Labor Beat: Chicago Protests 5 Years of War

During the March 19, 2008 protests against 5 years of war and occupation in Iraq I was briefly interviewed by Labor Beat while I was demonstrating in an orange jumpsuit and hood indicative of the type of apparel used by the U.S. government for torture in its “detention facilities” across the globe. For the majority of the demonstration I was kneeling on the ground, but towards the end another demonstrator joined me kneeling, so I stood up with a “Stop Torture” sign, and it was at this point that a videographer from Labor Beat asked to speak to me for a moment, and I broke my silent demonstration to speak to him. Only a small portion of the interview was included in the video, but you can see me at about 4:15 and a brief statement by me at 4:44 in the video. Watch the whole thing though! I was just reading through American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination by Kristian Williams for a paper I have to do and remembered the interview and finally got around to posting it on my site. An interesting and disturbing rationale for the use of these orange jumpsuits by the U.S. can be found in Williams book: “ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] representatives explained to the authorities [at Guantánamo] that, in Arab countries, red or orange jumpsuits like those issued to the detainees signify impending execution…”

In nomine Dei nostri Satanas Luciferi excelsi!

Apparently a recent opinion in my favor from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a lawsuit I began in prison has generated a bit of chatter on the internets. The lawsuit began after the Illinois Department of Corrections refused to provide me with a vegetarian diet, a diet required to comport with my religious beliefs and practices at the time. I was not requesting anything that was not already provided by the prison - vegetarian diets were available to others whose religious practices required them. Instead of “gaming the system” by simply joining a religious group that was already provided vegetarian diets, as various prisoners that I personally know who wanted vegetarian diets have done, I chose to assert my legal rights and fight back against the illegal policies and practices of the IDOC in regards to religious diets. Therefore I began to study the law related to this issue and filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, handwritten with a three-inch flexible plastic pen from a segregation cell in Pontiac Correctional Center, when I was 23 years old.

Judge Evans, in his concurring opinion, seems to think that RLUIPA serves as a basis for game-playing. While I’m sure this can sometimes be the case, from my experience the real game-playing would come far before a prisoner, untrained in the law, would even attempt to file a lawsuit. As I mentioned, most prisoners that I know who just want a vegetarian diet for whatever reason simply join a religious group that is already provided one by the IDOC. Let’s be logical - which is an easier way to “game the system”: simply telling the prison that you are a member of a religious group that already receives a vegetarian diet at the prison, or learning the intricate ins and outs of federal law in order to not only file but prevail in a lawsuit as a legally untrained prisoner versus teams of attorneys employed by the State? Furthermore, the opinion that asserting my rights was a “waste of time” seems a rather curious conclusion coming from a federal appellate judge whose presumable position is to uphold justice and interpret the law. For those who believe in such a thing as “justice,” how is ensuring that prison officials follow the law and rendering a judgment that accords with justice a “waste of time”?

As to the commentators on the internets, specifically what appears to be the National Enquirer of legal blogs (the site attaches the following disclaimer: “This website is intended purely for entertainment. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review of appellate law.”), all I can say is: sir, please educate yourself about issues before you comment on them. I’m trying to be charitable, and not leap to the presumption that your entire post on my case is deliberately disingenuous. More likely than not its a poor attempt at infantile humor. A reading of Judge Manion’s opinion on the case would go a significant way towards clarifying the misrepresentations you make of my case in your post. I’ll refrain from a more in depth rebuttal, but a final point: as to the asinine description of Aleister Crowley as a “famed devil worshipper,” a simple perusal comprehension of the Wikipedia entry on him would serve as a decent starting point for an actual understanding of the man - though I’m sure he would be delighted to know the appellation you’ve bestowed upon him…

Windy City Weekend

I was out and about in the city over the weekend, primarily to attend a presentation by Raymond Lotta on Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism. Unfortunately I missed most of the talk due to having to work unexpectedly, but the Q&A afterward was great and I had a chance to have a number of good conversations afterward, as well as through the night and the next day. The sky was so clear on Saturday that I could see the Sears Tower from north of Skokie as I was driving in to the city! I took a few pics for a friend of mine, some of which came out fairly well so I may as well put em up here

Traffic was kind of shitty, guess the whole Easter thing had people traveling:

Here’s a view of the skyline and Sears Tower from much closer in than Skokie. I wish I could have taken a pic of the Tower from way out when I first saw it coming in, it must have been close to 20 miles away!

This is an interesting shot I happened to get of the federal detention center - MCC - in front of the Sears Tower. The MCC is the tan, triangular building to the right in the pic:

This is the John Hancock building from Lake Shore Drive:

This is a pretty cool pic I got of the L:

Here’s the Art Institute. I gave a homeless dude $5 out front, and some change to another dude who asked, and after that another guy comes up to me and tries to scam me into buying a copy of The Onion newspaper from him

Then this is the “bean” in front of the Frank Gehry bandshell in Millenium Park:

That’s me in the bean, obviously And this last one is a pic from underneath the bean looking up inside of it, which is amazingly surreal:

No! To Five Years of Illegal War

Today marks the fifth year anniversary of the start of the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Iraq. Across the country thousands of people gathered to voice their opposition to the ongoing war, which has claimed the lives of over a million Iraqis and nearly 4,000 Americans. I attended the protest and march in Chicago.

The rally started at Federal Plaza, where a large group gathered before a stage to hear music and speakers. Throughout almost this entire time I was kneeling on the ground in an orange jumpsuit and black hood to visually remind people and bear silent witness to the torture being committed daily by the U.S. government, so I didn’t have the opportunity to take many pictures. I did a brief interview with a videographer concerning the nature of the orange jumpsuit and hood demonstrations and discussed the correlations between the policies, practices and techniques of torture being used by the U.S. government in the War of Terror and the methods and practices used in the U.S. prison system.

The above picture is from very early in the rally. After gathering together in Federal Plaza, we proceeded to march through the streets of downtown Chicago, most people carrying signs and banners, some drumming, others shouting for the end of the occupation of Iraq. Our voices echoed through the urban canyons of the Windy City as we made our circuitous march through the streets. We marched from Federal Plaza, around downtown and up Michigan Avenue - the city’s premier shopping strip - and through the Gold Coast.

As we ended the march we gathered in the street, many commiserating and dancing, showing solidarity with those around the country and the world who were protesting or feeling the brunt of the jackboot of U.S. imperialism. Before long the police attempted to force us out of the street, as they rushed in on ATVs and Segways.

Although they moved people a bit off the street initially, far too many people refused to move and at the time I left shorty thereafter a huge group of people were still gathered in the streets, dancing and cheering for the freedom of the people to oppose the monumentally disastrous agenda of the ruling class in America…

More pics

Videos of the protest and march:

Bridges Built and Broken

Yesterday was the College of Lake County Engineering Week Balsa Wood Bridge Competition. My Algebra professor, Mr. Thornburgh, mentioned it to us in class last week and a few of us decided to try it out. I built the bridge with two friends I made in class, Bri and Jacqueline. We basically came up with the design idea on Monday then spent the afternoon on Tuesday building it.

Here’s the bridge - it doesn’t look bad from a distance But it wasn’t perfect, considering we’d never built a bridge before:

Here’s some pics from the day of the competition:

This is a pic of all of the bridges in the competition, though one was disqualified because it didn’t meet the requirements for loading the bridge with the weight:

And here is our bridge just before testing:

Well, we didn’t come in last place Ours held 25.5lbs, or 393 times it’s weight. The winning bridge held nearly 2000 times it’s weight, and was built by last year’s winner of the competition. Second place was about 1200 times it’s weight, then several were in the 600 - 700 times range, then ours, and a couple below ours at like 340 and 300 or so. Considering we are in basically the remedial Algebra class and had never done it before, I think we did ok Most (if not all) of the other bridge builders were in the Engineering Club I believe and had also built bridges and participated in competitions like this before. Also, an interesting commentary on the state of women in society was the fact the my friends were the only women who participated in the competition. And from what I saw we were the only team too.

It was definitely a fun project, and I made a couple cool friends in the process - even though we didn’t get to spray glitter on the bridge like the girls wanted because it was against the rules of the competition… I’ll add a few more pics once I get copies of them.

And since I’m on the topic of bridges built and broken… It’s hard for me to understand why it is that whenever I meet someone and share an intense emotional and sexual attraction as well as intimate details about ourselves and our lives, the circumstances surrounding the situation always end up destroying the relationship. I mean, I understand the circumstances of my most recent connection’s life that preclude us from moving forward with anything - not the least of which is the same issue that precipitated the demise of my last “relationship”: namely, being geographically separated by over a thousand miles. Ha, my cousin told me something funny about this a few weeks ago - that I can meet people over the internet but can’t even meet someone right here in my immediate physical surroundings. I don’t fucking know - I thought I could write something more introspective and significant, but perhaps the situation is too fresh and unresolved at this point…

