Browsing PBH By Articles

Prison Reforms You, But Not Always For The Better

The Article: When Crime Pays: Prison Can Teach Some To Be Better CriminalsThe Text: In popular lore — movies, books and blogs — criminals who go to prison don’t come out reformed. They come out worse.

Scientists who have attempted to empirically analyze this theory have reached mixed conclusions, with analyses suggesting that activities like drug addiction or gangs are what determines whether the correctional system actually gets criminals to correct their ways.

What else could be at work?

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The Man Who Killed Bin Laden Is Screwed

The Article: The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden…is Screwed by Phil Bronstein in Esquire.

The Text: The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care.

It was a mild spring day, April 2012, and our small group, including a few of his friends and family, was shielded from the sun by the patchwork shadows of maple trees. But the Shooter was sweating as he talked about his uncertain future, his plans to leave the Navy and SEAL Team 6.

He stood up several times with an apologetic gripe about the heat, leaving a perspiration stain on the seat-back cushion. He paced. I didn’t know him well enough then to tell whether a glass of his favorite single malt, Lagavulin, was making him less or more edgy.

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Obama’s Drone And Gun Control Hypocrisy

The Article: Barack Obama is pushing gun control at home, but he’s a killer abroad by Gary Younge in The Guardian.

The Text: On 27 January CBS aired an interview with the newly inaugurated President Barack Obama and his outgoing secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, during which the president faced accusations that under his watch America had retreated from its key role in world affairs. “The biggest criticism of this team,” said the interviewer,” has been [that there is] an abdication of the United States on the world stage, sort of reluctance to become involved in another entanglement.”

Obama interrupted. “Well, Muammar Gaddafi probably does not agree with that assessment,” he said. “Or at least if he was around, he wouldn’t agree with that assessment.” Quite. Gaddafi, to whom the US authorised $15m worth of arms sales in 2009, is not around because he was murdered by a mob shortly after being sodomised by a bayonet following his ousting by US-led Nato bombardment. In the minutes between the sodomising and the summary execution there just wasn’t time to reflect on US foreign policy.

The day after the interview was screened, Obama met with the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association and the Major County Sheriffs’ Association. The president, fresh from boasting about having Gaddafi “smoked”, wanted to discuss how to stop guns getting into the wrong hands, bolster the forces of law and order, and stem violence in US cities.

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The Best Theories On Everything: Volume V

Please see The Best Theories On Everything Volume I-IV here.

The “Don’t Care So Much” Theory: Stop caring about other people’s perceptions so they’ll like you more. Start not caring about other people’s perceptions, and they’ll like you even more. You’ll even like you more.

In the words of Robert Frost, “Freedom is moving easy in the harness.”

Or, in the words of every 21st century rapper, “Haters gonna hate.”

The “Regret” Theory: (Most) people regret not what they did, but what they did not. As the saying goes: if you don’t go, you’ll never know.

The “Smart Phone Irony” Theory:

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The Old South’s Last, Desperate Stand

The Article: The Old South’s Last, Desperate Stand by Michael Lind in AlterNet.

The Text: In understanding the polarization and paralysis that afflict national politics in the United States, it is a mistake to think in terms of left and right. The appropriate directions are North and South. To be specific, the long, drawn-out, agonizing identity crisis of white Southerners is having effects that reverberate throughout our federal union. The transmission mechanism is the Republican Party, an originally Northern party that has now replaced the Southern wing of the Democratic Party as the vehicle for the dwindling white Southern tribe.

As someone whose white Southern ancestors go back to the 17th century in the Chesapeake Bay region, I have some insight into the psychology of the tribe. The salient fact to bear in mind is that the historical experience of the white South in many ways is the opposite of the experience of the rest of the country.

Mainstream American history, from the point of view of the white majority in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, is a story of military successes. The British are defeated, ensuring national independence. The Confederates are defeated, ensuring national unity. And in the 20th century the Axis and Soviet empires are defeated, ensuring (it is hoped) a free world.

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