Oh, I like that idea. Love it. Let's go high. How's everybody doing tonight? Good, good. My name is
Rebecca Haynes and I'll be your host tonight. This is only our second edition of the Bloomington Variety Hour.
Our guests tonight are Hal Taylor, president of Citizens for Effective Justice. Rashid Mahdi, who's
active in the Islamic community, as well as a landlord here, and has dabbled in politics. Jill Taylor,
who is Hal Taylor's daughter, does brain research. She's been at Harvard. She's overcome a tremendous amount
personal difficulty with her own brain. So she has insight into her own research as well. And also,
we have Dan Kerrigan as our musical guest tonight, a nomadic extraordinaire, I suppose. Right now, we're
going to start with Hal. Welcome, Hal. How are you doing tonight? I mentioned in your introduction that
you're president of Citizens for Effective Justice. I wondered if maybe you could just give us a brief
intro into what Citizens for Effective Justice is all about,
what you do in the community and for the community? It's a group which began very spontaneously after
the death of James Warden. And it was concerned with the fact that the newspapers had not picked up
on this. It took three days for them to get an article in the paper. And then it was only a small one.
And so several of us got very upset about that.
got together a group of people who were also upset about it. And that was the beginning of Citizens
for Effective Justice. From there, then we went on to deal with a number of other issues that are alive
in the town. And we got into problems surrounding the jail and the whole criminal justice system.
that the group has grown from that first meeting. We've met every Saturday, I think maybe one exception
since, and continue to meet on Saturday afternoons at 1.30 at Trinity Church. What are the issues that
most concern you right now in jails? Well, a primary issue that most people are concerned about is the
recidivism rate and the fact that our jails are overcrowded.
The overcrowding makes it difficult to do any educating of the people who are in the jail. And it makes
it difficult to do anything, actually, with them. So the people go into the jail, and they are thrown
warehouse for the period of time that they're there. And that doesn't do anybody any good. Right. And
your concern is that they keep coming back to jail all over again. Our concern is that they keep coming
back, and so we want
programs that will help them stay out in the first place. And then once they're in, if they have any
kind of problems with drugs, we're concerned about that. And if they have other problems with decision
making and understanding their own decisions as they made them in the past, we're concerned with that
too. And we're also concerned with the whole educational level that they have.
Because that is a large element in whether or not they can get jobs when they get out. Right, it contributes
to the poverty, which probably brings them back to community crimes again in the first place. And then
we're also concerned about when they get out. And our program, ultimately, will have a halfway house
that will be run by the people themselves. What specifically are the programs you propose to help with
that? Are there specific proposals on the table?
I know you talked about two subgroups of Citizen for Effective Justice that were involved with the jails
right now. Right. The first of those is what we call the CIT program. It's a crisis intervention team
project. And the goal of it is to train a group of police officers within the overall set of officers
so that in the event that anyone calls in,
something that looks like it might have either a mentally ill person involved or somebody who is otherwise
not quite adequate, that they will be able to send this team or somebody from this team to deal with
that person. And the team will have been taught how to deescalate problems instead of the kind of
way that the police often sail into situations in which their de-escalation is the last thing in their
minds. Right. They come into a violent mentality already, that these are violent offenders,
and they get them. Yeah. I'm curious. I don't mean to be rude, but how old are you, Hal? I'm 86. Why
an 86 driver? I mean, all of this. But what does it entice? I know you've been a reverend, but what
specifically just what creates that drive?
I don't know, other than that I'm passionately concerned about the rich, poor issue in our country.
Because the rich are getting richer, and they're going to continue to get richer. The whole system is
set up for them to get richer. And the poor are getting poorer. And the system is set up for that to happen.
And I see this as being a critical issue in our nation. And that's one side of it. The other side of
it is I care about people who are hurting. So I try to do what I can to help them out. So would you
say that jail has almost become a mechanism of keeping the poor out of society and from becoming successful
within society under the normal constraints? Something like that.
something like that, that jail has become a mental institution for people who have mental illness, and
one that is very destructive. And it's also become a real problem for people who have any kind of addiction,
because the issue in addiction is trying to get away from something which is bothersome.
Like, people have addictions because it's a misgivings for them. That's right. In order to get away
from something that's bothering you, you get into something that dulls your senses or otherwise holds
you back. And jail is exactly that. So the jail becomes another addiction. And society, which is talking
all the time about dealing with people with addictions, is throwing them in the
jail so that they are sitting there for hour after hour after hour away from the problems of life. In
other words, they're getting exactly what an addiction. They're offered another addiction in place.
And not to mention if these people are non-violent offenders, they're put in with violent offenders,
correct? Yeah, right, right. Which probably- More or less, they make some effort to keep them apart.
What percentage of people in at least Bloomington or Monroe County would you estimate are in there because
of addiction and non-violent offenses? I don't know how many of them would be there for non-violent.
But I would think that it would be, I'm only guessing. I would think that maybe 70%. Wow. By violent
now, I mean fights that people get into.
I had an attorney tell me some time ago that he thought that maybe they had six or seven people a year
who really belonged in jail. Wow. And all that taxpayer money. That's right. And all the rest of them
really belonged there. Right. And this was an attorney who has been a prosecuting attorney here in town
in the past.
We're really short on time right now, but if anyone would like to get involved with this organization,
could you remind us real fast when you guys meet? We meet at 1.30 at Trinity Church every Saturday afternoon.
And that's a discussion group. We're divided now into two parts. We have a discussion forum that goes
every Saturday. And then we have another group that we're incorporating called New Leaf, New Life.
