Monday, January 19, 2004 Stranger in a strange land. ¶ 8:14 PM It seems that the dream I had the other night has really taken the wind out of my sails. I feel frustrated, like no matter what I say it will do no good because people won’t listen. Most are too blinded by their sacred-social conditioning. Few would even consider challenging the source of their own thoughts, and feelings for that matter. People just assume that they are what they think, and have no control over what they feel. But the truth, of course, is that they think what they are, and their feelings are the result! If that sounded like double speak to you--and it will to most--then here’s a link that might be able to take you where you need to go, The link above is actually a good one. And the analogy is suiting to this post. We must all visit there sooner or later, no one is innocent. If you think you’ve already been there, or even close, then you probably already know the secret: life is an illusion, love is not. I have found that the most insightful people I meet have invariably had some kind of unusual hardship in their lives. I’m not talking the usual stuff, like ailing health, relationship issues, or money problems. I’m talking about the kind of problems that make a person feel like they are the stranger in a strange land. The stranger in a strange land feels unloved, insecure, unsure which way to turn, confused, lost, afraid, and most of all, lonely. Most of use never experience what I am talking about because we are experts at clinging to vices that keep us from falling into this abyss of despair. We cling to our jobs, our homes and churches, or turn to philanthropy to keep our sanity. Maybe we hold on psychologically to our parents, our lovers, or our children. Of course there is exercise, money, and food, the good old stand byes. And if we are denied these accepted vices, we might turn to drugs, sex, or violence, the traditional last resorts. But then maybe our peace of mind just come from untraditional comfort of a quiet place were we can hide, physically, or in our own minds, or maybe both in some mental institution. These are all spiritual prison cells that keep us locked away from Gods Love. While Gods Love is Real—It Is the Only Thing That Is Real—the prison cells are a lie. When you recognize them as lies, they will quickly fade and loose power over you. Then you will experience a new kind of Freedom; a Freedom that no government can give, or take away: True Freedom. A Freedom we all will share someday. God doesn’t make mistakes. Posted by: Joe

Sunday, January 18, 2004 ¶ 6:30 PM Okay, here’s what I did all weekend: I stayed home, again. I really miss being able to throw my scuba gear in the car and head off to a lake for some diving on the weekends. But, it’s the dead of winter and the only diving I’m going to be doing is when I head down to visit my friend in Florida next month. I’m thinking about diving with Mermaids in a place called Weeki Wachee. That should be a lot of fun! I baked an apple pie last night after dinner (a frozen one from the store), and had a slice for breakfast this morning. I like the new oven my landlords installed this last summer, it’s way better than the old one (which caught fire once because the thermostat was bad). I still have not managed to figure out how to rearrange my living room. The TV is still sitting in an odd spot, not fully hooked up. I don’t know for sure where it’s going to end up but I do know it won’t be were it is now. My cats are both sound asleep in their cat tree, and its almost time for me to fix something for dinner. Posted by: Joe Alien Dream ¶ 1:22 PM  I started to fall asleep last night on the couch in my living room, and I had a short dream before I woke up and moved into the bedroom to sleep. I dreamed that I had arrived in an alien place, for some reason I thought it was Mars, and I had brought a CD-ROM with me with data on it that I was to leave for the "Martians." However the CD had been damaged in the journey to this place, it looked like it had been microwaved, the data foil was cracked and pealing off on one side. But I somehow knew that the CD still contained useable data, so I opened a sliding glass door to put the disk outside, and I saw that their was another disk (from a previous mission?) laying just outside on the door step. I knew immediately that this was the first sign from the "aliens" that they had acknowledged this attempt to communicate, and I was very excited. The CD they left though was completely clear, all of its data foil and lamination had been somehow removed, and the remaining plastic was cracked, and even broken, then pieced back together and put inside a jewel case. This did not dampen my excitement though because, remember, these were aliens, and this was proof of their existence and their intelligence. Then I woke up, decided it was a good dream, and went into the bedroom to finish my nights sleep, pondering the meaning of the dream as I went back to sleep. Personally, I subscribe to the Jungian (usually pronounced “Youngian”) view of dreams. Carl Jung said, “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.” (for those who do not know, Carl Jung was Sigmund Freud’s most famous student and, in later years, adversary. Jung started a branch of psychology of his own that apposed many of Freud’s ideas. I think Jung’s contributions will someday overshadow Freud’s) My dreams have shown me many hidden aspects of my inner mind, or soul if you will. Much of the peace and understanding I have achieved in my life has been through my dreams. Their meanings are never for certain; only valuable hints. The dream I had last night for example; I think it symbolizes my struggle to communicate with society (the aliens) through this blog (the CD-ROM). While I pore my thoughts and feelings (data) into this blog, I often find that the information ends up distorted, (damaged) and does not convey exactly what I meant. But, I still hope that society will be able to get something from this blog. I’m not sure though how to interpret the broken CD-ROM I found in the dream “just outside my door” cracked and broken with no data foil. Maybe it is letting me know that society is there, but is completely missing my intent (the data) and focusing instead on the very basics of the medium. For example; seeing only the “blog of a sex offender” rather than the heart and soul of a real person strugging against ignorance and fear. This of course is all speculation, but like I said, it is also guidance for me, and something for me to think about. Posted by: Joe