But on another note, I got a new Parole Officer the other day, and he told me that if everything continues to go well that he was going to submit me to get off parole early. You have to serve half your time on parole before you can be submitted, so that’s a year and a half for me, and that date will be exactly June 11th 2008. In other words, I could finally be off of overt government supervision for the first time in my life since I was 16 years old in less than 4 months from now!!! I’m obviously not trying to get my hopes needlessly up, but that was certainly an unexpected and awesome surprise. I haven’t had the opportunity to get much of a concrete idea of what I will do if/when that happens in June, especially considering my personal situation recently as well as school work and working for my parents and trying to get an idea of what the hell I’m going to do to make money to survive. But one thing that struck my mind tonight was just packing some of my things, getting in the car, and driving off into the open road and future. I have no connections in life really, never have except for some all-to-brief flirtations with romance that always end before they even have much of a chance to start, as I just mentioned above. And I’ve wanted to get the hell out of here for almost as long as I can remember. So maybe by the Summer Solstice I can embark upon that long-anticipated yet never fulfilled desire. My cousin Danny has wanted me to come down to where he lives in Mexico once I get off parole, but I don’t necessarily know that that’s a good idea or what I intend to do. I mean, I’d definitely go down there to see him, but I really don’t know about staying for any significant period of time. I do want to travel to a lot of places, most of which are outside of the United States, and all of that takes money that I don’t have. So exactly what the hell I’ll do remains very uncertain. But a little more freedom may soon be here for me to experience.

Old Friend, School Days

Finally met up with my old friend Peter after… oh, 15 years or so He’s a doctor now - M.D. - and a fantastic guy. We had a great day together. I met his wife (!!!) Ariadne, along with his sister Maria, her husband, four kids, his mom and dad.

We met up at our old school, Brentwood, and were fortunate enough to meet a cool guy that worked there who lets us go inside and see all the old classrooms. I took a bunch of pics, naturally.

Here is the infamous science lab where we had our science classes in junior high:

And it still has the same green metal chairs that made it infamous in the first place One day I locked our teacher Mr. Varghese in the closet in the back that had cool stuff like dead pigs in jars by shoving one of the green metal chairs up under the door handle while he was inside the closet. Peter said it was because he made us eat chalk, but I always remembered that it was because we wanted to see the baby pigs in a jar and he wouldn’t let us. Well, I was the one who put the chair under the door in the first place (and eventually took it away), but they suspended us all - me, Peter, and Tim I believe.

The following is a recreation of the incident at the actual location

And here I am halfway-seriously trying to slip the doorbolt - another of our youthful pastimes - with an implement from a disection kit to try to get in to see the famed dead pigs in a jar

We tried to do bunny ears on each other, but you can’t see mine on him because he’s taller than me

And here is Peter with his wife Ariadne! She’s from South Africa, but Greek too. She was really nice.

This is an awesome picture from their wedding in front of the Acropolis in Greece:

And this is Peter’s sister Maria with her husband and kids:

Man - and don’t everyone laugh all at once - I even went to a church with them, though I only stayed for like 20 or 30 minutes because it was just disturbing to me to be in a church with my views and experience.

Peter and I actually had a great discussion on all of that earlier over brunch, about the existence or non-existence of “god”, good and evil, free will, and numerous other topics. But we generally know each other’s thoughts on the issue and deeply respect one another. I didn’t want to leave and stop hanging out with them, so I went to the church with them My friend Amy is hopefully counterbalancing my foray into two churches today for me at a BDSM fetish club right now…

It was a great day and wonderful to get to see one of my most significant friends (like I had many…) from childhood.

And on the topic of school, I got some honors thingie from my college in the mail the other day:

And today I got some letter about being an “outstanding student” with eligibility to join some Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society.

But the fine print on the application says:

 A person currently incarcerated is ineligible for membership. An individual convicted of a felony, or any crime whose potential sentence is greater than one year, may be considered for membership three years following completion of all conditions of sentencing, including probation.

So presumably even though this paper says that you can be member as long as you meet the eligibility requirements - and that you’d only be sent this letter and application if you met the requirements - the fine print probably means that since I just got out of prison a bit over a year ago I’m not eligible. And then the application has some little boilerplate on the very bottom that says:

  Phi Theta Kappa is committed to the elimination of discrimination based on gender, race, class, economic status, ethnic background, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and cultural and religious backgrounds.

Apparently the interrelation between class/economic status, not to mention race and ethnic background, and the probability and actuality of being convicted of a felony is irrelevant…

We Won’t Live In A Torture State!

