Free Republic

In retrospect, Michael Jackson and his people probably would have been well-advised to rent some prison movies, because it seems to me that in all the films and television shows I have seen that deal with the milieu of the maximum-security penitentiary, there are no stuffed animals, video games, swing sets, cotton candy machines or choo-choo trains. In the yard, they don’t play “Ring Around the Rosey,” they play “Garrote the Squealer.” In the shower, when somebody passes you the soap, it’s not just a gesture of courtesy, it’s the beginning of a relationship. I BRING THIS UP because I...