Saturday, January 17, 2004 No One Can Afford To Be Innocent ¶ 5:26 PM  "No one today can afford to be innocent, or indulge himself in ignorance of contemporary governments, politics and social orders. The national polities of the modern world maintain their existence by deliberately fostered craving and fear: monstrous protection rackets. The "free world" has become economically dependent on a fantastic system of stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which cannot be satiated and hatred which has no outlet except against oneself, the persons one is supposed to love, or the revolutionary aspirations of pitiful, poverty-stricken marginal societies like Cuba or Vietnam. The conditions of the Cold War have turned all modern societies - Communist included - into vicious distorters of man's true potential." Posted by: Joe The Evidence Mounts ¶ 12:51 PM "We removed certain specific URLs in response to a notification submitted by the Religious Technology Center and Bridge Publications under section 512(c)(3) of the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Had we not removed these URLs, we would be subject to a claim for copyright infringement, regardless of its merits." Posted by: Joe Quote For The Day ¶ 12:39 PM "Contrary to earlier utopian theories of the Internet, it takes very little effort for governments to cause certain information simply to vanish for a huge number of people." Posted by: Joe

Friday, January 16, 2004 "Big Al" Is On His Way! ¶ 10:14 PM  I just got some really good news. A friend of mine who is still in prison was just found parolable! He is the only person that I have ever kept in touch with after all the years that I have been out. He called me from prison just now to let me know the good news. He has been locked up since the age of 19, when he was arrested for the violent assault and rape of a woman during a drug robbery in 1971. He is over 50 years old now, and while many people reading this might think, oh great, another one is being set free--and I wouldn’t blame you if I had to judge him by his past--but this is a good man. I would not keep in touch with him if he wasn’t. In the movie Animal Factory that I mentioned in a previous post, this guy is like the older convict who befriended the young kid (me) and helps him survive on the inside. He showed me how to keep my self respect and helped me recognize how the system really beats you psychologically by planting hate and self destructive thoughts in your head. He showed me, with a lot of patience I might add, how to replace the negativity with positive thoughts and the Hate with Gods Love. In prison he is a well respected Muslim leader, and has been the Imam at every institution he has been in. Like me, he educated himself in prison. He received his BA in Psychology through Walla Walla Community College. This is the man who convinced me that even the most violent criminals are still human and deserve a chance at redemption. Posted by: Joe Clarification ¶ 7:17 AM Let me take a moment to clarify an important point in my stand against discrimination. I am not against efforts to raise community awareness about potential threats. I am against laws that encourage and allow arbitrary discrimination against a person because of mistakes they may or may not have made in the past. It is a serious violation of human rights to judge another person based on what they might do. Sex offenders are routinely evicted, denied services, and harassed because of the community notifications. While many states make it against the law to harass a person who is subject to notification, no state has yet to make a law preventing outright discrimination. I would not be so apposed to the registration laws if there were provisions protecting the offender’s rights as a citizen. Not special rights; just the same rights any other person has. With out such protection, the Megan Laws are no better than the Jim Crow Laws, or the Nuremburg Laws. Posted by: Joe ¶ 6:34 AM Wow! This week sure went by quick. It is Friday already. This was the first week of school, and I missed my first day of class and was very tempted to drop it, but decided to tough it out. I’m taking STAT 368, which builds on a STAT 367 course that is not easy. Fortunately though, my research partner is also in the class and he seems to be at about my level in understanding the material, so we’ve already made arrangements to study together. I not only work full time off campus as a software engineer, but I also have a part time position on campus doing research for the Computer Science Department. Our research involves studying the potential use of virtual worlds in education. Very cool stuff. But I lost a lot of work at the end of last semester because I thought someone had installed spyware on my laptop, so I reformatted the drive in desperate haste to eradicate the intruder. Someone had been accessing my online bank information and I figured the only way they could have gotten my super secret password, s1spwjet (just kidding), was to have been spying on me when I was typing it in, but nobody could have been doing that unless they had spyware on my machine. There were several other suspicious things wrong with my machine, like my CPU usage jumping up to 30% just when I move the mouse…that’s not right. So, I killed my hard drive thinking there was nothing significant on it, but I forgot about two weeks worth of work for the CS Research. Oh, well. Posted by: Joe

Thursday, January 15, 2004 Graffito ¶ 5:11 PM When I was hiding out from the Law in San Francisco in 1997, and living pretty much on the streets, I stumbled across a spray painted graffito on the back of a large fenced in commercial air conditioning unit where surprisingly few people would see it. It was in a part of downtown were the homeless congregated by the hundreds everyday (on the North side of the Civic Center Plaza). The message impacted me so much that I attempted to commit it to memory. However, I'd forgotten the words years ago, but had written them down trying to capture the exact way it was written. While cleaning out my desk at home just now, I found the little blank book that I had carried with me while I was on the lamb and used to write down such things. This is exactly what the graffito said: (dated 6-3-97)  Posted by: Joe Quote For The Day ¶ 10:04 AM "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Posted by: Joe Zombies ¶ 7:08 AM  I finally got a half decent nights sleep last night. I usually end up depriving myself during the week then trying to catch up on the weekends. But last night I actually got a good eight hours, total (even though I woke in the middle of the night and spent a few hours updating the web site. This blog is really turning into a good medium for me to talk about things that have happened to me that I don’t talk about much because they are just to far out of the norm. My prison experience is almost impossible to describe to someone who has never been in one. Especially back in the early 1980’s when prison violence was at an all time high. I was just a kid and despite my crime, pretty naive. I saw people getting stabbed, hanged, raped, you name it. I, of course was atacked more than once while I was in prison (the state even documented the likely hood that I would be because of my age and appearance, yet nothing was done to stop it from happening) and because I refused to “rat” on my attackers I was left in the main population so it could happen again. I learned how to survive by fighting back, and I've been fighting back ever since. Out here, “in the real world” I have worked hard to fit in despite having little social reference. It’s not easy trying to “act normal” when