My Book Review of An American in the Gulag

Book Author:  Alexander Dolgun Book Title:  Alexander Dolgun’s Story:  An American in the Gulag Date Read:  June 27, 2009 Book Publisher:  Valentine Books (1974) Nonfiction/ 503 pages American Gulag was the 10th book I read in 2009: Reason I read An American in the Gulag: I have been a fan of Russian literature for several […]

Human Smuggling from Mexico

Today I spoke with Ricardo, a family man and business owner who turned to the crime of human smuggling as a strategy to cope with the pressures of debt. America’s financial crisis had hit Ricardo’s small construction company hard, and in a panic over how he would sustain his business and his family, he ceded […]

Preparing for Happiness Through Adversity

The headline that crossed the news this morning revealed unemployment rates for March at 8.5 percent. That’s a number I watch closely, as it suggests the struggles I expect to face after I complete a quarter century in prison. If the unemployment rate is at 8.5 percent for all Americans, for those coming out of […]

First Quarter Report, 2009

April of 2009 marks my 260th consecutive month in prison. Some may think that serving so much time in prison could lead to insanity. I remember reading about the character Dr. Manette in Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities. That character went crazy during the 17 years he served in prison. In […]