|
Table of
Contents
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. |
George Bush Lacks the Gravity and Stature to Lead America into so Many Uncharted Waters - America is facing a lot of difficult problems. Some of these have never confronted the country before; and some, while not new, are assuming alarming proportions. A brief review of a few in both categories might be useful.
In the "completely new" category the nation faces: the war on terror, "nation building" in two Islamic nations (Iraq and Afghanistan), the creation of two new cabinet level departments (Homeland Security and Intelligence), the implementation of new domestic surveillance programs that impinge on traditional citizen protections, hundreds of a new kind of detainee called "unlawful combatants" that require new criminal processes, etc.
In the "assuming alarming proportions" category the nation faces: unusually sever natural disasters like Katrina, rising trade deficits with China and India, budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually, record oil prices that show no sign of coming down, huge numbers of illegal immigrants, major corporate and political scandals, etc.
So the problem are numerous and difficult, however, George Bush is possessed of a set of character traits that make him particularly ill suited for the decision making and leadership tasks he faces. In addition, he came to his position, and remains there, with significant public doubt about the legitimacy of his ascendancy to the Presidency both in 2000 and in 2004 where Steven F. Freeman has shown that in half a dozen key states electronic voting machines produced results completely inconsistent with exit poll result. David Ray Griffin has also raised significant questions about whether or not the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and simply allowed them to succeed.
However, putting aside the election issues and 9/11 questions, it is useful to focus for a bit on Bush's personal deficits:
(1) he is not a reader of reports, instead he gets his facts from briefings,
(2) he decides what weight to give to the facts and analysis in any particular briefing by doing a personal assessment of the body language and clothes of the presenter,
(3) when speaking, he is unable to put together logically connected, grammatically correct sentences,
(4) he compensates for his inability to speak properly by forcefully repeating, with dramatic gestures, the few facts that he remembers that support his point of view, (the effect is to remind the listener of the famous comment from Hamlet "methinks thou doth protest to much"),
(5) he refuses to seriously acknowledge and address any facts or analysis that differs from his position,
(6) his main strengths are his unswerving support for his plan and his ability to glad hand and yuck it up in small groups, however, these strengths do not give the public comfort when the problems are obviously complex and cry out for careful analysis with well designed pilots aimed at getting to workable solutions,
(7) he has a preference for secrecy which runs counter to the public's strong preference for maximum openness particularly in light of his obvious limitations, and
(8) he suffers from the fact that every person around him, including his wife, seems far more possessed of the speaking and analytical abilities needed to cope with today's problems.
Bush's personal deficits are exacerbated by his ceaseless grasping for more power. For example, its one thing to have an obviously capable leader, like Eisenhower, attach an occasional signing statement to a new law, but when such a limited person, as Bush, attaches such statements to hundreds upon hundreds of bills, one wonders if he has any interest in following the laws being passed by Congress, one wonders if he understands the separation of powers that characterize the US government. Then there is his constant use of the term "powers of the unitary executive" to implement new programs that scuttle traditional understandings about judicial approval of searches, proper budgeting of known war making expenditures, avoidance of Senate approvals by making recess appointments, authorizing the torture of detainees, preemptive war making, etc.
When a member of the Bush administration comes on television and says "America must trust this President to do the right thing even when he operates in secret", the listener thinks "are you kidding?". ........... (Prepared by Hugh Murray on 7/14/2006)
Israel Already has a Solution to Its Hamas and Hezbollah Problems - Egypt was very hostile to Israel until Pres. Carter cooked up the Camp David accords. Suddenly an annual payment of $1.8 billion from the US to Egypt caused that sworn enemy of Israel to mellow. Now its true that a warm peace has never broken out between Cairo and Tel Aviv, but at least hostilities have ended.
With this as a guide, a program of periodic payments should be set up under which Washington would give regular payments to various local groups, city governments, and Muslim religious organizations in various areas controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah. The payments would be conditioned on no hostilities toward Israel being initiated from the specific area during the prior period. The periods should probably be more than a week but less than a quarter.
Of course the areas would have to be large enough so there was a manageable number of areas, but small enough so the local leaders could know the local people and could be reasonably expected to exercise some control. Now if there was an attack, Israel would not need to counter-attack; all they would have to do was inform the US and have the next set of payments cut off. There might also be a requirement that the local leaders explain what corrective action they plan to better control their local hotheads going forward.
