Ta-Nehisi Coates

Interesting - a co-worker told me yesterday that his partner was reading _Dreams from my father_ and with every page, her take was "he's a real person!" I.e., just like many of us, growing up not among the privileged like the Bushes, dealing with high school, college, drugs, etc. He strikes me very much as like guys I grew up with, as we're close ... Read Morein age. So, yeah, I think of him as someone who I could have gone to school with, just the overachieving one. A person I could talk to.

So that's from a couple of rural/small town white folks in a very Republican county, for what it's worth.

Only dead fish flow downstream.

Oops. Got that wrong. I meant, "Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow"."

while it's true that the prospect of prison (or other sorts of punishment) is not a deterrent for adolescents, our twisted criminal "justice" system is evidence that it's not much of a deterrent for ANYBODY. if it were, there wouldn't be any crime at all in the US, being that we have more people in prison than anybody else, and it's easier to end ... Read Moreup in prison here than in almost any other so-called civilized nation. if the idea of prison deterred anybody from doing anything, this country would read like a brady bunch rerun. but no, our crime rates are much higher than the crime rates in nations which imprison a much smaller percentage of their citizens.

prison is not a deterrent but a breeding ground, and the more people that are needlessly twisted by absurdly long stays in our absurdly horrendous prisons the more crime we are going to have. period.

adult sentencing seems to be more a knee-jerk reaction to mollify the demands of the public. Prison has become an industry and offenders are just product so it's in the justice systems best interest to keep pumping out as much product as possible - creating more jobs and justifying ever increasing budgets. However this is extremely short sighted in... Read More that these same resources could be applied to rehabilitate and counsel young offenders and giving them a comprehensive punishment for their crimes, with the goal being that they won't re-offend. I agree with Jackie, prison is not a deterrent but I that's because the current system is set up to practically encourage second offensives!

On the flip side you always hear about the extreme case of the 13 year old who kills 4 people or what not, so there has to be some room for exceptions. If someone takes a life, not by accident but with intent, does it matter how old they are when determining punishment?

i am really sorry but i don't know you and not sure how you got on my facebook, i would like to stop our unintended correspondence but not sure how to do it

Like T said. sometimes awful people do beautiful things, and sometimes beautiful people do awful things. And sometimes people are just people, flawed, and in need, but people just the same. Forgiveness is sometimes what allows that beauty to shine forth.. and God will always have the final say.

I would also consider the category "train wreck famous". People who make such bad choices (whether consistently or in a single epic sweep) that the public is drawn to them. There is always the silent comment "there but for the grace of impulse control go I..."

I blame you for making me go find a YouTube reference for "Holla At a Playa," TNC, and now it's going to be stuck in my head forever.

This is SPOT on.

Glad to find you on FB. Your blog is one of the best ones out there. This post was outstanding.

Exactly.

good points but he reminds me too much of Jesse to garner anymore 'benefit of the doubt' excuses ....'lame duck'? that's just crazy!

OK, I was willing to see the stuff in his sermons in context, but, um, not this.