Between 1980 and 2021, the number of incarcerated women in the US increased by more than 525 percent, rising from 26,326 in 1980 to 172,700 in 2023. What’s gone wrong ? How can we fix it? ________________________________________________________________________ Excerpts from a prison writing workshop, Wyoming Women’s Center, 2017 “When you are young you feel that you… Read More
I must admit I skimmed over Turkish history in my youth. But I had wanted to visit Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) ever since I was aware of its existence. The city had an aura of mystery and mixed influences. It was the setting for James Bond films. Today the nation is supposed to be a… Read More
My husband Neil had been badly injured in a biking accident in early September. He went head first over handlebars zooming down a hill when his brakes failed. He lost consciousness, sustained a fractured rib and wrist, dislocated fingers, and covered himself in road rash so extensive it looked like a Hollywood makeup job. A… Read More
by Arielle Emmett Tameca Cole, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, spent 26 years at Julia Tutwiler Women’s Prison (Wetumpka, AL) for a drug deal gone bad. She was 21 years old at the time and won’t disclose further details except to say that someone was killed. Today, at age 51, she’s an artist whose work… Read More
by Arielle Emmett As I wrote in my last post, Edwin McMillan spent 21 years in California prisons for crimes of robbery, kidnapping and carjacking which he committed at gunpoint at the age of 19. The kidnapping/carjack incident in Oxnard, CA lasted about 15 minutes. McMillan and his cousin Josh stole a sports car in… Read More
When Prisoners Educate Themselves, Success becomes Reality by Arielle Emmett At age 19 Ed McMillan was an out-of-control kid who loved his mother and hated the Navy. At Christmastime in 1997, he went AWOL, driving in a buddy’s car from Virginia back to Oxnard, CA to stage a surprise visit. Barred at the door by… Read More
During the 1970s, when America recognized Taiwan as the “real China,” an exemplar of free market economics and bulwark against Maoist Communism, I lived in Taipei as a young reporter learning Mandarin Chinese. My host family, the Jens, belonged to the Nationalist Kuomingtang (KMT) military class, at once fiercely loyal to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and… Read More
In late October last year, about six weeks after I arrived in Kenya, I interviewed a Chinese minister and commercial counselor in Nairobi. Dr. Guo Ce bowled me over with his enthusiasm and immense hope for Kenya’s development and long-term partnership with his homeland. A few weeks later, he asked me to withdraw this blog… Read More
What a Nairobi radio hostess who busts marital cheaters can teach us about love. Yes there has been a huge hiatus in my writings here. Since my last post, I’ve flown direct to Salt Lake City from Nairobi in 20 hours to see my grandchildren, compiled 53 tapes of interviews, and met, among many other… Read More
A few weeks have passed. After awhile the string of conversations and interviews begins to blur. The faces don’t, exactly, but the impressions they make are something like Georges Seurat’s paintings. Pointillistic — dots of red, yellow, blue, white, and black. Assembled close up, each fleck means too little. Taken from afar, the whole is… Read More