Wisconsinites Paying For It.

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Fact: Governor Walker has not visited a prison since he was elected in 2011. That is a jaw-dropping fact! Not even bothering to visit one of the many juvenile detention centers. As a past prior presidential candidate, this is deeply concerning especially when Wisconsin has a rather high number of incarcerated individuals and a disproportionate number of minority inmates, combined with large budget that surpasses other nearby states. Nationally, only eleven other states spend more per resident than Wisconsin on corrections. And with more mandatory minimum laws being passed, the prison population is guaranteed to grow rather than shrink.

With the DOC asking for more and more funding to be able to provide critical mental health services to inmates, Wisconsinites need to surpass their love of awareness campaigns and push for some real structure and oversight. Who audits the state or the governor’s office? Let’s push Walker to set foot in a prison or juvenile detention centers and possibly create a mindset that speaks to giving a damn about people that need services and reformed supports and not just becoming a number or a chance for private prisons to collect tax dollars.

“The DOC’s 2017-19 Biennial Budget Request mainly incorporates a cost-to-continue approach for current operations in our institutions and supervision of offenders in the community with some modest investments requested. When all funds are combined, this request increases spending 112.3 million or 4.6% over the current biennial base budget.” 

☆I attempted to find a total budget figure rather than a requested amount but was not successful.

Additional reading: Tax dollars are further wasted as the DOC leases”sprawling”pieces of property. http://watchdog.org/292556/treasurer-taxpayers-lease/

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Everyday Rituals & Realistic Goals

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Every day since February 1st, I’ve written my weight and my daily struggles down on a post-it note for keeping track of my 90 day fitness challenge. I keep them in a jar on top of my fridge next to another jar that keeps track of my overall goals for the year. 

With less than 30 days before my deadline, before my May 4th half birthday; it demonstrates my commitment to remain dedicated and disciplined in everything that I strive to accomplish. And that’s not to say that my goal hasn’t needed to change a bit to fit in with reality and my perfectionism. Originally I had planned to get back down to 125 which is clearly not going to be realistic. When I lost 20 pounds after graduate school, I did it slowly and primarily through diet. That means I was able to get down to 125 without much muscle. Granted today I can still comfortably wear my size 29 jeans, there’s no healthy option to get back to 125 again.

Changing topics a bit, I saw recently that Men’s Health Magazine is doing a vote contest for men to grace the cover of their November 2017 issue. For those of you that know me personally and have asked to read ‘Life is Poetry’ you may be able to recognize how perfect of an opportunity that seems to be. However, I’m going to be realistic and instead attack that angle in the way that coincides with my original plan to mark the conclusion of this 90 day fitness challenge. Let’s give them a challenge to feature something other than what their used to featuring.

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On the Edges

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I attended another writing session put on by The Mill in Appleton at the Library. This session was about fitting writing into your life. I was able to reconnect with a past coworker and develop new connections.

After the session I remembered that in my college notebooks is where I had written on the edges when inspiration struck. I began compiling phrases and excerpts from my various notebooks that I can seemingly string together for my next performance piece. One such excerpt, “they tried to put the God back in me because apparently this is not the body type that fits right.”

I was prompted to talk about finding my voice as a writer and I talked about using brutal honesty. If you have heard previous pieces such as Tough Guys Wear Pink, Gods & Monsters, or Life is Poetry hopefully it creates a reaction and you find something to connect to in the words and descriptions.

On Sunday morning, I woke up early and in a quick decision, drove to Suamico to photograph the sunrise as I knew it would rise from the East. I found a perfect spot in between lakefront homes. After the sun had risen, I then drove to Kaukauna to Thousand Islands Nature Center where I was gifted with the opportunity to shoot some geese very close up with my beer can lens. Below are photos from Sunday.

Solitary Confinement Reform and Awareness.

