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People in this city need to understand that I have a long memory. You need to understand that and be very, very careful.
Jian Ghomeshi – http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/11/02/jian_ghomeshis_unplanned_dinner_with_star_writer_kevin_donovan.html
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Dorothy Thompson
My Good Friend Damon’s Sister is in Trouble, I’ve never met Alanna; but from what I know of her and her Family she is good people; and sometimes good people need help, please do what you can!
Alanna is facing some difficult challenges, and she needs your help.
Background:
A few years ago, My sister Alanna became addicted to the painkiller oxycontin, which was prescribed to manage the pain resulting from a failed knee surgery. At one point, she was prescribed so much of it by a “pain management specialist” that the drug was inducing seizures. The addiction led to erratic behavior, and ultimately to criminal activity, for which she is now serving time at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. In her drug-addled state, she robbed several pharmacies, because even the outrageous amount of oxycontin she was taking legally was no longer enough to feed her addiction.
That addiction nearly killed her, and being arrested saved her life. For that, her friends and family, and Alanna herself, are forever grateful. And she’s doing absolutely everything right in prison, using the time to better herself in innumerable ways. She is entirely clean and sober now, and has focused her life on teaching. People who know her would be astonished at the interest she has taken in mathematics and philosophy. In many ways, being in prison has both matured and enriched her as a person.
But she is also facing hardships above and beyond the fact of her imprisonment. On December 6th, 2012, she fell while working in the kitchen, displacing her coccyx (tailbone), and cracking the S-4 vertebra. At the time, the kitchen did not use safety mats. She is in pain all the time now from soft-tissue displacement and scarring because she didn’t receive the standard medical care prescribed for her injury, and has filed the paperwork indicating her intention to sue.
Her expenses for legal representation, medical care which must be funded out of pocket, and even communication – prisoners are charged exhorbitantly for their phone calls, even when they’re calling their lawyers – are piling up. So far, I’ve shouldered the majority of these costs; I love my sister.
But a combination of job uncertainty for me and increased expenses for her has made her current situation challenging and precarious.
What you can do:
First and foremost, you can donate. All money I can raise, even if it’s just a few bucks, will go directly to defraying the costs of Alanna’s time in the prison system. It will fund:
Any funds that are left when she gets out will go directly to helping her with housing and job placement. She has about three years left on her sentence, which may seem like a long time, but will be gone in a flash. How much support and assistance she receives when she gets out is, statistically speaking, directly tied to how well she’ll do.
In addition to donating financially, you can give her your emotional support. I’ll pass along messages and photos for her, which helps her feel connected to the real world beyond the prison walls.
Alanna has a wide network of friends and loved ones. Let’s show her she is loved, and not forgotten.