you quite literally grew up in prison. Prison culture is totally different than anything out here. The best prison movie I’d ever seen that came closest to showing what it was like is Animal Factory. If you check it out, don’t pay any attention to the reviews, most have no clue what prison is like and therefore can’t say a thing about the authenticity of the movie. I had to turn it off a couple of times while watching it to keep from remembering too much. As close as it comes to the real deal, it still doesn’t even come close. Shows like Oz on the other hand have nothing to do with reality, so don’t even go there. Some people say that a person tends to forget prison after they’ve been out for a year or two. Not me. I can’t forget. Even though most who meet me are shocked when they learn I spent half my life in prison, because I seem so “normal,” it is an integral part of who I am. I just don’t let it show. I don’t hang out with other x-cons, so I really have no one to talk to who would understand what I was telling them. But that’s okay. I have this blog now, and it is already helping me feel like I can finally talk about what I went through. Another reason I don’t talk about it is because I’m afraid someone might think that I’m looking for sympathy. That is the last thing I want. I treasure the time I spent in prison, and I treasure the pain and loneliness, as a valuable memory (And I am very glad it is just a memory). While it was the worst experience I ever had, it is beyond my ability to express. I don’t cry about it because tears seem so quaint, though I still feel hurt, and talk about it when I can, crying seems so pointless. I now see day to day hurts as little treasures. But like anything of value in this world they are treasures that were never meant to be kept. I let my hurts go on their own accord. And the hurt from my past is one I have already let go, just not forgotten. How can I see pain as a treasure? Simple; there was a time when I came dangerously close to loosing the ability to feel anything at all. And feeling something now, even pain, is better than feeling nothing. So when I feel good, even if it's just a little good, well, that...is pure magic. So, if you want to feel sorry for someone then feel sorry for all the people in this world who have given up on ever feeling anything, the Zombies. Posted by: Joe Fifth Nail Productions Is Born ¶ 12:42 AM I just finished updating The Fifth Nail web site with its first official content (other than this blog) including a mission statement. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that people will not scoff at what I am trying to do. I have to remember to keep an open mind too, so if you have anything to say about this site (or this blog) positive or negative, let me have it! Posted by: Joe

Wednesday, January 14, 2004 The Gift of Choice ¶ 6:48 AM  Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Buddha, the list goes on. These were all people who tried to tell the world that there is one God, and He is Love, and that we are all unified through Him. One God can only mean One Will. There can be no will except God's Will. If someone believes that their will is separate from God, then they must also believe that they have power over God, which is ridiculous. This is one of those Truths that people hide from, but if they just stop for a moment, carefully open their minds eye, they will see that this is self evident. forget what you have learned, and instead looks for Gods Truth which stands before you: If God grants you free will separate from His own, then he is granting you godship. For the ability to defy God is the ability to be a god. This ability can not exist if we accept that there is only One God. One God requires there be only One Will. One Will means we are all carrying out Gods Will. He does not make mistakes. The Devil is an agent of Gods Will as well. And the "evil" that men do is also a part of His Will. A fool will take these words and give them meanings that are not there. A fool will claim that I am blasphemizing God by saying that the Devil is doing Gods Work. But, there are many fools in this world, and every one of them is being a fool according to the Will of God. When a person sees pain and suffering as the Will of God, then they will be blessed with the ability to see Gods Love in every heart. So, let the blind lead the blind; they are only doing Gods Will. There will always be those that see--those who have accepted Gods Great Gift. There will always be those that understand that the Universe can ultimately only have One Voice, One Will, One God. And We All Are The Children Of The Same God. We obey God not by choice, but by Law. Choice is an illusion, a small gift that is part of our limited world, and bound by the limits of this world. The absence of choice is Truth, it is Gods greatest Gift, and it is eternal and boundless. Christ knew He had no Choice but to act out Gods Will. That was his most important message, one that he repeated over and over in his teachings, right up to his dying words on the cross, "It is done." God's Will Was Done. Posted by: Joe

Tuesday, January 13, 2004 ¶ 11:47 PM I just finished going through all my blog entries and cleaning out any information that could implement people who might not want their association with me made public. I don't understand why people are so worried about what other people think. I especially don't get why everyone says they don't care what people think, when they so obviously do. Even I care what people think, but at least I am aware of it and keep it from effecting what I think. Posted by: Joe Breaking Through To The Other Side ¶ 9:03 PM I suspect I will end up making a few enemies with this blog. People can be so afraid of the truth that they would fight tooth and nail, even to the death, rather than face it. And because they fight with their eyes closed they don’t even realize it is the truth they are fighting. I have a simple test I use to determine if something is true; if it must be defended, it’s probably not true; if it makes me angry, it probably is true. Truth does not require intellectual support, it stands on its own and after all is said and done it will always be there. Always. Truth is so persistent in fact, that we often cringe in its presence because deep down we know its not going to go away until it destroys some facade that we are clinging to for dear life. Many hate the truth, seeing it as a destroyer. But the only thing it has ever destroyed is not real; and that which is real can not be destroyed by it. I should probably temper these truths for now and wield them more gently. It’s frustrating enough trying to convince a person to open their eyes for the first time, when every time they try all they experience is the blinding pain and confusion from all the light and new information pouring in. No wonder so many slam their eyes back shut when they try. As a seeing person I feel for them, and I want them to see. I was just telling a friend yesterday that I envision a world where everyone lives up to their potential, a world full of Einstein’s, and Reeve’s (Christopher). A