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Hillary Clinton's Pen Pal: A Guide To Life And Lingo In Federal Prison.
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96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 17, 2012
You know that saying that a liberal is someone who's never been mugged and a conservative is someone who's never been arrested? Well, here's a book by a guy who not only was arrested but went to federal prison and became even MORE of a right-wing asshole.
Reinhold Aman for decades had been the cantankerous failed academic linguist who, shunned by the academy like Jude the Obscure, founded Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, a worthy and fabulous project. Well, apparently his predilection for verbal aggression eventually, in his personal life, took the form of sending poison-pen postcards to his wife's divorce lawyer which, in the FBI's eyes, amounted to death threats. Hence 18 months in the federal pen. (I believe I have these details right.) Putting his linguistic ethnographic skills to work, he set about passing his time in prison by compiling an annotated glossary of prison slang which, like Maurer's Whiz Mob, sort of amounts to an ethnography in itself. Unfortunately, he also worked himself into a misogynistic frenzy, extending his rage at his wife to a more abstracted hatred of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Janet Reno, the women associated by him, Reno more directly, with why he was in prison, and to be fair he does detail, in unmoderated terms, some genuine abuses of the justice system, one so entrenched, however, that Reno would have been powerless to change them. Anyway, Aman then composes this book as a glossary of FEMALE prison slang--which he had only indirect knowledge of, unlike men's prison slang--and arranges it around the conceit that he is giving Hillary Clinton an explanation of prison life via definitions of its slang terms, information which he feels she will need when, as Aman seems clearly to have assumed, she gets put on a chain gang or something because of, I don't know, travelgate or Whitewater. (Gosh, with all the Bush years and the Iraq War in between then and now, those scandals seem like small potatoes, don't they?) The worst part is that Aman engages in the worst kind of misogynistic attacks on HRC and especially relishes long descriptions of prison rape and orifice-violation by guards and things like that, featuring her in particular. Unlike the millions of "angry white males" who vilified HRC during the Clinton era, one would think that someone with a Ph.D. in a social science would be a little more self-reflective about the fact that this is all blatantly a sublimated anger at successful or strong women in general. But Aman is as oblivious to this as any elementary-school-drop-out fundamentalist Christian Republican from Kentucky would be expected to be (though many people fitting that description may well be more enlightened than Aman, I hasten to add). By the end of the book, which includes a transcript of a long letter sent to Washington, it is clear that the author has become completely delusional. No publisher would ever publish such a book as is; thus, like his journal, it is self-published.
A little bit of useful and enlightening lexicography in this slim volume. The rest of it is disgusting rants by a disgusting person.
Reinhold Aman for decades had been the cantankerous failed academic linguist who, shunned by the academy like Jude the Obscure, founded Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, a worthy and fabulous project. Well, apparently his predilection for verbal aggression eventually, in his personal life, took the form of sending poison-pen postcards to his wife's divorce lawyer which, in the FBI's eyes, amounted to death threats. Hence 18 months in the federal pen. (I believe I have these details right.) Putting his linguistic ethnographic skills to work, he set about passing his time in prison by compiling an annotated glossary of prison slang which, like Maurer's Whiz Mob, sort of amounts to an ethnography in itself. Unfortunately, he also worked himself into a misogynistic frenzy, extending his rage at his wife to a more abstracted hatred of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Janet Reno, the women associated by him, Reno more directly, with why he was in prison, and to be fair he does detail, in unmoderated terms, some genuine abuses of the justice system, one so entrenched, however, that Reno would have been powerless to change them. Anyway, Aman then composes this book as a glossary of FEMALE prison slang--which he had only indirect knowledge of, unlike men's prison slang--and arranges it around the conceit that he is giving Hillary Clinton an explanation of prison life via definitions of its slang terms, information which he feels she will need when, as Aman seems clearly to have assumed, she gets put on a chain gang or something because of, I don't know, travelgate or Whitewater. (Gosh, with all the Bush years and the Iraq War in between then and now, those scandals seem like small potatoes, don't they?) The worst part is that Aman engages in the worst kind of misogynistic attacks on HRC and especially relishes long descriptions of prison rape and orifice-violation by guards and things like that, featuring her in particular. Unlike the millions of "angry white males" who vilified HRC during the Clinton era, one would think that someone with a Ph.D. in a social science would be a little more self-reflective about the fact that this is all blatantly a sublimated anger at successful or strong women in general. But Aman is as oblivious to this as any elementary-school-drop-out fundamentalist Christian Republican from Kentucky would be expected to be (though many people fitting that description may well be more enlightened than Aman, I hasten to add). By the end of the book, which includes a transcript of a long letter sent to Washington, it is clear that the author has become completely delusional. No publisher would ever publish such a book as is; thus, like his journal, it is self-published.
A little bit of useful and enlightening lexicography in this slim volume. The rest of it is disgusting rants by a disgusting person.
April 3, 2016
This book is a guide to the slang and mores of American prisons. Dr. Aman served time in several after a dispute with some judges got out of control, in the wake of what sounds like a particularly bitter divorce. It would make an interesting companion to Orange is the New Black.
Dr. Aman is bitter about his imprisonment, and if what he says is the truth, I can understand it. He also despises the mendacious, criminal Clintons, and clearly hopes to see Hillary, at least, get what she's had coming for a long time. Bill, as an ex-POTUS, is unfortunately out of reach. He's angry about our obscenely high rate of incarceration, often for victimless crimes, and our prison system that ruins countless lives.
I would want to put this in the hands of anybody I knew who was heading off to prison as a first-timer. Knowing the slang and mores can make the difference between a fairly easy stay and a very rough time.
Dr. Aman is bitter about his imprisonment, and if what he says is the truth, I can understand it. He also despises the mendacious, criminal Clintons, and clearly hopes to see Hillary, at least, get what she's had coming for a long time. Bill, as an ex-POTUS, is unfortunately out of reach. He's angry about our obscenely high rate of incarceration, often for victimless crimes, and our prison system that ruins countless lives.
I would want to put this in the hands of anybody I knew who was heading off to prison as a first-timer. Knowing the slang and mores can make the difference between a fairly easy stay and a very rough time.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews