Sunday, June 23, 2013

beyond the coziness of hell

Those who take an abusive delight in Dante Alighieri's rings of hell might want to take a step back from vivid imagination and consider the plight of the inmates in Bolivia's largest prison. 

The prisoners are protesting a plan to close the jail. The government wants to close the La Paz facility and put an end to "cocaine trafficking and other abuses" committed within the prison walls.

Among the alleged abuses is the repeated rape of a pregnant 12-year-old girl by her father and other inmates.

Prisoners deny the allegations and say the girl is fine.

The girl is one of several hundred children who have no choice but to live in the prison while a parent serves out his term.

Digest the scenario.

Munch on the details.

And perhaps you will agree that sometimes a vivid imagination of the sort Dante inspired is really a second-rate, lick-spittle competitor. Sometimes the world is so topsy-turvy that there is no adequate description outside the soldier's wry acronym, FUBAR ... fucked up beyond all recognition.

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