world where learning to see truth is as fundamental as learning to walk and talk. I see this as the inevitable future for mankind. I just wish it would hurry up and get here. There really is “A new world commin’ <…> just around the bend” even though it has been side tracked, it is the inevitable Truth and it will come, and the closer it gets the more confusing the world will become as we “break on through to the other side.” My neighbor will be over later for that drink she missed last night. I’m hoping maybe I can convince her to appreciate a plain beer. Posted by: Joe ¶ 8:33 AM I went to Cashwise (grocery store) yesterday after stopping home to feed the cats after work. My neighbor was supposed to come over last night for a drink, but she called and asked for a rain check because she wasn’t feeling well. We chit chatted on the phone for a bit, she pointed out that there was a local woman missing on the news. The missing woman was suspected to be “traveling with” a registered sex offender. Her family had not heard from her since Saturday. I told her that if the man she was with was anything but a sex offender the story would never have made the news. I’m going to try to start keeping my web cam on more often since it provides a good record of my whereabouts and activities. Posted by: Joe Sex and Mayhem ¶ 6:47 AM  Someone told me yesterday that I was different than most other sex offenders because I was only 16 when I committed my crime and have never committed any other sex crimes since (or before). However, the same person said that adult offenders should be castrated and locked up for life. Well, I hope this person will forgive me for making the following analogy, but I couldn't help but picturing some Southern white woman in the late 19th century speaking with a heavy Southern draw to a young black man, “Why, ya’ll niggards are pretty cute ‘till ya’ll git grow’d up and all; then ya thinks ya got rights or some’n’.” I’m sure this was an all too common way of thinking in those days, fully supported by the existing government. My crime was a terrible act, committed by a confused young person who did not realize at the time the impact of his actions. While it is tempting to rationalize my actions as a youthful mistake, I have long since taken full responsibility and acknowledged the heinous nature of my actions. Maybe that’s what makes me different, but my age was just a quantifying factor, not a qualifying one. I have lived in close quarters with the worst types of sex offenders you can imagine, even killers and extremely violent rapists who would snap the neck of another man to get at his female victim (I heard such a story during a special disclosure at the Western State Hospital Sex Offender Treatment Program), even baby rapists, …the WORST! And yet every one of them committed their crimes for the same reason as I; they were not in touch with the impact of what they were doing. In fact, the ability these people have to hurt others so terribly depends directly on their ability to hide from the reality of their actions. The Sex Offender Treatment Program at Western State Hospital focused its attention on getting Sex Offenders to face that reality. I saw the man who disclosed that he broke a younger mans neck, bawling on the floor in uncontrolled convulsions of emotional wrath as he faced his demons; the reality of what he was, and what he had done. I don’t know if he ever offended again, but numerous studies have shown conclusively that once a sex offender—any sex offender—reaches this level of treatment their chance of re-offending drops well below 8%! I would never defend or even suggest that what this man did was okay because he cried about it. The important thing here is that he probably won’t do it again, even after being released back into society. He was never charged with the assault or rape that he disclosed at the program. That was the type of information in the records that got “lost in a fire” (see previous post) at the program, and never made it to a court of justice. That means he was released. Fortunate for someone, no doubt, that he did cry. Posted by: Joe

Monday, January 12, 2004 ¶ 9:27 AM  I spoke with Peanut Butter & Jerry this weekend and we agreed to send the pictures I took of him passing out sandwiches in Tacoma to be published at the Destiny Riders Christian Motorcyclists Association's web site. So if you'd like to see more keep an eye on the Photos Page at their site! Posted by: Joe The Fifth Nail is still MIA on Google. ¶ 7:37 AM This blog, and the web site that inspired it, The Fifth Nail are still MIA (missing in action) on the Google search web page. The Fifth Nail was submitted for indexing last week to Google and the statistics report page for The Fifth Nail web site indicated that Google's crawler (an automatic program that reads a web page, indexes what it finds and follows links, thus "crawling" the web) had visited, and shortly thereafter a search on "Fifth Nail" using Google resulted in this blog and The Fifth Nail as the top two "hits." Also on that day, I got over 400 unique hits coming from Google. The very next day The Fifth Nail was not listed at all on Google, no matter what search words were used there were no results even close to this blog or The Fifth Nail site. It was apparently removed from their index. These are the facts, the speculation that they lead to is frightening. Posted by: Joe ¶ 6:57 AM  Well, here I am, at work Monday morning ready to start another week. I made arrangements this weekend to fly down to Florida on Feb 25th to visit a good friend near Tampa Bay. He and his wife are both Doctors, and fairly well off. I met him years ago while I was a fugitive in San Francisco. He was apparently impressed with my straight forward honesty and struggle to overcome my circumstance, so he took up my plight and we have become great friends since. He has not only taken on my struggle, but as a result he and his family have been subject to public derision for their mere association with a Sex Offender. When my case hit front page news, his picture was on the front page right next to mine just because the paper learned that he had appeared at a parole hearing on my behalf! Because He was well known in the community we think the paper was trying to create a scandal. Fortunately they failed; All they succeeded in doing was hurting a very upstanding family that deserved no such ridicule. My friend and his family eventually packed their bags and moved to Florida where they have roots. So, that is where I'm going next month to visit, take in some of the attractions, and go for a cruise or two on my friends new "boat." I'm really looking forward to seeing him and his family again, it has been a while since they moved. Posted by: Joe

