California Prison Hunger Strike Ends Peacefully

(Note: This is my fifth and final essay in support of the California prisoners on hunger strike. The first is here. The second is here. OPOL’s wonderful treatment of the situation is here. The third is here. Yesterday’s is here.


SF Gate reports that after three full weeks the California Prisoners’ Hunger Strike has come peacefully to an end. Prisoners across California are now eating:

Inmates have ended a three-week hunger strike in the high-security Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County to protest conditions in isolation units at the facility and what they said were oppressive gang-security measures by prison officials, California prison officials say.

Advocates for the prisoners said they got confirmation late Thursday from the inmates themselves. Meanwhile, some inmates in three other state prisons who were refusing to eat in solidarity with those in Pelican Bay were continuing their strike until they could also receive confirmation, state officials said.

"Most inmates at Pelican Bay started eating again last night, and as of 1 p.m. today they were all eating," Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said Thursday.

"Our staff is now consulting with the prisoners in the other institutions who are still refusing to eat prison-issued food, and we are hoping they start eating again soon," she said.

The hunger strike began at Pelican Bay near the Oregon on July 1 and spread to 6,600 inmates in 13 of California's prisons, according to the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition in Oakland. On the twentieth day, the number of strikers had fallen to between 160 and 400.
As a sign of its willingness to look further into the prisoners’ five core demands, and in recognition of the time it will take to enact structural changes, the Department of Corrections is initially easing restrictions in isolation units so inmates can make phone calls and get calendars and cold-weather caps, as well as expanded educational opportunities. Other reforms—the main demands of the prisoners-- are also being considered.

Inmate leaders said they do not consider their eating the end of anything. They consider it a beginning. Today would have been Day 22 of the prison hunger strike. This may have been the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971. And, fortunately, unlike Attica, this phase has not ended in violence.

The main issues, of course, remain. Long term, 23-hour per day solitary confinement continues. But the prisoners managed to bring together Black and Latino prisoners who are normally set against each other. And they managed, despite restrictions on their communicating with each other and with those outside the walls, to assert their humanity and challenge others to reclaim their humanity by standing with them in solidarity.

Thank you for supporting this struggle so far. The march toward humane treatment of prisoners continues in California and across America.

Day 21: Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike!

(Note: This is my fourth essay in support of the California prisoners on hunger strike. The first is here. The second is here. OPOL’s wonderful treatment of the situation is here. Yesterday’s is here The take away: California prisoners on hunger strike for 3 full weeks have requested your support in their struggle to end long term, 23 hour a day solitary confinement in California’s Special Housing Units. I urge you to support their struggle to be free from torture.)

Today is day 21 of the prison hunger strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

Yesterday, I had a conversation in which I was asked (I’m paraphrasing) what the big deal was. Why do I care what is happening to prisoners California claims are the worst of the worst, murderers, rapists, gang members? Why do I care if they are in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for years at a time? And why do I insist on writing these diaries over and over again, asking for readers to support the Hunger Strikers? It was a fair question. And my answer to it is that nobody would ask what’s the matter if they really understood solitary confinement. If they really understood solitary confinement they would see that it’s torture, and that civilized people do not treat other people as vermin.

There are two ways I can explain solitary confinement. The first is this powerful video from the American Friends Service Committee:



The second is the words and links and photos in an essay I wrote in January 12, 2010, Torture In Your Own Backyard. I admit I was tempted to paste the entire essay here. I won’t. That will make today’s essay entirely too long and unmanageable. Please follow the link.

All of which brings me back to the Hunger Strike. Please forgive me for repeating myself.