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Our more successful neighboring state of Minnesota (for prison reform) is in the news for seeking out reforms when it comes to solitary confinement. 

http://m.startribune.com/solitary-confinement-legislation-takes-steps-toward-essential-reform/417834623/

In our neck of the woods, we are still holding awareness campaigns for people already aware of the issues. Also, our largest supporter of reforms is religious based communities rather than political, social, or departmental (as in DOC). Appleton will be hosting an evening of awareness in the basement of the public library on April 5th put on by ESTHER an the League of Women Voters (Meeting Room A, 6:30pm). Additionally, there will be a solitary confinement exhibit in De Pere beginning April 30th at First United Presbyterian Church in partnership with JOSHUA. Details at this link:

https://m.evensi.us/the-truth-about-solitary-confinement-first-united/204579063

If you are not aware, please attend one of these events to see how we are treating people in prison and the conditions in solitary confinement for people who can be locked away in a small room for 23 or 24 hours a day for weeks, months, years, and decades. How we treat others and how we allow ourselves to turn our backs and remain unaware of the truth that people live on a daily basis in this modern America, shows how we as a country elected our current political majority.

If you are already aware, please come up with ways to make others aware of the issues rather than attending these events alone and creating false numbers of how many individuals this information reaches in the general population.

Living A Balance

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Aside from winding up forgetting to eat yesterday, I made the decision to skip the gym and support talented people. I went out to listen to a local Green Bay rock/blues band, ‘Sons of Kong.’ It was the first time being at the Gasoline Bar next to the Mason Street Bridge. An environment of beards and leather and here we are, a group of misfit social service workers. Sons of Kong’s talented drummer is a co-worker/supervisor. It is great to have a talented local band to follow as in the past my family followed Westside Andy and Mel Ford centralized in the Madison area.

You can listen to Sons of Kong from the link below. Also, they are releasing new music on electronic music platforms on April 7th.

https://sonsofkong.bandcamp.com

I stayed after the set to watch my coworkers play pool and attempt trick shots. Occasionally observing a woman who was cut off by the bartender.  After I returned home, I submitted a haiku to ‘The American’ magazine before their submission deadline. I had started a new poem on the Senses of Persistence yesterday morning that couldn’t get edited/refined in time for submission. A good friend of mine who we’ve developed a relationship around people and poetry, introduced me to the poetry contest. I’m currently still waiting to hear about another poetry opportunity that my friend directed me to as well.

Missed Connections

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I signed up for a writing session on writing more complex characters put on by the Mill for Writers. Meeting in the basement of the Appleton library, descending the stairs and catching a taxidermy bear in the corner of my eye caught me off guard. 

A room full of writers and potential writers that come from a variety of occupational backgrounds. I wound up sitting next to a guy one year younger who also works in social services. We seemed to have a lot in common but he appeared more stoic than me with an added displeasure of wanting to talk about himself. A missed connection not catching his last name and a potential friend while his quick exit from the room at the end added to the difficulty.

Provided a challenge to incorporate prompts into character development with a lie from ‘two truths and a lie’ as well as being given a character that has wings. I was challenged with how my character reacts to walking into a room that makes them uncomfortable. The lie was about hot air balloons which fit with wings. Below are my two examples.In the honesty of the situation, the guy to my left was the youngest person there at age 31, most attendees were in their 50’s and up. I thought about how many of them had some type of social media outlet for their work or have any clue about marketing themselves or their work. And maybe that’s a class worth having. I enjoyed the session and wlaked away with some really great ways to build more complex characters through the use of psychology (I majored in psychology). I signed up for the next writing session because it puts my writing in the forefront of my priorities outside of work. I have a 50K word rough draft that I’ve sat on for a few years that is too much ‘tell’ and not enough ‘show’ and it’s been a struggle to develop.the personality of one of my prime characters that is so wrapped up in the entirety of the story. In all reality he is just a name and a photo in my head.

Exercise excerpts:

“Nathan didn’t think much of the small town living he’d seemingly to him, ‘endured.’ As an outcast on the world due to being born with wings, he had settled with himself to remain a private person. Although, secretly he yearned for some other worldly existence in this modern mass of the ordinary. Remaining secretive of his winged evolutionary lottery win, he turned to hot air balloons to seek his high flying adventures.”

“Nathan walked into the hot air balloon facility on a cloudy and windy Saturday, knowing that the tourists would be scarce due to the high winds and cloud cover. Opening the door, he was met with a burst of movement, raucous noise, and bodies everywhere. The change in expectation and scenery left him defeated. He creeper along the edge of the room like a rodent, trying to avoid as much contact as possible making his way to the balloon storage area. He reach the room where his balloon was stored, looking through the room window and hungry for a piece of quiet solitude.”