Sunday, January 11, 2004 A Famous Quote ¶ 10:42 PM "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." Posted by: Joe ¶ 9:00 PM I was just cleaning up and packing up some computer stuff in boxes to take to storage and I found a piece of paper that I had written down some information about a visit I got from police that I mentioned in a previous blog entry. So, I figure the best way not to loose this info is to put it in my blog: 10-3-2003 11:15 pm Loud knock on door. I asked who it was (as usual since the public notification, I never used to ask before answering the door) A mans voice answered, "Police" (or something similar). I opened the door thinking it was an officer doing thier anual harrasment check. Instead I found three officers in the hall, two men, one woman. One of the men addressed me and accusationally told me that I had better stop harrassing women down town because they know about me and I was being watched. They said three women had my picture that they printed off of the notification web site and said it was me who was harrasing them and repetedly asking them out. I told them that I knew no such ladies and had not been in the part of town they indicated since I don't know when. When I ask the officer his name he said it was Bergum (sp?) and he would have given me a card but he was all out. I strongly believe that if the women had accused me of anything more serious than "asking them out" I would have been arrested without question. Posted by: Joe ¶ 2:43 PM I slept in again today until 2 in the afternoon. But then, I was up until 5 am this morning playing around on my computer. I accidentally walked into my living room this morning in my underwear in front of my web cam, which proceeded to take my picture and alert my cell phone that it caught me. I erased the images off the web directory, wouldn't want to be accuse of being an exhibitionist, which would get me thrown in jail faster than you could say, "sex offender at it again." Posted by: Joe ¶ 1:25 AM I just discovered that my pet mouse has died. This makes me feel a little sad. I rue the day one of my cats die. I have always been a very sensitive person; I suppose that is why I have an especially hard time with people thinking I would intentionally hurt another person. It's not that it bothers me because I know I wouldn't. It bothers me to know that they think I would. In fact; it hurts. But, I have learned to deal with my sensitive feelings by trusting that no matter how hurt I feel, it is okay because God has everything under control and feeling hurt is just a part of his plan, and so I try to embrace the pain, and then let it go, I never hang onto it. So, now it is time to let my little mouse go. Posted by: Joe Hitler Was Human, What He Did Was Not. ¶ 12:46 AM I went over to my landlords house tonight for a "pre-bar" party. I was probably the only "straight" there, but nobody noticed. I chit chat with gays all the time and most don't even realize I'm not really gay and probably just assume I'm a prude. To me gays are no different than anyone else and I don't feel uncomfortable around them at all. When I was in prison I'd lived in "all black" cells--20 by 20 foot cells with 8 bunks. I got used to being out of my element. In fact, I learned to appreciated the opportunity to get an inside look of how others types of people act when they think they are with their own kind, and I can tell you, it is different. There were four "gang bangers" in that cell and listening to them talk about drive-by shootings as if I wasn't even there was enlightening. The peek into their street culture allowed me to see how they could do such "evil" things even though they perceived themselves as basically good and worthwhile people. It's called dehumanizing the victim (or disassociating from reality). The shocking part is that we call it anti-social behavior when inner-city black men do it so they can commit crimes, but we call it normal adaptive behavior when "law abiding citizens" dehumanize criminals, terrorist, or sex offenders (and in history, slaves, Jews, and gypsies). But it is all the same psychological trick. So, I learned to recognize dehumanizing for what it was and try not to give into it under any circumstance, and have considerably succeeded in most cases. I still tend to dehumanize overweight people, and cops. But I'm still working on that. Gays and blacks don't bother me a bit, except when they dehumanize others. Yes, it amazes me to listen to gay men talk bad about straight men, and women. I want to say, "Hey, wait a minute. You accuse them of being terrible because they put you down and don't accept your life style, then you sit here and put them down and don't accept theirs. What kind of sense is that?" I have actually tried telling gay people this and all it did was get me ejected from their circle. I became an enemy subject to full dehumanization. I think if there was one thing I could fix about mans nature it would be this ability to see other men as not worthy of ones empathy, for any reason. I have often claimed that if I ever had to hurt someone to protect my life, or a loved ones life, I would do it with empathy for that person. I doubt if I would ever have to, but if I did I can only hope I would do it with compasion. When I lived in Seattle someone stoll my bicycle that I used to get to work.  The only feeling I had toward the theif (who was never caught) was sorrow. Just imagine what kind of state of mind it takes to be able to take something from another person and not feel bad about it. That is a sad state of mind and one I would not wish on anyone. All people are human, it is one of the most important lessons that Christ tried to teach us. Hitler had a heart and human feelings. It saddens me when I here Christians and Christian Leaders, even the leader of our country, declaring another person or people are evil and should be destroyed in Gods name. But, our government, just like all governments, today and throughout history, needs a nemesis to justify its need for power. One thing I learned very well in prison is that the best and only real protection a person has is their self, their friends, and their family. Posted by: Joe

Saturday, January 10, 2004 ¶ 3:00 PM Another lonely Saturday at home alone with my cats. The meeting with Jeff was a bust. I tried calling him at 12:30 and 1:00 but he did not answer. Oh well. I got my bedroom cleaned up and brought home some boxes from work yesterday so I could take some more computer stuff over there where I am storing it in the basement until I can get a bigger place and set up a little electronic shop to work on antiquated electronic stuff as a hobby. It seems the Google search engine web crawler hit my web site, and for at least one day I was getting hits (about 400 on Thursday). I knew I was on Google because I did a search on "the Fifth Nail" Thursday and my site was at the top of the results! Then I did the same search on Friday and...nothing! My site was not in the results at all! I even searched for more specific and more general terms, still nothing. My stats also went way down; only getting about 40 hits (mostly my own) on Friday. This is very strange. Something else I noticed is that if you search the Web for information about discrimination against sex offenders you can find nothing. I'm thinking now that there might just be some sort of active campaign to suppress public association of the registration laws with discrimination. I was just telling my friend (the girl next door) last night that it would be folly to assume that people in positions of power would not use it to profit. Throughout history they always have, why would it be any different in America, the "Land of Opportunity?" Posted by: Joe