There is a story that when Oscar Wilde was first transported to prison, he looked out the train window and said, “Well, if that’s how the queen treats her prisoners, she doesn’t deserve to have any.” How true of California. A rightwing Supreme Court recently ruled that conditions in California’s prisons denied the prisoners freedom from cruel and inhuman punishment. Conditions were that horrible. But the Court did not focus on California’s widespread use of long term solitary confinement. Or its insane policy of holding alleged gang members in solitary confinement for six years or longer if they did not snitch and/or renounce gang membership. And it did not consider the damage to prisoners’ bodies, minds and souls from unremitting isolation from other people. No. The prisoners themselves had to bring that to our attention. And they did so in the only way they possibly could: by starving themselves. This reminds of Bobby Sands. The prisoners had no other choice. And they knew when they began that they had little chance of forcing changes in the barbaric conditions of their confinement unless you, that’s right, you get involved and stand with them and support their struggle to be free from barbaric treatment.

In recognition of this, prisoners at Corcoran have specifically requested your assistance:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support”

This is not about whether prisoners should be released. It is not about whether prisoners should remain in confinement. It is not about frivolous demands for country club treatment. This is not a general debate about correctional policy. This is about stopping the torture of brutal, long term, unremitting solitary confinement. We could understand that when we opposed it in Gitmo. We could understand that when we opposed it in “Black Sites” and Bagram. We could understand it when we opposed it for Bradley Manning. The task now is to recognize that these prisoners, too, deserve to be free from the torture of long term solitary confinement. And to take whatever steps we can to oppose it in California, just as we would anywhere else in the world.

To recap:
The core demands of the prisoners are here with a petition in support of the strikers. I urge you to read the demands, all of which are designed solely to protect prisoners’ from being harmed by abusive solitary confinement, and to sign the petition.

Please call and/or write the Governor and the Commissioner to support the striking prisoners:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, Telephone: (916) 323-6001

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814, Telephone: (916) 445-2841

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Put their struggle on your blog. Put their struggle on facebook. Tweet it. Tell others about the strike. You, if you are reading this, understand the magic of the Internet and its ability to spread important information far and wide. The striking prisoners need you to do that for them. They need you to open your eyes and hearts and mouths and stand against domestic torture. They need your compassion. But they most need your voices.

Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Day 20: Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike

(Note: This is my third essay in support of the California prisoners on hunger strike. The first is here. The second is here. OPOL’s wonderful treatment of the situation is here. The take away: California prisoners on hunger strike for almost 3 weeks have requested your support in their struggle to end long term, 23 hour a day solitary confinement in California’s Special Housing Units. I urge you to support their struggle to be free from torture.)

Today is day 20 of the prison hunger strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

This morning’s LA Times Editorial calls for an end to the embargo the State has imposed on news of the strike:

Conditions in California prisons are so bad that a panel of federal judges ruled that they violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but until recently the ensuing protests came mainly from lawyers rather than the inmates themselves. That changed on July 1, when thousands of inmates at one-third of the state's prisons started a hunger strike.


A core group of at least 400 inmates in four prisons continues to refuse food, protesting the way the state treats prisoners deemed to be gang members. The strike began in the Special Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, where 1,100 inmates are isolated in soundproof cells for 22 1/2 hours a day. Their sole reprieve: one hour a day outside in a small area with high concrete walls.

Prison officials say this treatment is necessary to discourage membership in prison gangs, to obtain information on gang activity and to prevent "shot-calling" — the passing of orders from gang leaders to members in other prisons or out on the streets. Moreover, they say the hunger strike is being organized by gang leaders, and some strikers who would rather not participate are being coerced. Prisoner advocates, meanwhile, say such prolonged isolation leads to mental illness and is tantamount to torture.

So who's right? We might have a better handle on that if prison officials weren't refusing requests by The Times to interview striking inmates. Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told Times staff writer Jack Dolan that media weren't being allowed into Pelican Bay "due to security and safety issues." We'd be more inclined to believe that, and not that prison officials were trying to avoid adverse publicity, if California's prisons didn't have such an extraordinary history of shoddy medical care and inhumane conditions. As it is, we think the public has a right to firsthand accounts of what goes on behind the barbed wire.

That’s where you come in. The walls are keeping the prisoners in, yes, but they are also keeping you, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your heart and most important, your conscience out. This puts the prisoners at even greater risk because it fosters prison officials’ ability to act with impunity to break the strike however they choose, to force feed prisoners in secret and to impose even more excessive, even more punitive conditions to break the strike.
Permitting prison officials to control all of the information about the strike encourages further abuse by a prison system that the Supreme Court has already held imposes cruel and unusual punishment on its prisoners.

