Dharma Curious (he/him)

Not going to bother to reply to the one who replied to you already, I feel like it’s a wasted effort.

But I agree with you. I read this before seeing the name at the top, and felt deep remorse for another human’s suffering. Reading the name at the top didn’t change that, it just informed me that the person suffering was someone who has done terrible things. But that doesn’t change that a human is suffering.

Justice is not revenge, justice is not punitive, justice is not violent unless it must be. Justice is removing someone from society until they can be rehabilitated, and removing them from society permanently if they cannot be. But removed from society does not mean abused, beaten, neglected, or treated like an animal in a cage. That makes the jailer just as guilty of criminality as the jailed.

Think of it this way: if someone attacks you with a knife, and you defend yourself and kill them, you have acted in self defense. If someone attacks you with a knife, you get away, and then spend a year hunting them down and kill them, you are a murderer. Just because that person has committed an act of violence does not give you license to premeditatively plan their assault or torture. Jails are purpose built, they are planned, we know what we are building when we build them. To intentionally build a university of crime with professors of cruelty is a premeditated act of violence against people who have not even yet been convicted.

We desperately need prison reform

That is a fantastic idea. Can we bump it to 18, though?

You have accurately described life and death in America. Lol.

In all honesty, though, it’s pretty bad. My mom passed away last year, and obviously that meant that certain things she normally paid stopped getting paid, what with her bank accounts being closed and whatnot.

I began to get dozens of calls a week from debtors. I would inform them she had passed away. Some said okay, they’d stop calling. Some requested proof. Some called me a liar outright. And some said things like “Well, how are you going to pay this, then?” And began demanding money from me.

The issue is that Americans die with a shit ton medical debt. Medical debt counts as unfinished business, because the debtors keep calling our detached souls about the debt.

I found out about those as a kid when we moved into a house that had them still, and when I asked my mom she got a kick out of getting to teach me something. Haha. She’d had those as a kid. And then when I worked for the telephone company, I found out there are a surprising amount of older homes that never had them updated

But it just never occured to me there would be regional variation in phone jacks like there is with electrical plugs.

I love the end of the plug detail, easy to miss.

Curious, though, that appears to be a 2 prong plug almost like a north American power outlet. Do/did some countries use that design for telephone cords? I’ve never actually considered that phone cords might be different in other countries, but it makes sense

You have truly started something beautiful in our community