You get enough power and you’re bound to start abusing it, I suppose.
Frank Monaco, commenting about the judges in Pennsylvania who sent kids to jail for money. (Despite Red Flags, Judges Ran Kickback Scheme for Years - NYTimes.com) (via jeffmiller)
**************************
The New York Times is only reporting half the story here. I want to know why the owners of the youth detention centers aren’t being charged with bribery. Could it be that one of the owners is Greg Zappala - the son of former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen Zappala Sr., and the brother of Allegheny County District Attorney Steven Zappala?
Sadly, it looks like the focus of this story will be the two corrupt judges - Ciavarella and Conahan - and not the absurdity of a corrupt system that allowes them to invest in incarceration and rewards those with political connections. Here are two articles if you want to investigate further:
http://tinyurl.com/ceby35 and http://tinyurl.com/d3s5ef
Missouri Pettway, 1902-1981. Blocks and strips work-clothes quilt, 1942, cotton, corduroy, cotton sacking material, 90 x 69 inches. Missouri’s daughter Arlonzia describes the quilt: “It was when Daddy died. I was about seventeen, eighteen. He stayed sick about eight months and passed on. Mama say, ‘I going to take his work clothes, shape them into a quilt to remember him, and cover up under it for love.’ She take his old pants legs and shirttails, take all the clothes he had, just enough to make that quilt, and I helped her tore them up. Bottom of the pants is narrow, top is wide, and she had me to cutting the top part out and to shape them up in even strips.” (via supernice)
I love this:
I going to take his work clothes, shape them into a quilt to remember him, and cover up under it for love.
I don’t make very many things for myself but I have a few bags of baby clothes that I intend to quilt in order to hold onto the many joyful days that have come and gone. I hope to have more big and wonderful loves as the years come but I think, I’m almost positive, I would be content to be able to wrap myself in the ones I have had so far because just small flashes of them make my heart swell so big it feels like it could burst.
With what shall I come before the LORD,
And bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
Ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:6-8