Some thought has to be given to the amount of money going from the US into these various areas. Israel currently receives US aid of about $500 per capita per year. That might be a good starting point for this aid program to Hamas and Hezbollah dominated areas. If a designated area had say 60,000 people they might see $500,000 per month. This is an amount that the designated recipient organizations would not want to lose.
Now the program would not require the terror groups to disarm or renounce violence forever, but they would have to give up violence for the next few days or weeks. They would be put in the situation of an alcoholic who attends Alcoholics Anonymous. Such a person doesn't say I will never drink again; he simply says I won't drink today. Members of the fighting parts of Hamas and Hezbollah hate Israel so much they could never make a permanent pledge never to attack Israel or accept disarmament. However, with help from local Muslim leaders, they might exercise day by day restraint so women and children might have some food, housing, education, and/or medical aid.
Of course, there will be a cost to the US. This amount of money is minuscule compared to the costs of war. To provide $500 per year per capita to all the Muslims in the Hamas and Hezbollah controlled areas will run about $10 billion per year. That is less than 1/10th of the yearly cost to control Iraq with a resident American army. ..........(prepared by Hugh Murray on 8/5/2006)
Is Huey Long a Good Example of American Political Leadership? - Huey Long was both a Governor of Louisiana and later a United States Senator. He came to political power when most people of his state were living in poverty or near poverty. Gov. Long decided to use his political power to help alleviate the poverty of his constitutes. He antagonized the rich people of his state and he found ways to punish those who challenged his idea of what was right. The legislature became his rubber stamp.
Today Huey Long is considered an example of a corrupt politician and a demigod. He did not so much seek money as power. He saw an evil, which in his time was a deep pervasive poverty, and he used all tools at hand, legitimate and illegitimate, to grasp power so he might address this problem.
Huey Long, like his fellow American politician, Abe Lincoln, loved to quote the Bible but attended church rarely. Both were successful lawyers but had limited education. Both had very quick minds; both gave the impression of being willing to negotiate issues with opponents but rarely followed through; and both tended to punish those who disagreed with their programs. Both violated the law in pursuit of their ends, both felt the end justified the means, and unfortunately their ruthlessness induced great hatred in their opponents; both were in the end assassinated.
On the surface, it would appear that both Lincoln and Long should be similarly classified as either examples of good political leadership or vice versa. Lincoln pursued the end of stopping southern secession and later ending slavery. Long, on the other hand, was principally motivated by a desire to alleviate poverty. Lincoln arranged to kill or jail many who opposed him even suspending the basic right of habeas corpus and the right of Maryland’s legislature to meet. Long, on the other hand, just hounded opponents forcing them to leave Louisiana. Long’s “means” were less draconian than Lincoln’s, but it must be said Long’s “ends”, while high minded, were no where near as high minded as Lincoln’s. Both felt that “ends” justify “means”. However, moral theologians say that using evil means to accomplish worthy ends is immoral.
If Abraham Lincoln is an example of good American political leadership, then it is certainly proper to say Huey Long is as well. ........................(prepared by Hugh Murray on 8/7/2006)
Howard Dean Must Adjust His Strategy Because of Benedict XVI’s Focused Strengthening of the Catholic Church - The US is roughly 1/4 Catholic, and that percentage is gradually growing as immigrants from Mexico swell the US Catholic population. In addition, the state of confusion that gripped the Catholic Church for decades following Vatican II is being corrected as the clear thinking Pope Benedict XVI takes firm control of the Church. This not to say that Pope John Paul II was not a clear, forceful leader, but the Church he inherited had “muddled headed” bishops in every other diocese around the world. These “muddled headed” local leaders had to be replaced, and it took a long time for these positions to open up so new more traditional bishops could be appointed. The Church under Benedict is generally staffed with local ordinaries who understand that the faithful need teaching that is forceful, clear, and doctrinally correct. They also know that the faithful need changes in the liturgy that will strengthen the faith and religious commitment of those who attend Mass. Benedict is working with the local bishops to improve the quality of doctrinal instruction and the spirituality conveyed by the sacraments, particularly the Holy Eucharist .
