The cash-strapped local government of Camden County, Georgia needs to hire some new firefighters to fulfill its basic public safety obligations, but it doesn’t have the money. Hey, that’s an easy one, though: just find some workers the county doesn’t have to pay! They are called “prisoners,” America’s most popular burgeoning source of unpaid government labor. There are millions of them, just rotting away for minor offenses! And it’s a good thing, too: Camden’s new slave labor plan to get inmates to perform uncompensated skilled life-threatening work will save them up to a half million dollars. Maybe it’s time to throw a few of these public school teachers or bus drivers in jail, too?
Camden County’s proposal stems from a slave labor program that is already in place in the neighboring county of Sumter (OH THE SOUTH, YOU ARE GREAT). You can even picture the local officials eyes glittering away adding up all the little monies they save!
From the Florida Times-Union:
Sumter County’s program has been in place for two years. Although there was some outcry about it at first, Sumter County Administrator Lynn Taylor said she’s had only positive feedback from the community about their performance.
She said there are 15 inmate firefighters in the department.
“It’s worked out quite well,” she said. “This is a measure that governments are looking into to provide the same high level of service in the most economic way possible.”
She said the program saves the county a tremendous amount of money because each inmate is available around the clock on all three shifts. A typical firefighter works one 24-hour day and then has two days off. The 15 inmates are filling the slots of 15 firefighters per day; the equivalent of 45 slots.
“That’s what makes this so appealing,” [Camden County Commissioner Jimmy] Starline said. “If it was a one-for-one ratio, that wouldn’t be so attractive.”
He said it costs about $6,000 to train a firefighter; $2,000 to outfit him; and about $40,000 to pay his salary and benefits. With each of six inmates working all three shifts, the county would save more than $100,000 a year per inmate, Starline said.
Yes, that IS a great thing about prisoners that makes them the “most economic” option available — you can make them work whenever and they can’t complain! Public workers are already sort of like criminals, because they are always trying to fleece the government for things like wages and benefits for their services, so why not just cut out the middle step? [Florida Times-Union]
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Those of us untrained in firefighting about to roast in flames or lost our jobs because of this idiot idea, salute you.
(With one finger.)
I have but two middle fingers to give these rightwing dirtbags, but I give them gladly.
~
Morituri, indeed.
Prisoners — America's untapped labor resource!
You forgot children. Won't SOMEONE think of the children? Charles Koch? David?
Shelley?
I'm sorry, Michele is currently on the line with one of her *other* voices. Please leave a message, and she'll get right back to you.
I remember when we used to complain about the Chinese using prison labor.
And how good a job did the slaves do at saving Atlanta the last time it burned? Huh? HUH?
Chanted "Burn Baby, Burn!" so they did something right.
Just an FYI. Once, when I was in the south, I mentioned how I felt Sherman (in my opinion) was the greatest general of the Civil War because he understood modern warfare better than all the other generals of the war. It was not recieved well.
I'm a Southerner. It's okay–we're not all Faulkner characters…
No, some are Eudora Welty characters.
And Tennessee Williams characters.
Quite a few Robert E. Lee Ewells running around down there, though.
Because he DIDN'T FINISH THE JOB.
Jesus. I hate that phrase so much. I once invited a couple of German friends over to get drunk, which they did, and oddly enough, both of them voiced that identical complaint. About Hitler. In a house full of Jews. We kicked their drunken asses out onto the street, but hearing that still makes my shoulder blades twitch.
Chimpy was certain his pappy didn’t FINISH THE JOB by going to Baghdad. And that worked out great!
Being from the South, someone once told me to stop acting like racism still exists because, "We got rid of segregation decades ago!"
I responded, "No, we didn't. The federal government did, over our loud and violent objections."
In short, fuck them. And thank God the South lost in 1865 and 1964.
Too bad they've been winning since 1981.
Sherman believed the best way to fight the war was the one the ended it the quickest. If that meant destroying the economy that supported the opposing army, so be it. This is quite the opposite of the modern era, where war is a profit center for some and we destroy our own economy to keep it going.
And the South did deserve all of it and more.
This southerner agrees with you; John Brown runs a close second even though he was executed.
Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Nothing provocative about these statements, right?
You'd think they'd remember that kinda shit, but NOOOO.
Shakin' the tree, boss!
I can eat 50 eggs.
Wow….count on the south do race back to slavery. I'll be a lot of those inmates are of the African American variety….so the blackz can be slaves again – in Georgia. This ought to take the country (at least that part) by storm!