And that's the group that's going to hopefully collect money to do some of the things that we really
want to do. OK, so that's open to the public and anyone who sees jail overcrowding. It is open to anybody
who has an interest in any aspect of the criminal justice system. We're really concerned about that.
OK. Thank you very much, Hal. See you again at the end of the show on the panel.
We're going to have a song from Dan Carrigan. I suppose he can introduce it himself or just play without
informing the title. Fluid on the ground was an indication
Peace.
And I've been requesting for that gorilla gig As when new in town I am wanted to do
me a shot on her video phone, wearing makeup in a woman's gown. She said that they would be watching
movies at night.
25 years now so I guess you're doing fine. The brake fluid puddles in the parking lot. Seething from
the breach in my brake line. Attending your arrival as I write this song. Wishing that I was
outside.
The stars keep on whizzing by. The trucks sail just like the ocean. And I entertain the notion. My master
cylinder's running dry. And in the a.m. little bee breaks our usher by the key.
Folks are great and gregarious. I know it's all up to me at the end of him. And I knew something was
amiss. I was curious. Back in Nashville, I had wondered why.
With all those stains on the pavement Everywhere I went I was hoping they weren't mine With tears streaming
down the side windows I get back in and I grab the guitar
by now. Next guest is going to be Jill Taylor, who is Hal Taylor's daughter. We have a family here tonight.
Hi, how are you doing tonight? Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we just talked to your dad. Quite a guy.
Yeah, quite a guy. And we didn't even begin to delve into all of his accomplishments. He's a reverend.
But your deal is the brain. Yes, my deal is the brain. I got a chance to talk to you before. You talked
about being left-brained and right-brained, and how that affected society. And I just thought that was
absolutely one of the most interesting things I've heard all week, if not all month, if not all year.
So I wondered if you could share that with our audience and our perspective to the audience a little
bit. Well, when you think about the human brain,
It is divided into two major hemispheres, a huge right hemisphere, a huge left hemisphere. And they
complement one another in what they do, but they each have their own individual consciousness. And yet,
they communicate with one another so that, as human beings, we feel as though we have a brain in our
head and that we have a thought process and we have an experience. But in actuality, what we really
have are two different brains, two different consciousnesses inside of our head.
And most of us recognize that we have an intellectual consciousness, a thinking consciousness. And the
left hemisphere is all about the past and about the future. So there's a clock that sits in the back,
the left hemisphere. And so you're on a clock, and oh my gosh, you wake up in the morning, and most
of us are already behind. And we have a relationship with things some other time other than right now.
So the left hemisphere consciousness is all about some other experience. It's a memory. The right hemisphere
consciousness is right here, right now. Right here, right now. This is a perfect moment. And in this
moment, I'm perfect. I'm whole. I am beautiful. And so are you. So we are these incredible body. The
whole body is made up of 50 trillion cells. 50 trillion. Now, 50 trillion is a mind-blowing number.
You would have to take all the people on the planet,
and there are approximately 6 billion people on the planet, and multiply all those people 8,333 times,
all the people on the planet, to make up the number of cells making up the typical adult human body.
So I look at the body and I say, every cell in my body, except for the red blood cells, every cell in
my body, all 50 trillion, contain the exact genetic profile as that original cell that was
created by the combination of the egg cell and the sperm cell. So that original cell, the zygote cell,
had the molecular genius to metamorphosize itself into my body. And it did it by duplicating its DNA,
repackaging that DNA inside of cells, and multiplying and multiplying and multiplying. So I look at
myself in my right hemisphere. I say, I am the life force power of 50 trillion molecular geniuses.
and so i walk around the planet amen it's like a hallelujah you know we are so cool just as living beings
but in the left hemisphere i am a separate i am a solid i am an individual an ego i am an ego center
i have a language center that says i i am i am a neuroscientist i live at this address my phone number
is this is what the things that interest me
So I'm all about my ego center, the small, separate me in the left hemisphere, and yet the right hemisphere
has this completely separate consciousness. The beauty of that is at any moment in time, any experience
you have, generally, you make a choice. Do I approach this situation from my right hemisphere consciousness,
or do I approach this from my left hemisphere consciousness? And generally, the approach is very, very
different. So inside, if somebody's approaching something with their left
they're thinking about themselves, and they're thinking about, I don't know, domination almost, or power,
wealth, or gain in the future. But instead, the right brain can just be here now in the present moment,
just kind of what all of that philosophical, all of that Eastern, all that, I mean, pretty much spirituality
in general talks about. And you had talked about how you can tap into that, just by kind of really thinking
about the moments that you have, where you're experiencing that emotion of, I am here now.
I call it stepping to the right. At any moment, the left hemisphere, because it has linearity, it also
has hierarchy. So when you look at our society, it's a very hierarchical society. Our government has
a president, then we have Congress, and then we have the people, and we are on this hierarchy. The right
hemisphere has a continuum, and everyone is equal on that continuum.
And when you look at us as living beings, we are all equal. We are all the same 50 trillion cells. We
are all the same force of life. But we do have different opportunities. So in our academic system is
also in hierarchy. You start at kindergarten. You graduate 12. You go to college. You go to graduate
school. You go beyond. But there's this hierarchy. So we are trained. We're in a left hemisphere trained
environment, when in actuality,
many of us want to and do remain in that consciousness that we are all equal. We are all one. We are
one human family on this planet. And that's the consciousness of the right hemisphere. So I call it
stepping to the right. And I think that it's key that people learn what it takes for you as an individual
to step to the right. And that plays right into what your dad was talking about with the class system
and with the upper class moving up and the lower class moving down, which is really interesting.
I don't want to get so interested in the brain stuff that we overlook your accomplishments since we
were just talking about your dad. You did teach at Harvard, correct? I performed research and taught
at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. So I specialized in the postmortem investigation of the brain
as it relates to individuals with schizophrenia. So I'm very interested in the mentally ill.
I'm currently the president of our new NAMI group here locally. So if anyone has mental illness in your
family and you're looking for support or educational opportunities or advocacy opportunities, NAMI,
National Alliance on Mental Illness is an option. And also you do a thing called singing for brains.
I do. I sing for brains. I do.
there's a shortage of tissue donated for my type of research. And so I started going around educating
the public about the beauty and the resiliency of the brain, about the value of brain donation. And
people recognized, oh my gosh, she wants my brain. And you know, I'm a girl from Indiana, so
I was traumatizing my audiences, and I thought, well, I have to do something to lighten this up. So
I wrote the Brain Bang Jingle, and so now I always end my presentations with the Brain Bang Jingle.
I think we're about to hear the Brain Bank jingle, right? She's going to play a little guitar for us.
Isn't she great already? But now we'll hear the Brain Bank jingle. So this piece is titled 1-800-Brain
Bank. Oh, I am a brain banker, yes, begging brains is
from you. Don't worry, I'm in no hurry. Have you considered the contribution you can make when you are
heaven bound? Your brain can hang around to help humanity. Find the key to unlock this thing they call
insanity. Just dial 1-800-FRAINBRAIN for information please. Educate
donate. It's free.
I think that Dan's going to do another song real fast for us, and then we'll be talking to Rashid Mighty.
And here's Dan Carrigan again. Hard one to follow there, huh? Yeah, I guess so.
No peasant underclass Sitcher who gets his ass lit And he'd rather be here now But he thinks it's already
been Time is short
It's flying when he's having fun These flats were made for him
Some folks he's friendly Others he's not so kind People change with him
Or to lay a stitch and time puts away time That's not its work if you don't search Time is a convenience
that keeps Everything from happening at the same time And redundant as that sounds
He's friendly. Others he is to blame. People change with the end.
just beginner.
We just rearrange the games that we continue to play.
Please welcome Rashid Maidi, who, until we get to talk to Dan, who's just hearing his beautiful music,
is our last guest. Hi, how are you doing tonight? You're good. Good, good. I'm not quite sure where
to start with you on this one. I know you've been involved in politics. I know that you're involved
in the Islamic community. I've gotten a chance to hear you talk about the United States so many times.
I'm not sure where to begin. But I guess in light of the tragedy
How do you feel as a member of the Islamic community about some of the violence that was done to yourself
as well as others in this community? Well, I think you have a different opinion. And of course, I'm
not going to speak for them. I'm going to speak for myself. But I mean, I have a different opinion because
what happened there, it happened to every one of us because that's not Middle Eastern mosque. It's American.
So every church is here, there are American churches, outside churches. And to quick jump to conclusions
saying it's because of what happened in England, I don't believe that's the case, because people have
different things in their mind. A week later, there was some graffiti written on the church here,
of course, from the post office. Could be the same person who just hate faith,
mentally disturbed or person has something about religion itself it doesn't like religion but people
jump to conclusions and and I'm really glad to see all the faith they did come together and as all Americans
stay holding each other and supporting each other instead of praying to Satan and Islam is also it's
about the same thing what it says in Islam to basically help each other and help everyone
But unfortunately, you know, Islam is being demonized by certain people who are doing it in the name
of God, which is really whatever it happened in Middle East or anywhere else that's not been Islam.
Islam doesn't say that for people who doesn't know that. Do you feel like, in a way, the people demonizing
Islam are our government because of the fear that's been instilled since 1611? Well, I mean, government
is just basically started before. For the Russians, the Russians
They were bad. They were monsters. But now they're OK. Now all they have to do, they have to demonize
others. So in order to keep the control. So I think that's one of the strategy. But using, I don't know
what next after the Muslims. Who is going to be next? And that is how it is powered in such a democratic
country where people have a voice. The only way to basically guide their voice is to put them
I think it's unfortunate for the Islamic community as well, even if having these stereotypes presented
to the American people, these people cause this. Anytime you start saying these people, it's... Well,
what's bothering me is the word label. Whenever a Muslim does something wrong, it's generalized.
If a Muslim, they don't call him by name, X and X, John Doe did this. Like for us, this is what happened
in Iraq. The Iraqis are not happy.
about the British and the Americans, or they don't say the Christians. They specifically say the Americans,
or specifically they say the British, they don't say the Christians. While Christianity is great religion,
it said turn the other cheek. How many people turning their cheek? When Gandhi said it was not for British,
Britain, England, India would have been Christianized. Why?
The British, they were seen as Christians coming there. And of course, unfortunately, they have given
a bad thing to Christianity. And so is Islam. Islam is also about peace. And some bad seeds has done
that. So it's just people who are not educated think Islam is bad. It's not, really. And that's a really
interesting point, that you don't hear people say, oh, the Christians did it when the United States
or almost any other country in the West World does something. That's interesting. You don't hear. You
never hear.
Christian did. And Christianity is one of the greatest religion of peace. You know, so is Islam. God
said to me, Islam will ever kill an innocent soul. Let me tell you, a human being, an innocent soul,
he's like he'll kill the whole humanity. And the prophet of Islam, what he says, said, if you are in
state of war, I mean, defensive, not offensive, defensive, don't harm children.
