We weren't going to publish this grievance because it's about a rather trivial matter and because prison rules (the subject of the complaint) are notoriously fickle and irrational. When the grievance was submitted, however, the bureaucrat who manages the prison grievance farce, one Lisa G. Hollibaugh, refused to process it. Her rejection reveals how prisoners and even their grievances are censored. We are publishing the grievance in order to illuminate the censorship. Ms Hollibaugh rejected the grievance with a form on which she'd checked 2 reasons for the complaint's rejection: "3. The grievance doesn't indicate that you were personally affected by a Department (sic) or facility action or policy. "6. Grievances must be legible and presented in a courteous manner." The bureaucrat couldn't figure out that the complainant was personally effected by the events he related. When you read the text, you can decide for yourself. As silly as that objection was, the second reason for rejecting the grievance was much more revealing. The grievance was typed and was perfectly legible, but Ms Hollibaugh (like all true bureaucrats, she has a pompous title, "Facility Grievance Coordinator") had underlined a phrase in the grievance, "socially challenged" indicating that she though the description was somehow discourteous. It will be noted that it's not applied to any particular individual in the grievance. What the phrase was, was truthful. The Department of Corrections ("DOC") and its thousands of self-important bureaucrats have a serious hostility to the truth. Everyone is expected to go along with an official web of pretenses, falsehoods. The DOC and its minions cultivate an agenda of lies and pretense. Both the prisoners and the public are expected to profess the official fantasies. It's considered discourteous to tell a truth which contradicts the official web of falsehoods or which expressed a disapproved opinion. On Tuesday evening, my cell-partner1 lost his jacket in the recreation yard before entering the weightlifting pavilion.2 When I called in to him that I'd located his jacket, the heavyset guard3 who was loitering4 inside the weight pavilion gate told me that I should "go where you belong." I don't know the guard's name, but he was rude, abrasive and provocative. If there are special rules about talking, calling or other conduct in the recreation yard, the rules should be published. No such rules appear anywhere in the 400+ pages of DOC minutia in my possession. Rules should not be left to the whim of a socially challenged guard, nor to the momentary discretion of junior officials. Rule-making is the Secretary's and the Superintendent's prerogative. The staff should possess a modicum of social decorum. The sergeant on duty in the yard (apparently at the behest of the junior officer idling4 at his side) made a spectacle of announcing over the public address system that I must not stand on the dirt beside the track. There is no such rule. If a rule is going to be enforced, the Superintendent should publish it. After Lisa Hollibaugh rejected the grievance and returned it to the prisoner, he redacted the "socially challenged" phrase which offended her delicate sensibilities and appended a few handwritten additions. Since the bureaucrat couldn't figure out that the incident affected him, he added that. He also added the fact that Deputy Superintendent Wakefield had informed him that the "official" rules are published. I was personally affected by the "rules" and the guard mentioned in this matter. To my inquiry, the Deputy told me in writing that the "official" rules are published in the Handbook and the supplement. FOOTNOTES 1 At Smithfield prison the men are required to live in tiny cells which don't meet federal standards. Smaller than your bathroom, the cells are cramped for even one man for a short prison stay (the standard to which they were designed), but now the cells house two men in dangerously close confinement 2 The area where some men are permitted to lift weights is in a separately fenced-off and locked section beneath a wooden pavilion which was built with the prisoners' own money. 3 The guard, a man named Busko, is a short, fat, Greek god of a fellow who awkwardly, but vigorously waddles around the prison. 4 Almost all guards do nothing. They stand around daydreaming or pretending to be important. They don't like to be told that they do nothing. It may be that, as a loyal DOC lackey, Ms Hollibaugh found it discourteous to reveal that a guard was loitering or idling or loafing, but it's the truth.