I can't even think of a response to shit like this. I feel like there is a storm raging inside me brought on by this SHIT. It's not bad enough that selective enforcement of the law, discriminatory arrests, and vastly differing penalties combine to keep the vast majority of nonwhite people in a state already approximating slavery. Then some bunch of fucking Georgia crackers has to pull some shit like this and REALLY rub our collective face in it. This is what these motherfuckers want, is a return to slavery days, when only landed white males could vote and everyone else should be grateful not to be raped and/or murdered.
Hire some arsonists.
"I just like to watch."
How many of the prisoners are in for arson? I can imagine they didn't have any trouble getting "volunteers" in the pen.
After they loot the burning house, the convicts can just let the place burn to the ground. No evidence.
What better way to case the neighborhood? In any event, I like this idea for the cognitive dissonance it will induce in the first-responder worshipping troglodytes.
Oh, god. I'll listen for the popping of their pointy little heads with pleasure.
Boss Paul: That house is Boss Kean's house. And I told him that fire in it is your fire. What's your fire doin' in his house?
Luke: I don't know, Boss.
Boss Paul: You better get in there and get it out, boy.
Next move: prisoners become the cops. Anything to save a dime.
They can simply arrest themselves between heists.
If companies can police themselves why not the crooks and rapists?
I am pretty sure Erick Erickson suggested this a few years back to get rid of police unions.
I would pay many Ameros to see the expression on his face when some con/cops walk through his front door, take everything he owns, kick his ass, sodomize his dog, and give his hot (I hope) wife multiple shrieking orgasms like he has NEVER been able to induce.
I am unsure the inmate/cop would want sloppy seconds on Erickson's dog. After his comments about Souter and the well known conservative trait of projection, I am just saying it would be unlikely that Erickson would have an unmolested dog. And then there is the matter of any children in the neighborhood.
That poor dog.
What do you have against dogs?
It's a fair cop.
My mom always said that it takes a crook to catch a crook. But who can believe their mother?
They already are. It's just that the cops have the worse style sense…
…and all the sinners Saints.
The perfect pyramid scheme!
If the convicts refuse to put out the fire, do they get shot by the guards?
The thing that these fecking idiots don't think about is that convicts (especially after a few years in the stir) tend to be entirely shifty individuals with a minimal interest in society's well-being and a maximal interest in their own. Which is understandable, given that they wouldn't have offended if they weren't somewhat antisocial to begin with, and even if pure as the driven slush to start, would soon be rendered pretty fucking antisocial by being penned in our despicable prison system. And you don't have to refuse to do a job to fuck it up. You can pretend to do it with great enthusiasm while fucking it up beyond repair.
Also too, a significant proportion of our prison population suffers from mental disease or defect. I'm not sure the mentally ill and mentally deficient are necessarily the people I would trust with my life, family, home, and wellbeing.
Why should you even have to explain that to adult public officials in the United States? Is this not obvious on the face of it? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Why should you, indeed.
$6,000 to train and $2,000 to outfit …
What? Are these firefighters or the best hookers on the strip?
Code-specified safety gear.
Y…M…C…A
Can't we have one big mass arrest, trial, and home incarceration of all Americans who aren't job creators? Then we can all pick up our ankle bracelets and go back to work the next day for free. Those who don't have a job will be provided with one.
Let's just get it over with already.
Probably coming soon.
To a theater near you.
Wow. Room and board and now a union job? I'm in.
(starts meth lab with exsplodable stuffs found in garden shed and kitchen)
Whut? No union? No pay? (gets water hose and puts out own meth lab fire)
Fuck this; we need to bring Gen. Sherman back from the dead and set him on Georgia again.
This time we won't let the liebruls in Congress and the lamestream media prevent him from finishing the job. Magic mushroom cloud in Savannah, y'all!
The South really isn't going to stop until slavery is legalized, is it?
Well, they may just go for out and out slavery just for old times sake, but actually, its probably cheaper in the end to pay shit wages to desperate poors to work in an unsafe unhealthy workplace. You don't have to give them food and shelter and medical care, and there are always more clamoring for the job if they get injured or sick or uppity.
Some slaves were accomplished craftsmen — carpenters, wheelwrights, macramé makers, etc, and could be money-making assets in the right hands.
We don't make things here anymore.
