Update: June 29, 2022: Many followers never read some of these blogs I wrote while serving my federal sentence. I paid Five cents per minute to type and read anything on Corrlinks.com, Fifteen cents per page to print so I could edit before emailing to my publisher to post. But getting my writings beyond the walls and barbwire fences was more important to me than saving the money I spent each week to do what I did.
Rain falls as I run on my catch-up mode. This is my first blog since I posted “Frog Napper Returns” on October 1, 2015. I planned to write at least two blogs per month. I did not do as planned. Legal matters and other obligations pulled me from my plans.
BLOGS: I worked ten days overtime last month in the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), where I am the document control clerk and an internal auditor in an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certified factor. I also help keep the factory ISO certified by participating in external audits conducted by the National Standards Authority of Ireland, and by writing or editing technical documents used for administrative and instructional purposes. On overtime I earn $2.60 per hour for all hours in excess of 7.25, of which I earn $1.45 per hour ($10.51 per day for regular pay). If working in a similar position in the free society, I’d earn a five to six figure salary. I will write a blog in the future on UNICOR & SOCIETY. I wrote an unpublished essay on the topic several years ago that I will extract data from to update. Anyway, the overtime alone occupied lots of time and kept me too tired to be blogging, after going to work at 7:30 AM and getting off at 8:30 PM, only to work on other pressing projects until bedtime.
To consume more of my valued time, I worked on a “Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence, Pursuant to 28 U.S.C., Section 2255” (2255) for a young Native American with an unconstitutional sentence. The court sentenced him to 180-months imprisonment for a crime that carried a maximum of 120-months. A recent United States Supreme Court ruling (Johnson v. United States, June 26, 2015), opened the door for him and hundreds of others erroneously sentenced for crimes captured with the “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act. The residual clause was a “catch-all-clause” prosecutors used to classify any crime with a “potential” for violence as a violent felony. Three prior violent felonies increased a 10-year statutory maximum to 15-years to life without parole, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. In addition to that 2255, I completed another one for a friend with the same circumstances, which I worked on for six weeks before volunteering for the second one. Every now and then I am a nice person, even in prison. 🙂 Honestly, I am a nice person on most days of my life. At any rate, I do apologize for my delinquent blog posting.
RAINY DAYS: In addition to the above, I planned to write a blog on October 10, 2015, about a “Rainy Day in the Pen,” and then became distracted and thought about writing on “Mass Shootings in America.” Rain dampened my plans on “One Rainy Day in the Pen,” after this area experienced torrential downpours that caused dams to rupture and floods that killed people, while I sat in prison complaining about getting soaked to go to the chow hall in anticipation of a pastry and dry cereal, only to find a pastry and cream of wheat I do not eat. I’m a Southerner. I eat grits!
This morning (11/01/2015), I went out in the rain again for a pastry and dry cereal. This time I succeeded at getting milk, low-cost corn flakes that turn gluey after moments in milk, and a cheese danish, all worth the five-hundred yard trip to the chow hall in the rain. At least no one locally has drown in floods while I enjoyed the privilege of having food to eat and a roof over my head, something many free-citizens do not have, something I write with sadness.
While pondering the ideas for that blog, I listened to CNN News about an idiot who had walked into a college in Oregon and massacred nine innocent people and shot several others. The only good part of the story being a man with courage who challenged the gunman, rather than lying down to wait for his execution. He survived five gunshot wounds and his heroic actions saved others. He is an American soldier who deserves a world of praise, since most people cower when faced with such danger, which usually results in death. If you see an idiot with a gun walking around shooting people, why stand and wait for him to shoot you? I wonder if people think the shooter will run out of bullets or suddenly be filled with kindness and compassion and decide to spare them?
Under those dire circumstances, in my opinion, I think it is best to stand and fight; to take a bullet for a cause, maybe that will allow others to live; may even be the event that causes the “herd effect,” where others follow in the charge to defuse the situation. A passive stance will most likely lead to being shot with the other victims. Killers aren’t compassionate people. Such acts of cowardice only offends a psychopath with a gun or weapon. One mass murderer in the state of Georgia, once wrote how the people laid there like cattle and waited for him to execute them, that they weren’t even willing to fight for their lives. Me, personally, I would not wait. Shoot me, he may do, but it would NOT be as I sat trembling waiting to be executed. I might be trembling as I charged or found something to throw to distract or injure him, but I would not be shot while waiting for my turn. Shoot me next. If all else failed, I’d run like hell. Anyway, for that blog I needed more factual information to write on that topic, so I added it to my Blogs To Do List.
