April 6, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
April 6 is … Sorry Charlie Day
The White Sox managed to lose last night in extra innings.
Star-Kist only uses the best tuna. Knut may not have been getting the best tuna. A follow-up to the story about the sad and untimely death of celebrity polar bear Knut, Germany’s celebrity polar bear Knut died from drowning after collapsing due to swelling of his brain and falling into his enclosure's pool, an expert said Friday. Pathologist Claudia Szentiks said a necropsy of the four-year-old bear who died suddenly two weeks ago showed he was suffering from encephalitis, an irritation and swelling of the brain that was likely brought on by an infection. Knut died March 19. A pathologist says the polar bear drowned after collapsing. She said it was unclear specifically what caused the brain swelling, but that experts had ruled out rabies, botulism and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. Szentiks also rejected allegations from animal-rights groups that he was traumatized by living in a zoo environment, saying that there were no indications of any chronic stress. She added that even if Knut had not drowned after his collapse, he would not have survived the damage from the encephalitis. Knut died March 19 in front of visitors at Berlin zoo, turning around several times and then falling into the water in his enclosure. Polar bears usually live 15 to 20 years in the wild and even longer in captivity. Knut, who was born in December 2006 at the zoo, rose to celebrity status as an irresistibly cute, fluffy cub.
Knut was rejected by his mother at birth, along with his twin brother, who only survived a couple of days. He attracted attention when his main caregiver, Thomas Doerflein, camped out at the zoo to give the button-eyed cub his bottle every two hours. The bear went on to appear on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise. Doerflein, the zookeeper who raised him, died in 2008 of a heart attack. It sounds like the Curse of King Tut has reinvented itself in the modern world. This could help Steve Martin’s career. March 19th should be Sorry Knut Day from now on.
Knut was rejected by his mother at birth, along with his twin brother, who only survived a couple of days. He attracted attention when his main caregiver, Thomas Doerflein, camped out at the zoo to give the button-eyed cub his bottle every two hours. The bear went on to appear on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise. Doerflein, the zookeeper who raised him, died in 2008 of a heart attack. It sounds like the Curse of King Tut has reinvented itself in the modern world. This could help Steve Martin’s career. March 19th should be Sorry Knut Day from now on.
What do you know about beauty pageants in prisons? They are becoming popular around the world. I am not aware of any in the United States, but my experience is that our female prison population is short on good looks. However, somebody has to be the best looking ugly girl.
The United States and the individual States should privatize the prison system. We all hear about the $40,000.00 to $50,000.00 per year to house an inmate it costs the prison system. I bet Holiday Inn or Haliburton could and would do it for half of that.
They could then start having prison beauty pageants. Think of the Reality TV potential. Judges could be Charlie Manson, a Roman Polanski film festival night, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, a going postal night, Mark David Chapman; we could have a Beatles night, John Hinckley, a Jodie Foster night, Sirhan Sirhan, a Kennedy night, David Berkowitz, Son of Sam night. The possibilities are endless.
We would be politically fair, of course, and have gay, lesbian, transsexual and cross dressing pageants to be broadcast on the LOGO network.
Think of it! American Prisoners Got Talent, Prisoners Idol, Dancing With a Murderer and the ever popular Survivor – Alcatraz. The winners would have to donate half their winnings back to the prison general fund so the suits have something to steal. Read on as to how the world is doing this now.
