Sunday, June 22, 2014


News Clips For The Day



Without fanfare, Obama advances transgender rights – CBS
AP  June 22, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO -- President Barack Obama, who established his bona fides as a gay and lesbian rights champion when he endorsed same-sex marriage, has steadily extended his administration's advocacy to the smallest and least accepted band of the LGBT rainbow: transgender Americans.

With little of the fanfare or criticism that marked his evolution into the leader Newsweek nicknamed "the first gay president," Obama became the first chief executive to say "transgender" in a speech, to name transgender political appointees and to prohibit job bias against transgender government workers. Also in his first term, he signed hate crime legislation that became the first federal civil rights protections for transgender people in U.S. History.

Since then, the administration has quietly applied the power of the executive branch to make it easier for transgender people to update their passports, obtain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, get treatment at Veteran's Administration facilities and seek access to public school restrooms and sports programs - just a few of the transgender-specific policy shifts of Obama's presidency.

"He has been the best president for transgender rights, and nobody else is in second place," Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said of Obama, who is the only president to invite transgender children to participate in the annual Easter egg roll at the White House.

Religious conservative groups quick to criticize the president for his gay rights advocacy have been much slower to respond to the administration's actions. The leader of the Traditional Values Coalition says there is little recourse because the changes come through executive orders and federal agencies rather than Congress.

The latest wins came this month, when the Office of Personnel Management announced that government-contracted health insurers could start covering the cost of gender reassignment surgeries for federal employees, retirees and their survivors, ending a 40-year prohibition. Two weeks earlier, a decades-old rule preventing Medicare from financing such procedures was overturned within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Unlike Obama's support for same-sex marriage and lifting the "don't ask, don't tell" ban on openly gay troops, the White House's work to promote transgender rights has happened mostly out of the spotlight.

Some advances have gone unnoticed because they also benefited the much larger gay, lesbian and bisexual communities. That was the case Monday when the White House announced that Obama plans to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In other instances, transgender rights groups and the administration have agreed on a low-key approach, both to skirt resistance and to send the message that changes are not a big deal, said Barbra Siperstein, who in 2009 became the first transgender person elected to the Democratic National Committee.

"It's quiet by design, because the louder you are in Washington, the more the drama," said Siperstein, who helped organize the first meeting between White House aides and transgender rights advocates without the participation of gay rights leaders.

The 2011 meeting came 34 years after Jimmy Carter's administration made history by meeting with gay rights groups. Obama's Cabinet and federal agencies have followed up with actions significantly expanding transgender rights without congressional approval.

For instance, Health and Human Services said in 2012 that it would apply the non-discrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act to investigate federally funded health plans and care providers that refused to serve transgender individuals.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Education Department informed public schools that under its reading of Title IX, the 1972 law that bans gender discrimination in education, transgender students are entitled to federal civil rights protections. The information was included in a memo on schools' obligations to respond to student-on-student sexual violence.

Obama has made clear the guidance has potentially broad implications.
"Title IX is a very powerful tool," he said last week. "The fact that we are applying it to transgender students means that they are going to be in a position to assert their rights if and when they see that they are being discriminated on their college campuses."

Meanwhile, religious conservative groups' opposition to transgender advocacy has trickled in.

The Traditional Values Coalition has lobbied against a bill that would provide federal workplace protections for gay and transgender people by warning that it would require schools to permit teachers to remain on the job amid gender transitions. Group President Andrea Lafferty said no one should mistake the absence of vocal opposition for acquiescence.

"There are other people who are concerned about these things, definitely. I think America is just overwhelmed right now," she said. "Everybody is going to have to take a step back, and that step back is going to be this November."

The stage was set for Obama to become a champion of transgender rights when the LGBT community split over an earlier version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that Lafferty's group is fighting.

In fall 2007, openly gay Rep. Barney Frank pursued, with the blessing of the nation's largest gay rights group, legislation prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians, but not transgender people. As Frank put it plainly, there were not enough Democratic votes to get a "trans-inclusive" law through the House.

