CostcoWarrior

Prison & Algebra Woes 24 January 2006

For those of you who don’t know it, I tutor a prisoner every week at the Salt Lake County Jail. I started in November, and last night I realized I’ve learned a few things in this whole experience.

#1 I NEVER want to go to jail. Not that everyone in jail is bad–but there is definitely not an abundance of “good vibes”. Let’s just state the sometimes forgotten obvious: JAIL IS FULL OF CRIMINALS!! And criminals think differently than non-criminals–criminally! Sometimes it can be so creepy the way the male prisoners look at me, and although I haven’t seen the women prisoners, I don’t want to experience those cell blocks first hand. So my advice to everyone: don’t go to jail, even if it’s just for too many traffic citations!!

#2 That said, Jail is a good place for people to turn their lives around. There are a lot of people in there who are basically good people who screwed up pretty royally, got caught, and are fulfilling the punishment. There are prisoners working their tails off all the time to do everything possible to be ahead and changed when they get out. A lot of them work harder than a lot of free people I’ve known.

#3 Everyone should take a tour of their nearby county jail. It’s safe, and you learn a lot. A lot of times when people learn I volunteer at the jail, they like to share their opinions and “complaints” about the way our society treats prisoners. A lot of these comments surprise and concern me. Unless someone has verifiable facts or personal experience, they shouldn’t be throwing these judgements around–it’s self-righteous and arrogant and often unjust.
For instance, the “I don’t understand why our tax dollars pay for cable TV and la.z.boy recliners for prisoners when there are starving children in the world!” First off, there are no recliners–plastic chairs, people, very uncomfortable molded plastic chairs and lunch tables like the ones you sat on in elementary school. Second off, the cable TV is 21″ mounted to the wall and shared between 64 prisoners IF the whole cell block has been on good behavior that day. How many of you would like to share a TV with 63 other people and no one gets a remote? Why do they have TV’s you may ask? Because there are two “entertainments” allowed to help distract and guard the prisoners: playing cards and the TV. You pay fewer taxpayer dollars for fewer guards with these distractions (compare this to the moms who use the TV to babysit their kids sometimes.).

#4 No matter what age–Algebra is hard the first time through it. I spent more than an hour last night just working practice problems with the prisoner I tutor. It’s hard! And it’s hard not to just give him the answer too.

I am really glad for all that I learn in this volunteer position. I guess I’m glad for the experience that helps me be less judgemental. And I’m eternally grateful that I don’t have to be responsible for the Final Judgement–a job I glady relinquish to the one Great Judge who knows all hearts.

Something Grand 11 January 2006

Last year at this time I went on a spur of the moment weekend getaway trip with my roommates. Our destination: Kanab, Utah and the northern rim of The Grand Canyon. I’d never been to the Canyon, but I had seen many grand and breath-taking mother nature views throughout my life. Yeah, they all turned out to be LITTLE LEAGUE compared to what I experienced at the Toroweap Overlook of the Grand Canyon.

The road to the canyon comes with a pretty strong warning:

And yes, the sign is true. We passed so many broken down cars–one even being towed out (bet that wasn’t a cheap bill). Imagine–getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and having to walk either 30+ miles back to the highway or 20+ miles to the ranger station where someone MIGHT be there.

After the 60+ miles of rough washboard roads, you come to a small picnic area (1 table, 1 outhouse) next to an outcropping of 5-6 foot boulders. You walk through the crack in boulders and step out on a 3 foot slab (NO railing) and see this:

And then you look down–4000 feet of sheer cliff–to the Colorado River.

And then you have to step back and grab something because you almost pee your pants and you can’t breath anymore.

When you realize that you’ve survived the first two views, you can scramble around the boulders and rocks right on the rim. And you get some pretty good adrenaline rushes as well as some great pictures.

I would heartily recommend the trip to anyone–but if you take your children, tie them up somehow, because there really isn’t a single safety precaution provided.