Helen Epstein’s new essay in the New York Review of Books begins by stating, clear as day, the disastrous violence of incarceration in the United States:

America’s prison system is in a dire state. Some 2.3 million people in this country are now behind bars, five times more than in 1978. Our incarceration rate is now higher than that of any other country in the world. Many, if not most, inmates probably should not be there. Sixteen percent of the adult prison population suffers from mental illness and should be in treatment; a similar fraction is made up of children under eighteen. Although there is little evidence that blacks are more likely to use drugs than whites, they are six times more likely to be imprisoned on drug-related charges. Of those, most have no history of violence or drug dealing, and were arrested mainly for possession of drugs.

Sexual and other forms of abuse in prison are common, reported by some 20 percent of inmates. These “monster factories,” as the lawyer and author Sunny Schwartz calls them, do little to break the cycle of violence in society and may even accelerate it. Roughly two thirds of those released from US jails and prisons end up back inside within three years. Some studies suggest that the experience of imprisonment can be so brutal and humiliating that it actually makes men, in particular, harder and meaner, so that the crimes they commit the next time around are even worse than what got them incarcerated in the first place.

Sunny Schwartz, says Epstein, developed a program at the San Francisco County Jail in San Bruno, California based on the principles of restorative justice.

Restorative justice, as Schwartz explains it, is based on the concept prevalent in more traditional societies that offenders must also try to repair, as far as possible, the harm they have caused others.

The program has had some success, but Epstein makes abundantly clear that the tragic condition of the prison system cannot simply be resolved from within. They are part of a wider web of racism, policing policy, illegal drug trade, underinvestment in urban education, and so much more.

Restorative justice, it appears, can’t be just a one-way street. Yes, an offender should try to repair the harm done to his or her victims. But so also the society has to bear responsibility for the subtler violence that helped bring about the crime. There must be both personal and collective reparation. Neither can truly happen, I suspect, without the other.

I recently spoke with Jennifer Llewellyn, a leading restorative justice theorist in Canada, who told me about her new—and necessary—effort to extend the concept beyond criminal justice to state-level politics and diplomacy. Keep an eye out for that.

Just discovered a lovely little site—the Bible, Qur’an, and Book of Mormon all annotated by brazen critics. It’s quite a trip and very nicely organized according to categories, like “absurdity,” “injustice,” “homosexuality,” “cruelty and violence,” and more. My personal favorite, though, is “good stuff.” Nice to see that in there too.

Skeptic’s Annotated Bible / Quran / Book of Mormon.

Bet you thought Mormons might be kinda reactionary about fancy secular ideas like “transhumanism”: “ethical use of technology to extend human capabilities.” Think again. I just came across this fascinating organization (with a great logo):

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is an international nonprofit organization that promotes practical faith in human exaltation through charitable use of science and technology, as outlined in the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation.

After my several adventures exploring Mormon life in Utah, I’ve come to think of Mormonism as, in many respects, an expression of some basic American values. What makes them so suspect in the eyes of the rest of us, perhaps, is that they’re more American than America.

Mormonism and Transhumanism advocate remarkably similar views of human nature and its future: material beings organized according to law, rapidly advancing knowledge and power, imminent fundamental changes to anatomy and environment, and eventual transcendence of present limitations. Resources available through this site provide details on the relation between Mormon and Transhumanist views.

via Mormon Transhumanist Association – About.

A slight revision of my piece from last week in Religion Dispatches has just gone up this morning at Killing the Buddha. Again, it’s about some troubling cover sheets that Donald Rumsfeld cooked up for his boss the president to see in the first weeks of the Iraq War.

A former Air Force intelligence officer told me that the use of Biblical verses on cover sheets, in his experience, is “not at all surprising.” Many of those privy to such briefings probably would have been Christian, he suspects, and the rest “knew better than to object.”

via The Full Armor of God < Killing the Buddha.

I think we can put aside the East/West thing for a moment while I make a mention of this fabulous new video from Hecuba, an L.A.-based ensemble.

“Suffering” is a 50′s motorcycle dream of romance, violence, heartache, and leather. The first single off Hecuba’s highly anticipated album Paradise, “Suffering” tells Love’s story as it wanders from person to person, bringing happiness and sadness to those it touches. Created with director Isaiah Seret (Hecuba’s Jon Beasley co-directs), and Sundance-award-winning cinematographer, Arthur Jaffa, “Suffering” gives us the first glimpse of what Hecuba’s Paradise might be.”

Oh yeah, and Isabelle of Hecuba is my cousin. I’m so gushing proud!

via Hecuba “Suffering” [Official Video] HD on Vimeo.

Some really eerie images were just released this morning, mentioned in Frank Rich’s Times op-ed yesterday:

Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

…

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

via Op-Ed Columnist – Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush – NYTimes.com.

See the images for yourself at GQ.

I gave Wolfram|Alpha the ultimate test and it passed. Wow.

meaning of life – Wolfram|Alpha.

International Conscientious Objectors Day | War Resisters’ International.

The good ‘ol Sensuous Curmudgeon has a downright giddy post about a new report in Nature about the origin of life.

Yes, the origin of life — the world’s longest-running miracle — is about to become permanent guest at the Retirement Home. It’s a pitiful end for a grand old gal.

From the report:

John Sutherland and his colleagues from the University of Manchester, UK, created a ribonucleotide, a building block of RNA, from simple chemicals under conditions that might have existed on the early Earth. … The feat, never performed before, bolsters the ‘RNA world’ hypothesis, which suggests that life began when RNA, a polymer related to DNA that can duplicate itself and catalyse reactions, emerged from a prebiotic soup of chemicals.

Imagines the Curmudgeon:

There’s wailing and rending of clothing at a certain Seattle think tank.

via The Origin of Life: Solved? « The Sensuous Curmudgeon.

Time magazine reports about the new kid on the religion-website block. And this one’s got big muscles:

The vast majority of Americans hold some religious affiliation, but we’re often too polite — or maybe too shy — to ask friends and neighbors about the nuts and bolts of their beliefs, let alone sneak into a service in a house of worship that we’re not thinking of joining. Enter a new website that sets out to explain the differences among religions as well as illuminate the areas of common ground. Patheos.com, which is launching on Tuesday, is a mash-up of path and theos, the Greek word for “god.” Its founders, husband and wife Leo and Cathie Brunnick, have created a library of the histories and belief systems of 50 (and counting) of the world’s faiths, along with maps of their origins and videos of their religious services, so people can learn more about their own faith and explore others in a nonsectarian format. Each week experts will present a debate on a new topic, such as religion on the Web or abortion. Moreover, all the content on the streamlined, reader-friendly site is written and peer-reviewed by divinity scholars and other experts, including theologians at Harvard and the University of Southern California, where some undergrads will be using Patheos in introductory religion classes this fall.

via What Do Other Religions Believe? Patheos.com Has Answers – TIME.