LOL!!!

Hate crimes trial against Amish begins

By Tricia Escobedo and Chris Welch, CNN

updated 3:10 PM EDT, Mon August 27, 2012

Samuel Mullet Sr. is one of 16 Amish charged with federal hate crimes in last year's beard-cutting attacks.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Samuel Mullet Sr. is accused of orchestrating beard-cutting attacks
• Mullet and 15 others faces hate crimes trial in federal court
• To the Amish, a beard is a significant symbol of faith and manhood

Editor's note: For more on the trial, check out CNN affiliate WOIO-TV in Cleveland.

(CNN) -- Federal prosecutors are expected to argue that an Amish sect leader, accused of orchestrating beard-cutting attacks against fellow Amish men, was operating a cult out of his family compound in rural Ohio.

The sect leader, Samuel Mullet Sr., is one of 16 Amish men and women charged with federal hate crimes in the beard-cutting attacks last year. The trial began Monday with jury selection in federal court in Cleveland. Mullet and several of his sons, who were arrested in December, are among those on trial.

To the Amish, a beard is a significant symbol of faith and manhood.

Prosecutors have said the accused men and women, all members of Mullet's breakaway Amish sect, planned and carried out the attacks "on their perceived religious enemies" under Mullet's orders. CNN has sought a response from Mullet's attorney, Edward Bryan. Bryan has disputed the prosecution's characterization of his client, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Previously on CNN.com: 3 Amish men accused of cutting hair, beards of others

"They're trying to create this perception he's something he's not," Bryan told the newspaper. "He's not a wacky cult leader. He's a decent, hardworking, caring man."

According to witnesses cited in a federal affidavit, Mullet "forced extreme punishments" on anyone in his community who defied him, "including forcing members to sleep for days at a time in a chicken coop on his property." In addition, the affidavit alleges that, as the bishop of an Amish clan in Bergholz, Ohio, Mullet had "acts of sexual intimacy" with married women as part of "counseling" to "cleanse them of the devil."

If convicted, the defendants face a maximum penalty of life in prison, according to CNN affiliate WOIO-TV in Cleveland.

Usually, the Amish resolve disputes without involving law enforcement, but concerns that Mullet is operating a cult on his compound prompted some Amish members to report the beard-cutting incidents to police last fall.

From left, Daniel Mullet, Johnny Mullet, Lester Mullet, Eli Miller and Levi Miller are among those on trial.

Amish man Myron Miller was held down by men armed with scissors and battery-powered clippers who cut off a chunk of his beard, according to a police report. Arlene Miller said she and her husband decided to report the cutting to police in hopes of preventing other people from being hurt, including Mullet's followers, who "need help," she told CNN.

"There's a lot of lives being messed up down there. There's a lot of people being abused and brainwashed," Arlene Miller said.

The Millers said fear of reprisal attacks prompted them and other Amish residents in rural eastern Ohio to lock their doors at night -- something unheard of in Amish communities.

Mullet's sect is made up primarily of his relatives living on and around an 800-acre compound in a remote valley outside Bergholz, according to Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla.

Prosecutors have said Mullet "exerted control over the Bergholz community by taking the wives of other men into his home, and by overseeing various means of disciplining community members, including corporal punishment."

Those accusations could play a key part in the trial against Mullet and his co-defendants. Last week, a federal judge ruled that witnesses can testify about Mullet's alleged sexual activities at his compound in Bergholz, according to The Plain Dealer.

Group allegedly tied to Amish attacks

Crime wave in Amish country

Amish sect leader must pay for attorney

 

When reports of the beard-cutting attacks first surfaced last fall, they uncovered an ongoing split between Mullet's sect and the larger Amish community in and around Bergholz, many of whom believe that Mullet is creating rules and punishments that do not fit with the broader Amish belief system.

Aden Troyer said he was once part of the Mullet family compound. He married Mullet's daughter, Wilma, and the couple had two daughters. Concerned about the way Mullet was "ruling" his followers, Troyer said he started making arrangements to move his wife and children out of the group.

Not long after, Troyer said, Mullet began interfering with their marriage. Troyer said Mullet would ask women, including his wife, "about their sexual relationships with their husbands."

