Pick a number

As if peace in Syria and a nuke-free Iran are not enough on your plate there is the problem of not remembering what you’ve read.

Have you gone to the library and found a book by one of your favorite authors only to realize after you take it home and read twenty pages that you have read this book before? Well, my wife recently gave me a solution for that. It is so simple in its conception and execution that I may nominate her to be on the team struggling with the Syria and Iran issues. She has selected a page in every book she reads and when she finishes she circles the page number and returns the book. The page is always the same. When browsing the library weeks or months later she finds a book she will enjoy she checks the page number and if it circled she knows she has read it and moves on. I am now doing this and have chosen a page number which means something special in my life so it is easy to remember. If you pick up a book in the library and find two page numbers circled, it is a pretty good conclusion that Joyce and Archie have read the book.

Complete blog here.

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Prison inmates and e-mail

I was sitting around a doctor's waiting room recently reading the weekly New York Times Magazine, (which I brought with me. Doctor's offices typically having copies of Reader's Digest dating back to the Reagan years.)
 One of the more interesting stories, "A Lust for Zeros," centered on a couple of men who have broken the law, one (Raj Rajarainam),is doing an 11-year stretch in in federal prison for multiple securities fraud offenses, and one, (Rajat Gupta) has been convicted of and is out on bond while his appeal is being heard. He is is likely to be in a federal prison for two years if the Securities and Exchange Commission has its way.

 What jumped off the page was the information that the writer, Anita Raghavan, had an e-mail from Jeffrey Skilling, former head of Enron, who is doing a 24-year stretch in a federal prison at Littleton, Colorado, for his well-known felonious conduct. The e-mail was a comment on the career of Mr. Gupta.
 As a former executive in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, I was surprised that an inmate had access to e-mail. I went to the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site and learned about this practice and how it is carried on. The policy is outlined here.
 Essentially, the system is a controlled one and like ordinary mail the sender and recipient of e-mails has to be on an approved (by prison officials) list. Anyone else, such as a reporter, must jump through some hoops to contact a prisoner before there can be an exchange of e-mails.This program is one of the ways the Bureau of Prisons hopes to prepare inmates for an eventual return to the free world.
(Complete blog here.)

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Fighting over Nelson Mandela

The vultures are out in South Africa. Members of the ruling party, African National Congress, and the opposition, Democratic Alliance, are staging photo ops to bask in the image of the ailing, fading 94-year old Nelson Mandela, life-long activist for equal treatment of all South Africans, 27-year prisoner for his opposition to apartheid, and first black president of South Africa. Amidst all this members of his family squabble publicly over the executor of the trust set up to handle his estate when he dies. This is shameful in the extreme. To be used as a political prop and have your family fighting over your estate is a sad way to end a life of struggle and victory.

This downloaded picture of Mr. Mandela is from a happier time when he was enjoying his later life in his beloved South Africa. 

  I took this picture in 2003 of Mr. Mandela's former cell in the Robbin Island prison where he was held for almost three decades.

 

(Complete blog here.)

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FBI will lie to you and then arrest you

If you are engaged in any illegal, criminal action or activity likely to attract the serious attention of the FBI, let me give you a tip: Don't come downstairs or leave your residence just because a caller says someone broke into your storage locker or your parked car has been hit in an accident. It is probably the FBI lying to you and waiting to arrest you.
On Wednesday, June 22, the FBI ran such a scam on James "Whitey" Bulger, who the Bureau had been looking for for the last fifteen years. Bulger was called on the phone and told his storage locker had been broken into. Would he come and see what was missing? Who wouldn't? When he got outside in the open he was arrested. Bulger will be tried at a later day on a variety of charges.
This old, time-worn Bureau trick was used years ago to lure the retired Navy communications Warrant Officer turned Soviet spy John Walker out of his room in a Montgomery County, Maryland, motel known to be used by prostitutes. A call was placed to Walker's room in the early morning hours and he was told his car had been hit in an accident and would he come down and check it out. Walker shuffled outside and was nabbed by the FBI. He is in the federal prison in Terra Haute, Indian, working on his life sentence.

Two views on the Navy brig in Hanahan

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Letters to the Editor, The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC

Brig leadership

Post and Courier reporter Tony Bartelme has done a valuable service to the newspaper's readers with his story on the Hanahan brig. The professionalism of the brig's leaders and staff comes across loud and clear. I believe this story ought to dissolve a lot of apprehension about housing "war on terror" prisoners in the Hanahan brig.

When the brig opened, I was the public affairs director at the S.C. Department of Corrections. The brig leadership and staff at that time came to Columbia to learn some of the ways a modern, well-run prison system operated.

I remember SCDC personnel stressing with brig personnel that "prisoners are sent to prison as punishment for their crimes, not for punishment." Again the attitude of the brig's current leadership, as reported by Mr. Bartleme, makes it clear they still understand this, even if other officials in the Department of Defense do not.

FRANCIS X. ARCHIBALD
Franke Drive
Mount Pleasant

No to terrorists

I am grateful to The Post and Courier for letting me know that terror suspect Al-Marri was relaxed and smiled during his recent court appearance. I think our nation needs to remember 9/11 every day and watch the videos of the sacrifices that were made on that day and the days after.

It has reached the point that terror suspects have more rights than anyone else. Now President Barack Obama wants to remove them from Guantanamo and put them somewhere else. Our state could possibly be the one picked to receive them.

I say if President Obama wants to put them on American soil, let it be in his home state. We do not want them in South Carolina.

PEGGY NICHOLS
Quail Hollow Court
North Charleston