Friday, January 09, 2004 ¶ 11:41 PM My neighbor and I went and watched Paycheck tonight about a man who had his mind wiped after creating a machine that can see into the future. I sometimes think there are people among us that are from the future. I figure if time travel is ever possible, then why wouldn't there be time travelers here now from some distant future where they can do it. A lot of strange co incidents happen in my life that could be explained if someone were manipulating me with knowledge of my future. Strange thoughts. Most people have about as much a clue about the physical nature of the world as they do about the psychological nature of their own mind, little to none. I consider myself pretty ignorant, but I'm glad I'm not blind as well. The movie was intriguing, and afterwards we had a steak dinner at the Lone Star. Then we talked for a while in my apartment, but that was all. Now I'm tire and I'm going to bed. Posted by: Joe ¶ 2:56 PM I finally got the right modem driver installed on my laptop. My neighbor asked me out to a movie tonight and has offered to pay my way. I teasingly called her my sugar momma for wanting to pay. I like her a lot, and last night I dreamed about her and me in a hotel together. I feel bad though because while I care about her a lot, I could never give her the kind of Love she needs and deserves. I know this because I have been in Love before, and she and I just aren't that compatible. I really enjoy going out with her, but when I see other women she gets hurt. I don't want to hurt her, and I don't want to commit to her. If you have any advise I'm wide open, please send me an email here Posted by: Joe ¶ 2:51 PM I'm at work right now, so I'm keeping this short. After taking a look at my last few posts to this blog I realized sadly that nobody is ever going to read this crap. I feel so frustrated knowing that I can see solutions to many problems in our society where most people don't even see the problems (or at least not the real problems). And I'm sure the solutions are correct becuase they are typically coroborated by experts. And the expert are also frustrated because no-body will listen to them iether. Society is so full of fear, it just can't see striaght, and it is our government that propogates the fear. Posted by: Joe

Thursday, January 08, 2004 ¶ 6:39 PM Well, I went to the UPS office and picked up the package today immediately after work. It was the power supply for my trackerpod, but it didn't work. So I have to send the powerpod back. What a pain. I order stuff on-line all the time and very rarely do I run into hassles like this, and even this is pretty much the same as having to take something back to the store (I do that a lot too). I started a new aspx dotnet project at work today. I just started programming in C# a couple weeks ago doing a dotnet windows application, but this new project is a dotnet web application involving the same technology that companies like Google use to create their web-crawlers. Very cool stuff, and I intend to use what I learn by doing this to create my own crawlers to help get information for my new web site. I love computers. I belive we haven't even begun to see how the will revolutionize the world. In this century, probably in my lifetime, we will see and understand truly intelligent systems, and we will be force to drop the term artificial intelligence because in order for these systems to come into being we will have to understand finally what intelligence is, and in so doing we will finally view our intelligence as just another quantifiable aspect of our world and no longer a mysterious concept belonging to the realm of philosophical rhetoric (don't get me wrong, I respect the philosophy of the great minds, just not the philosophical rhetoric generated by weaker minds).  The new governor of Minnesota has resolved to make things even tougher for Sex Offenders in his state. Read Full Article Here More prison beds, longer sentences, stricter parole conditions...all of which not coincidentally equate directly to more money, of course. The Prison Industrial Complex must have creamed in its jeans over that one. I don't know, but I like Noam Chomsky's way of looking at things. He says if you want to understand what you see in the news just, "ask yourself who benefits." He means this quite literally, and he says this is not just a guideline, it is the rule he uses all the time, and he claims to have no problem making sense out of all the madness (and from what I read of his work, I believe him.) Most people have no clue what he is talking about because as a college professor he usually speaks and writes at graduate levels. The average American reads at the ninth grade level while most government documents are written at the eleventh or twelfth grade level. Lets try Chomsky's algorithm: We ask, "Who benifits?" Well, there are a plethora of studies clearly indicating that prisons have no consistant effect on crime rates; so we can rule out society benifiting from reduced crime. Yet there are reports that show communities, businesses and others clearly benifiting financially from prison growth.Is that a problem? Well, concider this; according to the the book Race to Incarcerate while the US accounts for only 5% of the worlds population, we also account for a quarter (25%) of the worlds prison population. We have the more than twice the incarceration rate of any other country, and by far the highest throughout all history! Yes, I think we have a problem here, because it seems obvious that someone is benifiting from all this crime, and its not the criminals. The fact is we live in a society where people in positions of power have the ability to profit tremendously from crime. Do you really think they want to stop it? There is a lot of proven ways we can reduce crime, one of which is educating our prisoners. Strange that prison education programs have been reduced by as much as 90% over the last 20 years. Most prisons offer little more than G.E.D.'s today, and yet many studies show education has a direct effect on recitivism for all crimes, races, ages, and sexes. Go figure. Posted by: Joe ¶ 2:05 AM I left work again today at regular time, I probably won’t finish making up the time I missed on Monday, from sleeping in, until Friday. I met Jeff, a “salesman” the other day and will be having lunch with him on Saturday after he meets with some other colleagues for breakfast. Should be interesting. A woman near here was arrested this week for attempted bank robbery. She went into her bank to inquire about a cancelled check, while there she jokingly made a comment to one of the tellers, “give me all you money.” The teller laughed and said nothing at the time. After the woman met with a bank rep and left the bank, the teller reported the incident to her manager. The police were called and the woman was arrested later that day at her home as she was preparing to feed her grandbaby. Expect to see more and more of these types of incidents, and to hear less and less about them. Read Full Article Here Had lunch today at Burger King with a few others from work. Posted by: Joe