There is a story that when Oscar Wilde was first transported to prison, he looked out the train window and said, “Well, if that’s how the queen treats her prisoners, she doesn’t deserve to have any.” How true of California. A rightwing, conservative, ideologically driven Supreme Court ruled that conditions in California’s prisons denied the prisoners freedom from cruel and inhuman punishment. Conditions were that horrible. But the Court did not focus on California’s widespread use of long term solitary confinement. Or its insane policy of holding alleged gang members in solitary confinement for six years or longer if they did not snitch and/or renounce gang membership. And it did not consider the damage to prisoners’ bodies, minds and souls from unremitting isolation from other people. No. The prisoners themselves had to bring that to our attention. And they did so in the only way they possibly could: by starving themselves. This reminds of Bobby Sands. The prisoners had no other choice. And they knew when they began that they had little chance of forcing changes in the barbaric conditions of their confinement unless you, that’s right, you get involved and stand with them and support their struggle to be free from barbaric treatment.
In recognition of this, prisoners at Corcoran have specifically requested your assistance:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support”

This is not about whether prisoners should be released. It is not about whether prisoners should remain in confinement. It is not about frivolous demands for country club treatment. this is not a general debate about correctional policy. This is about the torture of brutal, long term, unremitting solitary confinement. We could understand that when we opposed it in Gitmo. We could understand that when we opposed it in “Black Sites” and Bagram. We could understand it when we opposed it for Bradley Manning. The task now is to recognize that these prisoners, too, deserve to be free from the torture of long term solitary confinement. And to take whatever steps we can to oppose it in California, just as we would anywhere else in the world.

To recap:
The core demands of the prisoners are here with a petition in support of the strikers. I urge you to read the demands, all of which are designed solely to protect prisoners’ from being harmed by abusive solitary confinement, and to sign the petition.

Please call and/or write the Governor and the Commissioner to support the striking prisoners:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, Telephone: (916) 323-6001

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814, Telephone: (916) 445-2841

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Put their struggle on your blog. Put their struggle on facebook. Tweet it. Tell others about the strike. You, if you are reading this, understand the magic of the Internet and its ability to spread important information far and wide. The striking prisoners need you to do that for them. They need you to open your eyes and hearts and mouths and stand against domestic torture. They need your compassion.

Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Day 19: Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike!!

(Note: This is my second essay in support of the fasting prisoners. The first is here. The take away: prisoners have requested your support in their struggle to end long term, 23 hour a day solitary confinement in California’s Special Housing Units. I urge you to support them.)

Today is day 19 of the prison hunger strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

The LA Times reports:

More than 400 inmates at four California prisons are in the third week of a hunger strike to protest long, punitive stays in isolation cells.

Prison officials, who refuse to allow reporters into the institutions to interview the strikers, said 49 inmates who have lost at least 10 pounds each are "being monitored closely," including seven at Pelican Bay, the maximum-security prison near the Oregon border where the hunger strike began. …

Inmate advocates say thousands of inmates have joined the strike, which began July 1. Many are beginning to show dramatic weight loss and collapse with the early signs of starvation, they say.

Dozens have been sent to prison infirmaries because of irregular heartbeats and fainting, according to a statement issued Monday by a group calling itself California Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, which represents attorneys and family members of inmates. "Most have lost 20-35 pounds," the statement said.

And, of course, whatever is going on inside the prisons in response to the hunger strike will be shielded from direct, outside observation by disinterested parties. The LA Times reports:

Despite repeated assurances that the situation is under control, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation refused The Times' request to visit and interview striking inmates.

"At this time, we are not allowing media into the prison due to security and safety issues," prison spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said in an email. "This hunger strike signifies a disruption in normal operation of Pelican Bay and our operations staff are focused completely on resolving this issue."

