Barry Graham's Blog, page 117

The news that the federal government’s four-year investigation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio has come to nothing does not surprise me. I predicted this outcome from the very start, though I hoped to be wrong. This is the second time I have seen this happen to Arpaio.

Flashback: It is Halloween, 1997.Janet Napolitano represented Anita Hill. Her reputation is that of a pugnacious, spirited lawyer who knows the difference between right and wrong. But today she’s not dealing with Clarence Thomas. Sh...

Miami cops smash the cameraof a man who filmed them killing someone.Denver cops try to framea young woman on trumped-up charges. These incidents from last year are not aberrations, but business as usual in cities all over the world; there have been plenty more this year. This is why I think it is important to offer meditation instruction in community centers, shelters and jails.

Meditative practice is widely regarded as the province of the well-fed, and being without practical use. It is actua...

- for Steve Shadow

Kneeling on the back seat,
hanging out of the window,
vomiting into the desert night
with a pornographer at the wheel
and the birthday girl riding shotgun

- for Daishin

Scottish physicists declare
that the universe may stop expanding
and implode instead

English physicists declare
that neutrinos suggest
that effect could precede cause

An American woman dances
with joy in a kitchen,
laughing and singing, while

a Scottish man melts butter
in a skillet, breaks eggs,
drops them in the butter,

adds pepper and salt,
flips the eggs with a spatula,
adds more salt, more pepper,

toasts two slices of bread,
puts them on a plate,
covers them with the eggs,

hands her the plate...

In an essay about my work, Larry Fondation writes, “Arizona is the bi-polar edge of America’s fascist impulse.” A story in his bookUnintended Consequencesbegins with the words, “Phoenix scares the hell out of me.”

When I first came here in 1995, I began to write about this place, and I have never stopped since then, even during five years of exile in Tennessee. Arizona is a place of last resort, where elected officials and law enforcers openly flout the law and brazenly...

Holding Back the Dawn is a short film from 2001, written by me and directed by M.V. Moorhead, based on a story from my 1992 book Get Out As Early As You Can.

Some people in the U.S.A. seem to be shocked that Anders Breivik, who massacred 77 people last year, has been sentenced to 21 years in prison - a shorter sentence than U.S. courts give for some nonviolent crimes.

This is because the U.S. “criminal justice” system is based on a philosophy of despair, a desire for revenge and a denial of the possibility of redemption.

Breivik’s sentence is unusually severe for a Western European nation; in fact it is the most severe that the law...

Channel 4 Factcheck quotes U.K. criminal/extradition lawyer Niall McCluskey as saying that the U.S.A. has no legal basis on which to have Julian Assange extradited from Sweden.

But Assange has agreed to go to Sweden to face rape charges if he gets a guarantee that Sweden will not hand him over to the U.S.A.

He has not received such a guarantee. Why not?

In the light of the U.S.A.’s terrorist activities, it would be naive to think that the U.S.A. has any regard for the rule of law.

I suggest...

Time for an update about the books I’m working on…

Sometime in the next few weeks,Dark Heat, a graphic novel written by me and drawn by Vince Larue, will be published. More news when I know the date for sure.

I’m working on a novel calledOne for My Baby, another noir set in Phoenix, about a lounge musician who moonlights as an armed robber, which should be published in the fall.

And, by the end of the year, I hope to have finished the final proof-reading of a collection of my Dharma talks,...

criminalwisdom:

Shoes Made From Human Skin

Towards the end of the 1800s, many outlaws emerged in the American West. One of these criminals was named Big Nose George Parrott. In 1878, Parrott and his gang murdered two law enforcement officers in the US state of Wyoming.

In 1880, after getting drunk and boasting of the killings, the men were apprehendedand Big Nose George was sentenced to hang on April 2, 1881, following a trial, but he attempted to escape while being held at a Rawlins, Wyoming ja...