#recognising the rot in the system and just having to really come to terms with how far it goes

[stil-lindigo]

" Is it alright to cling to you? To invent meaning where it is absent? I fear my words won’t grow up with me, still scuffing their knees on cement. I can welcome a lie when it's blinding, But I can’t write like a poet while blinking. I can’t draw like an artist without hiding. I can’t live right now without thinking. "

-words, by me.

[suometar]

Indeed, we all have faced the issue of non-functional links. It's inconvenient in daily life, but it has more significant concequences than we ever thought of.

This article made me really understand for the first time how valuable printed information actually is and WHY we should get back into printing books as soon as possible.

Because as a ton of information is stored only online and no more in printed format, it is easy to get rid of it just by breaking the link that used to work. This happens in most cases simply by accident. But not always.

Views on this post are based on my experience as a professional web designer since early 2000's.

HOW THIS HAPPENS

URL structures are renewed (and thus broken) usually when a website is renewed or updated to meet modern standards. It is very destructive especially when the whole content management system (CMS) is changed. Usually it means that the whole way the system handles the content changes and with it the url structure.

For example that the old url domain.com/articles might after the update be domain.com/blog instead. When this happens - poof - all your old urls are all gone - even though the content might still exist.

WHY IT IS BAD

What makes url changes bad is that the old urls are still linked to from other websites. Thus all references from outside the website get broken and the information is no longer accessible from outside the website itself. This is unless the website owner makes sure the old urls are redirected to the new ones (when you type domain.com/articles to your browser you're redirected automatically to domain.com/blog)

In most cases the url change is an uninteted consequence the organisation doesn't recognise during the renewal process.

It can also be deliberate. This however isn't always just url changes but something far more malicious.

ONLINE CONTENT AND REMOVAL REQUESTS

The most vunerable content of all is the information that keeps our societies together, allows its development and last but not least allows freedom of thought and speech. These would be for example legal documentation and scientific research and access to information that you can use to educate you and allows you to make educated conclusions of the world.

All of this is mostly influenced by the way we nowadays find it. Come in Google.

Google is deliberately using algorithms that chooses the content you find. In most cases it actually offers you the information that is current and fits your search terms.

Unless the search terms are somehow controversial. Suddenly the given results on the first pages at least are no longer impartial but instead the kind of content Google WANTS you to see. This is directly affected by Google being a business instead of impartial search engine devoted to sharing and finding the information you in fact are looking for.

That is one thing.

But another is that Google is deliberately removing information from its search index (the database they use to crawl and quickly retrieve online content to respond to the search terms). Yes, in most cases this is information that is right to be removed, such as child porn. Unfortunately they also remove content, such as legal and controversial scientific content, based on court orders.

WHY REMOVING INFORMATION BASED ON ANY ORDERS IS BAD

And as we all know, everything that is online can be very easily forged. This opinion post on Washington Post tells about a case where court ordered an online service (Yelp) to remove a business review by a client. Unfortunately the lawsuit was apparently made by someone else than the business itself (though in their name).

While that case is not directly related to Google the Lumen project (which is dedicated in listing of online removal requests) lists several similar requests made directly to Google and to other online services. In 2016 a researcher found out that in fact a large number of the requests were outright Photoshop forgeries.

The online services have a hard time in knowing what is in fact real order and what is not. And THIS is what makes the removal based on requests problematic.

It gives the opportunity to forge a removal order to basically anyone who thinks some information should be removed for ANY reason. Google or Bing don't ask the court directly if the documentation is correct but instead they trust the filer of the request to be honest in their request.

WHY WE SHOULDN'T TRUST SEARCH ENGINES BLINDLY ANYMORE

We trust search engines to give us the correct information. That is basic trust people have developed towards search engines - because they USED TO BE trustworthy. They weren't maximazing profits but instead actually interested in helping information sharing.

Free and unlimited information sharing is the core on which the whole internet was built on.

If anyone can say that this or that content is solely in my opinion bad or unwanted and I want it removed from search engine, this severely disrupts information being freely available to those who seek it.

Thus it crumbles the whole basis of the internet.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO FIND THE INFORMATION YOU ACTUALLY ARE LOOKING FOR

With outdated and broken links:

Most likely the place where the broken link is covers a certain topic. Use the topic and any references you have on that place to the broken link source and search it with a search engine. Most likely the information IS still online - the old links to it just aren't working anymore.