That’s where you come in. The walls are keeping the prisoners in, yes, but they are also keeping you, your eyes, your ears, your nose, and most important, your conscience out. This puts the prisoners at even greater risk because it fosters prison officials’ ability to act with impunity to break the strike and to force feed prisoners and to impose even more punitivie conditions. And it permits prison officials to control information about the strike by preventing prisoners from being heard.

The strike has brought together Black and Latino prisoners who are normally set against each other. They are asserting their humanity and challenging others to reclaim their humanity by standing with them in solidarity.
Some of these prisoners are willing to die unless their demands to end inhuman treatment are met.

Inmates at Corcoran State Prison have issued a statement asking for your help:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support.”

 Statement from inmates at Corcoran State Prison


The core demands of the prisoners are in my prior essay and can also be found here with a petition of support.

The prisoners are counting on people of conscience to act now and to show support for the Hunger Strikers.

You can do this by signing the petition.

You can do that by calling the Governor and the Secretary of theDepartment of Corrections (telephone numbers below).

You can do this by writing your own statement of support for the hunger strikers and sending it to the media or posting it on the blogs or the editorial pages. If you do that, please call send a hard copy to:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 323-6001

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916) 445-2841

As important, call for the prison officials to permit the media to enter the prison and to report on the strike. If prison officials can keep the citizenry from knowing that is going on, they are free to act with impunity to end the strike however they choose.

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike

As you read this, thousands of California prisoners are on a hunger strike. Today is the 18th day of the Strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

By the prison authorities’ own figures, the hunger strike, which began on July 1, has involved 6,600 prisoners at 13 prisons. As of today, many prisoners are continuing the hunger strike at Pelican Bay and other prisons. The hunger strike comes in response to conditions in the Security Housing Units (SHU) of extreme isolation, brutality and deprivation.

The strike has brought together Black and Latino prisoners who are normally set against each other. They are asserting their humanity and challenging others to reclaim their humanity by standing with them in solidarity.

Some of these prisoners are willing to die unless their demands to end inhuman treatment are met.

The prison authorities are meeting with the prisoners, but so far there has been no agreement about anything. The strike continues.

According to Dr. Robert Rosenbloom, an emergency physician,

“It’s typically believed that after two or three weeks without any sugar source, any food source, you start entering a dangerous zone, that you’re actually doing enough damage to the body, that the body may not recover.

You’ll become, weak, disoriented, have trouble moving and breathing. You’ll risk damage to your liver or heart.

"When you digest, for example, heart muscle, obviously your heart is an incredibly vital organ…and so when you start damaging the heart and the muscle wall gets thin, then you can have some pretty serious consequences."

That’s the outcome the hunger strikers are facing, but they insist they won’t eat until they win changes in prison policies that govern Security Housing Units (SHU). Inmates in SHUs spend 23 hours a day locked up, with an hour outside alone for exercise. It is an extremely bleak, isolated, and mind destroying confinement that may continue for decades and irretrievably harms those so confined.

Many of the 3,900 inmates in SHUs are killers or rapists, but most of them – 2400 or so – got “indeterminate” SHU detention for ties to gangs. The hunger strikers say any link to a gang, such as a tattoo or a card sent to the wrong person, could land an inmate in a SHU and keep him there for decades. Many of these people are hardened criminals. But their treatment by California’s prisons, particularly in SHU, amounts to nothing less than torture: 23 hour a day solitary confinement, no contact with other prisoners or staff, no access to sunlight. An unremitting regimen designed to destroy the body, mind and soul of the person confined.

Many of the Strikers at Pelican Bay are already progressing toward organ damage.

The Five Core Demands of the strike are:

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse – This is in response to PBSP’s application of “group punishment” as a means to address individual inmates rule violations. This includes the administration’s abusive, pretextual use of “safety and concern” to justify what are unnecessary punitive acts. This policy has been applied in the context of justifying indefinite SHU status, and progressively restricting our programming and privileges.