Transgender advocates who had lobbied for legal recognition of same-sex relationships were livid and persuaded more than 100 civil rights groups to oppose a bill that left transgender rights for another day.

"The community was forced to decide: Where are you going to stand?" recalled Diego Sanchez, who was the first openly transgender person appointed to the DNC's platform committee and later became the first transgender staff member on Capitol Hill as Frank's top senior policy adviser.

At the 2008 Democratic convention where Obama was nominated, 28 years after the party pledged to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation, language was added to accomplish the same for gender identity.

As president, Obama has embraced the task of putting that pledge into practice, said Sanchez, now national policy director at Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

"It's easier for voices to be heard once you are already in the room," he said. "What has changed is who is listening."




Some right-leaning people have accused Obama of being gay. I think it's safe to say that his wife and children would be surprised to hear it. This article is a great summary of the changes in the laws, and an eye-opener as to just what freedoms have been denied in the past to the LGBT community. When I was a teenager in the late 1950's and early sixties I never heard anyone talk about gays, but comics would every now and then cross-dress for the humorous effects. I particularly remember Flip Wilson and Milton Berle. Don Knotts did it hilariously on one Andy Griffith episode. They were all very funny. We experienced no angst about it that a hearty laugh wouldn't erase. Since then, I went to a Halloween party in DC once and when I got to my friend's door, I was met by a 6'4” woman who was very “pretty.” I was startled to find that “she” was a cross-dresser. The line between male and female identity is thinner than you might think. That may be why some men are so rabidly anti-gay – they have some leaning in that direction themselves and are ashamed of it.






Pope: All mobsters excommunicated from Catholic Church
CBS/AP June 21, 2014

CASSANO ALL'JONIO, Italy -- Pope Francis journeyed Saturday to the heart of Italy's biggest crime syndicate, met the father of a 3-year-old boy slain in the region's drug war, and declared that all mobsters are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

During his one-day pilgrimage to the southern region of Calabria, Francis comforted the imprisoned father of Nicola Campolongo in the courtyard of a prison in the town of Castrovillari.

In January the boy was shot, along with one of his grandfathers and the grandfather's girlfriend, in an attack blamed on drug turf wars in the nearby town of Cassano all'Jonio. The attackers torched the car with all three victims inside.

Calabria is the power base of the 'ndrangheta, a global drug trafficking syndicate that enriches itself by extorting businesses and infiltrating public works contracts in underdeveloped Calabria.

During his homily at an outdoor Mass, Francis denounced the 'ndrangheta for what he called its "adoration of evil and contempt for the common good."

"Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," he warned.

As much as the church has been a force against the mafia there have also been instances of priests colluding with them, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports from Rome. Francis' visit and rhetoric could also be seen as a message that that won't happen again.

At the time of the January attack, the boy's father and mother already were in jail on drug trafficking charges. The pope had expressed his horror following the attack and promised to visit the town.

On Saturday, Francis embraced the father. He asked the pope to pray for the boy's mother, who was permitted to leave prison following her son's slaying and remains under house arrest. The pope also met two of the boy's grandmothers.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Francis told the father: "May children never again have to suffer in this way."

"The two grandmothers were weeping like fountains," Benedettini added.

Francis greeted about 200 other prisoners during his visit.

When Francis visited a hospice, a doctor there removed a bothersome wooden splinter from one of the pope's fingers at his request, organizers said.




“Calabria is the power base of the 'ndrangheta, a global drug trafficking syndicate that enriches itself by extorting businesses and infiltrating public works contracts in underdeveloped Calabria. During his homily at an outdoor Mass, Francis denounced the 'ndrangheta for what he called its 'adoration of evil and contempt for the common good.'" According to this article some priests have been known to collude with the Mafia. I hadn't heard that, but I do remember that Pope Pius XII was suspected of failing to strongly and vocally denounce the Nazis during World War II, and possibly approving of them. An article on the Net about him, however, said that he did protect “a small group of Jews.” Italy, after all, was allied with the Nazis and had their own Fascist party. It could be that he would have been assassinated by them if he had spoken strongly against them.

