Beats finding a 'shiv' in a cell |
I WAS AMUSED by the Chicago Sun-Times report about how inmates at the county jail this week played inmates held in prisons across Russia. It wasn’t face-to-face. Our inmates were in the jail’s law library, while the Russian inmates were in their own prison facilities. The games were played on-line.
Not the typical chess championship setting |
Personally, I find the idea of inmates spending all their spare time (which is what they have while being incarcerated) playing a board game to be encouraging. There are worse things they could be doing.
Although
I couldn’t help but notice some people using the anonymity of the Internet to
complain that these inmates should have been doing something that resembles hard
labor.
THEY
PROBABLY WOULD only be pleased to see inmates wearing black-and-white striped
uniforms and swinging big hammers. Personally, I’d be concerned that they’d use
those hammers as weapons against their guards.
As
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told the Sun-Times, chess is harmless because they
can’t really, “beat someone with a rook.”
And
as for those who wonder about the whuppin’ the Cook County inmates received
this week, there’s one encouraging factor. They have nothing but time to
continue to practice and get better – should there ever be anything resembling
a rematch.
What
else was notable amongst the activity taking place Thursday on the southwestern
shores of Lake Michigan?
SOME
SENSE PREVAILS?: It has been a month since the Cook County courts imposed their
new ban on people being able to bring their cellular telephones into the courthouses,
and a part of me is relieved to see that some semblance of sense prevails in
terms of that policy’s enforcement.
Deputies showing some sense in phone enforcement |
They were requiring anyone wishing to make a call to go outside to do so. But the idea of people with business before the court having to surrender the phones wasn’t quite so rigid as the “letter of the law” implies.
Although
within the courtrooms, judges were saying that anybody whose phones rang during
session would have them confiscated. And I did see one individual try to use
his phone during court. Deputies confiscated it from him, but returned it when
he left for the day.
THE
YOUTH VOTE?: It’s now in the hands of Gov. Pat Quinn as to whether 17-year-olds
will be able to cast ballots in elections in Illinois.
Not the favorite setting for youth |
Yes, I’m aware there are a few youthful types already on their way toward becoming government geeks who will be all worked up about the chance to cast their first ballot a few months earlier than the law currently allows.
But
those officials who say they support this as a way of bolstering the percentage
of those who vote? It sounds like wishful thinking to my mindset, since the
rule of thumb for political professionals trying to turn out the vote is that
it is the old folks, so to speak, who are the most reliable when it comes to
showing up at the polling place.
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