Yes, it takes time and effort. But nothing worth doing is EASY. We just have unfortunately forgotten that.

To find the information you need a trustworthy search engine:

To do the research the most effective thing you can do is to either

Change your primary search engine to an independent and open sourced one - such as DuckDuckGo.com that doesn't decide for you what information you should find, OR

Start comparing the results of both Google AND of an independed search engine, - such as before mentioned - then read the results, and make up your mind about the subject.

As mentioned, none of this ia EASY to do. But we need to take responsibility on how we view the world AND that we stay educated.

WHY WE SHOULD GET BACK TO PRINTING BOOKS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Printed books have been the way to preserve and relay information throughout generations for thousands of years. The format is superior: as long as it's stored in a dry and cool place and printed/written on proper paper it is usable even after a very long time. To use it doesn't require anything else but the ablity to read the characters and some light to be able to see the text - or images.

But the books aren't valuable as itself unless you find the ones you're seeking for. You need a library system and caretakers for the information - librarians.

Both of these combined you have an equivalent to a search engine - but in physical format. In the format that information has been stored and shared until this day.

When the information is solely online it is constantly vulnerable to significant threats:

losing electricity

losing the links to the content

curation of information flow based on profit calculations

the whims of someone who thinks it's wrong information and shouldn't be available.

Simply a worldwide electricity disruption - caused for example by a powerful emp or a solar flare - can make finding information online impossible and at worst, destroy it.

Yes, printed books can be burned. But when enough books are distributed worldwide the information remains physically somewhere.

And that is where printed books are far superior to anything that is stored online.

The search for the information might be far more difficult with printed books but at least it's always somewhere and at least some of it remains. It is not undestructable but you can always copy them.

Saving the information and stories in physical format has been done since humans developed the skill to relay information by drawing and later by writing. A lot of it all is still available today.

If online sources are destroyed or made impossible to find we have nothing.

[mnemememory]

The Life and Times of the Creature Known as Frumpkin, Cat

Frumpkin-the-cat and Nott-the-not-a-cat have come to an Understanding.

link to ao3 in profile

Part 2: NOTT

Frumpkin and Nott-sharp-teeth have come to an Understanding.

Frumpkin and Nott-sharp-teeth have come to an Understanding.

The Understanding is this – Nott-sharp-teeth will not try to eat Frumpkin unless it is absolutely necessary, and Frumpkin will not mess around with Nott-sharp-teeth’s shiny, shiny vials. It is an effort not to knock them over whenever Nott-sharp-teeth pulls them out to play, but Frumpkin is a cat, and therefore a master of self-control.

Also, every time he tries, he ends up being sent back There, and Caleb-warm-master sometimes takes a while to summon him back. Not unpleasant, though the hissing that Nott-sharp-teeth gives Frumpkin when it happens it almost as good as that of a disgruntled cat. Not perfect, but close. Nott-sharp-teeth has the – well, she has the teeth for it. There are very few things that Nott-sharp-teeth is capable od doing better than Caleb-warm-master (a list which includes such lofty activities as scritches behind the ears and belly rubs), but hissing is one of them.

At the moment, however –

Nott-sharp-teeth should know better than to just. Leave all of her things out on the floor. All of her shiny, shiny things. Frumpkin paces back and forth in front of them, reaching out to tap a paw on one of the empty glass vials. It gives a satisfying tink as it rolls into another vial.

Frumpkin visibly twitches.

Caleb-warm-master is downstairs, eating dinner. This is good. Dinner is important. Though dinner has apparently become so important that Caleb-warm-master is now insisting that Frumpkin participate, which hadn’t been part of the initial objective. Frumpkin has begun to play dead whenever Jester-blue-healer comes to drag them all downstairs. Caleb-warm-master seems to recognise the performance for what it is, but hasn’t done anything about it. Yet.

Today is similar, in that Frumpkin had lain out against the windowsill and gone boneless when Caleb-warm-master had called, “Frumpkin. Frumpkin.”

“Let him sleep, Caleb,” Jester-blue-healer says cheerfully, which is why Jester-blue-healer is Frumpkin’s favourite. Well, second favourite. It’s a rotating system. Though “favourite” isn’t exactly a fair term, given that Caleb-warm-master wins out in every category, every time. Frumpkin wonders sometimes if he’s taking this “familiar” thing too far, but no one has contradicted him so far, and. And besides. Caleb-warm-master needs him. And Frumpkin loves Caleb-warm-master.