“Francis greeted about 200 other prisoners during his visit. When Francis visited a hospice, a doctor there removed a bothersome wooden splinter from one of the pope's fingers at his request, organizers said.” Visiting a prison and meeting the inmates is something that is new for a Pope, I think. As a conservative Protestant friend of mine said about Pope Francis, “I think he's trying to follow the teachings of Jesus.” Jesus was criticized by some Jewish sects of the time for having relationships with sinners. One thing is clear to me, this pope knows that he is human and fallible and is trying to move the Catholic Church away from a “power structure” to a religion. That's good.






​Rod Serling, "The Twilight Zone" and TV's 1st Golden Age
CBS NEWS June 22, 2014

Contributor Bill Flanagan of VH1 on the writer who helped countless TV writers to come:

We are often told we are living in the second Golden Age of Television. Series such as "Mad Men," "Boardwalk Empire" and "Homeland" maintain a level of quality that rivals the best contemporary film and theatre.

The first TV Golden Age was back in the '50s when -- from the dramatist Paddy Chayefsky to comedy writers Woody Allen and Neil Simon to newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan -- television was a writer's medium.

If there is a connective thread between that first Golden Age and today's, it must be the work of a man who passed away at age 50 on June 28, 1975.

Rod Serling was not an actor, a singer or a comedian, but his influence on the development of television is immeasurable.

Anyone who grew up in the Sixties has Rod Serling's voice imprinted on the brain.

"You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"

As producer, main writer and host of "The Twilight Zone," Serling bent the minds of baby boomers, with stories notable for twist endings that would have impressed O. Henry, and stern moral lessons.

Serling achieved success as a young man writing TV dramas such as "Requiem for a Heavyweight." By 1959 he was so weary of having to neuter his stories for sponsors and censors that he came up with "The Twilight Zone."

Under the cover of science fiction, Serling produced weekly parables about the evils of greed and militarism, hypocrisy and bigotry. He realized that you could talk about almost any subject, no matter how controversial, if you put it on another planet.

"The Twilight Zone" ran for five years, and Serling wrote an astonishing 92 episodes. When the series ended in 1964 he went on to movies (including "Seven Days in May" and the original "Planet of the Apes"), returning to TV in 1969 with "Night Gallery," another fantasy anthology which introduced a young director named Steven Spielberg.

"Night Gallery" was okay, but it was no "Twilight Zone." Sterling's austere morality tales belonged to a black-and-white world; they seemed a little garish in living color.

By the time Serling died in 1975 the era of the television auteur was already long gone.

But "Twilight Zone" planted a lot of seeds.

In David Chase's autobiographical film "Not Fade Away," the Hollywood dreams of a New Jersey teenager are inspired by his love of "The Twilight Zone." After a long career in the TV trenches, Chase created "The Sopranos," the series that began television's new Golden Age.

Chase used gangsters the same way Serling used science fiction, as a commercial device that allowed him to explore very personal and sometimes controversial ideas. "The Sopranos" became the model for writer-run series, from "The Wire" to "Girls."

The great "Breaking Bad" was the creation of Vince Gilligan, who had established himself as a writer of "The X Files." What was "The X Files" but "Twilight Zone" with continuing characters?

That plane on "Lost" surely made an unscheduled stopover at a remote island -- in "The Twilight Zone."

"Walking Dead"? "Under the Dome"? "The Leftovers"? Pan to Mr. Serling addressing the camera with a cigarette in hand.

George R.R. Martin, the author of "Game of Thrones," worked as a story editor on a 1986 revival of (you guessed it) "The Twilight Zone."

So tonight, when you sit down to watch the one of those high-end, critically-acclaimed cable series, take a moment to thank Rod Serling. More than 50 years ago, he created the template for smart, entertaining, writer-driven TV.

