poetry
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On love and physics.
Even when love doesn’t change the world, it changes us.
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On drinking.
“The only thing I’m scared of is that I’m gonna drink again and my daughter won’t let me see my grandkid.”
addiction, alcohol, alcoholism, apology, beer, booze, Dave Gibson Makes His Way Down, Dave Johnson, domestic violence, drinking, drugs, fear, forgiveness, jail poetry, penitence, poem, poems, poetry, poetry in jail, prison poetry, Raymond Carver, repentence, teaching poetry, teaching poetry in jail, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water, Woolworth’s 1954
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On ‘The Theft of Fire.’
Stories are powerful things. A world in which workers are brought into a country as farmhands is very different from one in which barbaric kidnappers torture their victims to extract labor. A world in which death panels ration healthcare is different from one in which taxpayers preferentially fund effective medical care. You’ll feel better about…
AI, angry gods, comparative mythology, death panels, description of slavery, discovery of fire, discovery of the atom bomb, essay about fire myths, essay about the origin of fire, evolution of fire use, Fire, fire myths, fire myths in human evolution, gratitude practice, history textbooks, human evolution, ideology, invention of fire, invention of the atom bomb, Jury S. Judge, medical rationing, modern mythology, mythology, mythology of the atom bomb, myths of the atom bomb, Palaver, poem, poetry, Robert Oppenheimer, Rosalind Franklin, stealing fire from the gods, storytelling, the discovery of fire, The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Theft of Fire, thermodynamics, ways we describe the world
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On gateway drugs.
Being lied to is a gateway to rebellion.
A Romance, addiction, alcohol, alcoholism, altered consciousness, bars, Bruce Weigl, childhood, children, dangerous drugs, depression, dizziness, dizzy, drug abuse, drug research, drug use, drugs, ecstasy, gateway drugs, incarceration, insomnia, jail, jail poetry, laws, lying, marijuana, mass incarceration, MDMA, parenting, poem, poetry, pot, PTSD, sleep disorder, sleep disturbance, spinning, teaching in jail, veterans, War on Drugs, which drugs are most dangerous, which drugs cause most harm
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On artificial intelligence and solitary confinement.
Just like us, an AI will sometimes make mistakes. But at least we can offer explanations. An algorithm might inscrutably destroy somebody’s life.
administrative detention, AI, algorithm, Anscombe, artificial intelligence, automated image analysis, babies, California, color, confirmation bias, corrections, criminal justice, Department of Corrections, gang, gang crime, Google Researchers Are Learning How Machines, how we learn language, identifying gang activity, image analysis, In a Dark Dark Room, Indiana Prisoners’ Writing Workshop, isolation, jail poetry, language, Learn, learning to speak, learning to talk, linguistics, lockdown, Ludwig Wittgenstein, neural networks, newborns, paradox, Philosophical Investigations, philosophy, poetry, Pouncho, prison poetry, shape, SHU, solitary, solitary confinement, solitary watch, teaching poetry in jail, the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein
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On bread.
Bread is pretty amazing. But it shouldn’t be anybody’s *only* therapeutic resource.
A Note of Caution Regarding Sentencing Reform, Adam, Attica, Blood in the Water, bread, bread craft, bread sculpture, cardboard piano, chess set made of bread, cooked food, Demetrius Cunningham, depression, deprivation, ear gauge, Eden, Emily Wilson, Eve, expulsion from Eden, Fire, Freedom Riders, Heather Ann Thompson, Hell is a Very Small Place, history of incarceration, Homer, How to Create Madness in Prison, human mortality, incarceration, jail, jail food, jail meals, jail poetry, Laestrygonia, mass incarceration, netsuke, nothing works, Odysseus, poetry, prison, prison education, prison poetry, prison reform, rehab, rehabilitation, Robert Martinson, Solidarity under Close Confinement, suicide, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, Terry Kupers, The Odyssey, therapy, tree of knowledge of good and evil, tree of life, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, wasted ingenuity, What Works, Yahweh, yeast, yeasted bread
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On Matthew Walker’s ‘Why We Sleep.’
We’re asking addicts to learn whole new ways of living … and expect them to do it while utterly sleep deprived in jail.
cocoffala, Communion of the Saints, enhanced interrogation, false confessions, heroin, incarceration, jail, jail poetry, learning, mass incarceration, Matthew Walker, Menachem Begin, methamphetamine, Monster House Press, opiates, Poems from the Jail Dorm, poetry, prison, prison poetry, probation, sleep, sleep deprivation, sleep deprived, sleep spindles, The Story of a Prisoner in Russia, torture, White Nights, why we sleep, William Booker
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On prayer.
Czeslaw Milosz wrote that “if there is no other shore / We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.”
AA, addiction, Alcoholics Anonymous, Aphrodite, Czeslaw Milosz, deities, God, healing, higher power, impulse control, jail, jail poetry, mythology, myths, naloxone, Narcan, odinism, On Prayer, opiates, opiod epidemic, poetry, prayer, prison, recovery, rehab, rehabilitation, Robert Hass, teaching in jail, Thor, TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation
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On sexuality: dolphins.
Where ambiguity isn’t safe, people can be only portions of themselves.
AB, An Aquarium, Aryan Brotherhood, bisexual, CAConrad, criminal justice, desire, dolphin, dolphin sex, dolphins, Enkidu, gay, Gilgamesh, homophobia, homosexuality, human sexuality, identity, internet, jail poetry, Jeffrey Yang, poem, poetry, punishment, Queer, racism, Roman soldiers, samurai, sexual identity, sexuality, sexuality in jail, sexuality in prison, Spencer Reece, teaching in jail, The Road to Emmaus, While Standing in Line for Death, white supremacy
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On Syria, and the complexity of causality.
Syria was in dire straits before the drought — climate change made a bad situation even worse.
Abdullah Al-Udhari, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri, Assads, Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster, civil war, climate change, climate instability, drought, extremism, food insecurity, George Wightman, global warming, ISIL, ISIS, jihad, Lindsey Hilsum, misogyny, oppression, paradise, plough, plow, poetry, protests, refugee, refugee crisis, Syria, Utopia, violence, War of All Against All, Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Frank Brown Cloud 