2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria -
▪ Perceived gang membership is one of the leading reasons for placement in solitary confinement.
▪ The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly regarding gang status, is often demanded in return for better food or release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”
▪ The validation procedure used by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employs such criteria as tattoos, readings materials, and associations with other prisoners (which can amount to as little as greeting) to identify gang members.
▪ Many prisoners report that they are validated as gang members with evidence that is clearly false or using procedures that do not follow the Castillo v. Alameida settlement which restricted the use of photographs to prove association.

3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement – CDCR shall implement the findings and recommendations of the US commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons final 2006 report regarding CDCR SHU facilities as follows:
▪ End Conditions of Isolation (p. 14) Ensure that prisoners in SHU and Ad-Seg (Administrative Segregation) have regular meaningful contact and freedom from extreme physical deprivations that are known to cause lasting harm. (pp. 52-57)
▪ Make Segregation a Last Resort (p. 14). Create a more productive form of confinement in the areas of allowing inmates in SHU and Ad-Seg [Administrative Segregation] the opportunity to engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious, and other productive activities relating to having a sense of being a part of the community.
▪ End Long-Term Solitary Confinement. Release inmates to general prison population who have been warehoused indefinitely in SHU for the last 10 to 40 years (and counting).
▪ Provide SHU Inmates Immediate Meaningful Access to: i) adequate natural sunlight ii) quality health care and treatment, including the mandate of transferring all PBSP- SHU inmates with chronic health care problems to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.

4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food – cease the practice of denying adequate food, and provide a wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals, and allow inmates to purchase additional vitamin supplements.
▪ PBSP staff must cease their use of food as a tool to punish SHU inmates.
▪ Provide a sergeant/lieutenant to independently observe the serving of each meal, and ensure each tray has the complete issue of food on it.
▪ Feed the inmates whose job it is to serve SHU meals with meals that are separate from the pans of food sent from kitchen for SHU meals.

5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
Examples include:
▪ Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
▪ Allow one photo per year.
▪ Allow a weekly phone call.
▪ Allow Two (2) annual packages per year. A 30 lb. package based on “item” weight and not packaging and box weight.
▪ Expand canteen and package items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging [the cost for cosmetics, stationary, envelopes, should not count towards the max draw limit]
▪ More TV channels.
▪ Allow TV/Radio combinations, or TV and small battery operated radio
▪ Allow Hobby Craft Items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
▪ Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
▪ Allow wall calendars.
▪ Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
▪ Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.

Not one of these demands is frivolous. All of them are consistent with avoiding the deterioration, mental, physical, and spiritual, that results from long term, indefinite solitary confinement in the bleak conditions in SHU in California.

Inmates at Corcoran State Prison have issued a statement asking for your help:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support.”

-- Statement from inmates at Corcoran State Prison

The prisoners are counting on people of conscience to act now and to show support for the Hunger Strikers.

You can do this by writing your own statement of support for the hunger strikers and sending it to the media or posting it on the blogs or the editorial pages. If you do that, please send a hard copy to:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Don't Divorce My Friends!

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

The Night Of The Ice (With Update And Gratitude)

Chatham, New York, SE of Albany

If I had one of those Weather Channel jackets, right now I could stand in the yard and narrate this essay. Then you'd be able to see me looking into the camera, the rain falling falling falling sideways from the sky, hitting the earth and everything else, and freezing. Immediately. Everything glistens in its coat of ice. Trees. Houses. Grass. The dog has ice chunks on her tail. Wind and rain blow into the microphone making a whooshing sound. It's a special genre: Heavy Weather. Upstate, Eastern New York.

This morning was ridiculous, and the brunt of the storm hadn't even arrived. The car doors were iced shut. When I finally got them open, I had to scrape thick ice off the windows. That took a long time. Then the driving. I had to stop because the windshield was again freezing up. Why, I want to know, does the air conditioner go on in this car when you press defrost? It's a mystery. Why is the car fishtailing down the road, skidding happily along?

And, as if that weren't more than enough, tonight between 7 pm ET and 7 am ET, is supposed to be the heaviest accumulation of ice. The radio says that, ut oh, trees might fall down on power lines, so you, dear listeners, can freeze and sit in the dark. The radio says that you should stay off of the roads no matter what, as if we were some kind of idiots who want to drive around on roads that deserve to have their own Zambonis.