"That's very atypical behavior for Amish to do that," Troyer said. "It's unheard of."

He said, "In the Amish community, no one has jurisdiction over what goes on between a husband and wife. He's the only guy and only leader that I know of that ever has gotten into an Amish couple's married life."

Troyer divorced and left the sect in 2007 with full custody of his two daughters.

When CNN traveled to Mullet's compound last fall before his arrest, Mullet denied he was running a cult. When asked about allegations that he orchestrated the beard-cutting attacks, he responded, "Beard-cutting is a crime, is it?"

Asked about the accusation that he split up his daughter's marriage to Troyer, Mullet responded, "Maybe you should ask the people whose beards were cut about the marriages they've split up."

He refused to elaborate.

Abdalla, the sheriff, told CNN last fall that he fears the situation could come to a dramatic demise.

"If I were to get a call right now telling me, 'Sheriff, they're all dead in the community out there,' it wouldn't surprise me,' " he said.

had a bad day....

well it started out pretty bad. i made it to work, and i havent been going to get dosed on the mornings that i go in at 5am. and i dont get off until 12, and its not the lenght of time that the shift is, i just cant go get doesed after work becuse the clinic closes at 11AM (of course). and ofcourse my schedule has made it almost impossible to get to see my counsoler. so this morning i realized since i didnt get my full dose yesterdau eother, about an hour into my shift im getting the hotcold sweats and chills, which for someone like me is the most annoying inconvenience in the universe. i debating asking art to let me go. i decided i would, then not too, then i would, then i wouldnt, and it came to be so unbearable i just walked up to art and started vomiting words im not sure what i said but i know he told me it was cool to go to the clinic, just hurry! im like, yes!!! this is great...la la la going to the clinic and now i can go back to work and feel great and forget about time and work through my shift and get the day punished except only when im pulling into the parking lot i realize my lockbox is sitting on the floor in my room at my house and my fucking takehome bottle is in the lockbox. FML! i say a quick prayer and ofcourse i get denied. i was LIVID nor only did my boss bend over to do me a favor he DEFINATELY could have said F U and sucks to be u and not only now do i have to be sweaty and burning hot and freezing cold at the same time all day and later on achey and then sick and vomiting and then turning into a delirious crazy dope-fiending junkie that looks like freak but i also feel like the biggest jerkoff for being turned away and made look like a fool AND an asshole for making art believe i felt great for the rest of the day when really i just wanted to implode into a tiny ball of goo and dig my own eyes out of my head just to ignore the ill. MAN! so what was i suposed to do? i think maybe its time to switch clinics. im sorry but i cant risk my new job being lost because of their dumbass policy. I always hear people say that other clinics are so much better than open door, but apparently they have the best methadone.

Report: Randy Travis had torn clothing, bloodshot eyes - KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News

holy shit only steers and queers come from texas!
Report: Randy Travis had torn clothing, bloodshot eyes - KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News

Grandma got a little too tipsy...

Grandmother Does Unforgivable Thing While Babysitting

Posted by April Peveteaux

on February 6, 2012 at 2:30 PM

• Comments (304)|
• Likes (27)

This is NOT a babyIf I had a dollar every time I heard a mom of my generation complain about grandmothers these days, I'd be able to maybe go to dinner a lot or something. It usually goes like this: I thought my mother/mother-in-law would be such an involved grandmother, instead she's off on a cruise every week and acts like she's doing us a favor by "babysitting" her own grandchildren. Or my personal favorite: My mother/mother-in-law is too busy recovering from plastic surgery to hang with the kids, and when she does come over she insists on being called "Glam-ma."
Yep, Baby Boomers are not turning out to be the best at nurturing their grandchildren. Or perhaps they're just the first generation of women to buck the traditional "grandma" role. But this 54-year-old grandmother just committed probably the worst grandma offense one could: She got loaded and left her 1-month-old grandson on the side of the road.
Hey, grandma's gotta get her party on too.
Thank god the baby was discovered and is all right. Apparently the little guy was hanging out on the on-ramp to I80 in Sacramento for about 45 minutes in his carrier, which was sitting on top of a bottle of brandy, before his grandma came back to get him. It seems she had to go get something, and the baby was in the way. Also, she was drunk. So I'm guessing that something she had to get was a pack of smokes.
I remember when we left my daughter, who was about a month old, with my in-laws. They didn't get drunk, run errands, or leave her on the side of the road. Who knew how lucky we were? It's just a sad state of affairs when you can't even rely on your own flesh and blood to care for your own flesh and blood.
Does this generation of grandmothers seem like the worst yet?
 

