If you’ve got a religious belief that withers in the face of observations of the natural world, you ought to rethink your beliefs — rethinking the world isn’t an option. –PZ Myers, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)
November 20, 2017
Society Like a Stew
Society is like a stew. If you don’t keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top. –
–Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
November 4, 2017
Evidence of the Bamboozle
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. –Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
October 20, 2017
The Universe
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe. –Peter De Vries
October 17, 2017
Prisons Elsewhere
Baz Dreisinger works at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, Where she is the Academic Director of the Prison-to-College Pipeline program, offering college courses and reentry planning to incarcerated men throughout New York State.
You don’t have to read very far into the book to realize what a gutsy woman she is and how brave she is to reach out to learn and grow.
Dr. Dreisinger has alot to say about the bizarre way people are treated in our prison system, after visiting prisons in different places around world and learning how differently people are treated and how they are released back into the community.
This book will open your eyes to other options and bring new light to the word “isolation.” I loved reading about the prison in Africa that powers 70% of their prison using human waste, and the system where prisoners are taught a trade and given jobs so their chances of success upon release are more assured.
Our way is certainly not the only way and this book helps us to learn from the successes in other countries how better to look at criminal justice with new eyes.
October 5, 2017
Life After Incarceration
It is not often you will get a chance to hear the voices of those who have been incarcerated like those on Christopher Lydon’s Open Source program called Life After Incarceration.
Here you will hear Azan Reid, Unique Ismail, Douglas Benton, and Marselle Felton — in a church basement in Dorchester, MA. They are asked: what did prison do, or undo, in you? What do you see now that you didn’t see then? And what don’t we know about you?
Mass incarceration is a bill we are all paying and there has to be reform, if we expect people living inside, without technology, to adapt to culture beyond the four walls of prison.
October 1, 2017
General Shinseki on Change
“If you don’t like change, you’ll going to like irrelevance even less.”
– General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
September 20, 2017
Saving our Environment: One Step at a Time
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. –Ansel Adams, photographer (1902-1984)
September 6, 2017
Good Listen: Women After Prison
The statistics about women and prison are staggering, more than a million women are in the system currently. The female prison population has risen precipitously in the last ten year due to the nature of the plea bargain and the number of mandatory drug sentences.
Christopher Lydon, on his program Open Source takes a look at Women After Prison and reminds us all that these women are someone’s daughter, likely someone’s sister, and/or mother. 89% of whom will be released and be living in the wider community upon release.
August 27, 2017
A Good Listen: Our Changing Words
The topic of words and reading rarely bores me and this On Point Program about the changing nature of the English Language and usage is a terrific discussion of our dynamic usage.
If you are looking for a great podcast to tickle your word fancy please visit and support A Way with Words. They know their stuff but are never stuffy or uptight but rather always come across as curious and open to people’s ideas and interpretation of the English Language of today and yesterday.
The Curious Autodidact 
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