DO SOMETHING I meant to post this earlier in the week but it got away from me until now, lost in all the stuff I am juggling but this is important and I should have made room for it. In 1993 three teenagers were arrested for murder. Their subsequent conviction and sentencing had more to do with the fact that they listened to heavy metal and read Stephen King novels. They also made the mistake of wearing black. This was Arkansas. Jessie Misskelley Jr got life plus 40. He is mentally handicapped. James Baldwin received life without parole. Damien Echols was sentenced to death. You can read about the whole sorry mess right here. I first heard about the West Memphis Three a few years ago after seeing a link on the Henry Rollins website and I've followed the story ever since. A year or so ago Henry released a CD of Black Flag songs and toured the album to raise money for these guys. Other celebrities do what they can to raise money and awareness. I started reading Margaret Cho's blog about six months ago and was happy to see that she has been asking fans and readers to get in touch with Damien, write him letters and send him books. Death row for a crime he didn't commit. Sentenced to death for being a typical teenager. Unbelievable. So after the stuff that came out about the abuse in Iraqi jails Margaret wrote to Damien and asked him to talk about an average day on death row in an American prison: "Those 15 minute calls to Lorri are the only real conversations I will have in a day. We may talk of Yo Yo Ma (my favorite musician of all time), Deepak Chopra, G.I. Gurdjieff, Balthus, Goya (my favorite artist), Thomas Hardy, dysfunctional families, or we may plan out what we will watch on television together that night. I say this is the only real conversation I will have because there aren't many people you can actually talk to in prison. Your average prisoner has an I.Q. of 80. That's only 10 points above retardation. Most can't even speak English properly, use words they don't know the meaning of in ways that make no sense, or make up their own words. There are no insane criminal genius types in here. No Hannibal Lecters. That's only on television. The vast majority of the people on death row are either mentally retarded or mentally ill. You're not going to find many people who can even follow the same train of thought for very long." "They turn off the lights at 10:30. If you could train yourself to fall asleep the second the lights went off, you're still only going to get 4 and a half hours at the most. You can't sleep straight through though, because you're constantly awakened by slamming doors, schizophrenic inmates screaming, and rats trying to crawl into our bed as you sleep. The rats are fearless. The night before last I was awakened three times by rats crawling across my feet as they tried to reach a pack of crackers I was saving. The little bastards even chewed a hole in one of my good socks. I save my best ones to wear when Lorri comes every Friday, and now there's a hole nibbled in one." You can read the whole letter here. Don't just read this and sigh and think that America is fucked. It is, obviously but get involved anyway. Send some money. Buy a CD. Send a letter. Send a book. Do something. Mike is blogging to: nothing