Word: mitfords
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Snyder is more the interrogator of Tomorrow than its host. His questions are abrasive, leaving few stones unturned while exploring controversies ranging from the end of the sexual double standard to author Jessica Mitford's grim refusal to be fingerprinted as a teacher at San Jose State. Thinking nothing of interrupting a guest, Snyder plays a merciless but even-handed devil's advocate. At times, he is downright impolite...
...Mitford's Quibbles...
...JESSICA MITFORD...
Abusive Practice. Characteristically, Miss Mitford weakens her case by sardonic excesses. She is capable of snapping that a man with a dicebox might grant and deny paroles as fairly as most boards. If she has met in her travels an idealistic or even an effective penologist, she neglects to report the fact. "That 'prisons are a failure' is a cliche dating from the origin of prison," she writes, and briskly concludes that it is long past time for Americans to abolish their costly, cruel, and in fact morally corrupting penal communities. But when it comes to specific alternatives...
Much of this ground has been fought over before. Yet Kind and Usual Punishment is a persuasive tract with a murderous eye alike for delusive penal rhetoric and abusive practice. Eugene V. Debs once stated this ideal: "While there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Jessica Mitford has the sublime un reasonableness to treat that as an imperative...