Wednesday, January 07, 2004 ¶ 2:50 AM  I went back to Tacoma Washington to spend Christmas with my Mother and visit my Brother and Sister. While I was there I spent an afternoon helping my mother make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at her church where she volunteers to make the sandwiches so Jerry (aka "Peanut Butter & Jerry") can pass them out to homeless people under a bridge in a bad part of downtown Tacoma. I told Jerry I would help with his ministry by creating a web page to get the word out about what he is doing. The page won't be at this site, but keep a google-eye on the web as the site should be coming soon! I came home from work today at regular time and found a UPS notice on my door. I think it is for the power supply for my new web controlled camera mount. I’ve had a webcam up for some time now; I use it to watch my cats while I’m at work and for security (as if I need it, but ever since my skeletons were front page news three years ago I’ve felt not just a little insecure). I have it rigged so when it detects a significant amount of motion (like someone walking into my living room) it will page my cell phone and take pictures. I can also access my web cam anytime I want from my cell phone to get a live full color picture of the inside of my apartment. This is also part of my paranoia about getting charged for some crime I know nothing about. I figure the more I document my day to day routine, the less chance someone has of saying I was someplace I wasn’t. But it still doesn’t give me any real sense of security, because a crafty prosecutor can tear apart the best alibi. They know the law doesn’t work by its self and they think it is up to them to make it work. The law is just a bunch of rules, and whoever can manipulate those rules the best wins. It’s a very sad game, where nobody wins. While the prosecutors and police focus on the “little victories” the overall situation is getting worse. They know it and anyone will tell you this is so. But what do they do? They do exactly what they were chosen and conditioned to do; focus on the insignificant “little victories” while the machine continues plows our lives and souls into the ground. It just totally amazes me that so much has been written about this, yet nothing is ever done about it. Most people have an “I don’t know what to do, so I will do nothing” attitude. It actually sounds legit that way, there’s even a song, “I’d love to change the world…But I don’t know what to do…so I leave it up to you…” by Ten Years After. How does that work? (I actually like the way this song sounds, but I find the lyrics pretty frustrating) Posted by: Joe

Tuesday, January 06, 2004 ¶ 7:32 AM 7:30 am Just got a call from my oldest sister...I'm a grand-uncle, agian! My Niece just had a healthy baby girl early this morning! Welcome to the world, little girl. Dispite appearances, it really is a wonderfull place to be and don't let anyone tell you different. Everything is exactly as it should be, because God doesn't make mistakes. Posted by: Joe It's Really a Round World After All. ¶ 7:30 AM 6:55 am  I made it to work on time, so today is a far more typical day for me. Hit the snooze at 5:45, then dragged my butt out of bed 9 minutes later just before 6 am. Saw a link on Google news this morning to a story about a how coffee can reduce your risk of diabetes. Just when you think you got everything figured out they go and change the rules. I guess I could go into a spiel about how change is good and we should all learn to encourage it, but….I do want to say something about yesterday spiel though. I wrote a lot of gibberish about adult-child sex, but I just want to clarify that I am very opinionated about almost all crimes, not just that one, having literally grown up in prison. I went to adult jail when I was 17 (having spent the first few months of my incarceration at a juvenile facility in Tacoma Washington), and did not get out until I was 38, just a few years ago. I think most crime in American is completely preventable, but after doing much reading and personal research I have discovered first hand the meaning behind the term “Prison Industrial Complex.” There have been many books written on this topic that are based on solid research so I won’t go into it here, but in case this is a new term for you let me summarize for you: Our corrections system is more interested in reaping the benefits of “criminal justice” than stopping crime. Crime really does pay, just not the ones who commit it. That’s why I say, “Criminals are victims too!” This sort of ties into what I wrote the other day suggesting that maybe society itself has some kind of intelligence beyond our own. I don’t think any corrections person thinks, “Let’s see how many crimes we can make happen today.” But, the System for which that person works does depend on crime to survive. So it finds ways, beyond the individuals’ intent, to survive, by encouraging more crime. Don’t believe me; read what the experts have written (click here) about this phenomena The reason why you don't here about this phenomena on the 5 o'clock news is that it is way to complex for the general public. That’s why nothing ever gets done about it. I hope maybe by using slogans and images I can help raise social awareness to the real issues. We need not fear criminals nearly as much as we should fear the source of criminals…”the Machine.” If you are still thinking this is crap, then you are not thinking for yourself. Because these truths are self evident to a thinking mind. Here's another shocker...the world is not flat. Posted by: Joe

Monday, January 05, 2004 Justice, or Just Us. You Decide. ¶ 8:38 PM 7:40 pm I worked until 5 pm today to make up some of the time I missed this morning. I’ll have to work until 5 again in the morrow too. After work I went straight home, fed the cats, and had a salad for dinner to use up all the good veggies I bought before they go bad. After dinner I played Delta force for a bit until the game froze (as it seems to do often) then I dug into some research on the internet for the Fifth Nail web site. I’ve researched a lot on the topic of sex offenders, why they do what they do, but more importantly what it is that they do. The problem with trying to treat a sex offender is very similar to trying to treat a drug addict. You can tell a drug addict how bad drugs are for them until you are blue in the face and even if the addict tries to believe what you tell them their will always be that little rational voice in the back of their head that says, “Ya, but nobody was really hurt" or "They're not really that bad." Well, most of us know of course that that simply isn’t true, the drug user is just rationalizing their own behavior. So the mistake therapists commonly make is instead of digging into the source of that voice (which is in fact a rational voice—bear with me, I’ll explain) we instead berate the offender with how