It is rare for an inmate to volunteer to turn over a shank, but Rance Johnson, 19, was ready to come clean with the Merced County jail in California.
Johnson had hidden the 5-inch long plastic shank in his rectum for three weeks and desperately needed it removed. It took a surgery, but he was able to lose the shank and to pick up a new charge for the ultimate concealed weapon.
For the story, click here.
raff,
I am the real Buddha Is Laughing. Any post with that graphic and any other name is someone else.
I am getting confused. Too many Buddhas for my simple brain. Will the real Buddha stand up?
The ball is in his court. Let’s see the bounce before calling foul.
Very funny. All that fresh air since you moved is giving you oxygen rushes. Wooo hooo!
No, cut Peyton some slack, AY. There is no sign he’s a confirmed troll yet and a good chance he’s not. If he’s a troll, he’s coming in much much better behaved than they have in the past.
So Peyton the Pest as opposed to the Stoic Troll.
No, again. I am not Peyton. As proof, I tell you my name starts with the letter G – something I know you know to be fact.
Buddha,
Are you the new troll working in this disguise?
Byron/Lotta/Jill/Peyton,
Peyton is not me.
I thought he might be a troll at first, so I barked at him. Guilty as charged. After all the silly crap we’ve collectively seen the trolls do in here combined with the recent escalation due to Yoo, Monserrate, et al, showing up with my exact artwork smells initially fishy. I found the suspicion reasonable hence the bark. He hasn’t responded like a troll though so I have no issue playing nice. I don’t draw blood without reason. I don’t think Peyton is a troll at this point. First of all, if he’d been one of our regular Neocon crack suicide distraction squad, he’d have carried on long after I went to bed last night. Those dogs can’t let go of a bone. Second of all, he’d have come in here today with a hard on looking to provoke. Peyton didn’t. He came in, made some topical comments and that was it. Nothing to complain about there. Need I say more to the regulars than He Who’s Name Starts With W to illustrate the counterpoint? He was an ever escalating font of nuttiness. No. I spit out things that don’t taste like food. As evidence, I give you Byron – somewhat gnawed but none the worse for wear.
I also meant what I said about not caring about the usage – in general. If Peyton uses the art elsewhere, I don’t care. Here is the only place I use an avatar and I made it for this lone purpose. However, that points to lotta’s issue and a practical concern Byron has already encountered: mistaken identity. Terribly confusing for the regulars. Especially since we do have confirmed trolls working multiple identities. This will only muddy the water. There is a second reason Peyton should consider changing his avatar and it’s ironically also mistaken identity. If he’s familiar with the forum, he would know being mistaken for me will come with a price at some point. Not from me necessarily. From some of the less stable trolls. I don’t need to name names. There’s more than one. If one of them thinks he’s me, it could get really nasty for him fast and – from his perspective – no appreciable reason with not knowing the history. Even if Peyton doesn’t mind troll killing, it’s still not fair for him to take my hits.
I have huge sharp nasty teeth, but I am mostly civilized. I am a flexible tool user.
Since Peyton has done nothing to merit ire, he will receive none. The caveat being should he turn out to be a troll and using my art I will feed him through the shredder like I would any troll – doubly so for using my “face”. If it is chance as he claims (and his actions tend of confirm this), I have no issue. As I said last night (when he didn’t go all troll at the bait), I am willing to start over. The more on the side of justice, equity and restoring the Constitution, the better – no matter ill or well met. The meeting is not the thing. It’s the journey that provides context.