The Han women don't burn trees, don't burn houses. And if the farmer is farming his land, let him be.
And if a soldier gives up, an enemy gives up, set him free. So it's not just like all those radical
Muslims that weave in crusading, like jihad, kill everyone. No, no. No, this is just kind of
brainwashing, they could be used. But those people are against what the religion says. God condemns
suicide, period. And the word jihad, people may not understand the word jihad. Jihad means struggle.
Even when you take care of your family, it's jihad. Even when he's doing with the justice, it's jihad.
Jihad is not really pick up a gun and go shoot, no. What really the jihad on case 40 to defend your family,
If there's three things that you could die for, defending your family, if somebody come and kill your
family, that's a part of the jihad that you basically get to heaven, when they say defending your family,
defending your base, your town, your country, or your religion, if some people can't address you. It's
only defensive, not defensive. But it's never aggressive. No, never aggressive. It's only offensive.
It says, if you are attacked, you've
Defend yourself equally. If you get powerful, don't use extreme force. That's what I said. Don't use
extreme force. And they said, forgiveness is better than revenge. But, of course, all of this goodness,
the bad, it's not being shown or basically used by the Muslims who does the bad things. Basically, they
are not looking to their book. And God said also in the Quran, if you close your heart, your eyes won't see.
And it's happened with the Christian. The Bible verse said they don't see it because they close their
heart. Happened in anything. Right, so it's with all religion. With all religion. And you guys are acting
violently. Are gods better than your god? All the sponsors in the name of god. There is only one god.
Believe me, I tell you that there is only one god. There is no many gods. In Islam, they call it Allah,
but it's the same god. And it's god for everyone. Like the French said, chaquem posway yipotus.
means everyone for himself and God is for everyone. And that's how they should look at it. God is for
everyone. But there is groups of people who say God only for themselves. They're not the other ones,
which is not. And there is one good thing in Islam God said. He will judge you by your heart, not by
your action. By your heart. He looks in your heart and judges you by it, not by your actions. Because
actions we all know, really,
We misjudged people. Look how the injustice people have been gone to death for. Because people didn't
look to the heart of the person, really, if the person is innocent, if he did it, if he repented, if
he repented. Nobody knows that. But anyway, if all religions, if all religions, they follow the religion
and live policy out of it, exactly the way it is, we will have peace. I don't believe there is any religion who will
encourage violence or bloodshed or no. I want to, before we run out of time, touch on real fast. You
were involved in politics in Bloomington about six years ago. I think you were running for mayor. I
just wondered, what would you like to see? What issues concern you most in the Bloomington community
right now? I came here a long, long time ago, about three years ago. The town was beautiful. Everything
was so peaceful. It was just green as everywhere. You can walk to everywhere. But anyway.
1999, I have noticed the changes. And I foresaw the future. And I had basically decided to run for mayor's
office to save Bloomington. And my slogan was save our town. Save our town, because I know what's going
to happen. And whatever I said, if you can go back to the tape, you will see exactly what I predicted
was happening. And I didn't like to see Bloomington going from a town to a city.
while GE was closing, AXE was closing, and it was only a university. And so they created a big city,
a hollow city, I call it, with not many people. And Bloomington wasn't meant to be that big city. It's
just a student town. And the biggest problem right now, we're going to have a lot of empty homes.
Because of all the new apartment complexes that they're calling? Oh, yeah. It's just ridiculous. I mean,
I don't know why. I mean, that's really like just go and devastate land, tear up the trees, and just
go ahead and just build big boxes. For what? I mean, I don't understand. There is enough houses for
everyone. But having these wild constructions is going to hurt us in the future. It's turning Bloomington
where it's not. Right. And the rent at those apartment complexes is incredible.
But the problem is, the rent is expensive or not, people will get tired of those big buildings. Now,
if those buildings people are not going to go live in them, what's going to happen? Ghost buildings?
What's going to be? Because after 10 years, people will get tired of those. People still have like old
homes and things like that. I mean, there is so many of them. And what's bothering me is the old buildings,
I found the buildings around Allen Street or somewhere around.
I don't know what's going to happen to those. And what's happening is hurting the people of Bloomington,
who have basically invested for their retirements, older people. But it's going to hurt them. Do you
have a plan for things to stay the same? Yeah. I think that we're out of time right now, because we
still want to get to talk to this gentleman over here. But I'll see you again very briefly. Thank you
very much.
Well, we already have Dean Kerrigan on stage with us, so I'll just scoot this way a little bit, I guess.
How are you doing tonight, Dean? I feel good. I feel nice and cool in this air-conditioned environment.
Good, good, good. And thanks for inviting me, too. Oh, no, it's lovely to have you on the show. I got
to share for a second. I remember the first time I heard this gentleman playing guitar.
I was having a horrible day. I'm walking up Kirkwood. And all of a sudden, I see this guy, and I'm sitting
there with his guitar and the band. And there's almost like this bubble around him of positive energy.
So I had to throw that compliment out there for everyone. I initiated that as a nomadic extraordinaire.
You go around the country in your van playing music, just sort of sharing with everybody.
