Prison Books

As the old stereotype goes long term prisoners tend to spend their prison sentences either --

• Weight lifting (to get stronger for their next crime)
• Reading books (many to pursue their law degrees!!)

Due to new post-September 11th national security guidelines numerous religious books are being removed from the shelves of the USA's prison libraries including 600 titles from the federal prison camp in Otisville, New York.

A group of the prison's inmates have filed a lawsuit which claims this book removal program violates their constitutional rights. The books that were removed were apparently "religious" and "all religions were affected" according to the Associated Press' (AP) reporter, Larry Neumeister.

The AP article goes on to note that prison libraries are allowed under the federal government guidelines (aka "censorship") to have 100 to 150 titles per religion on their shelves but that this number will eventually expand as prison officials choose more books from a "new list of permitted books."

"Permitted books" ? I hope one of them is the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" which provides great insights regarding why so many African-American prisoners in the USA are attracted to Islam. Also, from the Christian perspective I encourage readers to review the work of Prison fellowship which uses the "Good Book" for its work --http://www.prisonfellowship.org

Read widely and act locally,

Todd

Cartoon

The "Frank and Ernest" (by Bob Thaves) cartoon in my local newspaper today featured a picture of a king sitting in a throne with a court aide standing nearby. The king is looking at the aide to declare:

"The literacy rate is going up? -- I suppose we better start thinking about censorship."

The amazing power of cartoons -- in one short sentence Mr. Thaves summarizes exactly how government works. Step One - achieve some objective such as higher literacy rates via some program. Step Two - regulate the results of the program.

Perhaps newspapers should start printing a few of their cartoons on the front page with the main news stories.

Todd