Yet another reason to Repeal the 13th Amendment now! As long as we’re tinkering around with the Constitution anyway. Employers – well, technically “slave owners” – would be empowered to create many more “jobs.”
On the other hand, it's usually harder to beat them when they're uppity if they're nominally free.
Nope. Those motherfuckers want us all the way back about two centuries.
The GOP really isn't going to stop until slavery is legalized, is it?
Fixed.
Prisoners have always been synonymous with "public safety." That's why we spend all that money on prison guards, guns, tasers, isolation cells, security cameras and barbed wire at correctional facilities. We want to make sure the prisoners are kept safe from the public.
"But these ones aren't dangerous."
"Then, why are they locked up and performing slave labor?"
"Shut up, that's why!"
You missed the BEST PART of this whole deal: the non-inmate firefighters (you know, the people we used to call public employees) get a whole new, unpaid job to do, while putting out those pesky fires: PRISON GUARD.
Oh, I'm sure they're only letting out the MaryGJuana smokers and the crooked politicians to fight the fires. And both those groups have lotsa experience with smoke-filled rooms.
I know if my house is on fire, there is nothing I want more than an untrained, unmotivated prisoner with no rest to be the one that is supposed to save me.
Heck, think of the money they could save at the County Hospital if they just replaced all of the doctors?
"Dr. Gacey. Calling Dr. Ben Wayne Gacey!"
"Dr. KillerDere. Calling Dr. KillerDere!"
That is even older than my Mayberry snark!
They could save even more if they didn't have a hospital.
You know who ELSE used slave labor to build their local economy?! That's right, Camden County Georgia!!
http://www.afriquest.com/index.php?filename=doc.p...
Carried to the logical extreme. Hell, we have millions of prisoners. How bout we drop them from a plane onto fires to smother them out???
Somewhere north of 3 million, I believe. We do nothing to help them or rehabilitate them, we just throw them away to rot in hellholes.
And in California it costs $47,000 per prisoner per year. Maybe we could just throw Ameros on the fire to smother it.
High School kids can also be Cops!
Over.Qualified.
What happens if you don't pay your fire protection levy?
Better make sure you have a good supply of toasting forks and marshmallows?
You get a visit from the Tossed Salad Man, obviously.
Send them off to fight in Outbackistan, too. Before DADT was repealed, we were more eager to give a felon a gun than give a gay man a typewriter, after all.
Great idea …. let's apply this to all government jobs, including county administrators …why should Sumter County have to pay Lynn Taylor when there are plenty of prison inmates available to do her job?
Hey, let's give convicts big axes and high-pressure hoses! What could possibly go wrong?
And instead of the huge firehouse meals real firefighters are always fixing the prisoners just need a can of Alpo and some saltines.
Warning: Idea may not work in replacing policemen.
That's okay. We can get the Hell's Angels to be policemen
-Mick Jagger, Head of Public Safety
Ken-L-Ration is the only dogfood inspected and approved for human consumption. This is something we may all need to know, soon.
Dead Brand.
Oh Great. Now who is going to make my license plate?
Ya know, we have plenty of preschool kids that probably won't get funding for Head Start or other preschool education. What better resource to make those plates?
Problem solved. And, we could get inmates to watch over the production. No need to pay a teacher, really.
Oh yeah. I reeeeealy want to have someone who's forced to be there and resents the shit out of it to be the person I have to depend on to save my stuff.
GA already has convicts doing roadside cleanup and mowing, so this isn't a big change. No reason these convicts couldn't run daycare centers, either, if GA had public daycare, which of course it doesn't. Some of themreally like young kids, you know?
Oh, folks in Camden County: don't mention this to your home-owners' insurance company, as it'll be a one-way ticket to cancellation.
If this was an Arizona idea the prisoner/firefighters/slaves would be working in pink underwear.
From a former "convict"-
I got to choose to be on the "Road Crew" and I was very glad I did. Sure the work was hard (and hot being from the coast into the 110 degree valley)… but it was better than sitting around arguing over what TV show to watch or working in the kitchen. I also learned quite a bit that helped me on the outside.
I am sure there are quite a few volunteers for this job… even though it is a bit more dangerous.
Just sayin'.
Arbeit macht frei!
Can someone remind me why we hate China and their human rights record again?
Can someone remind me why we hate China and their human rights record again?
Jealousy mostly.
Because they're yellow, DUH.
Cuz you're bored with killing ragheads?
but it was better than sitting around arguing over what TV show to watch or working in the kitchen.
