory sentencing laws that strip discretion from judges are a dismal failure, sending people to prison for relatively minor crimes at massive public expense. The nation's drug laws are a shambles, assessing arbitrary penalties that hit hardest at low-income criminals who use inexpensive, highly addictive street drugs like crack cocaine. Most prison programs aimed at rehabilitation have fallen victim to budget cuts or political posturing.

The growing prison numbers -- and public expense -- show that this is a course the United States can no longer afford to follow.

* "Without meaning to belittle the wonders of science, I do not think they can absolve mankind of suffering, desire, madness and death." -- Lewis Lapham

* In DC? We Jam Econo, the story of the Minutemen, screens tonight at 9pm at the Black Cat (backstage).