im excited i ordered my new electronic vapor cig yesterday and it will be here by the end of this week!! im hoping that i will switch to this and quit smoking ciggarettes. if i can do that then i will be saving alot of money. i did the math in my head and ill be bringin in almost 600$ every two weeks with my new job and hopefully none of that money gets spent on tobacco products. i can start putting money away to buy everyone christmas presents this year too. but first ting im doing with my first paycheck is going to get my hair done its been a long time coming for that to get done. im so happy =)

hmm wdy think????

SNACK ATTACK

‘Anti-right-wing’ D.C. gunman had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches on him

By Samuel Goldsmith Friday, August 17, 2012

• 
  Floyd Corkins, left, allegedly told a Family Research Council guard, “I don’t like your politics,” before shooting him.
• He was packing heat — and a hell of a lot of Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
  
  The gunman who stormed the Family Research Council had a backpack full of ammo — and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — when he stormed the conservative Christian organization’s Washington headquarters, officials said yesterday.
  
  The suspect, Floyd Corkins, also told a security guard, “I don’t like your politics,” before shooting him in the arm, according to the criminal complaint against him.
  
  Corkins, 28, was mostly silent at a bail hearing yesterday and showed no emotion. He has been charged with assault with intent to kill and bringing firearms across state lines. After telling a judge he has just $300 in his bank account, he was appointed a public defender.
  
  Though Corkins was halted by the quick-thinking security guard, who suffered a relatively minor gunshot wound, the incident reignited a boisterous debate over the fast food chain Chick-fil-A, whose president made unapologetic statements against gay marriage last month. Activists have staged protests outside the restaurants and some mayors have called for the chain to be banned from their cities.
  
  The Family Research Council had publicly defended Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy, who has made financial contributions to the powerful conservative lobbying group.
  
  Corkins, who lives with his parents in Herndon, Va., volunteered at a gay community center in Washington. His parents told FBI agents that he has “strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner,” the criminal complaint says.
  
  The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights organization, labeled the Family Research Council as a hate group in 2010 for what it called the group’s anti-gay stance.
  
  Council president Tony Perkins yesterday blamed “reckless rhetoric” for the shooting.
  
  “Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy,” Perkins said.
  
  Samuel.Goldsmith@thedaily.com
  @foolsgoldsmith
  

Pussy Riot and Russia's surreal 'justice'

By Rachel Denber, Special to CNN

updated 4:07 PM EDT, Fri August 17, 2012

Members of the all-girl punk band 'Pussy Riot' sit in a glass-walled cage after being sentenced in Moscow on Friday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Rachel Denber: no on should lose liberty for dancing on an altar to make a political statement
• She says guilty verdict on Pussy Riot shows Russia's unfair justice system, oppressive state
• She says: Modern Russia slippery on human rights; other nations mistakenly give it a pass
• Denber: Verdict is tip of iceberg of Russia oppression; world community must speak out

Editor's note: Rachel Denber is deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch.

Moscow (CNN) -- There is no basic human right to barge into a church to make a political statement, jump around near the altar, and shout obscenities. But there is most certainly the right not to lose your liberty for doing so, even if the act is offensive.

But that is exactly what happened Friday. A court in Moscow sentenced the three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to two years in prison.

In my two decades monitoring human rights in Russia I've never seen anything like the Pussy Riot case -- the media attention, the outpouring of public support, the celebrity statements for the detained and criminally charged punk band members.

The image of three young women facing down an inexorable system of unfair justice and an oppressive state has crystallized for many in the West what is wrong with human rights in Russia. To be sure, it is deeply troubling.

For me, even more shocking were the images of Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer, lying on the sidewalk with the back of his head blown off in 2009, or the body of tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009 after he blew the whistle on a massive government extortion scheme.

