Whether she is sane, as the jury decided, or insane, whether she was abused sexually as a child or it's a lie she invented, it's a fact she murdered two women, assaulted one of four husbands with a meat cleaver and chased her daughter with an axe. Yet, in this sick and murderous personality, now sentenced to life in prison for 25 years, people have seen times of love and compassion. I doubt anybody feigns nostalgia for the sea. I recalled her comment about the tides from my cell. Through a slit in the open window came the electric buzz of crickets.
Crickets are wonderful - small, durable things that sing their hearts out.
It's no wonder they've been taken to symbolize the soul. I'm not sure I understand. As for whether Foucault is right, that prison is a punishment of the soul, you figure it out. I'm just a grumpy, middle-aged crank with a watch strapped to his wrist. Shawn Thompson is an Anglican living in Gananoque, Ont., who is writing a book about incarceration by corresponding with prisoners.