Strangely, this is not a drag. Not at all. It's just like this, Dar Williams's Southern California Wants To Be Western New York:

There's a part of the country could drop off
tomorrow in an earthquake,
Yeah it's out there on
the cutting edge, the people move, the sidewalks
shake.
And there's another part of the country
with a land that gently creaks and thuds, Where
the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms
with free-standing tubs.
They're in houses that
are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think
about
All the generations past who used to use
that dripping sink.

And sometimes one place wants to slip into the
other just to see
What it's like to trade its
demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey,
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress
the Sunday pork,
Sometimes southern California
wants to be western New York.

It wants to have a family business in sheet metal
or power tools,
It wants to have a diner where the
coffee tastes like diesel fuel,
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the
skids,
And it wants to have a snow day that will
turn its parents into kids,
And it's embarrassed,
but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy
brown hair who is
Taking out the compost, making
coffee in long underwear.

Sometimes southern California wants to be
western New York.

And they'll have puttering on rainy weekends,
autumn days that make you feel sad,
They'll have hundred year old plumbing and the family you never
had,
And a Hudson River clean-up concert and a
bundle-bearing stork,
And I hear they've got a
menu planned, it's true
It's western New York.

Except it's Eastern New York.

Update: (6:17 pm ET, 12/12). The power went off at about midnight. The ice apparently pulled down branches which in turn pulled down electric wires. Lots of them. I awoke at 6 am in the dark to see that there was no power. And silence in the house. I could hear the wall clock in the bathroom ticking. Otherwise, no furnace sound. No humming from anything. Cold and silent. Outside beautiful and chaotic. A glistening coating of corruscating ice on everything, but ice is heavy, so trees bend, evergreens pull in their elbows, many limbs snap off, you can hear the snapping, lots of trees fall and block roadway, many wires break and fall onto roadways. Out here no electricity means no heat, no pump for water, no lights, no Internet. And most important when there are huge rains, as we had last night, no electricity means no sump pump to drain the basement.

9 am. I walked down the road-- the road itself was fairly clear-- to the Spencertown Volunteer Fire Department. Lots of cars, only one truck still there, many people. Do I want a cup of coffee? No, I just want to get my basement pumped. Talk to him, pointing. A couple hours later, Steve showed up with a pump and sussed it all out. He said it was thousands of gallons of water. Just in time, the water was about 6" deep and slowly climbing toward the vitals of the aging boiler. Said Steve the Fireman, the infrastructure for electricity around here was last updated in 1974, and it needs to be completely overhauled. That's one of the reasons why I have half a foot of water in my basement, fear and dread that my boiler will die, fear and dread of the insurance claim.

9:30 am. I got a call on the only landline phone in the house that's working (cell phones don't work out here) that the County has declared a county wide state of emergency. That means everything is closed, stay off the roads, and there are shelters if you want/need one. I called the NYSEG hotline number. The animated voice told me that power would be restored by 10 pm on Sunday night. Not good. This, I thought, is going to be extra uncomfortable for a very, very long time. I looked out the window. It was snowing. It was really pretty.

The rest of the day. I spent the day near the fireplace. I hauled and split wood. My dog friend rolled on the ice and snow. The cats went in and out. I read. I fell asleep near the fire for about an hour. I awoke to a cold house and dull sunlight at the horizon. The ice on the weeping crab apple tree glinted.

4:30 pm. I realized I needed bottled water, because the pressure in my house was about gone and the tap was going to stop working. I drove to the supermarket. All the big water bottles were gone. But thank goodness, there was a deal, $3.99 for 24 small bottles of Poland Spring nicely packaged in plastic. Perfect. Only when I checked out, the cashier told me that I don't get that sale price without "the card." I said, "You gotta be kidding, right?" The guy behind me in line shrugged, handed the cashier his card. I thanked him.