He recognized what television could be: "A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind."




“The first TV Golden Age was back in the '50s when -- from the dramatist Paddy Chayefsky to comedy writers Woody Allen and Neil Simon to newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan -- television was a writer's medium.” In this time period came the incisive and creative mind of Rod Serling. “By 1959 he was so weary of having to neuter his stories for sponsors and censors that he came up with 'The Twilight Zone.' Under the cover of science fiction, Serling produced weekly parables about the evils of greed and militarism, hypocrisy and bigotry. He realized that you could talk about almost any subject, no matter how controversial, if you put it on another planet.”

I never knew before now who wrote the original “Planet Of The Apes,” but I loved it. I watched one of the sequels but it didn't seem to have the same punch. Sequels aren't usually as good as originals, I don't think. I also watched Night Gallery, and this article gives Steven Spielberg as the director. Two greats! This article didn't mention Star Trek, though it too delivered some controversial and interesting themes and better than average science fiction stories.

Two of the most memorable Twilight Zone episodes, however, starred a young William Shatner – first, the one in which a highly introverted “bookworm” is deep on a lower floor of the New York library reading when the atomic bomb is dropped. He emerges from the library to find himself alone on the street. He has escaped with his life, however, and has a library full of books to read, joy of joys, but unfortunately his glasses were broken in the blast and he can't see to read them. The other one was of the man flying against his will – he was afraid of heights – and he showed his acting ability by convincingly having a psychological meltdown in which he thinks he sees a monster on the wing of the plane attacking the plane and trying to get in the window. The story ends when he is carted off the plane by attendants on a stretcher and the camera pans to show the plane's wing where a large chunk was removed from the structure by the ogre.

This article credits Serling with being the starting point for several modern high quality shows, such as “The Sopranos.” “More than 50 years ago, he created the template for smart, entertaining, writer-driven TV. He recognized what television could be: 'A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.'"

It's a pleasure to think back on Serling and his work. I do love good sci-fi, and good TV in general. I watch some of the old shows on MeTV, a local oldies channel. My favorites are Hawaii 5-O, Perry Mason, The Rockford Files, the original Star Trek, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train and The Rifleman. When I think of these modern “reality shows” in which there is no story, but some person who has become “famous” lives out her real life on TV inch by boring inch or there are some nitwit “twenty somethings” who have a contest to see who gets to “stay on the island” rather than being voted off. That one in particular has a combination of two of the things I hate most – non-inclusive interactions and mindless behavior. Well, that's enough of a rant for now. On to the next article.





Israel accuses Syria of killing one of its civilian teens – CBS
AP June 22, 2014

JERUSALEM - A civilian vehicle in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was targeted by forces in neighboring Syria on Sunday in an attack that killed a 15-year-old boy and prompted Israeli tanks to retaliate by firing on Syrian government targets, the Israeli military said.

It was the first death on the Israeli side of the Golan since the Syrian civil war erupted more than three years ago. Two other people were wounded in the attack.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said it was "the most substantial incident" along the frontier with Syria since the beginning of the civil war. While he said it was unclear whether the vehicle had been struck by a rocket, mortar shell or some other explosive device, he said the attack was clearly intentional.

"It was fired directly from east to west," he said, adding that it was a "direct hit" on the vehicle.

The vehicle was driving along a fence that Israel has built along the Syrian frontier, Lerner said. He described the vehicle as a water tanker, and said people on board were doing work for Israel's Defense Ministry at the time. "We have a hole in the fence, which indicates it could be a projectile," Lerner said.

He said Israeli tanks opened fire in response at Syrian government positions, but that it remained unclear whether the Syrian military or rebels had carried out the attack. Israel has said it holds Damascus responsible for any attacks emanating from its territory.

The incident occurred in the area of Tel Hazeka, near the Quneitra border crossing. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops had shelled nearby targets on the Syrian border earlier in the day.