What's your favorite memory from doing that so far? Do you have a favorite or what inspired this? I'm
not sure where to begin. Well, it's very saturated with all sorts of positive memories. So it's kind
of like anybody. I have ups and downs.
instead of being a big rock star or something, and having independence gives you freedom, I guess. You
talked about before that you did kind of have an opportunity to sort of start to become a semi-rock
star sort of thing as a drummer before you played guitar, and then you gave that up. Just wondered,
based on the whole dialogue we were having with Jill about the left brain and the right brain, what
exactly inspired you to do that?
there are a lot of things that you perceive to be opportunities, especially if you're a career-oriented
person or if you're moving through a hierarchy or progressing. But a lot of times, if you listen to
your heart, you might have some sort of issue with things that you have to do, compromises you make
with people that you have to deal with. And if you feel uncomfortable,
not discount it and not devalue it, because that's probably when you're going to wind up on all sorts
of pharmaceutical drugs and really living a lie or becoming a person that you aren't. We're human beings,
not human doings. So maybe that's a lot of words to answer a simple question. I found myself when I
was signed to just really seeing a side of the music business
distasteful to me. And that doesn't mean that applies to every person who's successful in a major legal
way or a big rock star. I mean, a lot of people find their peace or their comfort zone in that.
And that's OK. I mean, everyone finds their level. But sometimes you can see something like, let's say,
in politics, for example. I think there's an expression like politics and sausage making. You don't
want to see what the behind the scenes business is.
there's the right reasons to do things and the wrong reasons to do things. And I think that opting to
maybe back away from that little spike of success that I had as a drum set player was a really positive
move for me to do. And as an artist, pursuing songwriting
only as a musician that it begins to focus and focus and say, okay, I'm going to go to music school.
I'm going to be the best drummer in the world kind of thing. And there's nothing wrong with being the
best person that you can be. But if you have a tendency to over focus and a tendency to become very
competitive, which is the kind of world that we live in,
many steps back and essentially what I do as a troubadour is just figuring out a way to redefine and
reinvent myself in a way that's really low impact and really easy to do because it's, I mean, taking
it right down to an acoustic guitar and the voice probably is basically
I think it does. So I'm curious. This show is the Bloomingtown Variety Hour, and here you have landed
in Bloomington after playing probably pretty much everywhere. What do you think of Bloomington? Favorite
moments in Bloomington? Favorite place to eat? What do you think of Bloomington as a town?
I think Bloomington is definitely an unsuspecting
one of the last bastions of freedom. Because you can go down the street, and you can see in people's
windows a hate-free zone. And people wave to you hello on the street and say hi. And you mean it. And
they make eye contact. And these are little aspects of community that you don't even find in small towns
anymore, because a lot of small towns are rife with a lot of suspicion or unworked
reasons that people leave small towns. There's just a profound sense of community here, which I really
like. And after performing in over 100 cities and playing or visiting probably at least 100 more, I'd
like to think that I have an experienced eye for that kind of thing. And I can call it and say, yeah,
this is a good place. And of course, I might walk out and get shot right now or something.
is that life has a funny way to come back. But it's a really, it's in a place and there's a reason why
I've been here more than just like the prerequisite, you know, three day maximum or whatever that I
get to, you know, to experience a place and be a visitor and not ask judgment and just say, oh yeah,
nice place. Well, and you know, I'd like this about it for, you know, to leave that there and continue
on. But there's,
Yeah, I think that we're short on time now, but I had to get an outside perspective there for a second,
because I feel like having been in Bloomington even just for a couple years, I've stopped appreciating
it as much as I could. So I thought that was a lovely contribution you made there. So we're about to
get into a roundtable discussion here, and we're just going to talk about a few local things, I think
maybe one or two national things, depending on time. Robin Vermillion, who's with Citizens for Effective
justice. We'll also be joining us on stage. She just recently finished a degree in criminal justice.
We're back again with all of our esteemed guests plus one extra Robin. As I mentioned before, I thought
I'd give her another intro.
Originally we're going to start out talking about I-69 and we will get to that in a minute, but I'm
noticing that our panel here seems stacked with a couple people from Citizens for Effective Justice
and also Jill who knows a lot about brain disorders and psychological problems that might contribute
to the problems that would be brought up within Citizens for Effective Justice.
So I think it would be great if we could sort of begin this discussion just asking the question, why
do we allow so many people to be in jail that need help? What can we do as a community to change that?
How can we go about this? Do laws need to be changed as well? Should some things not be illegal that
are illegal? Should there not be jail time carried with it? Just along those lines. Can I take the big question?
I'll keep this off because it reminds me of a conversation that I was having with a local business owner,
a retailer on the street, Kirkwood. He was talking about people that had their windows broken and also
talking about robbery. So B&E, breaking and entering, and also robbery at gunpoint. And I was really
shocked because it just seems like such a sense of community around here and everything. Of course,
that kind of stuff can't happen
there is community. And then we started talking about it. And the first thing that I thought of was
that when the idea of community breaks down, when people don't know each other, that it's a lot easier
to look away or not pay attention to what's going on. So for example, if I don't know you personally,
and it's really less my problem. But if you're a relative of mine or a close friend
or whatever, all of a sudden I'm more motivated to be involved in your problem, it becomes my problem.
And I think that the more a community works together as a group, and we get involved in each other's
affairs, and now I've heard your opinions and your side of stuff, and yours, and I haven't met the people
in the audience yet, but before this program or after this program,
It's anybody can come and talk to me while I'm playing on the street, or we can run into each other
in the library, outside the doors, or whatever. And I think that's what builds a community, because
people perceive each other as being people. And that if you just see people as strangers, and you don't
make eye contact, and you don't say hi to them, and you don't go and patronize their business, or you
go to Walmart, or whatever, I mean, at that point, you're basically
dehumanizing things, and I think that's when problems start to take seed and grow up into larger issues.