Which does absolutely nothing in Frumpkin’s current predicament, which consists of a lot of unoccupied and unobserved glass vials just sitting there, begging to be knocked over.

Nott-sharp-teeth had been sitting on the ground by Caleb-warm-master’s bed, talking to herself as she unscrewed different jars and poured foul-smelling liquid from one thing to another. One vial has a set of buttons stacked at the bottom, fizzing away. Another has a clear liquid that pulsates in a way that isn’t quite colour, but gives the suggestion of. It smells absolutely terrible.

Slowly, very slowly, Frumpkin goes to check the door.

Caleb-warm-master is still downstairs. Frumpkin can feel him, a glow of warmth that spread sup through Frumpkin’s paws. Frumpkin can infer, therefore, that Nott-sharp-teeth is also downstairs. Largely because Nott-sharp-teeth is not very good at being subtle while drunk. And Nott-sharp-teeth is always drunk.

Assured of a clear hallway, Frumpkin goes back to the rows of glass vials, studying each for the biggest potential gratification. The buttons are tempting. The buttons are very tempting. Just a little bit of pressure –

Someone walks in.

Frumpkin freezes in place, paw half a distance away from the glass.

Caduceus-tea-rot ambles in, half-smile stretched out across his soft features. Frumpkin approves of Caduceus-tea-rot, as much as Frumpkin approves of anyone other than Caleb-warm-master (and sometimes, whoever is on his sliding scale of favouritism). Caduceus-tea-rot is very good at giving scritches.

Caduceus-tea-rot walks right past Frumpkin and goes to Caleb-warm-master’s bedside table. Just as Frumpkin is about to abandon his thin veil of subterfuge and growl a warning, Caduceus-tea-rot moves on, leaving behind a few sweet-smelling sachets. He does the same for Nott-sharp-teeth’s side of the room, and then calmly walks back to the door.

“I don’t care what you’re up to, just so you know,” Caduceus-tea-rot says. Frumpkin does not jump, because Frumpkin is (currently) a cat-creature with excellent reflexes and a chronic inability to actually be startled, but the thing-Frumpkin-is-when-he-is-not-a-cat comes awfully close. “Just make sure that you keep it contained. We’re all very tired, you know.”

Frumpkin knows. Frumpkin would be tired, too, if Frumpkin was human-like-Caleb-warm-master, if Frumpkin was creature-like-Nott-sharp-teeth. Frumpkin looks like a cat. For all intents and purposes, Frumpkin is as close to a cat as something that is not actually a cat is ever going to be. Frumpkin does not need to eat, or sleep, or breathe (not really); there are certain necessities for this body, but they are easily overcome with the correct preparations. And Caleb-warm-master always makes the correct preparations.

(Frumpkin is tired of watching Caleb-warm-master claw, angry and hot and bloody, across a battlefield with no end. Frumpkin is tired of watching Nott-sharp-teeth flinch away from sudden noises. Frumpkin is tired of watching his human’s chosen companions, people who can give almost a good a belly-rub as Caleb-warm-master, frightened and defeated and scared. So scared).

(But Frumpkin is just a cat. The best he can do is curl up alongside Caleb-warm-master and purr).

Caduceus-tea-rot leaves. With a deliberate kind of defiance, Frumpkin leans forward and knocks over the vial of buttons.

“I’M GOING TO EAT YOU!”

On some level, Frumpkin was aware that this series of events was inevitable. Nott-sharp-teeth is a predator. Frumpkin is a thing-to-be-eaten.

This seems a bit extreme, however.

“Be careful of the –” Caleb-warm-master starts to say, just as Frumpkin zig-sags around the curtains and Nott-sharp-teeth (who has no peripheral vision to speak of) slams into the window. Frumpkin would have laughed, if he weren’t a cat, but cats were better than that.

“GET BACK HERE YOU STUPID CAT!” Nott-sharp-teeth howls.

Frumpkin is offended. If anyone is stupid here, it is definitely Nott-sharp-teeth, who just left her chemistry set out in the open. What was Frumpkin supposed to do, not knock it over?

