Philadelphia Prison population

I really should have blogged about this much sooner, but slipped through the cracks of my mind... Maybe about a week ago, I happened to be flipping though the TV channels and I found the Television broadcast of the NPR Radio show with Marty Moss-Coane called "Radio Times."
She was talking about the issue of prison overcrowding and had two guests on. I forget who they were :( But one gentleman said something that really surprised me...
There are currently about 9,000+ prisoners in jail (in the city of Philly). And I don't remember the statistic exactly but it was either 60 or 70% of them are in jail awaiting a trial! These are people who for whatever reason have not posted bail, or were denied bail.
Not only does that statistic boggle my mind, but I was also very surprised that there were that few amount of people in prison. The 2000 Census has the population at 1.5 million people.
No other real comments here just that both statistics really surprised me. I though the prison system held much more than that.
I did find this reference on the web.

misc Wednesday

Been kinda quiet around here. I just haven't had much to say I guess. But in the interest of getting back to bloggin I'll throw out some random thoughts...

I'm looking forward to my watercolor class tonight. Two reasons... I'm looking to deviate from the normal model painting tonight and trying my hand at a landscape painting. Although it hit me this morning that if someone is sitting in the room posing and I'm not paying attention to them or off in my own world is that rude? Is it weird? We'll have to see. The other reason is that I'll be trying out my brand new brushes! I've been wanting to get some "Kolinsky" brushes for some time now, but the price has kept me from doing that. Well, in the last "Jerry's artarama" catalog they had a sale price for the special 175th anniversary edition of two Kolinsky brushes for about $32 each! That's an awesome deal! It's something like 70% off the retail price! So I just got them yesterday and the look nice. We'll see tonight how the "action" is... I'm hoping that they are gonna be like getting a new pair of sneakers that make you run fast... These new brushes will make me paint a masterpiece - yeah right :)
If I'm somewhat successful tonight I'll post the results.

I signed up today for another "electronics" class that deals with LED lights. Again, I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into, but I have an interest in this stuff so I'm hoping that I'll enjoy learning about it.

I got a new book yesterday too... just what I needed! Ugh. But it's very daunting to look at! But again, I have this interest so I'm going to try and persue it. It's about an open source software program called "Processing", that is geared towards artists and designers. The book talks about how the "average" person is either interested in programming OR art, not both. Well, I think I fall mostly in the art category, but I really have in interest in the programming part as well. I've just always had difficulty sticking with trying to learn it. But I've got my mind set on trying to learn more new things (thus the electronics classes and now the self taught programming), I hope I can stick with it.

Ok, enjoy your Wednesday.
Peace