And then eventually you have things like incarceration problems, or you're wondering what to do with
people that are in jail. Why are they in jail in the first place? What causes someone to go and break
a window? There's random violence for all reasons, and then there's targeted
of terrorism, which was what happened at the mosque. I read that on the front page of the newspaper.
And I was like, yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was terrorism right here, probably from Americans
on Americans. And that kind of attitude is the result of the dehumanization of our society that erodes
the fabric of community. I have a comment on that. Sorry to interrupt.
May I go next? I want to say something. OK, first half, and then Robin. Yeah, you know, dealing with
people who are really homeless, and not just homeless in the sense that at the present time they don't
have an address, but people who are
are homeless because they're isolated first of all from their parents and then from teachers and then
from citizens and then from society by being put in jail. I mean, all of these people are just hostile
as hell. And that kind of hostility, I think, is more important when it comes to the breakdown of our society
in the way we've been talking about than anything else. I think it's a matter of people relating to
people in ways that make them angry and hostile and revengeful and anxious to somehow take it out on
somebody. Yeah, this is going to sound like one of those
was on here we go cool cool cool okay I am so sorry um to make a long story short I was minding my own
business downtown and sitting on a park bench with a friend of mine of you know five years I can't say
any names or any sort of thing because I won't but
I basically made the comment, oh, you know, there's a couple girls drunk here last night. Two girls
approached me. I took karate for six years. I'm nonviolent. I did it for discipline. They basically
came up to me in a threatening way and said, want to go out in the back alley? I didn't know who the
heck they were. I knew that one of them was the person that apparently was drunk the other night or
whatever. You know, my voice carries.
I knew that something was going to go down. I asked my friend. I kind of tapped him on the elbow and
said, can you please walk me in my car? This was August 2002. OK, I'm going to. I suffered a broken
nose in two places. Surgery. Right now I'm on science medicine.
Praise God I got my criminal justice degree. It was a wake-up call. It really was. And people don't
understand that when a crime happens, it affects the rest of your life. When you work at a place, I
worked at Walmart, okay? And if I had to work till 10 o'clock at night or whatever, somebody had to
walk me to my car.
I was paranoid to the point I would not drive down Kirkwood, Indiana, any of these streets for the next
four blocks. I can't get a job working with victims in our city despite the fact that I'm healed from
it. But in this organization, I'm able to
learn and be a part of some big picture with a lot of little bubbles and all these, I call the little
bubbles the different organizations that we work with. I really like what Hal said because in this town,
there's people that will do stuff for attention.
And to make a long story short, they'll do it for a political statement. My husband and a bunch of guys
were parked at the armory with a work there. 15 vehicles got vandalized. One guy in particular had just
restored his truck, the interior. And they did this to make a statement, but all these vehicles were
barely damaged. In this town, I've lived here all my life. I've seen the changes. I've seen my dad lost
his job from
hearing about your experience and hearing about these violent crimes that have occurred to you, I wonder
actually how many people in jail are part of those violent crimes like we talked about before and how
we as a community can stop that from happening or what the cause would be more perhaps. Could I address
it just from a mental illness perspective?
Back in the 60s, there was this big de institutionalization movement where all of the major psychiatric
hospitals were going to be shut down.
The theory was that mental illness existed because there were places for people who were mentally ill,
which doesn't make much sense to some of us, but that was the idea. So if we got rid of the psychiatric
hospitals, then we would get rid of mental illness. Well, of course, what that did was it pushed individuals
who had major psychiatric problems
out into the streets and the the agreement was that we were going to close the institutions, but we
will have community based programming to receive these people to help these people and to help these
people get back into some kind of treatment program and quality of care and quality of life.
And that didn't happen. So the deinstitutionalization happened, but the community care programming didn't
happen. So as a result, the people who are in the psychiatric hospitals become our homeless population.
And many of them, because they have minds that are not functioning in a normal way, they get themselves
into trouble because they're hungry and they're scared. So when you approach any wild animal,
and you corner a wild animal, what does that wild animal do? It's going to attack you. So many of these
individuals end up in our jail system. It's estimated across the U.S. 25 to 33% of the people in the
jail systems have a serious psychiatric illness. They don't belong in a jail system. They belong in
a treatment program. So what I love about the Citizens for Effective Justice is
as they look at the jail population and say, how can we help these individuals learn about themselves,
learn from their mistakes based on the decisions that they have made that got them into trouble? How
am I doing, Dad? This is really his story, but yeah, listen to the man. And how can we then take these
individuals and create problems
in our community so that when they get out of jail, they have had some training in jail, but there is
a place for them. There is no place in our society, in our community, for individuals stepping out of
the jail system in order to get quality treatment, in order to get
effective tools and mechanisms of living life. So what I love about this program is that this is a healthy
group of people who are willing to come together on Saturdays and talk about these issues and what can
we do as a community to, you know, one of the biggest political issues that you hear about all the time
is the overcrowding of our jail.
So instead of building a bigger, better, stronger jail, hold more people, why aren't we really looking
at who is in the jail and what can we do to help these people get back into the community? So that's
kind of more of a historical perspective.
Jail is jail. And I could agree about certain people who should go to jail should be locked up. There
is no question about it. But certain don't deserve to be in jail. They shouldn't be in jail. But anyway,
the biggest thing is to find a way how to deter the one which is taking people to jail is to deter them,
to punish them. But why not deter them before they get to that point to go to jail?
And I think, like, when I was running for mayor's office, one, my platform was about the youth. There
is no youth program. And I was strongly pushing for, like, then they were gonna close the ice rink,
which was ridiculous. It's one great thing that keeps the kids busy and away from trouble. And also,
they were after skateboarders.
