Last semester, a group of Cornell students worked with detained juvenile delinquents on creative writing and art projects, eventually producing a book from their efforts.

I wish I could write two columns. Column A would always be fresh. I mean, I gotta stay hip, gotta sell some papers. But Column B would be full of revisions and responses to feedback from last week. You see, I tend to get a few e-mails back after each of my columns, with about a 50-50 split on laudatory vs. critical. And I always write back. But last Tuesday Peter Finocchiaro’s critique of my column on faith at Cornell was a little more public and a little more off base than I am used to. So, since The Sun’s editorial staff isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to give me more space, here goes: a little of Column A and a little of Column B.

Inmates have a unique perspective on the criminal justice system. Those I know have been in prison for a long time — some have been in since they were sixteen and one I met entered the prison system in 1985 and will not get out until 2030. All have learned to cope with oppressive architecture, consistent isolation and arbitrary rules. Most have also committed heinous crimes and serious prison infractions. Many speak of political and legal power in near-conspiratorial tones, convinced anonymous moneyed interests — “them” — hold onto power regardless of superficial changes in the power structure. Nearly all seem to feel that the system has failed them.

The editorial board of a major Zambian newspaper will be facing up to six months in prison as a result of a column written by a Cornell Professor in defense of the paper’s imprisoned editor.

On Aug. 27, Prof. Muna Ndulo, law, director of the Institute for African Development, wrote a column in The Zambia Post, the primary opposition newspaper in Zambia, criticizing the government’s arrest of that newspaper’s editor, Chansa Kabwela, on charges of distributing obscene materials.

American journalist Roxana Saberi’s conviction for espionage practically screamed symbolism as it coincided with Iran’s national holiday, Army Day. To celebrate the strength of Iran’s armed forces, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran’s army keeps the country “one of the strongest in the region” and “no country dares to threaten [Iran].” On a day when Iran officially flexed its military muscles, it has unofficially shown its diplomatic chutzpah by defying calls from the international media and the U.S. State Department to release Ms. Saberi from an unjust incarceration.