This might be a little more than Frumpkin can handle, though. There are only so many places in this room that Frumpkin can hide, and Nott-sharp-teeth is small enough to take advantage of the fact. The door is closed. Nott-sharp-teeth is fast, and strong, and also has very sharp teeth. Incredibly sharp teeth. Frumpkin has never quite forgotten the fact, but right now he can’t quite seem to stop focusing on them. Lots and lots of teeth.

Almost as Frumpkin resigns himself to being eaten again, the indignity, Caleb-warm-master snaps his fingers and Frumpkin is in his hands and away from Nott-sharp-teeth’s very sharp teeth.

It takes a few seconds for Frumpkin to realise that he is safe, during which he huddles closer to Caleb-warm-master and does his best limpet impression. Frumpkin has never been a limpet. He’s been many things, but he likes being a cat the best.

“You just ate downstairs,” Caleb-warm-master says. Caleb-warm-master is Frumpkin’s favourite everything. “You do not need to eat my cat.”

“That mangy, flea-bitten mongrel burned a hole in the floor! Using my good acid! I was cleaning my buttons with that!”

“I will buy you some new buttons later,” Caleb-warm-master says, petting Frumpkin. Frumpkin cuddles close and doesn’t-quite-give-a-smile at Nott-sharp-teeth.

Nott-sharp-teeth gives an incredibly cat-like hiss and lunges.

[hydrus]

Version 447

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I had a great week. The database should be a bit faster when doing file work, and I have fixed several annoying bugs. It will take your client a few seconds to update this week, maybe a minute or two if you have millions of files.

multi column lists

I gave the weird column widths another go. Some users had this fun but quite annoying situation where a dialog with a list could grow magically wider before their eyes, maybe 20 pixels four times a second, until it reached their monitor width. Other users (me included) had a handful of lists still growing or shrinking a few pixels on every reopen.

So I drilled down into the logic again and improved things. Some calculations are now more accurate, some are more precise, and I think I fixed the runaway growth situation. Let me know how you get on, and sorry for the trouble!

performance improvements

Thanks to profile feedback from users, I discovered some file routines that were working inefficiently, particularly on very large clients. Mostly unusual jobs like 'get all the trashed files that are due for deletion' or 'get the repository update files I still need to process'. It was mostly when you were looking at a small domain when a very large 'my files' domain was right next door, getting in the way of the query. Having done lots of similar improvement work for tags, I updated how files are stored this week. Several big tables are now split into many smaller pieces that do not interfere with each other. This was actually a long overdue job, so I am happy it is done.

There isn't much to say beyond 'your client should be a bit faster with files now', but let me know how you get on anyway. Mostly you should have fewer lag spikes as background jobs go about their work, but you may notice the duplicates system going a bit faster and general file searches working better too.

Some users with very large sessions have also reported CPU lag with the new session saving system. Thanks again to some user profiles, I was able to speed up session save, particularly for pages with tens or hundreds of thousands of thumbails. The next step will be optimising downloader page save, so if you have a lot of heavy downloaders, I would be interested in some profiles.

In that vein, I significantly improved the profile mode (help->debug->profile mode) this week. All the modes are now merged into one, and all the popup spam is gone. It now makes a new log file every time you turn it on, and only the most useful information is logged. I will keep working here to get more and more information profiled so we can nail down and eliminate slow code.

I have altered core components of the database this week, and it unfortunately caused some bit rot in older update routines. 447 cannot update databases older than 411, and it may have trouble updating before 436. If either of these apply to you, the client will error out or warn you before continuing. I'd like to know what happens to you if you are v411-435 so I can refine these messages.

And while I have tested this all back and forth, there may be a typo bug in some of the more unusual queries. I am sorry ahead of time if you run into any of these--send me the traceback and I'll fix them up.

full list

misc:

fixed drag and dropping multiple newline separated urls onto the client when those urls come from a generic text source

pages now cache their 'ordered' file id list. this speeds up several little jobs, but most importantly should reduce session save time for sessions with tens of thousands of files

common file resolutions such as 1920x1080 are now replaced in labels with '1080p' strings as already used in the duplicate system. also added 'vertical' variants of 720p, 1080p, and 4k

when a page preview viewer gets a call to clear its current media when it is not currently the page in view, it now recognises that properly. this was happening (a 'sticky' preview) on drag and drops that navigated and terminated on other pages

the various 'retry ignored' commands on downloaders now give an interstitial dialog where you can choose to retry 'all', '404s', or 'blacklisted' files only

manage tag siblings/parents now disables its import button until its data is loaded. imports that were clicked through before loading were being forgotten due to tangled logic, so for now I'll just disable the button!