Howard Dean runs the Democratic Party. This party is attempting to become the majority party in America. However, it has imbedded in its party platform several moral stands which are antithetical to central moral teachings of the Catholic Church. These moral questions included legalized abortion, the recognition of gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, etc. Howard Dean and the Democrats would have some hope of bucking the Catholic Church on these issues if the Church had remained the confused muddled mess that emerged from Vatican II, or he would have some chance of success if the Catholic Church was suffering the population decline that most groups are experiencing in America. But as pointed out above neither of these factors obtain. The Church is gaining in numbers, in knowledge of why certain moral truths are immutable, and in spiritual strength and commitment as well. These trends will bury the Democratic Party as more and more Catholics are told they are committing serious sin if they vote for pro-choice Democrats, and as more and more Catholics, with strengthen spiritual commitment, take these admonitions to heart and turn against Democratic candidates regardless of their other appeals.
America has a legally protected two party system. (Independent candidates and third parties are widely discussed, but ballot access is very difficult, and even if ballot access is obtained, the “don’t through your vote away” syndrome keeps most people from straying from the two governmentally preferred parties.) If one of those two parties takes positions which involve serious sin for 1/3rd of the country, it really leaves the country at the mercy of the one “remaining” party because that “remaining party” is the only morally acceptable outlet for the democratic urges of that 1/3rd .
The Democrats might think they can break a well informed, committed Catholic’s hold on his Catholic beliefs, but they are mistaken. Deep religious faith, that has been backed up by good catechesis, will be impossible to break. Democrats would be better advised to sublimate their strong belief on these moral issues, take them out of their platform, assign them to a Long Term Issues Planning Committee for “further study”, and get on with their traditional appeals. Catholics are a sharing group and will respond to political calls for social justice and fair treatment for working people. The Democrats are good at making such appeals.
If the Democrats keep these divisive moral issues in their platform, they will fad into a deep second place. American politics will turn into a unipolar business with the Republicans imposing their bazar mix of unilateral war, globalization, estate tax cuts, and Judeo-Christianity.
Of course, a miracle could occur which allows third parties to easily emerge, or some sort of Federal mandate requiring runoff elections till one candidate gets “50% plus one vote”in every federal election. The “50% plus one” requirement would favor all independent and third party candidates, particularly in the first round of any election, because it mutes the argument that a voter is “throwing his vote away” if he supports an attractive independent. .............prepared by Hugh Murray on (8/10/2006)
Gen. Robert E. Lee Said “NO” When his Officers Wanted to Organize Guerilla Bands - In 1865, just before Lee surrendered at Appomattox a group of Confederate officers suggested that the southern forces continue their struggle as “irregulars”. These officers were familiar with the exploits of Capt. William Quantrill in western Missouri and Gen. Nathan Bedford Forest east of the Mississippi. General Lee quashed this idea saying the time had come for the two sides to heal their wounds.
Military strategist now know that guerilla tactics conducted by experienced fighters that are supported by the local population are almost impossible for a conventional army to defeat. The Union forces in the West could only curb Quantrill’s efforts by relocating the nearly the entire population in the rural areas east of Kansas City to Arkansas. This relocation was accompanied by the systematic burning of all the farmhouses and barns in the vacated areas. Obviously such a tactic could not be used if guerilla bands began operating in several dozen locations all across 15 states.
Mao Tse-tung is probably best know for his statement about guerilla fighters. He said “the people are like water and the army is like fish”. Guerilla fighters can only be defeated if the sea is drained (or changed). That is one of the hardest things to do particularly if the people are predisposed to help the insurgents and hate the occupying forces.
A major organized guerilla effort in the south would , no doubt, have induced Union military commanders to organize freed blacks into police and militia units to fight the white insurgents. The experience of black police breaking to white homes and torturing suspects for information would have made racial hatred even worse than it already was.
If the Confederate officer corps had gotten the green light from Lee, they might have eventually driven the Union out of the South. An independent South would have re-instituted slavery and would probably have kept it until the Spanish speaking world in South America abolished it, perhaps until 1890 or 1900, at which time a proper abolition with compensation to owners accompanied by training/education for ex slaves would have occurred.
If they had tried and failed, the healing process might have been even harder than it already was/is. Nevertheless, some historians say that the sporadic, spontaneous violence against carpetbaggers and occupying Union soldiers was severe enough to sour the North on the occupation. When the Presidential election of 1876 ended in a tie, Republicans cut a deal to retain the White House rather than continue their program in the South. Jim Crow segregation emerged from this early northern withdrawal, and reconciliation between the races didn’t begin again until the 1960's.
