and was the classic example of what is wrong with a system which appoints federal judges to lifetime positions at inflated salaries, pensions and participation in a corporation (Unicor) which utilizes inmates as slaves for the production of government contracts producing profits as dividends to federal stockholders.
Finally to my defense counsel team who took my money and threw me to the wolves; Bart Adams, Steve Romines and Brian Butler, the who’s on first crew… may you rot in hell. Adams who lied about the meeting with the feds, told me they had a few questions about the reasons why I had gone missing for four years when there were no questions from the four feds, just and orange jump suit. Steve Romines is an empty suit prancing around admiring his news clippings over accidental triumphs, Butler was on his first case, the only member who actually tried to do the job but who made many judgmental errors… just a bunch of thieves, as guilty as I was illegally charged.
These men practicing a job which feeds on the poor in the perfection of a profession which permits the surgical removal of the heart by 9 to 5 interns on the down side of society. Stripping them of a life of credibility; family and the useful production of meaningful income to keep children from poverty, hunger and subjecting them to abuse in foster care and in educational systems unprepared to deal with the anger of those who suffer as prisoners of the heart while their parents die slowly from guilt and despair. The children of the 225,000 federal inmates, primarily poor blacks and Hispanics, serving time on a deal made in hell by judge, prosecutor and public defenders.
These inmates do the time and leave to discover, because they are felons, that the federal government precludes them from gaining decent housing in federally subsidized projects like the Lugar Towers in Indianapolis. Dick Lugar should be proud that his name is associated with such blatant bias. Additionally the felons are ineligible for food stamps and have little or no chance at gainful employment because they have only been taught to steal or peddle misery of one sort or the other, on each other. Meanwhile the cities where these inmates are sent after prison wonder why there are so many crimes committed in the inner city. Here sits a bunch of hypocrite bureaucrats; lawmakers, administrators, intake counselors and wizards all…fat from the public tit, judging men and women who have been unjustly treated by society, primarily the corrupt justice system which gets its budget approved with incremental increases based on the number of…you guessed it...convictions!
This, then my dear readers is a Portfolio of Promise for the poor and disenfranchised who seldom get a bone thrown their way because Barabbas Obama, Eric Holder and Mitch McConnell’s of the world recycle the bones and feed them to the hogs. They are paid to create a meaningless charade of ineffective programs meant to impress the public… spoon fed this bullshit by fake news occupied with ratings. Occasionally the congress gets off their lazy asses and passes meaningful legislation to help the inmate assimilate in the form of what was lamely called, a Second Chance Act in 2007 which was funded with a sixty-four-million-dollar budget, all wasted by the BOP for doing absolutely nothing but paying for over sized egos and overtime for federal employees.
Obama has proven these problems will not be solved with ill-advised distribution of loans and tax generated income from citizens who hide from the disease-infected societies and the real issues, which plague our country, while the rich get richer and the poor and innocent go to prison.
Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.
Preface
Every night while in prison, I prayed the rosary with special intentions for a list of those I love. Most essentially my five daughters, my deceased son and mother, my grandchildren, as well as my beloved sister and brother are remembered now, for their kindness to me during this time. It occurred to me while writing this book and struggling with a title, there was an answer in my faith. I thought, if you can imagine reciting the rosary everyday (365 days per year) for five years… saying the same phrase, “Poor Banished Children of Eve,” I think you would agree it would make some impression on even the most dense mind…yes! There is my title. Rarely does a title have much to do with the story, I mean come on…”The Sun Also Rises, A Raison in the Sun, To Have and Have Not. A Catcher in the Rye?” This aversion to a meaningful title may be the only thing I have in common with those great writers. Because I do continue the practice herein, except to say this story is about each of us, and our spiritual connection to each other. The story from Genesis evoking the title, Poor Banished Children of Eve will forever be linked to inmate’s ostersized by the United States Justice System.
In the pursuit of this book, my research led me to the bible and the Gospel according to John, Chapter 1. It begins: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This is as beautiful a phrase as, has ever been written by man, woman or the spirit of God, and it was handed down by John for more than 2,000 years for Christians to love.
Words ... do not belong to John or to Christ who had to teach them to John, but learned by Christ. So there is nothing new under the sun, in deference to Hemingway and all the great writers, we all pick up a little something here and there, even if we must go back to 636bc.
Hunting Birds in British Columbia
I REMEMBERED WITH FONDNESS THE DREAM I HAD THE NIGHT BEFORE.
It was about my missing son, a living child of God in the womb taken by his natural mother, a prehistoric flower child, born fifty years too soon. A lost spirit with an attitude and the weed of choice on her breathe, and some vision of life with no responsibility, fame and fortune.
It is true that slavery was not unique to the South: Both during the colonial era and after independence, slavery existed in areas that now comprise what we consider “Northern” states. But the suggestion that “many Northern civilians” owned slaves at the time of the Civil War is flat out wrong. All of the Northern states, with a single arguable exception, had (by law or by practice) ended slavery within their borders long before the Civil War began.
Where did legalized slavery still exist in the North in 1861? Only in Delaware, a state which was far from being undeniably a “Northern” state: depending upon the criteria used, one could justifiably have pegged Delaware at the time of the Civil War as being Northern, Southern, Mid-Atlantic, or some combination thereof. Either way, even though legislative efforts to abolish slavery in Delaware had been unsuccessful, by the time of the 1860 census 91.7% of Delaware’s black population was free, and fewer than 1,800 slaves remained in the state — hardly a condition supportive of the notion that “many” Northerners owned slaves.
Although Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland never formally seceded from the Union, they were not “Northern” states in either a geographic or a cultural sense. All were home to substantial pro-Confederate elements and contributed significant numbers of troops to the Confederate side during the Civil War. Kentucky and Missouri were both claimed as member states by the Confederacy and were represented in the Confederate Congress, and Maryland remained in the Union primarily because U.S. troops quickly imposed martial law and garrisoned the state to head off secession efforts. (Maryland had to be kept in the Union by any means necessary, else the United States capital in the District of Columbia would have been completely enclosed within Confederate territory.) The state of New Jersey was something of an outlier. Although the New Jersey legislature passed a gradual emancipation measure in 1804 and permanently abolished slavery in 1846, the state allowed some former slaves to be reclassified as “apprentices for life” — a condition that could be considered slavery in all but name. Nonetheless, the 1860 census recorded only 18 slaves in all of New Jersey.
On this day, in the dream, there he was in a small deli, cooking my favorite dish in the microwave; fried rice with chopped onions, bell peppers, eggs, saffron, ginger, olive oil, summer sausage and mackerel from the can. Not just a meal…it was a feast.
Now it was morning! The