The Pussy Riot case shines a much needed, if highly disturbing, spotlight on the issue of freedom of expression in post-Soviet Russia

On February 21, four members of the group performed what they call a "punk prayer" in Moscow's Russian Orthodox Christ the Savior Cathedral. They danced around and shouted some words to their song, "Virgin Mary, Get Putin Out." The stunt lasted less than a minute before the women were forcibly removed.

The same day, a video widely shared on social media showed a montage of the stunt with the song spliced in. The song criticizes the Russian Orthodox Church's alleged close relationship with the Kremlin and the personally close relationship of President Vladimir V. Putin with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Three of the band members were tried on criminal "hooliganism" charges. Their trial was theater of the absurd. In their closing statements, the women and their lawyers delivered devastating critiques of the state of justice and civic freedoms in Russia.

'Pussy Riot' convicted and sentenced

Madonna shows support for jailed band

During the Soviet era, the human rights landscape in Russia was stark. But since then the situation has been harder to figure out, often making it easier for outsiders simply to give the government a pass. But the devil is in the details.

It has been incredibly difficult to pin down any involvement of officials in the beatings and murders of investigative journalists and human rights activists. And the government, while not silencing civil society groups outright, tries to marginalize, discredit, and humiliate them, and crush them with heavy-handed bureaucracy, trumped-up accusations, threats and the like.

Whatever misdemeanor the three women incurred for their antics in the church should not have been transformed by the authorities into a criminal offense that in effect punishes them for their speech. It's typical, though, of how the authorities try to keep a lid on controversial issues. The Russian think tank SOVA has documented dozens of cases in recent years in which the authorities used the threat of extremism charges to silence critics.

This also isn't the first time Russian authorities have misused criminal legislation to stifle critical artistic expression. In 2010 a Moscow district court found the co-organizers of a controversial art exhibit guilty of the vague charge of "inciting religious hatred." The art exhibit organizers were fined.

By making the Pussy Riot band members await trial in jail for almost six months, the authorities made clear how they plan to set boundaries for political criticism.

After a winter of unprecedented, peaceful opposition protests, a dozen demonstrators whom the authorities claim were involved in a scuffle with police during a mass demonstration in May have been arrested and are being charged with crimes grossly disproportionate to their alleged actions. Police have searched opposition leaders' homes.

Laws rammed through Russia's parliament this summer sent more signals: criminal liability for leaders of nongovernmental organizations for "serious breaches" of new restrictive regulations; much tougher sanctions for violating rules on public assembly; and new restrictions on the Internet that could easily shut down big social networking sites. Critics of the Kremlin have been subject to vicious harassment, intimidation and grotesque public smear campaigns.

For years Russian human rights defenders have tried to draw attention to the lack of independence of the courts. With the unprecedented attention to the Pussy Riot trial, the surreal state of justice when political interests are at stake is there for all to see. What we really should be wondering isn't why Pussy Riot is so distinctive, but whether it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Too often, foreign governments have resorted to wishful thinking about the direction Russia is heading. Talking about human rights at a high level -- where all things in Russia are decided -- is unpleasant business. It might be hard, but Russia won't respect other governments if they shy away.

If three women in the defendants' cage had the courage to speak out about where Russia is headed, surely members of the international community should too. They, at least, won't be thrown in jail.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rachel Denber.

POSTEDBY: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Will mystery of Amelia Earhart be solved?

By Susan Butler, Special to CNN

updated 12:22 AM EDT, Sun March 25, 2012

A portrait of Amelia Earhart, circa 1935.

Amelia Earhart pilots a Moth plane in June, 1928.

The Lockheed Electra "Flying Laboratory," piloted by Amelia Earhart, flies over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, California.

Andrew Mellon, U.S. ambassador to Britain, greets Earhart in Northern Ireland after her historic transatlantic flight.

Amelia Earhart is surrounded by well-wishers after completing the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman, landing in Northern Ireland in 1932.