General Lee was truly a great leader, perhaps the greatest of the Civil War era. He fought a honorable defensive war with limited manpower and supplies. He refused to follow his opponent’s immoral examples. For instance, he refused to engage in massive attacks on civilians. At the end, he opted for national reconciliation and opposed guerilla resistence . During the next five years until his death, he privately regretted the excesses that the North inflicted on the South, but publicly he maintained his support for national reconciliation.
................ prepared by Hugh Murray (8/14/2006))
What makes Marcus Grodi’s The Journey Home the Best Show on EWTN? - The Journey Home televison show is a straightforward interview show where Marcus Grodi interviews a former Protestant clergyman who has become a Catholic. Since Marcus is himself a former Presbyterian minister who became a Catholic, the interview is totally none confrontational. The show lacks the obvious “tension” considered essential for a successful show.
However, The Journey Home has a wonderful “gentle hook” to draw the viewer in and keep him engaged. The “hook” is the mystery of exactly how God’s grace worked to bring this particular guest 1) to begin the search for greater religious truth, 2) to cope with the various detours and hurdles along the way, and 3) to finally take the life altering step into the Catholic Church that inevitably meant wrenching family and career rearrangements.
Each story is different and yet each story is the same. It is always the story of a very thoughtful, God fearing person possessed of great courage and determination who forges ahead with the Bible in hand to find the fulness of truth. The story unfolds with the help of Marcus’ gentle, smiling, humorous questioning. No harangues, no short cutting, the theology is explored, the writings of the Church fathers are discussed, the key passages in the Bible are elucidated, the importance of authority and the Magisterium are explained, etc. Interspersed are the personal tales of the guest about: a wife who says “how will we survive without your pastor’s salary”, or a congregation of good friends that must be left behind, or family members, mothers, brothers, sisters, that don’t understand, etc. Some of the tales speak volumes about the Church itself; for instance, one Lutheran pastor, who was considering joining the Catholic Church, was told by a Catholic priest that since Vatican II Protestants are encouraged to just stay in their current situations and seek salvation by being good Protestants.
The show ends with e-mail and telephone questions which are usually from people struggling with one or other doctrine of the Church. The answers by Marcus and his guest are never the canned answers of a person who has memorized the Catechism, rather they are the answers of men who have themselves worked through and struggled with that particular point of Catholic belief. The same ones come up again and again: Mary’s special place, Purgatory, The Pope, Tradition in addition to the Bible, etc. It is so good to hear these former Protestants explain, in such clear terms, these important points.
Although Marcus and his guests are principally responsible for the success of the show, the set design helps reinforce the overall sense of the show. On one side there is a large brightly lite picture of the dome of the Vatican; one the other side is a picture of a father welcoming back his wayward son. The son is kneeling as he is being blessed by the father. The image is right behind Marcus’s guest. As the guest tells his tale of emotional struggle, his tale of seeking a closer union with God, the viewer is reminded again and again of God’s loving welcome and infinite mercy. .............prepared by Hugh Murray on 8/19/2006
Justice Williams is too Taken with Lincoln to be Objective about the Rule of Law - Justice Frank Williams of the Rhode Island Supreme Court has recently been appointed to the Presidential Appeals tribunal to handle problems arising from the trials of the Muslims held at Guantanamo. On the surface this appointment looks like an appropriate choice.
However, a more careful look at Justice Williams’ resume reveals that he is deeply taken with Abraham Lincoln. He has written on Lincoln, he has spent an enormous amount of his personal money accumulating over 12000 Lincoln books and pamphlets. His Lincoln collection is so large many colleges have asked to acquire it. One of the big decisions facing Williams and his wife is deciding which college library is going to receive this collection after they die.
In his television appearances Justice Williams does not qualify his admiration of Lincoln with caveats about Lincoln’s horrific violations of the Constitutional rights of the citizens in the North. Instead Williams is repeatedly supportive of Lincoln . It is good to recall that Lincoln’s violations included: refusing to allow elected state legislators to assemble to begin their session, jailing over 10,000 people for years who had been critical of his conduct of the Civil War without allowing them to have their situations reviewed by a court, suspending the right of habeas corpus without a vote of Congress, refusing to protect newspapers that were critical of his policies from destructive attacks by rioting mobs, jailing Confederate prisoners with inadequate supplies in a disease ridden swamp, etc.
