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High Justice meets Alliteration: The Autumn Acts of the Back Bench Boys
As the final fall fidget of the 41st Parliament prepares to take its padded seat, the Office of Silly Bills this week released its summer submissions registry of private member’s offerings for winning...
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Failing the sniff test
“I’m having a hard time understanding how you having a shower shouldn’t be used as a reward. Especially when I think of the mother who doesn’t have her son anymore, because you murdered him. I just...
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When faith won’t cut it
OK, full disclosure time. I am what, in certain circles, is referred to as one of them. I endure my days in the absolute belief of a Divine Creator, a higher purpose, the power of prayer, the whole...
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The long game
“So then… this is it?” The faces rarely vary — a real butcher’s blend of realization, disbelief and gloom — when they finally register that a life sentence means bedding down in some form of state...
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Return to sender
Dearest Canada: Hi, it’s me — your national penitentiary. Sorry it’s taken so long to write back. There’s a lot going on for me right now, and it’s been a crazy year. I was actually in front of a...
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Warning: Discretionary content. Viewer disturbances advised.
By his own admission, Ronny Adder* possesses the entire skill set of what might be termed, in polite circles, a serious asshole. At 12 years old, he drove a stolen car from Hope to Victoria, B.C. By...
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Queen of the damned
At six-foot-four, 257 pounds, life-sentenced inmate S. Tasha seems an improbable poster child for the word vulnerable. Especially once you know that Tasha has previously held court in some of Canada’s...
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Right turn, Clyde
When the $351-million Canadian Museum for Human Rights finally opened in Winnipeg this autumn, it was easy money that there would be no penitentiary pavilion. Though its exclusion likely had less to do...
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Talon 2.0
Place both hands on Blackberry Offenda-scan®. “Eh?” Place both hands on Blackberry Offenda-scan®. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Failure to place both hands on the Blackberry Offenda-scan®...
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Zero calories — same great taste!
Au revoir, Beef Beaujolais. Bye-bye, lobster pâté. So long, Swiss chocolate mousse. In preparation for the 2015 federal election, it seems that lean King Steve has put the Big House on a diet. “Is...
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Real spacewives of the Big House
It’s official. I’m now of that particular age where I can’t remember who said it. Was it Sigourney Weaver? Bowie’s Major Tom? I don’t know. But the claim is that in space, no one can hear you scream....
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50 ways to kill your lover
John Deere is not a brand name typically associated with passion. Especially crimes of passion. Smith & Wesson, sure. Black & Decker — maybe. Once I even saw a guy get his hall-pass punched...
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He
Good morning, darling. Mrrrrnin. How was the pillow, dear one? Is. Is friendly … It’s 7:35. It looks cold, but the sun is gorgeous. I think it’ll be a bright morning. Hmmnnnnn … Kettle time? Yeeeaahh....
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Aim for the whites of their eyes
When the curious ask, I tell them that prison is a lot like high school. Except with, like, more axe-murderers. And gun towers. And group showers. Then again, I suppose that depends on the school...
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The billion dollar cockroach race
Overload, shmoverload. While Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, the Cloud, texting and Twitter may be the latest locust swarm to obliterate man’s attention span, time for uninterrupted reflection has always been a...
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Not intended for humane consumption
OK – full disclosure. I don’t do Christmas. Don’t watch for it, wish for it, sing it, shop it, gain 10 pounds over it, or even snark about it. So while non-incarcerated Canada shopped, dropped and...
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Charlie? You mean like, Manson?
If you think French cartooning is a tough gig, you should try a swim in the inkwell of a Big House penman. “Is my special anniversary today,” Gáton said to me this Wednesday. It was the morning of the...
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The fool Monty
Horrific murder. I always marvel at that word recipe. Especially when a certain tooth-challenged anchoress from Canadian cable news dribbles it out over her buxom bottom lip. And in other news, there’s...
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A world beyond handicapped parking
When Emma Czornobaj brought her Honda Civic to a full stop in the fast lane of a perilous public speedway in March 2012, I’m sure it all made perfect sense to her. A mother duck with babies aboard had...
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Thy cup runneth over
Grade 9. Whenever I muse about the various off-ramps that might have saved me from this life of regret-soaked pillows, it always comes back to Grade 9. That was the year I discovered recreational...
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A short & bloody tail
To say that Camelot was a born killer is probably a fair assessment. Not the cold-blooded variety, but born to it nonetheless. Her family? A veritable gang of killers. Friends? Oh yeah. And her...
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The dangerous game – Pt. II
Risk assessment. When economists (what a banker becomes without Viagra) took over the 21st-century’s values agenda, it was inevitable that risk would become the new godhead. Forget faith, hope and...
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Splitting the reality cheque
Life. I was 10 the summer I first understood how fleeting the human adventure is. My youngish parents had collected my sibling and me onto a sturdy Sears hide-a-bed costing them eight dollars a month,...
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Tunnel vision
Tell me it wasn’t great fun watching Canada’s national media as they frothed forth on the Toronto tunnel story this week. At 7 a.m. (Eastern), a latte-jacked Heather Hiscox at CBC News woke us to the...
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Spare some change, Mister H?
As new friends go, Benji seldom fails to impress. “I’m not going to let the worst thing I ever did define me as a person,” he told me this week. Unfortunately, that worst thing in question would be a...
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Over the Cliff
Everybody’s got their bogeyman, I suppose. Being a kid growing up in south-central British Columbia in the late ’70s and early ’80s, mine was an especially bedevilled egg by the name of Clifford. I...
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Two (moonshots) in the back of the head
Whenever my fellow con cadets ask me why I’m so wired to Fareed Zakaria and his cable news offering, Global Public Square (GPS), I usually say the same thing. The man is hung. And no, I don’t mean...
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Hoo you callin’ stoopid?
You know you’re a convict when … Bruce din’t have no daddy. Or perhaps, like most other prison progeny, he had a variety of daddies, each bearing the same broad-brush moniker: uncle. Regardless, by the...
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How the underworld saves on underwear (and other essential travelling tips...
Generally, jailbirds are an apolitical bunch. In my first 15 years here, I could have won a lifer’s supply of Oh Henry! bars on a simple sidewalk wager: Name five Canadian politicians (Queen E....
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So now what?
For the past 40 years, the United States has been engaged in a vast, costly social experiment. It has incarcerated a higher percentage of its people, and for a longer period, than any other democracy....
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