reduced some more spiky database I/O overhead from the UI's perspective (now savepoints are performed after a result is returned, just like I recently did with transaction commit)

duplicate potentials search will now update the y in its x/y progress display if many files have been imported since the search was started and x becomes larger than y (due to y secretly growing)

fixed the default 'gelbooru md5' file lookup script. if you have a lookup script with this name, it will be updated to my new default automatically. I don't really like fixing this old system, but I am not sure when I will fit in my big rewrite that will merge it with the normal downloader system, so this is a quick fix for the meantime

if you are one of the users who had weird unfixable 404 update file problems with the PTR, please try unpausing and doing a metadata resync one more time this week. fingers crossed, this is fixed. please let me know how you get on too, fixed or not, and also if you have had 'malformed' database problems in the past

.

multi column lists:

improved the precision of longer text pixel_width->text and text->pixel_width calculations, which are particularly used in the multi-column list state saving system. another multi-column size calculation bug, where lists could grow by 1 character's width on >~60 character width columns on every dialog reopen, is now fixed

multi-column lists should now calculate last column width more precisely and accurately regardless of vertical scrollbar presence or recent show/hide

the snapping system that locks last column size to 5-character multiples can now snap up or down, increasing error tolerance

I added a hack to stop the bug some people had of multi-column lists suddenly growing wide, up to screen width, in a resize loop. I think it works, but as I cannot reproduce this error, please let me know how you get on. resizing the options->external programs panel seems to initiate it reliably for those users affected

.

profile mode:

all debug profile modes (callto, db, server, menu, pubsub, and ui) are now merged into one mode under help->debug

this new mode no longer spams popups, and it only prints 'slow' jobs to the profile log

it also makes a new profile log every time it is turned on, using mode start timestamp rather than client boot timestamp, and when profile mode is turned off, there is a popup summary of how many fast and slow jobs passed through during the log time

touched up profile code, timing thresholds, summary statements, and the help

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special update rule this week:

due to the big file storage rework this week, there's some bit rot in older update routines. 447 cannot update databases older than 411, and it _may_ have trouble updating before 436. if this applies to you, the client will error out or warn you before continuing. I'd like to know what happens to you if you are v411-435 so I can refine these messages

.

boring database refactoring:

the primary current, deleted, pending, and petitioned files tables are now split according to service, much as I have done with mapping tables in the past. this saves a little space and accelerates many file calculations on large clients. if you have a client database script or patch that inspects 'current_files' or 'deleted_files', you'll now be looking at client_files_x etc.., where x is the service_id, and they obviously no longer have a service_id column

a new file storage database module manages these tables, and also some misc file deletion metadata

refactored all raw file storage updates, filters, and searches to the new module

the mappings and new file storage database modules are now responsible for various 'num files/mappings' metadata calculations

most file operations on smaller domains, typically trash or repository update files, will be significantly faster (since the much larger 'my files' table data isn't fattening the relevant indices, and worst case query planning is so much better)

cleaned up a ton of file domain filtering code as a result of all this

physical file deletion is now much faster when the client has many pending file uploads to a file repository or IPFS service

complicated duplicate file operations of many sorts should be a _little_ faster now, particularly on large clients

searching files with 'file import time' sort should be a little faster in many situations

tag repositories no longer bother going down to the database level to to see if they have any thumbnails to sync with

everyone also gets a local file id cache regen this week, it may take a few seconds on update

next week

Next week is a cleanup week. I would like to continue my long term database refactoring job, breaking the code into neater and saner pieces that will also support some neat future maintenance jobs. I also want to bring back the vacuum maintenance command with some new UI.

[encouragechange]

Having just finished the last of the christmas cake, a project upon which I have been working devotedly and unaided for a full week, I finally settle down to writing again, considering it marginally preferable to the physical exercise I ought to be contemplating if I’m ever to get into anything with the word skinny in the title again.

This blog used to practically write itself, my ire erupting volcanically at weekly intervals. In the beginning every story from the slammer was so implausible and fascinatingly horrid that words rained down onto the page like molten lava. Fiery red. Burnt orange. My pen used to be inked by tears, but I am rarely moved to pick it up now. Hot rage has become cold with the time and prison time is time like no other. Those who have never served it do not understand. Tattoo artists the world over depict its unique torture perfectly as a clock with no hands.