And he said, okay, if you are against skateboarders, so why don't you build a park for them? You don't
want them to be on the street? Build a park for them. You don't have to agree with the skateboarders.
This is a great country. We have diversity in this. Everyone, when you want to pursue, just encourage
them. And having a park for them, which is, I like my tax money, goes to that program to help the youth,
but those youth who could join those parks,
And they said, well, there is one thing we could do. We make a deal. Instead of investing on having
more cops, we can invest on somebody who could be a psychiatrist, have an office there. Well, those
kids who will join the park, their membership, if they're in trouble, is to check with psychiatrists.
And then they're passed to the park. And I thought that would have been a great idea, instead of putting
too much money in the police force, we can put more money
to deter. And I think having such a thing will help the kids being busy and if they have a problem they
have someone to talk to before they basically do something. Now when the kids don't have anything to
do what they will think? Being mischievous. Either being mischievous or to get back at the society because
those are successful I have nothing to do.
And he is a rich kid. He has a right for this. So they do something wrong. Like there is a saying back
home. They say the shepherds, when he has nothing to do, when he's shepherding his sheep, he either
break his cane or cut his clothes, rip his clothes, because he has nothing to do. And if these kids
here have nothing to do, what are they going to do? They will get detention, like she said.
Or they basically go ahead and get something that they dislike and do anything. Graffiti, a lot of them
getting into graffiti, which is really wrong in this business of graffiti. They disagree with it.
But I mean, the way I think we should save those kids from going back to jail is to give them something
to do, is to pay attention to them to see what their problem before they go
do something else. And that will start from the youth, I think. And the parents are not really responsible,
because first of all, the problem also goes back to the core of it, is the government doesn't let us
guide our kids, doesn't let us correct our kids. So then later, when our kids do wrong, then they point
a finger on us saying, you! They hide themselves for not letting us, which is, my father gave me a really
great analogy
how I raise a child. He said, son, a child is like that baby tree. It's so flexible and tender. He said,
if you let that tree grow crooked, and you don't straighten it from day one, once it grows crooked and
dries out, you straighten it and you break it. You lose that tree. And that is really what is happening.
Our children, they overpower the parents. And they do what they want to do. And then the parents, they
have no more control.
And then the later they go ahead and get in trouble and then they blame their parents for failing on
them. There is so many things that links really to get the children away from the jail. Neglected children
will go to jail if they have no law, nothing to do. And also the point he brought up as the city is
growing and people are not mingling together anymore.
They basically, they become too individual, even to help, or not my business, this and that. If this
house is that the porch is being closed, that people don't visit each other, neighbors don't visit each
other. So everybody's becoming individual, even our homes inside. Our kids sit down in the cars, don't
eat with us. So the whole thing is deteriorating. Do you think that a lot?
material-based culture and a consumer-based culture, which takes the place of the use and overuse expression
of family values. I mean, not even family values, but values in general. There is a huge spiritual void
created as our contemporary system is moving towards more and more consumer goods.
and that people are happy when they want something and they buy it and then they feel an emptiness because
now they have something and it didn't make them happy after they acquired it and maybe it broke or maybe
they just want the next thing. This impacts the planet so heavily in terms of our production and consumption
is basically causing the destruction of the planet and driving around
I assume instead of making do with what they have or raising their kids as tender young samplings and
spending time with them, quality time, my dad never took me to the park to throw the ball with me.
I really, in terms of fatherhood, I would have to reinvent myself for that because I didn't have any
models for that. And he didn't have any models. And how many generations do you have to go back to figure
out what happened to the new
to figure out where it fell apart, probably to the Industrial Revolution, actually. But how do we fix
that now? People have to stop looking at each other as being different. And I have to look at you and
say that I am you. And I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm all of you people. And
we all have something in common. And that if you look at people, they look different.
If you talk to them, they're all real people. All you have to do is take the time to talk to them. And
that's something I've learned as a busker, a street performer, is that people come up to me and they
talk to me. They talk to me about the dog. And sometimes they don't even listen to the music. And they
just talk to me. And everyone has a soul. Everyone has a little light that shines out of them. And it's
amazing. And when everybody is busy rushing around, dealing with material things and buying stuff and
everything, and they're
you know, the whole scarcity of product paradigm, you know? This is like the wealthiest nation in the
world. And people are acting as if there's not enough. There's too much. There are distribution problems,
you know? And we could feed the world and everything. But the powers that be that want to divide people
and cause fear to control them, as you said, and also, as you said, Alan, is like, you know, they're
not interested in, you know, putting in a skating rink or a skate park or having
replacing one police officer with, let's say, a psychologist or a social worker or something like that,
I honestly don't believe that the real powers that are in control right now do not have the best interests
of the people at heart. They are self-serving, and that they have their private interests at heart,
and their actions demonstrate that they are willing to stop at nothing and be completely, you know,
in a sense that they're trying to demonize other people to take the focus of attention away from themselves,
because they are actually self-evident in terms of being demons. And that's something that when people
have to empower themselves in this country, while there is still a window of opportunity to do that,
because as they gain more control, the window fast closes, and something needs to be done. Yeah, so
what do we do?
I think the problem is even worse than that. The problem is in me and the problem is in you. I don't
really care a lot of the time. I really don't care a lot of the time. There are times when I do care
and there are
There are things which make me care. There are things that help me care. When a day starts, I often
am very angry. I'm angry because this damn body hurts. And it takes a while to get the joints to work.
