My Latest

My latest food fad is Mediterranean pita bread.  I get the pita rolls from a restaurant that bakes there own.  The round flat rolls are larger than a saucer, and have to be cut open for filling.  They are so good I often eat them without cutting them open and stuffing them with left-overs.

My latest preferred TV commercials are the Lincoln ads with Matthew McCaughey telling his dogs they can't have barbeque for supper, and the Capitol One ad with Samuel L. Jackson.

My latest read is a book by Laura Bates, Shakespeare Saved My Life.  Its a memoir reflecting the author's recollections of her experience teaching Shakespeare to prisoners in solitary confinement for a period of ten years.  She describes how the prisoners lives were changed and how her life was affected thru working with prisoners. 

The author completed her PhD at University of Chicago.  Although her academic training was Shakespeare, she taught introductory level classes in English Literature to inmates in a maximum security prison in Chicago. Earning a reputation for her work with prisoners, the Indiana State University Correction Education program arranged for her to teach Shakespeare to prisoners in solitary confinement in the maximum security unit at Wabash Valley, Indiana.  The 2 hour class was held one evening a week.

The prisoners, ages between 20 and 35, were locked in individual cells.  The doors had waist high apertures for passing food and handcuffing.  Voices could be heard, but their faces were only partially visible if they crouched down at the aperture.  During the class, Laura sat alone on an improvised chair in the corridor, the prisoners in cells on each side of the corridor.  The prisoners, considered the 'worst of the worst' had been in solitary  for various lengths of time; one had been in solitary for ten years. 

Amazingly, the prisoners  were attentive and always polite as they shared opinions and carried on discussions about  the emotions characters in the plays experienced, especially those in Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello.  They told how they related to Shakespeare as the author and the various characters.  They analyzed their own lives and even translated the plays into their street language.