Um, no. No it isn't.
Now if they could just figure out a way to make the prison population 100% black instead of "vastly disproportionately" black, they'd be onto something. Aim high, South.
What we have here is failure to communicate!
I feel like if the warden had just given Luke a job on a fire truck, he never would have turned into an iconoclastic symbol of 60s rebellion.
Yeah. Luke and his plastic Jesus.
So they not only put out fires, but they make off with the remaining valuables?
Performance bonuses!
Isn't being a convicted felon a job requirement for Governor of Illinois?
From the same party that claimed its major issue with single payer was that it was "slavery".
That's some Hoekstra shit right there.
Can't wait until power plants are replaced by galley ships and inmate rowers.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Why didn't we think of this before?
/snark off momentarily
Yeah, so what happens the first time one of these, uh, NON-volunteer firefighters dies on the "job" so nicely given to them by the state? Paging the ACLU…
/regularly scheduled programming
Which is why this model program is perfect for the state of Texas.
Is having these guys work triple shifts really what one would call SAFE?!????!
But, Bucky, you are not thinking of the savings to the County.
you must not have heard of the concept of expendable labor. We have 1.5 million slave laborers after all. We can afford to lose a few, and if we do it helps to empty out our overcrowded prisons! Win-win!
It's stories like this one that make me proud to be an American!
Well, if Camden Co., Georgia's anything like NY City, at least this will break up the white male stranglehold on firefighting jobs…
You know, when you start using slave labor, you can't play the "but I wasn't even alive back then!" card.
After they graduate from prison, will they get reparations?
Each prisoner is going to cover all three 24-hour shifts instead of one on and three off? Do these people know that firefighting is a demanding job, and nobody works 24 hours a day seven days a week forever? Oh, what a brave new fucking world we're entering.
Wait, aren't there some white soon-to-be-slave prisoners in Georgia? I thought so. This just proves that the Civil War had nothing to do with racism.
"Parks and Recreation" just isn't funny anymore.
Inmates are pretty good at starting fires so logic dictates that they're probably pretty good at putting them out.
Dunno about that. You ever climb up a tree, then suddenly realize how hard it is to get down?
If they want to. And why would they want to?
I suspect this plan might expose the county to some liability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlC1PbY6EoU
Don't tell the Pentagon, or they'll find a way to meet their recruitment quotas faster than you can say "penal battalion."
"The Dirty Dozen" coming to a fire house near you. And then to Afstrafasganistan
The County could probably make more money selling their organs for transplants.
That's the kind of cradle-to-grave thinking we need more of!
Hey maybe we should put criminals in charge of Wall Street too. Oh, wait.
Is this the same bunch of cousin fucking hicks who've just banned illegal immigrants and now have crops rotting in the fields, or is that some other bunch of cousin fucking hicks? Oh, the ironies are just stacking up as high as a republican elephants asshole…..
Hell! You just gave 'em a new idea. Can't be giving out info like that…these dicks will implement it.
Ha! And to think people are on waiting list to become Fire Fighters…Go rob a bank deadbeats!!!
Excuse me, Southern American peoples of Georgia, but according to our revered Constitution, the original 1789, and therefore only valid version, those 15 slave inmates are filling the slots of only 9 firefighters per day; the equivalent of 27 slots. Soundz like you need math peoples even more than Rick Scott needz them in Floriduh!
For some time now there have been supplemental wildfire crews, like mop-up crews and such, made up of prisoners. Out West, anyway.
How often do they escape? Or try to escape?
Any escape attempt is quickly ended with a "controlled burn"
I think they wear shock collars.
Ah, yes, just who I want trying to save my burning house, or prying the twisted metal of a wrecked car away from my body–an untrained, inexperienced, unmotivated person whose last job was kiting checks or selling marijuana. On the other hand, if they're in jail odds are good they're African-American, and so the odds are good they didn't really do anything, so now we're just back to untrained, inexperienced, etc.
Yes, but will they be shackled like pregnant women? It seems only fair…
The state started as a penal colony – might as well end as one.
Next it'll be blank eyed heavily tattooed colo-rectal surgeons culled from an overcrowded cell block. And then we'll see who's laughing!
I remember when James T. Kirk released one Khan Noonien Singh from suspended animation and let him captain the USS Enterprise for a short stint of time. Yes, that went well.
The genesis device could be used as a planet-wide fire extinguisher.