5:07 pm. When I drove home, I noticed that various houses I passed now had lights. My house was still dark. I went into the house. I heard a sound. It was the aging boiler chugging along. The lovely sound of the boiler making hot water, making heat, burning expensive oil. How wonderful, what a great system. I turned on all of the lights, I reset the thermostat on the hot tub, I turned up the heat. I fed the animals. They were ravenous.

I am absolutely delighted that I have electricity. I know that there are literally tens of thousands of people who do not have it back yet. I notice the ironies. Moments before I got my electricity back, I was thinking that temperatures were supposed to fall this evening, and I was afraid that my pipes would all freeze tonight, making an even more colossal mess. And now, now that that emergency has vanished, I'm chagrined that the ice maker in the refrigerator hasn't been making ice (doh!) so the cubes are all stuck together. I pour myself a glass of fizzy mandarin orange Poland Spring (a treat I bought along with the 24 pack). This, I think, is wonderful. It has all of the excellent qualities of non alcoholic beer without the beer taste. Salud!

My gratitude goes out to Steve the Fireman, the Spencertown Volunteer Fire Department, the NYSEG lines people who were out all day, and still out now, trying to make a 34 year old system deliver reliable energy. My gratitude also goes out to all of the NY State Transportation workers, the Columbia County DPW workers, and the Town of Austerlitz DPW, all of whom spent the day clearing roads closed by downed trees mixed in with live wires.

California Lethal Injection Protocol Invalidated

Great news. A California Court of Appeal has invalidated California's lethal injection protocol because the state failed to comply with the state's Administrative Procedure Act. The decision(pdf format) in Morales v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, holds that the State' lethal injection protocol, “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAN QUENTIN OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE NUMBER 0-770 EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION, is invalid and it enjoins California "from carrying out the lethal injection of any condemned inmates under OP 770 unless and until that protocol is promulgated in compliance with the APA."

The more than 660 prisoners on California's death row should briefly sigh some relief. There is little doubt that the regulation will be re-enacted, but the struggle against state killing in California goes on, and today's ruling is a great victory.

The Mercury News reports:

A state appeals court on Friday ensured further delays in California's already inert death penalty system, finding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration did not follow proper procedures when it attempted to revise the state's lethal injection method to get executions back on track.

In a 14-page ruling, the San Francisco-based 1st District Court of Appeal upheld last year's decision by a Marin County judge, who found state officials failed to provide public scrutiny of plans to overhaul California's execution method. The appeals court ruling, if it stands, would force the state to go back to the drawing board in its efforts to bring the execution system into compliance with a federal judge's concerns that the current method is unconstitutional.

The appeals court ruling will have a ripple effect on California's bogged down capital punishment system. A broader legal challenge in federal court to California's lethal injection method cannot move forward until the state comes up with a revised procedure, and that is now tied up further as a result of the appeals court's findings.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Ronald Matthias, who supervises the state's death penalty cases, was still reviewing the decision and could not predict the next step. But the state can either appeal to the California Supreme Court or move forward with public review of the proposed lethal injection reforms, and either process would take months or longer.

Executions in California have been on hold for more than 3 years because of challenges to the state's lethal injection protocols. The 2006 Judge Fogel stopped all California executions, but provided a number of steps state officials could take to ensure that executions were carried out humanely. The governor then ordered state prison officials to come up with a new plan. The plan called for improved training and supervision of execution team members, as well as the construction of a new, modernized execution chamber. But plan was challenged in state court under the argument it violated state procedures that require public review, and Fogel put the federal case on hold until that issue was resolved.

Is the issue resolved now? No. The state can either try to adopt a new protocol, following the law, or it can appeal. Either way, state killing cannot resume until the issues are resolved.

I applaud today's ruling, and I compliment all of the people who have worked so diligently to stop state killing in California.

Let's Fight Hate

In the continuing post Prop 8 fall out, the Mormon Church is ramping up its attacks on gay people, slurring gay people and even accusing them of domestic terrorism. The campaign of hate continues to rage, just as it simultaneously continues to claim that it is a victim of attacks. Let's fight back.