From coilhouse.net is this tidbit of useless information but fun none the less. This concerns the newest innovation in women’s prison reform Women’s correctional facilities are the ultimate sleep-over party with all the trappings: pajamas, bunk beds, in-fighting, sloppy Joes, getting touched up under the covers, and being told when to go to bed. Some prisons even let the girls play dress-up. Miss America, meet Miss Demeanor. To be fair, it’s primarily inmates who organize these shows. It’s an increasingly popular phenomenon, with women’s prisons hosting beauty pageants in Russia, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Angola and the Philippines, amongst others, with working titles like Miss Captivity. You will notice the United States is maintaining a wait and see approach on this rehabilitation concept. The idea is to ‘boost’ the self-esteem of (at least the better looking portion of) the prison population. There is arguably an obvious exploitative angle in this, one which perpetuates gender and class divisions in a place where women are their most vulnerable. The media is only too happy to join in, throwing the spotlight on the tragedy of a pretty young woman in distress, putting herself on display. A beauty contest under these conditions probably does next to nothing for the self esteem or prospects of the contestants in any meaningful way. It’s almost a perverse caricature of a parole board hearing in a Van Halen video, an effort to charm your way into garnering favour from you captors and respite from your situation by any measure necessary. Having said that, spending years trapped like an animal in a gray, clinical dorm framed in razor wire, any warm-blooded woman would thirst for anything beautiful in her world. Participation in these productions transiently refashions the contestant from a shoplifter or drug addict into a graceful, sophisticated and beautiful person of seeming worth, if only for one evening. Who could condemn the contestants for their humble aspirations and for enjoying an event which breaks up the tedium of Gilligan’s Island re-runs on prison TV?
MarieClaire.com recently ran a story about beauty pageants in women’s prisons in Siberia. In the middle of a small room, with dirty-white walls decorated with pictures of Jesus and an array of plastic plants, a young woman stands on a stool. She wears a cotton candy-pink ball gown. At her feet, three other women sew tiny flowers along the hem of her giant hoop skirt. Her lips are painted a circus- clown red; light brown curls frame her face. "A woman should always be beautiful," says Natalya Khapova, 26, as she poses on her pedestal. "Not just outside the fence. Even if she's in here, she should show her beauty. A woman is everything gentle and wonderful -- or she should be." The fence Khapova refers to surrounds the correctional facility UF 91/9, an all-women's prison camp some 20 miles away from the Siberian capital of Novosibirsk. Her ball gown is one of three outfits she will don for the prison's main event of the year: the annual "Miss Spring" beauty contest. As with most women at UF 91/9, the reason for Khapova's stay isn't entirely clear. At first, she says she was "just a witness" to an undisclosed crime. When pressed, she mutters that she was "an accomplice -- or something like that" in an assault and robbery charge. Khapova, who has six-and-a-half years left of her eight-year sentence, is one of more than 1000 female inmates serving time here for everything from drug possession to murder. Today, however, Khapova focuses on something decidedly more appealing than her long-term fate.
This annual pageant, which prisoners begin planning weeks in advance, bears little resemblance to, say, Miss America -- picture instead over-the-top costumes and makeup reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil, a static-filled stereo DJ-ing Russian pop music, and a cast of nervous contestants teetering dangerously in their borrowed stilettos. It's a welcome diversion from the monotony of life inside the jail, and a legitimate excuse for the prison staff to extend the women's curfew -- all the way to 2 a.m., rather than the usual 10 p.m. sharp. The contest also serves another purpose, as the winner's prize is neither money nor a modeling contract, but something far more precious: a ticket to freedom. "Early release" happens only by the recommendation of the prison staff to a special parole board. Foremost among the criteria for consideration is "active participation in the social life of the camp." Hence, the popularity of the Miss Spring contest.
Though more than a decade has passed since the fall of communism in Russia, a vast divide still exists between those reaping the rewards of a capitalist market and those who previously relied on government subsidies and now live in poverty. The economic turmoil has hit women hardest: During the 1990s, 7.6 million jobs held by women (largely "state" positions) were eliminated--one in every five female held jobs. (For men, job cuts affected one in every 100.) In fact, out of the 5.5 million registered unemployed people in Russia, about 70 percent are women, according to the International Labour Organization. Coinciding with this rise in unemployment, the percentage of women committing crimes has also increased. From 1992 to 2004, the number convicted almost doubled, from 193,000 to 376,000 -- although only about a quarter of these women actually do hard time. Their crimes are exacerbated by a drinking and drug epidemic sweeping the country. Alcoholism, of course, is a longstanding tradition in Russia, where the average person consumes more than 17 liters of pure alcohol every year. But the narcotics trade is relatively new. Fueled by more open borders and the new elite's growing disposable income, Russia's drug business has grown into a $15 billion-a-year enterprise. The official number of drug addicts in Russia has raised 15- fold in the last decade to half a million, although experts think the true number is significantly higher. "Experts believe the total could be between 3.5 million and 4 million people," says Valentin Bo by rev, deputy chief of the parliamentary security committee. "The rising tide of drugs has triggered an increase in the number of drug related crimes." Half of the women at UF 91/9 are doing time for narcotics.