Amelia Earhart with her navigator, Capt. Fred Noonan, before their fateful flight. Earhart was last heard from when their plane was flying near Howland Island in the Pacif

Amelia Earhart in

 

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Susan Butler thinks new expedition won't find Amelia Earhart's vanished plane
• Butler wrote a biography of Earhart, a pioneer of aviation who inspired women pilots
• Earhart was wildly famous in her day, broke countless speed and distance records
• Butler went on expedition to find Earhart plane; thinks new project is looking at wrong island

Editor's note: Susan Butler is the author of "East to Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart," the basis of the movie "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank. She was inspired by her mother, who was one of the few women pilots in the 1930s and a member of the Ninety Nines, the women's flying organization founded by Earhart. Butler also wrote "My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin."

(CNN) -- Many people think Amelia Earhart's fame rests on her dramatic disappearance in 1937. I don't think so. I think her life has been overshadowed by her death. I think that when her Electra aircraft is finally found, the focus will return to her life and her remarkable accomplishments. She will become even more famous than she is today.

A new, privately funded investigation into one of the most famous missing persons cases in history will start this summer, carried out by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. It will be headed by Ric Gillespie. The group has mounted 10 previous expeditions to Gardner Island, also known as Nikumaroro, in the Pacific. I wish him well, but my experience leads me to believe Gillespie will come up empty again.

Earhart started flying in the 1920s. Her first plane was powered by one of the first -- and still unproven -- air-cooled engines ever made. But Earhart possessed more than guts and a passion for flying. She was blessed with good looks and intelligence. She thrived on publicity, charmed men and set as her mission in life the empowerment of women.

She went on the lecture circuit to finance her flights and became wildly popular, the Oprah Winfrey of her day. Earhart helped create and lead the Ninety Nines, the women's flying organization that promoted women fliers, and was idolized by her flying peers as much because she was fun as because she was efficient.

New search for Amelia Earhart's plane

Photo a clue for Earhart plane location?

Possible new clue in Earhart mystery

She married a successful publisher, George Putnam, who looked like a stand-in for Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent. He devoted his life to her. In a time when planes were being perfected and aviators were the superstars of the day, she matched the men.

Earhart's most daring achievement was that five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh's flight, she took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, and safely landed her red single-engine Lockheed Vega in a farmer's field in Derry, Ireland. After a harrowing flight replete with equipment malfunctions and bad weather, she became the first woman and the second pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. The world went crazy.

After the flight, she was elevated to almost mythic status. "Forget Garbo, forget Jackie, she was in a realm beyond stardom," recalled Gore Vidal, who knew her well.

She set countless speed, long-distance and altitude records.

She was on what she planned as her last record-breaking flight in 1937 when she went missing, flying around the world at the equator, which had never before been done. She had always flown solo, but on this last flight, she took along a navigator, Fred Noonan.

She was on the last, most dangerous leg of the flight, taking off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, for Howland Island, a dot in the middle of the Pacific a bit north of the equator and 2,556 miles away. She was landing there to refuel the Electra before flying on to Hawaii. When she failed to appear, the Itasca, a U.S. Coast guard vessel waiting at Howland Island to guide her in, radioed the world.

The final resting place of her plane has never been ascertained, but most fliers and history buffs, including me, think that the plane rests on the ocean floor somewhere in the vicinity of her destination of Howland Island, rather than Gardner Island, 400 miles away. But the ocean is 17,500 feet deep around Howland, a mile deeper than the resting place of the Titanic. Only recently has technology allowed the construction of underwater vehicles that can endure such extreme pressure.

In 2009, I was on the second leg of the R/V Seward Johnson's search for Earhart. The Seward Johnson is a 204-foot research vessel that set out from American Samoa to search the ocean floor to the west of Howland Island. Ted Waitt, founder of Gateway Computer and creator Waitt Institute for Discovery, was behind the expedition. A great admirer of Earhart, he was also the impetus behind the recent movie, "Amelia."

There were 29 of us aboard the Seward Johnson: scientists, oceanographers, technicians, computer experts and ordinary seamen. Autonomous underwater vehicles, bright yellow sonar subs 12 feet long, did the searching. For 46 days, the AUVs looked for the plane round the clock. Going on the assumption that headwinds had slowed the plane down more than Noonan realized, the subs were deployed to survey to the west of Howland Island.