I know. The Mormon Church denies that this was ever a campaign of hate. There I pointed that out. In a wonderful circumlocution, the Church even denies that its work on Prop 8 is anti-gay. No, it's about being "pro- marriage," they say.

Jump with me across the broom.

Oh, it's "pro marriage" all right:

Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.

But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead, emphasizing that Proposition 8 was about marriage, not about attacking gay people, and about restoring into law an earlier ban struck down by the State Supreme Court in May.

“It is not our goal in this campaign to attack the homosexual lifestyle or to convince gays and lesbians that their behavior is wrong — the less we refer to homosexuality, the better,” one of the ward training documents said. “We are pro-marriage, not anti-gay.”

Right. It's about being pro-marriage, but only for certain, selected people. As I've said before, you can put all the whip cream you want on dung, but it doesn't make it a dessert. Similarly, with Prop 8, you can circumlocute and equivocate all you want, but it's still about barring gay people from their pursuit of marital happiness, and it's about imposing on those who are married an involuntary, state constitutionally based divorce, their families and children be damned.

This morning's New York Times reports that Mormon involvement in Proposition 8 was huge, even for them:

“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”

Also, we learn that the Mormons were a large percentage of early volunteers, and, of course, that they gave gigantic amounts of cash to the Prop 8 effort. And then we have this obvious anti gay slur:

[T]he extent of the protests has taken many Mormons by surprise. On Friday, the church’s leadership took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling for “respect” and “civility” in the aftermath of the vote.

“Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues,” the statement said. “People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal.”

Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”

That's a nice, biblical touch, paraphrasing Matthew 7:16 (in the King James and elsewhere it's not fruit, it's "You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?") apparently to call gays "fruit". I'm not alone, I see, in noting the slur. I hope I'm not being hypersensitive; I'm just sensitive to discrimination in its many disguises.

And then we have this accusation, apparently made without the benefit of any proof whatsoever that "teh Gay" are terrorizing the Mormon Church:

A day after it received hoax mailings containing a white powder, the Mormon church on Friday blamed opponents of California's gay marriage ban for recent "attacks" while an allied group condemned "acts of domestic terrorism against our supporters."

Investigators have not publicly cited any evidence that the mailings were linked to the Mormon church's support of the measure, and a gay rights group in Utah denied that gay protesters were involved....snip....

Church leaders released two statements Friday, one saying they were disturbed the church was being singled out for taking a position on the California amendment, the other assailing "attacks" and vandalism of church property by "opponents of Proposition 8."

"We call upon those who have honest disagreements on this issue to urge restraint upon the extreme actions of a few," church President Thomas S. Monson said in a statement.

This is out of control. And it's been out of control for far too long.

I'm on the wrong coast, thousands of miles away from California, and I'm infuriated. This battle shouldn't be supported only by GLBT people, it should be supported by all of us. Prop 8 isn't going to affect my hetero marriage of 30 years. But this kind of discrimination and oppression is something that all of us, gay and straight, all of us should be fighting tooth and nail.

I've already gotten out the check book, and I'm going to have to do it again. I'll give money to those fighting Prop 8 in the court. I'll do what I can to support organizing and protests.

Please join with me in this. I omit the obligatory quotation from Pastor Niemoller to frighten you into helping. Let's just do this because it's the right thing.

Vote No on Proposition 8

h/t to thereisnospoon, hekebolos, theKK, and Reality Bites Back.

If you're in California, please vote NO on Prop 8.

Vote No On Proposition 8

Look. Proposition 8 is about preventing gay people from marrying each other, and it's about invalidating marriages that have already been conducted. It is an outrageous discrimination reminiscent of miscegenation laws. In a just and fair world this proposition would be easily defeated. But, unfortunately, in California it may pass.

The text of the proposed State Constitutional Amendment:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized
in California.

This is simply outrageous.

If you're in California, please vote no on this. And tell your friends and relatives to vote no. If you're anywhere, please send some money, today is the last legal day to donate, to help defeat this proposition. Send funds Here.