This annual pageant, which prisoners begin planning weeks in advance, bears little resemblance to, say, Miss America -- picture instead over-the-top costumes and makeup reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil, a static-filled stereo DJ-ing Russian pop music, and a cast of nervous contestants teetering dangerously in their borrowed stilettos. It's a welcome diversion from the monotony of life inside the jail, and a legitimate excuse for the prison staff to extend the women's curfew -- all the way to 2 a.m., rather than the usual 10 p.m. sharp. The contest also serves another purpose, as the winner's prize is neither money nor a modeling contract, but something far more precious: a ticket to freedom. "Early release" happens only by the recommendation of the prison staff to a special parole board. Foremost among the criteria for consideration is "active participation in the social life of the camp." Hence, the popularity of the Miss Spring contest.
Though more than a decade has passed since the fall of communism in Russia, a vast divide still exists between those reaping the rewards of a capitalist market and those who previously relied on government subsidies and now live in poverty. The economic turmoil has hit women hardest: During the 1990s, 7.6 million jobs held by women (largely "state" positions) were eliminated--one in every five female held jobs. (For men, job cuts affected one in every 100.) In fact, out of the 5.5 million registered unemployed people in Russia, about 70 percent are women, according to the International Labour Organization. Coinciding with this rise in unemployment, the percentage of women committing crimes has also increased. From 1992 to 2004, the number convicted almost doubled, from 193,000 to 376,000 -- although only about a quarter of these women actually do hard time. Their crimes are exacerbated by a drinking and drug epidemic sweeping the country. Alcoholism, of course, is a longstanding tradition in Russia, where the average person consumes more than 17 liters of pure alcohol every year. But the narcotics trade is relatively new. Fueled by more open borders and the new elite's growing disposable income, Russia's drug business has grown into a $15 billion-a-year enterprise. The official number of drug addicts in Russia has raised 15- fold in the last decade to half a million, although experts think the true number is significantly higher. "Experts believe the total could be between 3.5 million and 4 million people," says Valentin Bo by rev, deputy chief of the parliamentary security committee. "The rising tide of drugs has triggered an increase in the number of drug related crimes." Half of the women at UF 91/9 are doing time for narcotics.
Amid these bleak realities, hundreds of women find themselves calling UF 91/9 home every year. Few sources of convict entertainment exist in Siberia, where temperatures in the winter can drop to -40 degrees. "We wanted to find ways to occupy convicts' free time," says Natalya Baulina, the prison's school marmish administrative head. "This contest gives prisoners an opportunity to feel like women, to dress up, put on makeup, and imagine they're connected to Russia's new freedom. "When I first introduced the idea to the women, they were in utter shock," Baulina adds. "The only pageant they knew was Miss Universe--women parading in barely visible swimsuits before male judges. They asked, 'How do you imagine we are going to do that?' I replied, 'We'll invent our own rules.'" The rules include each of the prison's nine sections picking one inmate to represent it, then creating costumes for three categories: "Greek Goddesses," "Flower Gowns," and "Imaginary Uniforms," for which inmates design their ideal prison uniforms of the future. Although the women admit that they'd never heard of many of the Greek myths or exotic flowers they will portray onstage, they are learning fast from books provided by the staff. You can read more at http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/latest/crime-beauty
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011
VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.
Email: brucebrennanlaw@aol.com
Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book should be available later this year, in late 2011. More information will be forthcoming.
http://www.ebookmall.com/ (Do search by my name or book Title)
www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)
www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.
Book Titles:
Holmes the Ripper
A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction
Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts."- Jean Vanier
No comments:
Post a Comment