But I do think changing the avatar, at least for posting here, would be practical for the regular readers and avoid any future misdirected troll attacks. Other than that, he can make T-shirts with the graphic for all I care. Get a tattoo or make a needlepoint. I’m easy. It took way less than an hour to make every permutation I tried before finding the jade color I liked. It wasn’t a huge effort. GIMP did all the really hard work (before you ask, graphics editor). In this application however, the usage slightly problematic.
potentially funny story that plays into the incarceration and religion threads active on the blawg:
I had a similar conversation real-world with a guy I know fairly recently that encompassed the whole of the situation with incarceration in America (the most incarcerated country in the world) and he said, ‘well what you do with them’ and I said (I’d get rid of all the BS, drug use/sales etc. to reduce all the problems flowing from large prison populations and a lack of staff. I’d make sure I had the right offender to the limits of our ability including technology- DNA testing would be the norm. No plea deals, no time off for good behavior, no shortcuts- get the right guy and have intelligent, consistent sentences nationwide.
Then I’d give every offender his/her own cell with a door that had a food slot. A simple cell with a bed, chair like a school desk so they could write and read, a TV/computer monitor built right in the wall so they had regulated contact with the outside world (and didn’t just go nuts), and a window they could look out of. Put ’em in and weld the door shut.
They could take TV classes and become a college graduate or watch cartoons 24/7, but it wouldn’t affect their sentence. Put food in the food slot and exchange more food for an empty dish. Open the door when the sentence was up or the food dish wasn’t returned for a few weeks.
So when I finished my little ‘reform’ proposal he looked at me for a beat and said ‘Soooo, you’re a Lutheran?’
Maybe I am 🙂
Peyton Farquhar 1, December 11, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Cruel and unusual punishment is a specious argument.
The law and the judicial system (including incarceration) should be humane for a number of reasons that come under the heading of enlightened self interest for a society. I don’t have to get that detailed or practical in my reasoning to object to it, an argument to the higher principle does me just fine: once cruelty as a aspect or corollary becomes the norm no depth thereto is unreachable. Why not also unleash dogs on prisoners if their queue moves too slow, use a whip or cattle prods, pull out their fingernails as punishment for trying to snatch an extra piece of bread in the chow line. Do whatever? Turn them into slaves or gladiators for our sport?
They do not cease to be citizens or human beings (Value of their so being notwithstanding) because they have transgressed our society’s laws and are being punished for it. Because it’s not about them, it’s about us.
It’s the same argument as the torture-for-information argument because an accepting attitude both lead to the same degraded level of our culture and society. It’s about the nature of the society we want, our national soul played out by the actions of our public institutions. I’m not a torturer and I’m evolved beyond casual cruelty being acceptable to me. I don’t want my society to reflect those attributes either.
IMO there is nothing specious about anything in the Bill of Rights.
Peyton/Buddha:
that fluorescing Buddha and that name is killing me. I am laughing every time I look.
Have you reincarnated for a reason? That comment leads me to believe you are making a point about something.
Peyton:
I think Lottakatz is saying that even a prisoner is entitled to be secure in his person even though incarcerated.
Cruel and unusual punishment is a specious argument. Let’s consider the reason why the criminal is incarcerated in the first place. He isn’t in prison because he’s been a law abiding citizen.
Prison rape, knowledge of and jokes about are a common thread in this country’s culture. I can’t be the only one that finds that repugnant. When the probability of assault becomes a given for incarceration doesn’t it overlap the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment? We seem to have a depraved attitude about this culturally.
Peyton Farquhar:
I see you have been to prison.
If the inmate in question had a few spare brain cells to rub together maybe he could have used the excuse that he concealed the shank in his rectum as a way of protecting himself from being anally raped.
Idiocracy?
Will stupid people over populate?
Another thought, the defense should be that he should be moved for his own safety. He had no knowledge of how it got there and he was sexually assaulted and this is the result of the same. A defense that would point to the inadequacies of the system. Maybe Yoo could represent him, they are both in California……He has a creative mind too..
foo, where you gonna practice? If you answer this one it will let the world know you are not studying….
Well I guess it was possible that he was trying to widen the point of entry so that things would fit in easier. Or maybe he just didn’t want to get his point of entry ripped this way. Or maybe he was just doing preventive maintenance or maybe he was booty trapping the point of entry there are so many possibilities and antidotes or is that antidopes?
This guy has a future in government, in that, he already has the DOJ mentality …