Israel has not taken sides in the Syrian civil war. Although it has closely watched the fighting, it has largely stayed out of the violence, though it has occasionally responded to fire that has landed on the Israeli side of the Golan.

Israel says most of the fire has been unintentional but it has accused various elements in Syria of intentionally firing at Israeli targets on several occasions.




It is “unclear” whether the Damascus government or the rebels shot the Israeli vehicle, but “Israel has said it holds Damascus responsible for any attacks emanating from its territory. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops had shelled nearby targets on the Syrian border earlier in the day.” Israel has been watching the fighting in Syria, but remaining aloof except for “several occasions” when it has responded to shots that have landed on the Israeli side of the fence. I guess they want to make it clear what will happen if Syria does purposely attack Israel.






How America fell into a love affair with hot dogs
CBS NEWS June 21, 2014

With the first official day of summer kicking off Saturday, what is more summer than hot dogs?

They are served everywhere from ballparks across the U.S. to the White House.

In fact, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, about 7 billion hot dogs will be consumed in the U.S., and on the Fourth of July more than 150 million hot dogs will be consumed alone.

Food historian Bruce Kraig, author of "Man Bites Dog" and professor emeritus in history at Roosevelt University in Chicago, joined "CBS This Morning: Saturday" to discuss the hot dog's history and culture.

He calls hot dogs one of the most humble of all foods and a symbol of America.

"It goes back to American history. It's the history of immigration into America, brought by German immigrants and then taken up by Greeks, Jews and many others and turned into local culture, regional culture," Kraig said.

And it's deeply embedded in the idea of the American Dream and how "food is the way up."

"I mean, the immigrant experience, people came with no money at all. And you could buy, let's say we're talking about 1900, you could buy a sausage for a penny and the other accouterments for a penny and you sell it for a nickel," Kraig said. "And that's the way you move up in the world, and this was an American idea."

As for the many regional variations of hot dogs, Kraig said "hot dogs are a platform for culture."

"They become regional because immigrant groups like Greeks move to Detroit, and for added value they put something on the hot dog to compete with others, and this becomes a sauce which they called Coney Sauce from Coney Island," he said. "This is in 1919, 1920, and so everybody there likes that, and that becomes the style."

As for the origins of the hot dog name? It dates back to the mid-19th century.

Kraig said it came from the song "Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Done" - which is about a dog that was being put in a hot dog machine.

"People would say when a butcher moved into town, all the cats and dogs disappeared, so it's that jokey word," he said.




Bruce Kraig, author of "Man Bites Dog" says, “'It goes back to American history. It's the history of immigration into America, brought by German immigrants and then taken up by Greeks, Jews and many others and turned into local culture, regional culture,' Kraig said.” I eat hot dogs because they are inexpensive, even the all-beef variety, and they make a satisfying quick meal. I eat two at a time, each with a slice of my 12 Grain bread. They are salty and juicy, with enough fat to add that rich taste that I like.

The fact that I know they are made of scrappy ground meat, like all sausages, they don't turn me off. With some mild spicing and herbs in them they have a great taste. Some spicy mustard and sauerkraut on top and they're perfect. More hearty and filling are their cousins the “summer sausage,” bratwurst, braunschweiger, Salami, kielbasa and the one without a skin – “breakfast sausage,” and American product. I looked up “sausage” in Wikipedia and found a list with about fifty entries from a good two dozen countries.






A Former Drug Dealer Gives A Great Defense Of The Liberal Arts – NPR
by ANYA KAMENETZ
June 21, 2014

In preparation for my visit to the 11th annual commencement ceremony of the Bard Prison Initiative, I sat down for a conversation with Donnell Hughes, an alumnus of the program. BPI, as its called, gives inmates at six prisons around New York state the opportunity to study in person with professors not only from Bard College, but from MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Vassar and local community colleges.

It's one of only a few dozen programs around the country that actually awards college degrees to prisoners — a few thousand per year out of the 2.3 million people in prison.