For-Profit Prisons and The Reversal In Phasing Them Out.

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The United States imprisons more people per capita than any other country. With more mandatory minimum sentencing laws and more economic and social policy changes in favor of a higher wage population, privatization of public resources has become any easy moneymaker. This also includes charter schools and for-profit higher education institutes.

The idea that a company can relieve the government of the responsibility of managing the incarceration of people by also getting paid by the government shows how much disregard there is for the rehabilitative purposes of incarceration.

Recently, the Department of Corrections was on a path to phase out for-profit prisons realizing full well that making money off the incarceration of people has no ethical basis. With Trump’s new attorney general Jeff Sessions in his new capacity of power, he reversed the DOC’s phasing out process. I wonder why? Below is a great article about the reversal of phasing out private prisons. When you think about the over 22,000 prisoners Wisconsin houses and consider that Illinois has statutes that have banned private prisons. Last week’s post was about Cook County Jail. In a state that holds the motto of ‘Forward’, it does not look like our previously purple state minds to disregard a lot of these issues.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1622NN

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Let me shoot your dog!

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I need to shoot your dog. No, I mean with my camera of course! As far as the photography side of my life, I’ve not pushed myself too hard into getting the photos I’ve wanted to capture. I spent a lot of time working on my skills through self-portraits, flowers, landscapes, and animals. I’d like to push myself further and create really great photos. I’ve entered the Wisconsin State Fair Photography Contest the last two years and have received ribbons. The really sad thing is that I have been in my apartment for almost one year and have only hung one photo up on the wall. I hung my favorite photo of my old dog Earl in the bathroom, along with my state fair ribbons and my sidewalk poem.

With my writing taking center stage through my job and having the most success and adorations, photography has fallen to the wayside even in the face of having purchased an updated DSLR a few months ago. I’m making an effort to get back to it especially now that winter is over and the outdoors seem so much more beautiful without all of that exposure-altering white snow to make photos grey.

Here is a link to my ideas for a Weimeraner photoshoot (http://pin.it/4ukatgy). I haven’t pushed enough to get the opportunity to photograph the people, places, and things that I want to shoot. Additionally, I want to put together a faux Wedding shoot as well as photograph a fit guy in a blue suit with light tan accents. You can find those boards on Pinterest as well.
I have a lot of photography equipment and a backdrop system with professional muslin backdrops. Below is a sampling of photos I’ve taken of the dogs of friends and family. The fourth one down (B&W), is in my bathroom. I love dogs.

Orange Hunter Blaze will never be en Vogue.

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While the show has been widely popular as a binge worthy Netflix series, ‘Orange is the New Black’ does not particularly provide me with the entertaining escape from reality that I’m sure it does for many others. Having heard the stories of people who have been incarcerated and their struggle to meet basic needs after release, I think the show attempts in some small way to use entertainment as education or awareness of a larger societal issue.

One issue that the show has only vaguely touched on is prisons being the new mental health institutions, a.k.a. trans-institutionalization. We’ve seen it with Suzanne, Tiffany, Nicky, Lolly, and to some extent Sophia with hormones. We’ve seen Healy dose out medications like candy to Brooke as well.

This speaks to a larger issue of prisons as mental health facilities providing an exorbitant number of people a massive number of pharmaceutical medications with no real additional supports like therapy. 

Kennedy passed legislation for deinstitutionalization and community integration for people with disabilities that were long housed in human zoos. While Reagan, in his fiscal reforms of government spending and oversight made sure that states received block grants to oversee their own mental health services while no one followed up as that effort largely failed to meet the needs of people with disabilities and their families. Thereby leaving families to provide necessary support and for the correctional system to become what it is now.
Below is a link to an excellent article in The Atlantic about Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Hopefully if you are not aware of the larger issues at play you will understand much better and begin to see how we are in the process of repeating history in the mental and medical health of vulnerable populations in America.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/americas-largest-mental-hospital-is-a-jail/395012/

Next week the focus will be on private prisons.

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