Indeed. That could be the logical answer. It would destroy such fires in favor of its new matrix. Fascinating.
Why don't we get convicts to replace county, state and Federal government? Why do we need to elect people to serve in the US House and Senate at several hundred thousand dollars a year? Each!
Can't prisoners sit around all day and not get anything done?
And argue with each other uncivilly?
And be on the Supreme Court.
It'll never work. Why? Because the prison population is of a higher caliber of people than the politicians of this country. The prisoners would see the problems very quickly and try to get something accomplished. At that point we'd be forced to return to politicians.
Hey, why stop with Firemen? Hospitals need people to clean the bedpans, nursing homes too, and don't even start on the opportunities for cons in the classroom! Imagine your mother and your preschooler being attended to by skilled convicted felons for little or nothing. Imagine the convicted child rapists out there reading Dr Seuss to the little guys. Rehabilitation *is* a goal of imprisonment, and by doG these future thinking Georgia folk are leading the pack on rehabilitation and cost savings in one package. Hell, if anyone can count pills in a hospital dispensary, a meth head should be able to. They can even farm them out to restaurants and fast food places. There aren't too many jobs a con can't do, you could put these hands to work at a fraction of the cost of "real" people and get that revenue streaming toward the privately owned placement agencies that farm them out. I just don't see a downside here…
What happens if one of the inmates is severely injured or dies on the job?
Yes. That's what happens.
Well, there are more inmates.
The state saves money!
If severely injured shoot in the back and claim escape attempt, if they die of smoke inhalation of burns or other injury, call them heroes, place name in cheesy "roll call of Heroes" slide in engraved tag rack and send the family a gift certificate for up to 8 Grand Slam breakfasts and coffee at any Denny's. You know, the way they would treat the professional public employees if it wasn't for union representation.
"Why, we'll dig a ditch
And bury the bitch"
Said Barnacle Bill the Sheriff.
Steps
1.imprison 1.5 million people
2. use prisoners as slave labor
3. ??????
4. Profit!
It's just the common-sense conservative, free-market solution to those oppressive government regulations that stifle individual job-creators' liberty to explicitly enslave people.
Those sneaky Ferengi bastards! Posing as Tea 'tards, they've lulled us into a false sense of superiority! Wake up, sheeple!!!!
Next up, cut teacher salaries until the evil unions decide to strike, then put the illegal strikers in jail. Voilà — free teacher labor!
And in Tyler, Texas (not far from Wehateniggers, TX) they have a bill to abolish integration in schools (you read that correctly, INTEGRATION). Looks like all the pig whining from the right is paying off.. they're gettin their country back. Needs moar parenthesis.
Wehateniggers
Just across the road from "Wehatewetbacks"?
Actually its "Wehatewetbacksexceptwhentheycutourlawn" , TX
Go Detroit, go!!
"We tried it, but decided we were better off when we took all the state and federal funding for the black kids' educations and put it into the white-only schools."
And after Tyler spends all its money defending this insane bill in the courts, they'll say they're broke and have to use prisoners as firefighters.
Now don't make us get all 13th Amendment on your ass.
Good thing we put that little disclaimer in there, amirite?
Just think: Put convicted child molesters in jobs as elementary school teachers!!! The inmates would pay the state for the opportunity — talk about solving budget problems!!
That sounds too much like religious education.
They were put in prison because they were untrustworthy criminals. When my house is on fire, that's just who I want to call for help.
Bubba, run into that burning building and knock down the inferno with your crew of Rufus, Billy Ray, Snotnose, Elmer and Myron. Us guards will be right here awaitin' for you, if you make it out alive. Gotta share the loot.
Even for Georgia, this is a stupid Teabagger of an idea.
This is a good thing–when the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (North American branch) has its first meeting in Washington, we will have made a great leap forward in establishing a proper human rights regime even if we are still kind of slow on on the finer points of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.
I don't mind giving the confederates their country back as long as we first put it in the same shape it was in April 1865. Oh, and the blacks are freed so you crackers need to pick your own cotton.
As a former vollie, I just want to say that there's clearly no better idea out there, than forcing people who don't want to be there, and who have histories of, say, violence or theft or drug use or vandalism, to fight fires, and the other firefighters trained to be prison guards, which is a new job that they will also be doing at the same time that they're also firefighting.
I seriously cannot think of one single possible glaringly obvious life-safety problem with this plan, at all.