FROGS: And then I ran into the infamous Frog Napper Frye, who had just made bond for his crimes against living creatures–Frog Abduction. Not really. Really, that I ran into him, not really for why he was thrown into a custom-designed prison cell the day after I had last saw him, transporting a frog in a bottle. I learned that he had freed the frog I helped abduct. And then he delivered his bad news: after his arrest, frog lovers freed his captive frog, Shorty Morgan; a small arboreal amphibian named after someone who had confiscated the frog-nappers’ relocated (stolen) onions and bell peppers.
I was happy to learn that both frogs had found their freedom because all living creatures want to be free. I wrote along those lines in my blog, “#Nature: Frogs, an Octopus, and #Escapees.” [1] Well, my friend disappeared again. The rumor mill (Inmate.com) has it that he was rearrested for his blog, “Embracing the Chaos”; that may or may not be true. It could have happened, or his arrest may have been for some devious activity, but he felt that it happened because of the blog. I read the blog and didn’t feel it contained any information worthy of casting a prisoner inside the Segregated Housing Unit, but, …. what I think doesn’t always coincide with what prison administrators and politicians think. More will be revealed. Read his blogs at bankblogger.weebly.com or murderslimpress.com/BankRobber’sBlog.
POLITICS: I delayed writing that blog because the situation reminded me of the political attempt to silence the pen of a prisoner in the Pennsylvania prison system, who was involved in a “controversial case of killing a police officer.” I needed more information to write that one: I found it and so here I am, fingers on keys, but not the keys to my freedom, only the keys I use to exercise my freedom of speech that the United States Constitution says I have under its First Amendment. The Pennsylvania Legislatures squeezed the life out of that Amendment by passing “The Revictimization Relief Act.” A federal judge deemed that law “manifestly unconstitutional.” The Honorable Christopher C. Conner, United States Middle District Chief Judge. “‘A past criminal offense does not extinguish the offender’s constitutional right to free expression,’ Conner wrote. ‘The First Amendment does not evanesce at the prison gate, and its enduring guarantee of freedom of speech subsumes the right to expressive conduct that some may find offensive.'” (Pennsylvania Law Limiting Speech of Prisoners Struck Down, by Andrew V. Pestano, [2015] upi.com.)
The Supreme Court relied upon the Free Speech principle in deciding on a case dealing with Hustler Magazine and its owner, Larry Flint. Some people found the content of the magazine offensive, but the Court still protected his right to publish it. Flint’s lawyer basically posed that if it protects those people who others want to silence or restrict, then it protects the average American citizen even more.
Prisoners only have so much freedom of speech. Some speech can lead us to being handcuffed and then confined in a small cell without a phone, typewriter, or severely-crippled-computer, such as the one upon which I type. There are those who will still fight for what is right, regardless of the price our actions may demand. Most allow fear or lack of knowledge to stop them from challenging unconstitutional restrictions. Read my blog, “Fighting for Rights to Write” [2], for an example of fighting for others who may not have the skills, as well as for my personal interests and liberties. That is one of many incidents I fought and won. I succeeded at convincing the administration of its error in trying to implement a process that would impede my ability to exercise my freedom of speech. Not all prison administrators, or politicians, or judges, are bad people; however, some are more evil and devious and sinister than any prisoner executed on death row for their crimes against humanity.
At the end of the day, we are all human beings trying to find our way through the life experience. We do what we feel is right or wrong and then worry about the benefits or consequences when the time comes to reap the rewards or pay the piper. I have paid dearly throughout my life for making poor decisions, but now I reap the rewards of having becoming a good human being. If you read ESSAYS & MORE STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN by Wayne T. Dowdy, it will allow you to see life from a different perspective about the cost of a person’s actions for being an outlaw. After reading it, you will want to share it with a friend, especially if you have one travelling down a road headed toward destruction.
The rain continues to pour, many Southern states flooded again. Good day for bullfrogs, and a good day to blog about frogs.
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[1] read full text at https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com or http://waynedowdy.weebly.com
[2] first published at www.prisoneducation.com in February 2014; reposted March 2015 on https://straightfromthepen.wordpress.com and http://waynedowdy.weebly.com
[3] Go to http://www.straightfromthepen.com to purchase my books; or for my eBooks, essays, and short stories, to my author’s page at Smashwords.com (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/WayneMrDowdy) or Amazon.kindle.