January 31st was a day of protest across the country, challenging the Bush Regime’s many crimes, most specifically including the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. I skipped class today to participate in the demo in Chicago. As the snow drifted down on a freezing Chicago day, about 50 protestors gathered at Thompson Center in orange jumpsuits and hoods to vividly portray the reality of torture being carried out in America’s name by the Bush Regime. Many were college and high school students, but veterans were also present as well as just regular folks who refuse to accept the torture and other crimes being committed on a daily basis in our names.

Lining up in single file and escorted by “interrogators,” a procession of orange-clad and hooded temporary “detainees” marched through downtown Chicago, chanting: “Rise up, before it’s too late! We won’t live in a torture State!” The march stopped first in front of ABC 7 Chicago’s tv studio, where all of the detainees were forced to kneel while the interrogators requested information. As the march continued, all of the detainees stopped in a plaza and knelt on the ground as one was singled out to be waterboarded. The march then moved on to the Federal building, and from there to the building housing the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, and ICE.

Video of the demo:

I wasn’t able to take any photos during the march, as I was in an orange jumpsuit and hood carrying a large “Stop Torture” sign. But I took a few before and after:

The Inexorable Drive Forward

Towards what though? Another year has come and gone, my first year out of prison. I spent almost all of the year on house arrest, so its not like I’ve really had much of a chance to do anything - not that I’d have any money to do anything if I wanted to. Mostly I spent the time working on my computer(s), attempting to start a business while stuck in a house, reading, and starting and finishing my first semester of college. I watched a supposedly significant relationship with someone I’d known for four years evaporate into the same level of superficiality and insignificance as every other interpersonal so-called “relationship” I’ve known…

You make a lot of plans in prison, I think that is a pretty universal experience. Some may just have plans to do the same old shit they had been doing before, but every prisoner makes some kind of plans. Hopes, dreams, ideas, desires - myriads of things you want to do and plan to do once you escape the living hellhole of a prison cell. And most of the time reality firmly crushes those plans. Unfortunately for a majority of prisoners, its back into a cell, and not just a realignment or adjustment of their plans in the outside world. For me, things have been somewhat more difficult than I anticipated, and some of my plans have changed, but I think I tried to implement - and have implemented - a number of my plans. Obviously I just finished my first semester of college - obtaining a Ph.D. in Computer Science has long been a goal of mine. Of course things change, and although I’m still of the mind that I want to get the Ph.D. in Computer Science, maybe some other field would be better. Math is probably my worst subject, relatively speaking. I talked to an old friend of mine from my earliest years in school a couple weeks ago - he’s a Doctor now, M.D. - and he told me he had initially also intended to pursue a degree in CS as an undergrad but switched to Philosophy after seeing how advanced so many of the other CS students were in math. I’ve been told I write rather well at times, and I’ve also planned to write for some time, but… I don’t know that I know how to make a “career” out of writing - and I’m damn well sure that I’m not interested in anything that passes for what most people call a “career” at all. Then of course is the issue of money to pay for this endeavor.

The bottom line of trying to survive in this capitalist system is money. Every goddamn thing is based on money. And I absolutely fucking hate money. Lack of money is one of the primary factors leading to my extended stay in the not-so-hospitable hands of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Ultimately I’d just like to continue studying and learning as much as I can about everything - that is the so-called “career” I intend to pursue. But unless someone can capitalize off of my learning by buying my labor or unless I can commoditize myself into some sort of saleable good or service, its not a viable life-choice within this system. And needless to say, I’m not much of a fan of this system and don’t necessarily intend to confine my goals and dreams to what this worthless system tells me is acceptable.

However, this leads to the conundrum of… not resorting to “illegal” means to survive and move towards these goals and desires. I’ve always been an outcaste and and outlaw, though I’ve very much designed my current plans to be legal and I have no intention of returning to prison. But beyond the strictly legal questions are the larger set of social questions of being an outsider. And underlying all of those questions are the existential questions pertaining to life, succinctly and eloquently elucidated in the following quote from the renowned writer Me: “What the fuck is the point of all of this?”

Another arbitrary point of temporal significance has been reached, and the people, places, and circumstances of life continue to move forward towards… something? From nothingness to nothingness, with a few pretty flashing lights and a collection of experiences dancing momentarily upon the dark landscape? Perhaps Time will tell.

Satan Claus is comin’ to town

Tonight I saw a beautiful full moon floating in a perfectly clear sea of black sky. I wish I could have just sat out and contemplated it for a while. I tried to do it some while driving, but getting lost in thought while looking up at the moon while driving isn’t conducive to safety. Didn’t get home from doing deliveries till nearly 9pm, and I don’t know how many deliveries I’ll have to do tomorrow morning. I’ve been doing deliveries every day since my last final, and the heat in my car went out the first or second day. I’ve driven over 2,000 miles in the last 2 weeks or so.