I was expecting to hear a story of redemption from Hughes, and he has one. I wasn't expecting to hear a full-throated defense of the liberal arts.

Hughes grew up in the Bronx, N.Y. "Before I went to prison, my life was pretty much in turbulence," he said. "I was in the streets. I was a drug dealer. I was living a fast life." That fast life didn't last long.

"I did 20 years in prison and I went to prison when I was 17 years old," he told me simply. At the age when many young people are preparing for college, Hughes instead became one of the 1 in 15 black men who are incarcerated (the figure for whites is 1 in 106). He was sentenced for two crimes, first-degree manslaughter and sale of narcotics. And mandatory sentencing laws meant he would spend his entire youth atoning for his crimes, while others are busy getting an education, working, starting families and contributing to their communities.

For too many people, incarceration is a formative experience, not a reformative one. Within five years of their release, more than 3 out of 4 ex-inmates are arrested again.

For students in the Bard program, the figure is much lower. Out of the 300 students who have graduated, only 4 percent have returned to prison.

These results happen partly because the program is so selective. There is an entrance exam. And like the one for regular applicants to Bard College, it requires writing multiple essays. Last year, out of 550 who applied, fewer than 100 were accepted.

Some prisoners with long sentences reapply year after year. Most BPI students, like Hughes, had always showed intellectual gifts, even if their previous education was spotty. "These are really college students. These aren't folks who were just picked at random to come sit in a classroom," said professor Robert Fullilove, a dean in public health at Columbia University who also teaches at BPI.

The second reason that Bard Prison Initiative students succeed, said Hughes, is because of relationships. "It's a supportive community, not only the professors, but the staff and the other inmates involved in the program. It's an environment where everyone is willing to help everyone," he said.

That network helps BPI alumni continue their education at bachelor's and graduate programs, including at Columbia and City University of New York. And it helps them find jobs — at social-service agencies, nonprofits, publishing companies and retail stores — and it supports them in starting their own businesses. Hughes, who was released last fall, is currently studying for his bachelor's at Baruch College.

Generally, ex-inmates struggle in both education and employment. There are about 13 million ex-inmates in the U.S., or about 1 in every 8 men. Cumulatively, their incarceration has been estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $57 billion and $65 billion a year in lost economic prospects.

But the biggest secret to BPI's success, according to every participant I talked with, is the rigorous liberal arts curriculum, which ranges from mathematics to philosophy to social science.

"They offered us a big variety of courses, and it's kind of rare because a lot of colleges in prison don't offer that," Hughes said. He was a bit dubious about studying the liberal arts at first. He had heard that it wasn't as practical as a vocational or technical degree. Plus, it was really difficult. He said his first semester was "brutal" because of all the time it took getting his writing up to speed. He'd be in study hall with the other students each night until 9:30 or 10.

But Hughes grew to love his studies. And, he said, he grew through his studies.

"We covered everything from the Cold War to present-day European politics," he said. "I studied a little bit of history, a little bit of economics, psychology, environmentalism, African politics, Asian politics. I even had a class on 13th century Mongols, which was a very intensive class. It was just an array of different interesting topics."

This was a young man who hadn't seen much of the world beyond his own neighborhood. He said his studies offered him a new perspective on the wider world and on his own past, and enabled him to "visualize" his future.

"I'm in a position, because of Bard, to be able to really see the world in the way that I should have seen it years ago," he said. "It's a little bit easier for me to navigate through society because of how Bard prepared me. That's what a liberal arts education can really do for a person such as myself, or anybody who is trying to find their own way in life."

College-in-prison programs used to be paid for by the federal Pell Grant. In 1994, President Bill Clinton made prisoners ineligible for this money, and enrollment collapsed. In February this year, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly backed the idea of reinstating state aid for college in prison. He pointed specifically to the accomplishments of BPI graduates.