The AUVs work by pinging the ocean floor as they travel just above it, sending up signals that are displayed on computer screens as dots that change color as the subs ping over different surfaces. The softest surface, sand, transmits as blue dots; hard stone and metal transmit as red dots that blend off into green. The Electra, as a metal object, would show up red. Once an AUV pinged a large metal object: It turned out to be a 55-gallon steel drum. Other than that, the ocean floor was as barren as the moon.

In the past 16 or so years, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has come back with all sorts of artifacts that Gillespie was sure would prove to have belonged to Earhart. Nothing has held up to scrutiny. While his hunches have led him to concentrate on this island, Gardner was one of the first islands searched, five days after Earhart went missing.

At that time, three planes catapulted from the battleship USS Colorado searched the area. If one of the three pilots had sighted anything even slightly promising, the pilot would have reported it. The pilot who sighted the plane would instantly have been the hero of the hour.

Such a sighting was never made. At President Franklin Roosevelt's bidding, the Colorado was within days joined by a fleet of nine ships of the U.S. Navy, including an aircraft carrier that held 62 planes, to look for Earhart. The ships and the planes then conducted a search they estimated as covering 150,000 square miles.

The Seward Johnson only searched the ocean floor to the west of Howland Island. It is my best guess that the plane rests on the ocean floor to the east, waiting to be found by the next expedition.

Whoever finds Earhart and her Electra will deservedly become famous. I agree with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has said the search itself is inspirational. It will be wonderful news when one day our lost heroine is found.

In the meantime, Earhart remains an icon, revered by young women, remembered by many for her signal accomplishments, remembered by all because of her dramatic end. She is 39 forever.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Susan Butler.

POSTEDBY: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Good morning!
I slept in late this morning..til almost 10:00!!! Anyways, I'm starting out the day by watching some heyArnold. Remember that show on Nickelodeon? You can watch a few dozen episodes on Youtube or if you really want to go all out, you can get the dvds from amazon. Heres a pretty good old episode called " downtown as fruits" lol

Weekend Mysteries

Now watching liveTV on CNN.com

Prison Rodeos!

This is not an article written by me, it is from CNN.com


(CNN) -- On October 20 in a small town in Louisiana, there will be a rodeo, complete with the prerequisite boots, bulls and Marlboro-man doppelgangers.
But this particular rodeo will take place not at a fairgrounds, but at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as "Angola." The riders are untrained inmates who have earned the right to participate -- and feel up to 6 seconds of freedom atop an angry bull -- in a highly calculated and wildly effective prison reward system.

Oh, we'll get back to that.

            --First, though, I want to acquaint you with Burl Cain. He's the Angola warden that I'm fairly convinced moonlights as a savvy game designer. In 2004 Cain was charged with giving a makeover to America's largest and bloodiest maximum-security prison, home to 5,300 violent offenders.
It was a Goliath-sized task. Angola was stained with a long history of gang violence and one particularly gruesome incident back in the 1950s when prisoners cut their Achilles tendons to protest poor lockdown treatment. Ouch. At LevelUp, the mobile payment and gaming company I founded, I thought our recent protest against the soy "cheese" in the communal office fridge got ugly.
Cain's play-by-play at Angola reads like a deck of game-mechanics cards. To change behavior, he introduced a progression system that was notched with "appointments" -- challenges inmates had to conquer to in order to get a reward. Rise to the challenge and you could earn the right to own a pet, to take a job, even the freedom to roam the grounds.
To reach the highest level, known at Angola as becoming a Trustee, can take up to 10 years. It's not an easy game, but it's one that the majority of its players are highly motivated to play.
Today, Angola is a thriving prison environment that has successfully "rehabbed" many hardened criminals into productive Trustees. Prisoners have a sense of ownership, achievement, status and some healthy envy -- not to mention an award-winning prison newspaper.
Of course, this is not a new concept. Prisons have long used incentive systems to motivate inmates. But Cain's implementation is unique. His approach has flourished because he evaluated his target audience and recognized that the traditional reward system was broken. Cain realized that his audience -- many of them men facing life or double-life sentences -- might not be motivated by standard rewards like additional phone time, longer visitation hours or upgraded quarters.
But they would be motivated by an incentive that offered them meaning -- something they could be proud of. Cain believed the opportunity to be a champion could infuse meaning and pride back into the prison experience while motivating inmates to be better men.
Which brings us back to the rodeo.
At a certain point in the climb to Trustee status, inmates earn the opportunity to participate in the Angola Rodeo, held each spring and fall in an arena that holds more than 7,500. The day consists of 11 events, including bull riding. The

