Check out A Student Pundit's Venture Into Poli-Cyberspace in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's an interview and profile of Pandagon blogger Ezra Klein about his blogging at the DNC in Boston. It's available free to non-subscribers for five days, so read it soon.

There is an annual reunion of guards and former inmates at Alcatraz, the famous island prison in San Francisco. This year's reunion was one of the biggest:

Armando Mendoza, 78, was one of seven former inmates, 10 onetime guards and 73 men and women who were children of correctional officers who came back to the island Saturday for the annual Alcatraz alumni reunion.

The gathering -- part nostalgia, part bitter history -- is perhaps one of the strangest alumni gatherings you could find. Ex-guards greeted ex- cons like old friends, people told old stories about the cold weather, others told stories about murders and stabbings, and the warden's daughter recalled how the place was so safe outside the main cell block that Alcatraz families never locked their doors. "This is living history,'' said Ricardo Perez, supervising ranger for the National Park Service. "The public has the chance to hear firsthand accounts of life on the Rock.''

Today, Alcatraz is a tourist attraction with 5,000 visitors a day. I took the TL kid there as a kid and we both were fascinated. The article is particularly worth reading for the story of Mr. Mendoza--originally from East L.A. and sentenced to 30 years without parole in 1957 for drug dealing.

Reporter James Brandon is one lucky guy. After being kidnapped, beaten, threatened with execution and held hostage by Islamic extremists last week, he was released. He tells his story in today's Telegraph. [link via Oxblog]

An article in the New York Times Magazine today asks a very interesting question: Is it time for America to Decarcerate?

There is a movement afoot today, albeit a tiny one, that aspires to get rid of prisons altogether. The members of this movement call themselves ''abolitionists,'' borrowing the term applied to steadfast opponents of slavery before the Civil War. Since the 80's, an international group of abolitionists -- lawyers, judges, criminologists -- has been holding conferences every few years. According to ''Instead of Prisons,'' published by the Prison Research Education Action Project in 1976, the first article of the abolitionist catechism is that imprisonment is morally objectionable and indefensible and must therefore be abolished. Are these people moral visionaries, like their 19th-century namesakes? Or are they simply nuts?

In some states law enforcement authorities may ask sexual assualt victims to submit to a lie detector test (a practice that is outlawed in many states). One such victim who has been asked by an investigating detective to take a lie detector test after her attacker "passed" one discusses her experience in a post to the AntiPolygraph.org message board titled, Raped.

TalkLeft discusses the unreliability of polygraphs here and here.

As far as we're concerned, polygraphs are as reliable as voodoo. Their primary usefulness to law enforcement occurs during the pre-test interview process in which they convince people to confess before taking the test. The F.B.I. is famous for this.

We've talked often about the felon vote, the hispanic vote, the female vote....now it's time to campaign for the homeless vote.

If you run into any homeless people, make sure they know that the Constitution allows citizens to vote even if they don't own property or have a permanent address. The temporary address of a soup kitchen or homeless shelter is just fine.

Analysts say the homeless favor Kerry. The homeless believe he is more interested in their issues. So let's get them out there. One person, one vote-- rich, poor, male, female, minority or homeless.

Tex at Anti-war.com has a detailed wrap-up of the latest mayhem in Iraq. Mystery bombings, a phony truce, what else is new?

Update: Unfair Witness on the U.S. giving up on the Fallujah Brigade.

No suprise here, the first four detainees at Guantanamo to have a hearing have been adjudged "enemy combatants." They only got the hearing after the Supreme Court said they were entitled to them. Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration settled on rules that ensured a lack of due process and fairness....such as the detainees would not be allowed to have a lawyer present at the hearing; would not be allowed to review all the evidence against them; and would have their fates decided by three military officers.

Elaine Cassell explains:

Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts has throat cancer. He's expected to make a full recovery and be back with the Stones later this year. Charlie, 63, has been with the Stones for more than 40 years.

Get well, Charlie.

In other music news, this weekend is the 35th anniversary of Woodstock. How times change. 35 years ago David Crosby was part of the counter culture. Today, he wants to be co-President of the United States. And, he's on an anti-crime rag, bashing Enron's Ken Lay in his new song:

Arianna Huffington weighs in on the resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. She wonders whether McGreevey put his lover on the payroll knowing it would be discovered so that he'd have an excuse to come out. Arianna's ex-husband came out during her marriage, so her thoughts are all the more interesting.

By the time the curtain comes up on this drama’s Act Five we could be in the middle of a serious political scandal that may force McGreevey to step down even before Nov. 15. Or we may be in the middle of his political resurrection, looking not at a tortured politician with a secret draining away precious energy but a free man fully -- and finally -- accepting himself. Either way, he had to practically drive the car right off the cliff in order to put himself on the road to Thursday’s declaration. And that's an indictment of our society and our political culture wars.

So until the final curtain falls, let’s seize the moment to reaffirm, loudly and without reservation, that to be gay is to be normal -- whether you’re a governor or a gardener, a public figure or a very private one.

Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence agrees with her:

There is now a blog about blogging the Republican Convention at The Tank. Apparently, this is about a $10,000.00 project. One of the sponsors just backed out and secondary sponsors are needed.

We had our funding source pull out unexpectedly about two weeks ago, and have been scrambling since then to come up with the $10,000 necessary to make all this happen. The Tank is letting us rent the space at-cost for the entire week for only $4,000, plus we need to print up signs, flyers, etc. starting next week. We're looking for sponsors who can underwrite part or all of the cost.

Organizations can sponsor one or two of the events (the Progressive Tourism Bureau, Blogger Alley, or the evening social events), or help with as little as $1,000. We'll give sponsors placement on the flyers, signs, etc. and they can put informational materials on tables at the event, though if we can cover the costs without doing that it'd be even better. If you have ideas for who might be interested, comment or email alpert@gmail.com.

Here's what will be happening at The Tank during RNC week, and it's much more than just a blogger alley. And read Zoe on what blogs will bring to the coverage-- using one of her own experiences with media coverage of an Iraq war protest in New York last year as an example.

Say hello to the Campaign Tracking Dashboard.

We use our text analysis technology to analyze Bush and Kerry press releases, speeches and official blogs on a daily basis. Our analysis depicts the most influential words over the last week, Image Nets which show how Bush and Kerry are portayed on their own and their competitor's sites, the Mud Meter, and measures (and trends) of tone, focus, and intensity.