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thepeoplesrecord:

Prison Labor Exposed: From Starbucks to Microsoft - A sampling of what US prisoners make & for whom
May 21, 2013

Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor.

The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the UnionCorrectional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”

And Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens).Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys). Confronted by a reporter in 2001, a Starbucks rep called the setup “entirely consistent with our mission statement.”

Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips.

In Texas, prisoners make officers’ duty belts, handcuff cases, and prison-cell accessories. California convicts make gun containers, creepers (to peek under vehicles), and human-silhouette targets.

A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria’s Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace “Made in Honduras” labels on garments with “Made in the usa.”

Open wide: At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures.

Constructive criticism: Prisoners in for burglary, battery, drug and gun charges, and escape helped build a Wal-Mart distribution center in Wisconsin in 2005, until community uproar halted the program. (Company policy says, “Forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart.”)

On call: Its inmate call centers are the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” Unicor boasts. In 1994, a contractor for gop congressional hopeful Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. Metcalf, who prevailed, said he never knew.

Federal Prison Industries, a.k.a. Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers’ uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have “produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)” and “wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.” In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractor MicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside.

Full article

AND THIS

IS WHY

THE WAR ON DRUGS

AND REAGAN

CAN FUCKING BURN FOREVER

FOR FUCKING EVER 

(via femmeviva)

meagan-metcalf:

Good morning #Austin. If every morning were like this, I’d be apt to get up for #sunrise more often. (at Longhorn Dam)

Beautiful sunrise. Not mine.

memewhore:

shortformblog:

joshsternberg:

WSJ reports Yahoo board has approved a $1.1 billion deal — in cash — to purchase Tumblr. 

There it is.

Well, shit.

That sucks!!!!

(via femmeviva)

(via goosemilk)

videre-licet:

After the ride

videre-licet:

My halflinger mare,  Callie.   I am SO PROUD of the condition she’s in right now.  She looks so great  :)  And I do believe I’m even starting to see some dapples in my girl which is THE AWESOME  :D

She’s 15 this year.  We had a great ride today … and we’re even cantering some now.  She didn’t like to when I first got her but she’s more confident now under saddle & I think is getting better at balancing now, especially since we seem to have found a saddle that seems to fit & keep her comfortable  :)

(the hair on the ground in the bottom photo belongs to Diamond, my mini palomino mare  :)

videre-licet:

Rouge Vif d’Etamps seeds I saved from the last pumpkin I had stored from last year’s harvest.  Not sure if they’ll germinate but gonna give it a shot.  Then, when they do, not sure they’ll be true to type because were grown in proximity to other squashes but it’ll be fun no matter what I think  :)

Beautiful seeds!

videre-licet:

Using an rusted old milk can I’ve had forever out in a corner of the garden ad a planter/plant stand.  The opening in the top is just big enough to sink a 1-gal nursery pot which I fill up with soil.  The I planted one of the very over-priced Proven Winner Supertunias in it.  They’re fairly drought tolerant & this one plant should fill out & cascade nicely over the can  :)

videre-licet:

Thyme

videre-licet:

This is probably the most unusual thing I’ve used as a planter so far in my gardening life  :)

It’s an old dresser that we threw out but it has a family history & even though there isn’t any room in my house or garage for it & it’s really a piece of junk I couldn’t bear to burn it or put it to the curb.

So, while I wait to get a proper porch/portico built on the front of my house, I had this big enormous boring area next to the shitty steps/landing we have and I put this dresser there.  I’ve been wanting to plant some fabulous shrub or something there but it’ll just have to get torn out as we work on the front of the house.  I’ve tried big containers there but they didn’t look right either.

It makes that area less “unwelcoming” for guests coming to the house & I planted more of the supertunias in the drawer so they’ll cascade over it soon.  An angelica herb plant sprung up there on its own this year and I’m growing some herbs on the top, which is also a good spot for a cup of coffee to land when I walk out in the mornings.

That ‘s parsley in the enamel bucket on top to the left … I like it there because I use it often and can just step out the front door and snip some off as I need it  :)

I can store tools or whatever in the top drawer there too.  The violas are in an old enamel bucket I think I took out of some trash somewhere …same thing with the old rusted stool it’s sitting on. Pretty sure I trash-picked that too some years ago.  

love this!