The first inmate rodeo at a state prison in Angola, Louisiana, was held in 1965.

beast in question is a 2,000-pound Brahma bull, and most times the inmate rider has never been on the back of a bull before. All is not fair in prisons and rodeos.
If that isn't exciting enough, the finale also includes a pair of poker-themed events. "Convict Poker" begins with four inmates sitting in chairs, playing a friendly game of cards at a table in the middle of the arena. A bull is released into the pen, and the last inmate to remain seated when the animal charges the poker table earns the win. Poker face most definitely required.
The rodeo closes with an event called "Guts and Glory," in which a poker chip is tied to the biggest, baddest bull in the pen. The winner is the first brave inmate who gets close enough to snatch the chip.
It's not as unprofessional as it might sound. Seasoned rodeo clowns are always present in the arena to distract angry animals, and a team of emergency medical personnel is waiting in the wings.
Still, the whole enterprise is speared with controversy, for obvious reasons. Precautions aside, inexperienced inmates are facing off with agitated, unpredictable animals in a costly, injury-ridden event. Change the name and tweak the specifics, and the Angola Rodeo could easily become the plot of the next bestselling dystopian thriller. "The Hunger Games," anyone?
And yet, the rodeo is a powerful motivator for inmates, for two reasons.
The first is pride. Prisoners are willing to face serious injury for the chance to be cheered on by thousands of onlookers. The event represents both an earned right and a true challenge to overcome.
The second, overarching incentive is meaning. It's huge. It's the reason why we as people respond to games and game-like scenarios. Games, especially those with powerful incentive systems, lead us up a ladder and allow us to grasp at something intangible. Much like the Greeks filled stone stadiums to watch gladiators, people are tuning in to the new reality TV show, "Louisiana Lockdown," to see Angola's prisoners succeed or fail. Audiences aren't just responding to the rodeo itself, they're responding to the game mechanics that are driving the inmates' right to participate in the rodeo.
It's a testament to how more people are embracing gamification, which applies game-design thinking to real-life situations to make them more fun and engaging.
You don't need an app or a product or a business to use game mechanics. You just need a person or a group of people with a behavior that you'd like to change.
We've seen a recent shift in thinking about gamification, for two reasons. First, game mechanics has gotten a huge amount of coverage over the past year in the tech press. Such overexposure is often the first step for a new human or technological shift to take root in a meaningful way. (Remember when a social network was launching every five minutes? Social alarm clocks, social microwaves, social networks for the dead. Weird stuff.) But testing every element of a new paradigm is often a necessary step in figuring out what will work best.
The same thing happened with game mechanics. People launched tons of applications of game mechanics -- many of them good and many of them bad. The media cried overexposure and there was a natural backlash. "I don't want marketers manipulating me!" "This isn't fun!" But this oversaturation helped us find the most worthy apps.
That brings me to the second part of this shift. Game mechanics are now being used in more and more "mainstream" ways. The crowdsourcing fundraisers at Kickstarter have had an incredible year motivating people everywhere to back things like indie films and new gadgets through unique opt-in rewards and a few smart progression dynamics.
Have you seen the shiny new dashboard on President Obama's campaign site that enables supporters to join up from their laptop? That's a form of large-scale, real-world communal gaming. And let's not forget Guitar Pee, the interactive urinal that turns the call of nature into a game, complete with a rewarding song download. Brazil, how do you always produce the best ideas?
So yes, the gamification space is expanding in exciting ways. It's not just a tech thing, or a marketing thing, or a mobile-gaming thing.
It's a people thing.
Angola is living proof that game mechanics have come a long way from motivating us to water virtual crops in FarmVille. As inmates become Trustees and take their shot at fleeting glory atop rampaging bulls, game mechanics are becoming a commonplace, mainstream approach to solving even the most intractable of problems.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Seth Priebatsch.