1) FY 2008 DoD Spending on Naval Personnel (Basic Pay Only): $3,316,590,000
2) Estimated expense to hire 200 crimps: $8,000,000
3) Savings: $3,308,590,000
4) Think outside the box, you stupid cunts.
"Jailhouse Lawyers" can be County Prosecutors!!
This response just in from a Fox News watcher;
" I was on fire once, and no one had to helped me! Stop, drop, and roll, libtard"!
I wish I was kidding.
To me, the main question is: are they willing to shoot water cannons at unarmed hippie protesters?
Something tells me if some of these people had been hired for decent public service jobs in the first place they wouldn't BE prisoners.
There is a germ of a good idea here, they're just thinking like assholes about it. What if
* It is voluntary. You can quit at any time.
* Prisoners get certified training and licences.
* After release, state law forbids rejecting prison firefighter job candidates because of their record.
They're thinking of it as slavery rather than as rehabilitation.
(This is a separate issue from too-many-prisoners, privatization, etc.)
[Also: So they can only respond to fires near the prison?]
Rehab just doesn't have enough blood lust/brutal punishment to satisfy the darkness of the "Get Tougher" set's soul. Firefighting would be a very employable skill post-prison.
Another cruel idea from the long wish list of the Right.
On the other hand, putting out a minor fire is a great way to case a house, especially if you have compatriots on the outside.
Carry on, Dumb South.
I'm seeing a hit movie. Hostile pair of prisoners, a black and a white guy shackled together at the legs. Comic relief every time they climb a ladder, hounds baying at their feet…Come to depend on each other, etc.
Wow, Lynn, what kind of crime does a Fireman have to commit to get his job back? I can see this is not going to end well.
Can I just say that if I happened to be one of those prisoners that every fucking building that caught on fire would end up burnt to the ground if I had anything to say about it? Put out this fire for free? Make me.
Boys and girls, can you say the word "sabotage"?
Forget about the inmates looting the house before it burns up. How many of them are going to hang around? Did these jokers think that they wouldn't try to escape?
Honestly, there must be something in the air or the water south of the Mason-Dixon line because these Southern politicos are truly stupid.
I wonder if any of these guys were locked up for Arson ?
So outcry from illegals taking jobs away, but none from people who have committed illegal acts? Alrighty then.
Thanks to the learned folks at Wonkette, I find myself saying often; "What is this world coming to?" when reviewing the policies of people who have spent the last 40 years saying, "What is this world coming to?"
We got them working in our farms too since all the mexicans was raptured this summer
Especially if we gave them an additional tax credit for every slave position created.
NNTR (No Need To Remind). For nearly four years now, I have risen each morning with a prayer of gratitude on my lips, that I no longer have to see that simian visage, brow corrugated in a pathetic attempt at mimicking the externals, at least, of thought, as he tries to explain in incomprehensible grunts why the latest fuckup really wasn't a fuckup at all.
Was it you who posted that brilliant and beautiful endless run-on sentence by Donald Barthelme? I'm beginning to think in run-ons now, thanks to you both, V.
Twas I. That’s actually a “short story” by Barthelme, whose work I adore unashamedly.
Ah, my friend, you might have created him another fan. Why, just as soon as I am done with this small mountain of books (gestures to floor by bed), it's ON TO A BIGGER BETTER MOUNTAIN!
Recommend me one or two to start with, if you would be so kind.
“40 Stories,” and “60 Stories.” Not every story is a gem, some I don’t even understand. But they make you laugh and think. Here’s good one, very approachable: http://www.eskimo.com/~jessamyn/barth/phantom.htm.... This one’s even better, one of my absolute favorites: <a href="http://www.jessamyn.com/barth/ourwork.htmlhttp://www.jessamyn.com/barth/ourwork.html<br />
Thank you very much.
That was simply beautiful. Thank you.
Bizarre, semi-serious speculation that Barthelme was connected to the "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" beating of Dan Rather.
A non-writer Barthelme sibling lived down the street from us in Houston where I grew up. I didn't find out until years later because (1) she wasn't the sort of lady to brag about such things and (2) all of her neighbors were entirely innocent of literature, including my folks.
I do not know if Erickson managed to snare a wife.
Oh, I see. Yeah, nevermind. That poor dog.
That was kind of fun, although the writer could have spent more time studying Barthelme's economy of expression.
He had an unhappy childhood; his father was a prominent architect, I've read. There are certainly a lot of difficult, remote fathers in his work.
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