ISSUE 40•13 |
03.31.04 | News in Brief
SOLEDAD, CA—A pen-wide smoking ban instituted last week devastated the Salinas Valley State Prison's fragile economy, inmate #67545 said Monday. "There were occasional fluctuations or recalibrations, but a bar of soap used to equal three cigarettes; a Snickers, four; a Percocet, 15," said Kenneth Oglivy, a former WorldCom accountant serving 10 years for embezzlement. "After the ban, the value of a carton of Newports climbed to 50 times its 2003 value. Now that those cigarettes are gone, it's total chaos." Oglivy said Salinas Valley inmates will have to devise a new system of value based on some other commodity, such as assholes.
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Before I Die, I'd Like To See Hazzard County With My Own Eyes
ISSUE 40•13 | 03.31.04 | Commentary
Through the years, as I've traveled this country selling floor coverings, I've had the opportunity to see the best this great nation of ours has to offer: the famous Cheers district of Boston, the historic Flimm building in Cincinnati, and the storied East Side of New York City, to which the Jeffersons made their famous odyssey. Once, while attending a convention in Milwaukee, I was blessed to tread the same streets as Laverne, Shirley, and the immortals of the Happy Days gang. But as I grow older—for, yes, I am getting old—the urban life entices me less, and the winter stays longer in my bones. Lately, I find myself thinking often of the balmy Southern countryside. Though I have seen great wonders in my life, I have yet to see Hazzard County with my own eyes. more»