As the United States leads the world in incarceration rates, some disturbing news come our way: Some of these inmates read books!

From Xoff at UppityWisconsin, check out this piece:

Wisconsin cracks down on reading by prisoners

by xoff - The bureaucratic mind never ceases to amaze.

Remember the saying from the original 1950's Superman TV series..."Truth, Justice and the American Way"? Boy, it might have been that way 50 years ago, but what about now?

A Death Almost Too Horrible to Believe

We're going to tell you the story of Patrick Cavanaugh, a 60-year old inmate at the Ely State Prison in Ely, Nev. Patrick was an insulin-dependent diabetic who was imprisoned at Ely for two years. During his time at Ely, Patrick was denied regular insulin injections, which, as many people know, is essential for diabetics to lead a healthy life. As a result of this deprivation of insulin, he developed gangrene. This didn't go unnoticed by prison staff: the smell of putrefying flesh was hard to miss. The medical staff could have opted to have the decayed, gangrenous limbs amputated, which would have saved Patrick's life. Instead, they did nothing, and Patrick essentially rotted to death.

On Monday night [2/11/2008] Stephen Colbert interviewed Dr. Zimbardo. They talked about Zimbardo's book "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how Good People Turn Evil". The book is based on the results of an experiment conducted in 1971. You can watch the interview here: