But I can't watch it on Monday mornings because there's no show on Sunday. Bummer. On Mondays I go local and hang out with the fun and charmingly punchy WGN morning crew.
This morning the Around Town with Ana Beleval segment went to the Old Joliet Prison which is now a park or some shit like that. This would have been sort of great because a park is better than a prison, but during the segment there was this exchange, paraphrased:
Joliet Prison Tour Guide: When the prison was active, prisoners could get their GED or, for a while, even a full college degree
Ana Beleval: Wow! That's great
Joliet Prison Tour Guide: Well, they stopped the college program because as a judge said 'Steal a car and get a free college education,' so they just went back to the GED program.
And then Ana and the tour guy giggled over that clever judicial assessment.
Y'all - we live in a country where the idea of a kid going to prison in order to get a college education is a laughable (laughable!) scam. Let me say that again: a person goes to jail (to jail!) because they can't afford to go to college and we laugh (laugh!) at that.
And, obviously, there's not a man born of woman who goes out, steals a car, does years (YEARS!) in Joliet prison, gets their prison issued college diploma, walks out a felon (FELON!) with all the commensurate lack of rights that entails and goes:
This is a total fiction that this judge came up with in order to screw over prisoners who were already pretty screwed over on account of that they were in JOLIET PRISON! Do you know what Joliet Prison looks like? It looks like this:
Yes! I think I'll sacrifice my freedom in order to live in this cheerful place for several years in order to scam Illinois out of a free college education (WHICH SHOULD BE FREE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS ONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!)
I just really want to live in a country that's not so mean. I am shook (I think that's what the kids say) at the blithe laughter that followed that incredibly mean exchange. I wish we, as Americans, had a national, civic inclination to kindness. But the "Screw him! I got mine!" voice just seems increasingly loud, increasingly influential in the way we legislate and politick and live. It's gross.
I read this quote about Jane Addams years ago which I can't remember exactly. I have googled and googled and I can't find the quote - but I'm sure that it was said of Jane Addams by a woman who worked with her and I think in an interview with the late, great Studs Terkel: Miss Addams never judged anyone because she knew what life could do to a person.
I love that quote (which I've totally gotten wrong, only I'm sure the spirit of it is right). Jane Addams understood that her lived experiences and her strength were different than other people and so she showed them kindness, helped them on a path away from whatever desolation and misery their lives had brought them to.
But I guess it's childish to expect the country to grow up into the kind of empathy that people who've lived life with open eyes and open hearts can have. And I guess the adult in me knows that rather than judge other people for their meanness, I should redouble my own efforts to kindness.
But I'm judging you a little, mean Joliet tour guide and Ana Beleval. Just a little. As penance, have a Jokes Seth Can't Tell. Seriously, it's like a tonic for mean.
