We got prosecuted. I thought I might try and share this little rant with you.

I am not at all sure if it will convey the true meaning of my existence in this taxpayer supported Eden, but let us try.

Language, yeah, the way one communicates here in Club Fed.

If you fail to have the word motherfucker or other suitable verb in every sentence, you are not with the program.

The old saying about sticks and stones may be true, but you try to think of the last time you heard a four-letter word used in conversation, and I will try to think of the last time one was not.

This is not meant to be a whiney letter, just some interesting points of discussion of who decides what is right and wrong.

For example, one function of my job is printing the worksheets for our GED program. Several of the workbooks I copied are about 48 pages in length, and using the 11 x 17 paper, it takes twelve sheets of paper.

Each of the books contains the standard copyright notice saying basically, "making any types of copies is forbidden by law".

I might add that the law in this case happens to be a Federal statute.

Then, yesterday the counselor in our unit let it be known that if any of us had more than the official amount of six pairs of underwear (T-shirts or briefs), we had better get rid of them.

As I've told you, I actually have a few extras at this point, but since I am constantly working, I need to be able to not have to fight for access to one of the three laundry machines every four or five days.

Finally, we have these silly color coded name tags that we must wear around our necks, and today outside the lunch hall, if your tag, which hangs from a plastic chain around your neck, was accidentally flipped over, you were sent to the Lieutenant's office.

The point is, the few of us who actually try to follow the rules get little or no benefit from doing so.

The bigger question of course is how one must constantly go through the day worrying about which laws you may or may not be breaking. I guess the point of view of those of us on the inside is that we are told that, without our shirts tucked in and nametags facing the right way, we are very bad people.

Sometimes those of us on the inside might say the only difference between you on the outside and us on the inside is that we got caught.

The other day I amended that to be: we got prosecuted.
  ¶ 10:48 AM