The money shower

Although this place is not on my way home,I wanted a picture of it because it speaks a little about who I am and where I have found myself to be. Strangely symbolic in a way, it is and of itself,representing hard work and additional alterations over time. We will ignore the abandoned part.
For those who are reading my blog for the first time, I work in a Prison, a maximum prison in the State of Alabama, known for its corruption and political slaughter of those who would disrupt the powers that be, (and this changes from time to time) and among my friends and colleagues believes that our present Governor stole the election by unlawful conduct conducted by overly eager supporters and hopeful recipients of political favors. But this isn't the core of this post. I am employed by the Department of Corrections as a Cabinetmaker, there are only a handful across the state and we all do different jobs, some do mill work, some do furniture construction using press board and laminate and some travel across the state constructing modular work stations that we build at our facility. In my case, a colleague and I have the only furniture restoration and furniture construction from raw material plant in the state. We will take a piece of furniture, be it a desk or chair credenza or whatever, strip it with solvents break it down into components and re-construct it to showroom condition and return it to the customer. We do this using inmates who we screen as being candidates who are receptive to conditioning in the necessary ability to work with others and taking pride while developing abilities and skills useful in a workplace setting.
If you're thinking working with inmates who are convicted of murder, robbery, and heinous crimes can be trying you're right, sometimes I am tested, I have witnessed murder, came within seconds of being a victim, walked up on inmates making knives, caught them stealing even discovered prison whiskey. Yet I have never regretted a day I have spent dealing with men who's lives was changed by their actions or circumstance's they found themselves in.
At the end of the day the inmates are returned to the Department of Corrections, to be dealt with in a more controlling manor by officers who do not respect them as human or indulge in barter by bringing them dope, cell phones porno movies or whatever, only to have their fellow officers go and discover these items for promotional purposes. The three time looser law has filled Alabama's prison's to dangerous levels and something must be done to address the over crowding. Alabama doesn't seem to be in any hurry. With D.A.'s and Judges not willing to admit to making mistakes and ignoring court orders, it isn't likely things will change any time soon.
Where I work is located, as are some prisons, in a rural area which means I can go for a ride in the country after work every day before I get home and not feel so much like I have a tiger outside my gate. Oddly,I am told or reminded almost daily, that the world I have to move around is much more dangerous then the one the inmates have as in predictable structure. I can't argue the truth of that fact as I pass food marts that used to belong to mom and pop with attendants behind bullet proof glass while occasionally venturing out to make latte or brew coffee or restock the beer cooler. All the while people are pulling up to gas pumps in SUV's guzzling gas at $4.00 plus per gallon on their way to Wal-Mart built with Chinese money by Mexican labor using foreign raw materials stocked with very few items built in the old USA. If your unaware of what the road to ruin looks like then take a good look. Families loosing jobs then their homes while companies in financial destitute foreclose on houses they can't sell because nobody will loan money so the cycle begins. Large company's absorb the financial stimulus money and use the unstable market as an excuse not to pass the money on in loans and the line between the rich and poor widens and we are enslaved to submit to the bidding of the powers that be. There will continue to be suffering until a tally will show what is real money and what is just paper, and who holds what is of real value. Right now we're just throwing money at it, hoping it will solve itself. I have read some articles that seem to suggest that many states have legislation in place to enforce the tenth amendment, which gives the states the right to say that "we don't want to continue in this manner and demand our rights as states to succeed from the United States and not be represented by the government as it stands" In essence Those of you in Washington can just go home and we'll just find new beginnings as we did id the 1700's. Some would say division is an opportunity to conquer but the "right to bear arms" would act as a deterrent to any serious thoughts of that. Would the government view anarchy as a terrorist threat? who can say, laws are in place to honor both "the peoples rights or the Governments right to protect"?

I have heard people say "I shouldn't have to take a loss just because people bought more house then they can afford" and having said that would appear to be like complaining about climbing into an already over crowded life boat while the luxury liner they just left, sinks after being hit by a torpedo because the captain thought a passing boat had enough weapons to harm us so he shot at it. Look around buddy, we are all in the same boat and it's sprang a leak. Before you get rescued, the bailout crew (no pun intended) has already paid the owner of the luxury liner for his loses which they quickly come back with " this only covers our ship not the loss of revenue by all those people floating around sinking lifeboats, so they pay them again. So when you paddle back to the ship you are told that without money you will not be boarding and the lifeboat you are using is just on loan. Just make things worse they say if you try something crazy like trying to take over the ship we'll chum for sharks and watch the feeding frenzy. To me, at least putting the stimulus in the hands of taxpayer would have been a more effective way of dealing with the crisis. Daily, jobs are being lost, company's complaining no body's buying my product so I have to lay off workers, I know, lets give the already out of touch car makers lots of money to build cars that they should have developed years ago and they can ask what remaining workers they have to take pay cuts to build cars that no one can afford. Wall street should be re named the black hole and who needs it?, surround it by several blocks with crime scene tape a see if it can be dropped in its own footprint and build a park. Get ready for tent city and campfires bicycle commuters who have jobs, campfire smoke mixed with the smell of Deet insect spray.

Civil unrest is brewing, there my be use of force of people being thrown out of their houses and the smell of gun powder,but remember this I will always be grateful that we look down on the criminals and have a place to house them, for it means that I may still have a job and every day I leave I can view that image in my rear view mirror as I look out at all of the empty homes for sale whose signs have faded with age and wonder if that family is living in a tent or out of their SUV in Wal-Mart parking lot.