Surreal sadist
by digby
For those of you who watched Sheriff Joe Arpaio's birther press conference and wondered what in the hell you just saw, keep in mind that he's been putting on a sadistic freakshow for years down there and keeps getting re-elected for it.
Here's a
a short excerpt of a great first person account of what it's like to be sentenced to Arpaio's tent city:
I've never served a sentence before, and I was relieved to go to a tent outdoors after all of those hours in cells.
"I can do this," I thought.
There were fences around me, but the sky is still infinite. That's about where the charm ends.
The tents are old, single-ply, canvas army surplus, most with holes in the sides and tops. Inmates stuff sheets and blankets into the holes against the cold November desert breezes. Side zippers are broken, doors are torn.
Because of age, faulty manufacture, and amateurish tent-raising, most don't reach the ground on the sides. Aside from the orderly arrangements of the slabs of concrete on which they are constructed, they are reminiscent of slums I've seen in Bombay with their multicolored rags stuffed against the weather. In mid-November, when airport lows were reported at freezing, early-morning temperatures were at least 5 degrees lower.
"Heat" is provided by one portable indoor space heater per tent, ankle-high and approximately 3 feet long. They must be seen and experienced to appreciate their ridiculous inadequacy.
Most, if not all, of the inmates are sick with a flulike malady we called "the Estrella crud." I am one of those fortunates who rarely get sick, but during the aforementioned weekend, I shivered with fever all of one Saturday, with another concerned inmate bringing me chicken soup and hot chocolate from a vending machine in the dorm - which, incidentally, is a breach of rules: No food or drink in the yard. Within a few years of operation, Estrella's pebble-and-sand yard should be effectively paved with the congealing expectorations from hacking residents.
The conditions of the "Porta-Johns" is repelling. I went into the dorm to urinate but decided to return to the portable toilets after looking at the conditions of the inside. I watched urine/fluid trickle from the overflowing seat of the plastic urinal.
It rained the second weekend - I luckily had no leaks directly above me, but others weren't so lucky - which left three portable toilets sitting in a large puddle of rainwater and who knows what else.
I was puzzled on my fourth weekend by the uncharacteristic early cleaning of the johns Saturday morning - i.e. before the were full. My confusion dissipated when I saw documentary cameras on the roof that afternoon. The word on the yard was that it was the BBC.
Yes, that's right. He's the guy who made all the men traipse around in pink underwear. Nothing strange about that at all.
But keep in mind that as the above first person account mentions, the press was there. And the more publicity he got, the more he was feted as a great law and order sheriff --- and the more popular he became. Unfortunately, he spent so much time making his prisoners wear pink undershorts and chasing down people who look like might possible be of Mexican extraction, that he forgot to investigate more than 400 sex crimes.
Maybe his press conference today finally did him in. It certainly was surreal. But it's a sad comment on our nation that this guy wasn't chased out of law enforcement years ago for his despicable performance as a public official.
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