The love is still there. I feel it occasionally in fractional thaws that surge like meltwater when we hold each other tightly at the end of a visit, but even when the officers hang back kindly as they clear the hall, heads bowed to give some scant privacy to our last desperate moments together, time is never on our side and soon I am leaving again, waiting by the grey perimeter fence, then back to the car and the dark motorway home. They don’t call it the chiller for nothing. We are human deep freezers now, trying to preserve the lovers we used to be and dream we’ll be again.

Nothing flows anymore in this arctic emotional landscape. Blogging has begun to feel curiously like childbirth and Mary Mother of Jesus herself (plus any other mother who has gone into labour over Christmas) will attest that this is an inadvisable pursuit during the festive season, hence no December blog this year.

It’s not that there is nothing to write about: in November Prisonbag won the Longford Prize for outstanding achievement making it’s mum proud as punch. There’s precious little dignity in prisonwifery and this was a small moment of unexpected triumph, plus I got to wear heals, read aloud in Westminster and kiss Jon Snow (the broadcaster not the Game of Thrones hottie, but still…). I was invited onto Woman’s hour again too for a special New Year’s Day edition, which pretty much means I’ve arrived at the pinnacle of my ambition and can die happy, and yet still the page stays blank.

On the last day of the year comes the inevitable fall. Rob is refused his long awaited move to Dcat (open prison) on the basis that there is an unsatisfied confiscation order against him. This is not actually grounds for refusing a person’s passage through the prison system, but that is slightly beside the point here as no such order has even been issued against Rob anyway.

This is prison all over. They get it wrong. You say “Rubbish, show me some evidence, like say, the confiscation order…?”, they say “chocolate starfish cardboard” or something equally senile, and that is the end of it. They always win because they hold the power and the keys to your cell. We’ll appeal. We’ll wait. But it’s hard to keep faith with the injustice system.

And why would you keep a (hitherto) non-violent man who is no flight risk under constant guard in any case? Are we made of money in “Great” Britain? Don’t we need the cash to turn the M20 into a car park for Brexit or something? Rob’s immaculate behaviour whilst in prison is mentioned on the refusal letter but counts for nothing, else it wouldn’t have been a refusal letter…

This man has been bankrupted, all of his businesses have been dissolved, his pension has been taken and he is serving a nine year jail term. The family world he left will not be the one he will one day rejoin. The girls are almost unrecognisable from the children they were when he left. His mum, fully compos mentis prior to his conviction will probably never see him again or recognise him if she does due to the onset of full-blown dementia - “chocolate starfish cardboard” is a line I borrowed from her… He has nothing at all in the world except for his great spirit and a kindness and intelligence which make it possible to keep on loving him from all the way across the universe in the free world. He has us, but it takes every iota of strength we can muster to counteract the best efforts of the system to prise us apart.

When will the pound of flesh be had I wonder? After some really committed gluttony this year, aided and abetted by the efforts of my youngest who has been making sinfully good salted caramel in large batches, ostensibly as Christmas gifts but mostly for family consumption, I have several extra pounds to donate to the MOJ, but it is a hungry beast…

What will it take to change the prison system for one that works? It is a question I am asked daily in emails from despairing folk with loved ones held in British prisons. Seventy percent of the 61,500 people imprisoned in 2018 were sentenced for non violent offences. We lock up more of our population than any other European country and more of our prison population are now serving life sentences even than in the US and yet the national audit office confirms that there is no correlation between prison population and levels of crime. I.e prison doesn’t work. The public just think it does.

I see no sense of urgency in the corridors of power however. My friend and neighbour Jacob Tas, head of our biggest non governmental prison reform organisation NACRO (who also throws a mean New Year’s Eve party btw) is so utterly demoralised by the constant changing of ministers and the lack of bravery and action vis a vis prison reform in Westminster that he is leaving the job to work on the Dutch Lifeboats. He has given up and I am hard on his heels.

I used to think that telling our story might help, but I don’t think that anyone in power is listening. Perhaps we need more than words? Should we prison families begin sending in weekly tupperwares of rotting flesh and viscera to the Ministry of Justice as a symbolic representation of what their system is doing to our families and children whilst also failing to make our streets safer or reduce crime or reoffending? Is 2019 the year for action? My midriff certainly hopes so!