wrong and even monstrous their thinking is, without giving them credit for having an honest rational thought. That of course merely results in walls going up and progress, if any, being faked. This is how criminals are taught by the system to be manipulators (While anyone can tell you about the manipulative nature of criminals, what most people miss is that a person is rarely manipulative until after they have been through the system at least once). Instead of denying the truth and telling the offender they should do the same, if we want to help the victims we have to help the offenders and recognize that they are victims too. They are vitims of their own distorted views. In order to help the offenders we have to recognize that the thinking that keeps them from seeing the hurt they have caused is the same as the thinking that keeps us from seeing the rational behind their often denied belief that they did not really hurt anyone. We must see that they are not inherently “bad” or “evil.” They are confused and lost; making decisions based on a badly distorted view of reality. And instead of trying to “treat” them by feeding them our own distorted view of reality, which they can see through as easily as we can see through theirs, we MUST start being honest with ourselves, and in turn with them. That means admitting what is already obvious to the offender. I have lived with child preditors, and I have communicated with them on a level of trust no therapist could ever fake. I never judged what they told me, so I heard things that were quite shocking on the surface. But because I did not react to what they told me they went on and told me amazing things fully revealing the seriousness of their distortions. I learned that most people who prey on children have discovered that adult-child sexual relations are not in and of itself a bad thing, and does not in and of itself cause harm to the child (assuming no physical injury has been inflicted). You may scoff at this saying of course they think that, that is what makes them sick. But, by scoffing, you are only perpetuating the problem by rejecting a rational that is based on solid fact. Let me clear a few things up here before I go further: I am not a pedophile nor have I ever been accused of being one. Also, I was a child (age 16) when I committed my crime. And possibly most significant; because of my appearance and family circumstances I was molested so often and by so many different people that, up until the time of my offense, I actually thought it was normal and that everybody did it. That out of the way, let me say I know a little something about what I’m talking about. I spent two years in an experimental treatment program that has since been dismantled because of extreme failures including people re-offending while still in the program as well as more than one “therapist” offending while working with the patients (yes, one of the therapist in the program killed himself after being caught for raping and killing young homosexual men while he was a therapist at the program). My own therapist used his position of authority to obtain sex from wives, girlfriends, and even one offender's mother by promising it would make things easier for the offenders that these women cared about. While has all of course been documented, good luck trying to pry it out of the states archives, but if you want to try, the program was at Western State Hospital, I was there from 1980 to 1982 in Washington State, the program was shut down within a couple of years after I left the program. The program was extreme to say the least. It was officially shut down because of numerous civil rights violations (thank you Lotus Cassidy where ever you are for having the courage to fight the machine, even though it cost you many more years in prison). But the program, defunct as it was, was based on highly successful research that showed sex offenders were most successfully “rehabilitated” when they confronted the truth about their crimes and behavior. It was to say the least very controversial and, in my opinion, the down fall was from the effect of watering down the very truth that the program was based on because the truth was a bit to harsh for the public pallet. The offenders in the program became disillusioned as they were instructed to use modified versions of the truth that would stand public scrutiny. While emphasizing truth and honesty, the therapists began instructing the senior members in the program to refrain from certain terminology and treatment techniques that might be considered "offensive." How sadly often that story is repeated in this world, I think it should be an underlying theme for the Fifth Nail web site; how great ideas are invariably trampled by the masses, “ you call someplace paradise, you can kiss it good-bye” (from The Last Resort by the Eagles) These offenders were people who had already shown that they genuinely wanted to understand why they did what they did. Proving your sincerity for treatment was the most important pre-requisite for getting into the program. No-one was allowed in until after three months of intense evaluation and a very high percentage were turned away. Now these same offenders were being told to “not discuss” specific facts, and to even lie if necessary to cover up what was going on in the program. My therapist at the time, Mike Sheppard, told our group one day that, in response to a subpoena, he had told a court official certain records had been destroyed in a fire. The group as a whole agreed to support his story. After all, nobody wanted their own personal information (and confessions) to become a part of the public record. It is no wonder the program failed. It was taken over by people who thought the truth could be faked. So, where am I going with all this? What am I saying? Very simply, you can not help a dishonest person by being dishonest! Society must learn to face the truth if it expects offenders to face the truth. We must face our own sickness before we can expect offenders to face theirs. We must learn to recognize and work within the social context of crime. If we took just a fraction of the money we spend on criminal justice and used it instead to study ways to stop supporting criminal behavior we could bring crime to a virtual stand still. This has been shown in numerous studies. But it would also undermine the foundation of the entire Prison Industrial Complex. Billions of dollars would be lost by those in control, and redirected to various less influential organizations, like medical research, national health care, advanced education, and energy alternatives. Okay, maybe I am just dreaming. Posted by: Joe ¶ 9:28 AM 9:25 am I slept in accidentally this morning. My alarm did not go off. I checked it last night like I always do just before going to bed, and it said 6:00 so I thought it was good, but when I woke up this morning at 8:30 and wondered why it did not go off I realized that I had set it for 6:00 pm on New Years Eve so I could take a nap after work then get up to go watch the “Return of the King” with my neighbor. So, now I’m at work and work I must… Posted by: Joe