Lawrence Correctional Center
10930 Lawrence Road
Sumner, IL 62466

Dear Mr. Hunt:

This letter to you has been a long time coming. If you don’t remember me, my name is Kathy Henry, your ex-girlfriend, Gertrude’s daughter. You came into my life when I was ten-years-old and from the moment you appeared, I knew you were not shit. My mother thought that I was just jealous because I never had to share her before, but instinctively I knew that your presence would mean no good for me.

At first, you seemed to be a good man for my mother. You helped pay her bills, gave me an allowance and pretended that you were a stand-up guy and father figure but you weren’t. You were and still are a child-molesting, motherfucking pig who took away my innocence when I was eleven-years-old.

Do you remember coming into my bedroom when ...

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Yesterday, I went to my Aunt Bea’s ninety-first birthday party. When I was a little girl, I used be scared of her because she took no crap from children but as I grew older, I learned to appreciated her fire and hope I have that same fire if I am blessed to make as long as she has. She has all of her senses and can see through bull shit like no other. When I came home, still thinking about Aunt Bea, I remembered reading an article on Huffington Post last year about Barbara Walter's decision to end her long running Oscar special. The comments were startling and I could not believe the disrespect given to this woman because of her age. The common consensus was that she needed to go away and allow the younger generation to have their day in the sun.  One person stated "why ...

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  One of the hardest jobs in the world is to be a black woman. We do not get paid our worth and are generally treated like shit. Some might disagree with this premise but I bet my last pair of draws that whoever disagrees with me is not a black woman. It seems like no matter how much we achieve, it is never good enough. Even with a black First Lady in the White House, in the past couple of years, black women have been relentlessly attacked for their looks (average looking Asian man writes an article on the undesirability of black women and gets famous), their educational aspirations (how dare you black bitch have the nerve to get educated!), mothering skills or lack there of (black women either have more children out of wedlock and or more abortions than any other racial group according to whatever new group with ...

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After almost nine years, 4,479 fatalities, 33,169 soldiers wounded, 12,000 Iraqi civilian deaths and an almost a trillion dollars spent, the Iraq war is finally over.    In a press conference Friday, President Obama announced that U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, ending the longest, most wasteful and ridiculous war in American history.

March 20, 2003 was an ordinary day for me. After attending school, cleaning, cooking and taking care of my children, I was in the bed watching the news when images of a U.S.-led coalition bombing the crap out of Baghdad flooded my television screen. I immediately thought about my three children, then ages fifteen, eleven, and a not quite two-year-old and how screwed up the world was and how stupid the American public was for buying into the propaganda that was being spread by ...

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This is the story about a stray cat named Beau. He lives on a block on the South Side of Chicago and he is an amazing creature with an amazing tale. Since he cannot speak, it is up to me to tell his story of survival as homeless pet and how he has beaten all the odds for a creature of his kind.

When I first met Beau about eight years ago, he had a home. He lived across the street from some friends of mine and he was so pretty to me. He was a beautiful, fat multi-colored brown, black and gray tom cat with white hair on his chest and a big fluffy tail. He reminded me so much of a cat I used to have named Big Poppa that I fell in love with him and made it my business to rub him and give him little ...

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