I had a nice night out after work on Friday though. One of the comrades had an improvisational jazz performance at Revolution Books. I can’t even describe how different it is to hear live music in three dimensions compared to recorded music. Especially after doing an extended period in conditions of sensory deprivation, the full richness of live musical instruments was amazing. And it was only a few different instruments - I can’t imagine how great it would sound to hear a full orchestra or a larger jazz band or something.

It’s kind of weird going to people’s houses to deliver shit while they’re having dinner or whatnot on Christmas Eve, but I suppose it will be even more weird going to their homes on Christmas Day. I know I delivered newspapers a time or two as a boy in the middle of the night on Christmas. Santa you old bastard, you better give me something nice! But I know I’ll just end up getting what I always get - nothing. Ha, the last time I got something for Christmas was the first year I was in prison - the prison gave us all 2 packs of cigarettes (one Marlboro and one Newport) and two boxes of candy (one chocolate and one that was like hard candy). In Stateville we didn’t get anything, except a better meal. Oh, well in Danville they gave us like a small plastic bag of hard candy, and in Pontiac for the first year or two I was there they used to give everyone one candy bar (Snickers), which was donated by some outside group or something - then after that the Warden stopped them from donating the shit to give to us. I hope he gets a cold, rusty steel shank in his stocking… I’d just like something pretty in stockings

UPDATE - 12/25/2007 8:25pm - Well I only had to do 7 deliveries today - one of which ended up being an empty lot with the house torn down. Yesterday I did 35 deliveries, and the average for the past couple weeks has been between 15 - 20 a day. After that I took my mom to see my grandma and had dinner with her. My grandma gave me $25, so I can’t say I didn’t get anything for Christmas. Plus I checked my college’s website to see if my grades were posted, and they were: straight A’s.

Thats probably the first time in my life I got straight A’s, though I might have a few times when I was very young. Still not much a fan of the institutional educational system, especially since the only reason I got those grades was because of my many years of self-education in prison, but I must say I’m a bit less skeptical and cynical about it. All of my teachers were pretty great, and though I still felt it was mostly an impersonal experience, I’m glad to know there are really good people teaching. I mean, I probably talked the most in all of my classes, but I still felt and knew the interactions with the teachers were… just as I said, impersonal. They were doing their jobs, within the confines of the system they have to work in. It wasn’t really a personal type of experience, its not like I could say I was “friends” with any of them or that I really knew much of who they were outside of what they mentioned in class. I guess I’m just looking for more from this so-called “society” than impersonal commodity relations between people.

Bowling Alone

Someone wrote a book by that title a few years back, but I was bowling alone tonight. I went down to the city, initially I had hoped to do something with the comrades from Revolution Books, but the bookstore wasn’t open tonight. So I ended up walking around downtown for a little while, around Michigan Ave. I went into the Apple store that has a staircase made of glass - I had seen a picture and read about that while I was in prison. Not the best weather for walking around outside at 8pm, plus all that was over there is a bunch of fucking stores. So I saw a bowling alley and decided to bowl a few games. Haven’t been bowling in many, many years, and oddly enough I got the highest score of the night on my first game - 153. All the other games I got around 100, 110. Shitty scores, I know 153 isn’t too bad.

After bowling I walked around a bit more, and had an interesting encounter with a guy named Omar. When I first saw him, he was trying to talk to some people walking ahead of me, and they basically ignored him, and that pissed him off so he was kind of talking to himself in a pissed off way about how everyone in the city is racist. I didn’t really hear exactly what he was saying at first, so I asked him what was up, if he needed help or something, and thats when he told me everyone in the city was racist and how hard it was to be black. He went on to tell me he had tried to talk to a bunch of people (I believe the exact number he gave me was 89, which was probably an exaggeration and not an exact number), trying to get a few dollars together to get on the bus to get home, that he had walked all the way down there from Belmont and if he didn’t get on the bus he’d be stuck walking around the city all night. So I gave him a CTA card that had a couple bucks on it and $5, and he apologized for coming off as pissed off at first, but I told him it was understandable and that at least he knew there was one motherfucker in the city that wasn’t racist.

After that I was going to go into a jazz club to eat something, but they wanted a $10 cover charge just to get in, so I said fuck that shit and decided to drive home. The moon was a weird half-moon tonight, almost cut in half totally horizontally, and then there was some haze or clouds over it as well. I wanted to take a picture of it, but my phone doesn’t have a zoom on the camera so it wouldn’t have come out well. Work in the morning, need to sleep…