But he quickly dropped the plan after facing opposition in the state Legislature. Republican state Sen. Greg Ball launched a petition against Cuomo's plan, arguing that funding college for inmates was inappropriate at a time when families in the state were struggling to send their children to college.

On the other hand, some feel it's not just college in prison that's under siege, but the liberal arts in general. Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, has been a vocal champion of the liberal arts. At the Bard Prison Initiative graduation at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, he thanked BPI's participants for serving as an object lesson in the value of studying this way, and a reminder of "why we should fight for what we do."

"We live in a time where people don't really believe in education, and they don't believe in the liberal arts," he said. "They don't believe in studying something that isn't practical. Where in fact, everything you learn is unbelievably practical, because it allows you to negotiate life wherever you are."



Bard Prison Initiative
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) is a program of Bard College that provides college opportunity to people in prison. Currently operating in six prisons across New York State, BPI's academic programs engage students in the full breadth of liberal study and end in associate and bachelor's degrees from Bard. It currently enrolls 280 students full-time in liberal arts programs that end in associate and bachelor's degrees.[1] Since federal funding for prison education programs was eliminated in 1995,[2] the BPI is one of the only college degree granting programs available in U.S. Prisons.[1]

BPI is also the home of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, which recruits, assists, and collaborates with colleges and universities across the country as they enter this field of work and reestablish college opportunity for people in prison in their home states.




"'We live in a time where people don't really believe in education, and they don't believe in the liberal arts,' he said. 'They don't believe in studying something that isn't practical. Where in fact, everything you learn is unbelievably practical, because it allows you to negotiate life wherever you are,'" said Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College. I'm sorry to see that it was Pres. Clinton who eliminated the Pell Grants for prisoners. He, surely, should have known better. Now, of course, the Republicans are fighting the reestablishment of it. Like so many things, it costs money. That was probably why Clinton cut it out. I remember one year after Congress gave him the Line Item Veto he went through the budget and eliminated a large number of things, producing the one and only “balanced budget” that I can remember. He was cutting out “pork” with one stroke of his pen. Some pork is useful.

“Donnell Hughes grew up in the Bronx, N.Y. 'Before I went to prison, my life was pretty much in turbulence," he said. "I was in the streets. I was a drug dealer. I was living a fast life.' That fast life didn't last long. 'I did 20 years in prison and I went to prison when I was 17 years old,' he told me simply. At the age when many young people are preparing for college, Hughes instead became one of the 1 in 15 black men who are incarcerated (the figure for whites is 1 in 106).”

Learning art or poetry may seem effeminate to men, but it opens up the mind almost as much as a whiff of marijuana and in a similar way. Poetry, unlike prose, is not usually completely straightforward description – straight line thinking. It is a trip through the mind to try to grasp something that is not concrete and therefore not obvious. The reader has to let the mind wander a little to get to something that I tend to think of as spiritual. Learning to do that kind of thinking is enlightening and encourages things like empathy with others, an awareness of hidden meanings, symbolic connections and unexpected insights. It is transforming.

I think that people who are on a path of violence, deep dishonesty and hatred can be moved into a more humane region by learning good literature, history, philosophy, etc. Truly they can think more effectively and form a more moral part to their personality that will prevent them from joining a gang, hating some other group of people or making a living by theft or selling drugs.

Of course some people are warped mentally and emotionally and no amount of philosophy will put them on another path. They're called sociopaths or psychopaths. Many of them have been repeatedly beaten or sexually abused as children. The average young person is not a sociopath, but if they learn from gang members to do violence until they become hardened, they have to be convinced in some way to amend their ways. Many people get guidance from religion, but I believe education is also a route to a better life. Better still, use both. There are all kinds of religious groups, and they aren't all dogmatic, cults, or based on blind faith. Some of the Eastern religions are more about philosophy and meditation than miracles. Striving toward enlightenment is the trick. It leads to more gentle and open relationships and better goals in life. Such people are less likely to commit crimes and they make much better citizens and friends.