And I think we're all like that to a large degree. We really don't care. Now, I attend a lot of different churches.
I have yet to find, well, I take it back now, one church is doing it, but I have yet to, until recently,
I had yet to find a church which prayed on Sunday morning for the men and women and children in Iraq
that we have murdered. We don't even bother to pray for those people. We don't give a damn
that they have been murdered. And not just murdered, I mean, how many of them, thousands upon thousands
of them, have been destroyed for life? And how conscious are we as human beings in this country of what
we have done over there? We simply are not conscious of it. The media takes care of that. The media doesn't.
I don't think it's the media's fault, really. I think you're absolutely right. The media is not giving
us a real picture. On the other hand, I think even if it did, we would not be much different from what
we are. I think we don't want to know. That the point is what happened. People don't want to know. Because
the media can feed you anything. It's up to you. If you are smart enough to take it,
Or if you really want to play stupid enough, no. Because the obvious is obvious, you know, what is happening
now. We spent billions, I mean, dollars over there for what? While people here are needed for that.
And there's people who are dying. And how could we accept that? That is the issue, you know,
where to start. I mean, we are really all responsible. We are all responsible. And unfortunately,
our leaders, we elected ourselves.
they're not serving the people who are like them.
Revolution only comes when people are uncomfortable. And if people are comfortable, they're not going
to revolt. If there's nothing in them, they're comfortable. But if you are uncomfortable, you might
revolt. But if you change your life, I mean, there could be incremental change that might offset some
sort of a peak in a valley thing where, you know, you've got harsh conditions here and then cozy conditions
here. I mean, we're living like at the end of a golden age here. There's information as well.
pleasant air conditioning. We talk to each other. We're not here for our lives going inside. Hopefully.
that that country doesn't get the ability and interaction with this country, with these people here.
Vets were over there making sure that these people that are wrong, that have true fear of evil, considering
the word fear in Hebrew means admiration. They have admiration for the evil that they don't believe
in because of their own misunderstanding of their own religion, of how they view things.
to sit there and speak. Our soldiers are not over there murdering children. They're not over there murdering
people. War is and costs casualties and lives, innocent lives. Without that war place over there right
now, sir, you would not have the ability to sit there and speak like you do. And everybody's opinion
up there. So don't, and I just don't agree.
We are not criticizing the people who are fighting the war over there. This is not the issue. The issue
is something very different. The issue is that we as human beings here don't care what the results are
of what we're doing over there. That's the issue. You care, you care enough for what?
You care enough to support the war. I care enough to not support the war. You and I are on two different
sides of this. I had a daughter that died because of the service of my country because I was given a
shot that in turn caused me to have a chemical problem within my brain that on a DNA level when my daughter
was born because of what I wanted to serve the country to make a stable world, I had a daughter die
So yes, I do care. And yes, I still do support our troops over there trying to make a stable goal, even
though my daughter paid the ultimate price. I don't think this is going to be a very profitable discussion
for us. I think we've come to the end of this. We have a difference. I wanted to. I had a comment like
four people or five people go on the mental health. You don't mind? I'm sorry I had to break up this
discussion.
My hobby, if you will, is volunteer work and that sort of thing with special needs individuals, whatever
you want to call them. I've worked at Stone Belt. Basically, with my criminal justice background and
what I've learned is
like the tree statement, what that reminded me of is what's going on in our society is that what they're
doing, he said mentioning blaming the parents. Sometimes the parents are put in jail for crimes their
kids have done. I knew an incident of a young man that was caught smoking regular cigarettes.
in my old high school, parents who had adopted him, and they had two other kids, and you can understand
the finances, had to pay a $500 fee. The other thing is, we were mentioning the change of the family
structure, which is very important, because in, say, my grandparents' time, my grandparents had been
married 58 years,
People had more stable marriages. The families ate at dinner together, and they had more core values.
And what's going on today is I want it now. I want my burger this way. I want my mag this way. Yes,
and that's another thing. When I was growing up, I can't say I had the perfect family. The only time we
basically got along was we set the dinner table, we talked about our day. Okay, that's what we did.
And when you're thinking about raising kids in today's computer generated society, these values, we
need to look at our grandparents as far as their values because, and the other thing is with the learning styles
The unique learning styles, a lot of times they're treated as being more severe off than they are and
then it puts them as a catalyst and it sinks down as far as they're the type to be more prone to crime,
they want to fit in, they want to follow the crowd and in a lot of
The learning styles, there's so many people with unique learning styles that a lot of them aren't detected.
I think I would like to say something positive. I've said a whole bunch of negative things, but I would
like to say something positive. And that is that each of us have an opportunity
not every day, but every hour, to look at somebody and try to see what their possibilities are and to
help them do something that will help them in the direction of developing those possibilities. That
is a possibility for us all the time. And that's the kind of thing that I think we all ought to really
devote ourselves to doing. And I give you to the floor.
Thank you very much for coming outside, everybody. Thank you to all of the guests on our panel. You're
all wonderful to talk to. Oh, oh, it's Max Hartstein's birthday, 76. If no one minds, we're going to
sing him happy birthday to anyone else that wants to join in. We can't get on the mic. But other than
that, the show is over. And thank you, everybody, for coming out. And thanks for sitting up here. One,
two, three.
Next time you're doing the round table. You did great. No I told you I'm not in the frame.
is drugs. These are your liberties. And this is the government. Any questions?
Oh, I like that idea. All we try to do from moment to moment is fulfill our desires. Love it. Which
makes us higher. Let's go higher.