If a leading American jurist can’t find the fortitude to explain to the public when being interviewed that his professed idol had major failings in the realm of Constitutional Rights. Then that jurist is either (1) giving the appearance that he lacks objectivity or (2) does in fact lack objectivity. Such a jurist should certainly step down from any appellate court, but more important he should avoid service on court where the issues are likely to involve habeas corpus, unlawful detention, inhuman treatment, etc. ............... (prepared by Hugh Murray on 9/3/2006)
.
Graham Greene Has Flawed Human Beings Deal with Their Weaknesses and Catholic Doctrine
- Graham Greene’s novels, The Power and the Glory and The End of the Affair point up the fine qualities that exist side by side with sinful qualities in people. He goes further and shows how Catholic doctrine and practice influence people to change. Finally, this interplay between the characters and the Catholic Faith takes place in situations where civil society is party disordered. A quick outline of the tensions that hit the major protagonists in each story will illuminate these qualities.
In the The Power and the Glory, Greene creates an alcoholic, fornicating priest running away from the local police that are offering a huge reward for his capture. The provincial government is trying to destroy the Catholic Church. He is the final priest in the province and although he can’t really say Mass for fear of being sold out, he conducts baptisms and hears confession on the run. Finally the police start shooting random peasants in an attempt to force someone to turn the priest over. So the priest heads for the border and gets to safety, but a police informant lures him back saying a murderer has been shot in the stomach, is dying slowly, and needs a priest. The priest thinks it’s a set up, but he goes back to do his duty. It is a set up; he is captured, transported to the provincial capital, put in jail, and shot the next morning.
This sinful priest during the last 12 hours of his life is a man in intense pain. He has spent his last several years committing serious sins but he has also served God by hearing hundreds of confessions. He has accepted his impending death; all he wants is a chance to confess to another priest. But no confession is available.
The reader wants to scream at God, please God, after all he has endured for you, the least you can do is give the poor wretch a chance to confess his sins before he goes to the firing squad. But of course, it is Greene, not God, that has created this painful situation.
The End of the Affair takes place in 1944 in London. The heroine is a married atheist who is having an affair with another atheist when a German bomb nearly kills her boy friend following one of their afternoon trysts. She sees his arm extending from rubble and suddenly promises God she will end the affair, and be faithful to her husband, if her boy friend survives. The boy friend survives so she keeps her promise and breaks off the affair even though she lacks belief in God. This woman is very physical, very into bodily sensation, and she can’t understand an ephemeral invisible God. Months later, while suffering a bad cold, she ducks into a Catholic Church for shelter from a sudden storm and encounters a life size Crucifix. She is suddenly faced with a very physical representation of God. And she begins to learn more about Christ and she starts talking to the priest about the Church. She still loves her boy friend but the priest advises her not to go back to him, even though the boy friend is after her to take up the affair again. In any event her cold gradually mutates into something worse, and eventually it kills her before she is accepted into the Church. She is cremated by her non-believing husband despite the fact that the priest is there saying she had already been baptized by desire and therefore should be buried in a Catholic ceremony.
In the middle of the book Greene inserts this women’s diary for the period of her involvement with the boy friend, through her promise to the God, she doesn’t believe in, and finally her attraction to the image of Christ dying on the Cross for her sins. The wrenching reorientation that Greene has inflicted on this woman from unfaithful wife enjoying an illicit affair to an aspiring convert taken with the image of Christ on a Cross. It is hard on the reader’s emotions, but he compounds this problem by having the woman die suddenly, with the priest, the husband, and the boy friend all circling around each other as the book draws toward an end. The boy friend closes the book by stating that he now believes in God, but hopes God will have the courtesy to leave him alone.
Greene has designed these stories to make the reader think about human frailty, sin, virtue, Catholic Doctrine, faith, and the surprises life brings. His ultimate intention seems to be to shock the reader into researching the teachings of the Catholic Church. In these novels, he induces the reader to learn more about “perfect contrition” (as substitute for sacramental confession) and “baptism of desire” (as a substitute for the traditional baptism by water)....................... (prepared by Hugh Murray on 9/3/2006)
.
America’s Prisons Teach what they Shouldn’t and Don’t Teach what They Should - Prisoners in America’s prisons are stacked like cordwood. The hardened criminals have undo influence over younger, first time offenders. Homosexual rape abounds; prisoner on prisoner violence is a daily occurrence. Prisoners engage in hours of weight training each day so they can protect themselves from predators.
