Where does evil come from and does everyone have some in them?

Working in the medical department in a correctional facility for over 8 years, I have come in contact with people who have committed terrible crimes. When I worked at the state prison, it was a moderate/minimal security facility. The crimes committed by those at that facility didn't usually include murder.

When I was offered the job working at our local jail I realized I would be working with people with very serious crimes including first degree murder. They would be housed in our jail waiting for trial and those trials can take many years to adjudicate.

Not always but most of the time, I am aware of what the inmate I am treating is in jail for. I feel I need to know. It is a valuable part of my total assessment of my patient. I do recognize that until they are convicted, they are innocent until proven guilty. Even then their innocence/guilt may be only as valid as the competence of their attorney. Having that information, I do not let it influence how I treat the inmate. I treat them as a fellow human being and give the best of what I have to offer.

Some of the crimes alleged of some of the inmates I treat are very gruesome. What is interesting is that I don't usually see the evil that must have been present at the time the crime was committed. Most seem just like you or me. I may see a little evil here and again but it is not usually in those who have been charged with horrible crimes.

It all makes me wonder if maybe all of us have some evil in us but most of us can keep it in check. Desperation, drugs or mental illness may be what opens the door. My job in corrections gives me lots to ponder about. I have thought of so many research projects that need to be done. Some I wish I could even participate in but I already have my hands full.

Charlotte Builds a Web

As it happens, Charlotte, my nightly spider-visitor about whom I've been commenting here on Carol's blog is a Barn Spider. She is, in fact, the very spider made famous in the children's book by American writer E. B. White. You can read more about the real-life Charlotte on wiki. I've been observing Charlotte behaving just as documented in the wiki article. Except for one thing: she didn't read the part about taking her spiderweb down every night. This morning she crept away and left it in place. As I write, tonight's hunting has begun, and she saved herself some extra work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn%20spider

Baby girl went to bed with her owl.

Couldn't resist putting this one in. I don't give a hoot, cuz her's so coot.

Lil Maggie gets very few toys because Cesar, the dog whisperer. says that too many toys causes anxiety in your dog. My sister's dog, Pedi, has a truck load of toys and that dog is so anxious that that most of the family is still carrying the mental scars from some of his displays. Whew!

I need to share a page from the journal I kept when mom was dying and we were all staying in the same house with our respective pups. That experience made "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" seems like a day at the park.

Well, last week, while shopping at my favorite, just around the corner Wally World store, I passed this little owl, it said, "take me home." Actually it hoots, but it's little hooter broke shortly after I got it home, which was a blessing. Another problem I have with dog toys is that they all say, "made in China". I'm a little nervous about that "made in China" stuff for dogs and children. I just don't trust it anymore since the dog food ingredients that came from China killed so many dogs and cats. Why can't someone here in America start a dog toy business. Just go to your favorite dog store and try to find a doggie toy that says, made in the USA.

Since the dog food scare, I have even been cooking the Magster her own dog food. I can't afford to lose my best friend because a best friend is not easy to come by. Even if I'm too tired to cook something for myself, I find the energy to cook her up something. I only have to do it about twice a week because she is cool with leftovers in between.

I am sure that there are some commercially prepared dog foods that are probably safe and maybe even safer than what we eat but who knows? I test Maggie's food first. If it doesn't kill me then it's good enough for her.

If you decide to cook your own dog food make sure not to include things that have been determined to be dangerous to dogs, ie onions, grapes, raisins, and chocolate. There is a more inclusive list available on Wikipedia.

ok im in now, it would not let me, for a while

Wish you were here!

What a wonderful day. We got off about 7:30 this morning. The boat cranked right up but as soon as I gave it a little throttle, it died. We were drifting down the river, dead in the water. Normally this would be the time when I would get really nervous but I had a feeling everything would turn out fine. I worked with the motor for a while and finally got it running again. Must have had some moisture in the line. That's what I get for not running it for several weeks.

As soon as we were up and running again we headed for a few places I wanted to try out. I don't have any recent experience with white perch fishing so today was just going to be a learning day. If we didn't catch any fish it wouldn't be a total waste because it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Even had to start out with a light jacket and that is rare here in early September.

Susan, my fishing partner, is from Long Island, New York. She is one of the nurses who works at the jail. She hasn't done much fishing but she loves it. It was even her idea that I take off today so we could go.

We tried a few spots that I thought might be good and had no luck. About an hour after we were out, my river rat neighbor called to check on us because he heard from one of our other neighbors that I was having some problems with the motor. I told him everything was OK. He told us a friend of his was catching white perch right across the river from my camp but had to leave because he ran out of minnows. We headed back toward that area.

We fished for several hours in that little honey hole and pulled in quite a few. Since I haven't fished for white perch in years, I forgot how tricky they are to catch. The bobber would barely move and there would be a fish on the line. And you have to pull it in quick before it got away. We lost more than we caught. All in all we had a pretty good day but I need another day off tomorrow to rest up from it.

Susan took the fish home for her husband to clean. That makes it a perfect day.

Gone fishing.....

I thought before I go I needed to maybe explain some of the code language we are using here. You know, like "snipe hunting." We don't want our new peeps here to be confused......like we may seem to be at times.

I don't know if a snipe is a real bird, you'll have to ask Ivy but if you were lucky, when you were a kid, you might have gotten the opportunity to do a little snipe hunting. It's more likely if you were in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or Camp Fire girls or some other organization that gave your parents the option of getting rid of you for a little time in the summer. Maybe you just had a nice relative that would take you off for a while.

I was in Camp Fire girls. And we did some snipe hunting and I got the privilege of getting to be the lead hunter. Now this is how it goes. Ya wait until dark. You get a big brown paper bag, put some pickle relish in the bottom of the bag. The lead hunter gets to hold the bag, in the middle of the dark woods, all alone, while all the others circle the area banging sticks together. The purpose is the scare the snipe into your pickle relish baited bag. Yeh, right!

Ya know at age 10, I wasn't born yesterday. The entire thing sounded screwy to me, but what the heck, so did Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and a lot of the stuff I heard in church. There's a lot of stuff that kids are asked to believe that just doesn't make sense. No wonder we grow up not trusting anybody. And I don't trust very many.

Well, while holding that bag in the dark woods, it didn't take me long to notice that people were disappearing and heading somewhere else. I think I got back to camp before most of the rest of them did. You can't fool this idiot, at least not for too long.

And now for how snipe hunting applies to blogs. Well every now and then a blog puts up a "new thread", or "new post". Snipe hunting is when you are still gabbing, in the comment section, on one post and no one is gabbing back and you find out they all left to go to the next post and didn't tell you. You can just about hear them all laughing at you.

Well now off the finish loading up.

Preparing for tomorrows fishing trip.

Going fishing ain't just grabbing your pole and jumping in the boat. It takes a lot of preparation, sometimes so much that you don't have the energy to actually do the fishing when your done.

I made my list, checked it twice. Cleaned out the boat, charged up the battery, filled the gas tank, restrung all the reels, replaced the rusty hooks, and fixed up some jug lines to drop off. This is the part where a good man would come in handy. Don't have one so I'm stuck doing it myself.

I've got so much stuff to put in the boat that I'm not sure if there will be room for my fishing partner and me. She's a green horn so I'll probably even have to bait her hooks. After she catches her first fish, she's on her own.

The detergent jugs are used to make the jug lines. This time I will try not to put one of those gnarly hooks thru a finger. I haven't set those jugs out since my unfortunate accident.

Oh, the last picture is Joey, the river rat who rode his houseboat through Rita. He must be taking his bed and breakfast guests on a swamp tour. I'll try and get a close shot next time.