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  1. prison

My Time in Prison

There is a lot of goodness in prisons. At times, I am sure, prisons may be hell on earth. I was fortunate to be kept safe and treated well. I was impressed by the professionalism of the warders, the faith of the prisoners, and the existence of a moral sense even in the darkest places. I was in . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

In September 1944, Helmuth von Moltke sat in Berlin’s Tegel prison, awaiting execution. The Nazis had arrested him for organizing the ­Kreisau Circle, a resistance group formed to plan a more democratic future Germany. Helmuth’s death drew near, yet, as his wife Freya wrote to him, “The best . . . . Continue Reading »

Kilmainham Gaol

We stand in crooked lines outside the gate,Where my new bride and I map out our day,As gap-year Germans try to understandWhat their French friend in denim means by “hangry”.The jailers call the Germans to file pastA wall where Irish rebels hung and flailed.We spot a pub across the street and . . . . Continue Reading »

Saving Punishment

Jim was holding his one-year-old son while smoking meth freebase when the oily liquid spilled on the little boy, badly burning him. Technically, it was an accident; the proximate cause was the breakdown in the electrical signals between his besotted brain and his fumbling fingers. Even in that . . . . Continue Reading »

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