This time should be a time of new beginnings for those prisoners that have some prospect of being paroled or released in less than ten or even twenty years. These prisoners should be slowed down, given a chance to think about their futures. They should learn a trade, learn to pass their high school equivalency (GED), take a some college courses on line, etc. With modern communication there is no reason why these prisoners can’t have a full panoply of friendships and learning opportunities and even some personal counseling and quiet introspection, all without the fear of violence and rape.
What type facility would accomplish this? Imagine a square mile of land divided into 10,000 plots each 40'by 20'. Each of these plots would contain a 20' by 12' one room structure and a 28' by 20' yard. There would be a 15' “through-o-fare” on one side of each plot and an eight foot dead zone on the other three sides. The one room houses would have the following: high speed computer hook up for on line learning, a television for both entertainment and learning, a work bench for learning skills, a small refrigerator, telephone, two burner stove, small oven, sink, toilet, shower, bed, chair, etc. There would also be visitor’s cubical with a glass wall, a talk hole and slide slot for transferring food, documents, etc. in and out.
The prisoner’s would have most human contact at the visitor’s cubical with clergy, teachers, counselors, guards, etc. health emergency people and repair people would be the only people that actually enter the prisoner’s “plot”. It is anticipated that a teacher would only visit the prisoner in person occasionally and handle most contact by phone, web classes, or e-mail. Prisoners could have voice contact with other prisoners by phone, by e-mail, and by conversing “plot” to adjacent “plot” through the fences. (Each plot would be separated from its adjacent plots by a 8' wide dead man’s zone perhaps patrolled by guard dogs to discourage attempted visits by the jumping of fences).
Silence and solitude would be an important component of this system. Silence encourages introspection and emotional growth. Prisoners who did not honor the need for general silence would be deprived of desirable food items, or certain entertainment offerings on his television, etc. The prisoners’ sense of responsibility would be augmented by an encouragement to have a garden, perhaps have a quiet pet, etc.
Some group activity might be available for those that are well behaved. For instance, AA meeting for those with abdication problems, church on Sunday, etc.
The basic idea with this design is to do these things 1) cut down (not eliminate) face to face human contact, 2) eliminate the prisoner on prisoner violence, and 3) increase the proportion of the face to face contact that is with prison employees rather than with fellow prisoners. When a person has limited human contact, they will treasure that contact they have and will try to get more out of each encounter. It is important that such limited contacts be with people possed of good values and ideas.
A word about cost is in order. The original capital cost of such a prison is likely to be higher than a conventional prison. The brick and mortar will likely be less but the land and electronics are likely to run up the cost up. Operationally the costs are likely to be lower because the staff will spend a lot of their time communicating via e-mail and telephone rather than with personal contact once the prisoners become acclimatized to their environment. Guard costs should also be reduced since the guards would no longer be needed to monitor prisoner movements about the prison and to protect prisoners from each other.
A word or two about the daily schedule might clarify how such a prison might work. The day would begin at 7 AM with soft electronic reminder that classes begin at 8:30 AM. Prisoner would prepare a breakfast of food they had ordered earlier, perhaps tend to a hobby like watering a favorite plant. At 8:30 AM a math class would begin on either the computer or tv. The prisoners could interact with the teacher through an phone hook up. The prisoner would signal that he had a question and the teacher would call on him when his turn came. All members of the class would hear his question w/answer. At ten their might be a half hour break for exercise or a hobby. At 10:30 there might be an English class ending at noon. There would be self prepared lunch and a chance to chat with a friend on the phone. At 1 PM there would be skills training. Leather work, computer programing class, writing an essay, model building from drawings, cabinet making, playing banjo, go to an AA meeting (once a week with no more than twelve other attendees), visit the chapel (twice a week), etc. Once a week a counselor would visit to review the quality of the skills training underway and make suggestions. At three there would be a forty five minute nap. Followed by a visit by a guard who would deliver yesterday’s food order and inquire about what food items were needed the next day. Also reports on broken items would be noted. There would be another chance to talk to friends on the phone. Then a self prepared dinner followed by recreation consisting of television, reading, conversation via phone, ordering books from the on line catalogue, etc. Lights out at twelve..................(prepared by Hugh Murray on 9/19/2006)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. This page hopes to bring a common
sense, old fashioned view to today's news. The comments displayed
on this page were prepared by
Hugh V. Murray, who can be reached at hvm@aol.com
|
.......