What did Raymond learn in prison?

When he was 18, Raymond Harris was sent to prison for robbing a woman at gunpoint.  When he was 23, three weeks after getting out of prison, he was arrested for rape and setting his victim's home on fire.

Now, six months after a 13-year prison term, Raymond beat an old woman to death, stole her wedding bands, and proposed to his girlfriend with them.  (Sun-Times 11 Nov 11)

What sort of school or home or friends did he have that, as a teenager,  Raymond was mugging people with guns?

What did he learn in prison that, right after getting out, he raped and stabbed a woman?

How was prison life, that the parole board released him?  That Raymond thought it was OK to kill a woman, take the rings off her fingers, go to a party, and, romantically, give the rings in a wedding proposal?

How could we rear such a child, and grow such a man, and unleash him on so many victims?

When did you start wearing pants?

Gibbon writes (1.XI note 87) about the European pretender-emperor Tetricus, conquered by Aurelian in 274, that he was paraded through Rome in trousers:

"The use of braccae, breeches, or trowsers [sic], was still considered in Italy as a Gallic and Barbarian fashion. The Romans, however, had made great advances towards it.

"To encircle the legs and thighs with fasciae, or bands, was understood in the time of Pompey and Horace to be a proof of ill-health or effeminacy.

"In the age of Trajan, the custom was confined to the rich and luxurious. It gradually was adopted by the meanest of the people. See a very curious note of Casaubon, ad Sueton. in August. c. 82."

Where do fonts come from?

Simon Garfield writes (WSJ 3 Sep 11) that Steve Jobs introduced fonts to the contemporary world:

"Shortly after he dropped out of college, Mr. Jobs found that he had the freedom to attend classes on subjects that pleased him rather than bored him. At one of thse he discovered the joys of calligraphy and typefaces. He found the experience 'beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture,' he said.

"And so when the Mac was born a decade later, Mr. Jobs gave its users something novel, a choice of fonts -- everything from Times New Roman to the original Chicago and Venice -- a revolutionary act that loosened our dependence on the professional designer. (Whether your nice new printer could cope with them was another matter.)"

Good at everything that doesn't count?

Gibbon writes (Chap X) "It is difficult to paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he attempted his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and, as his genius was destitute of judgement, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government."

Does your mother love you?

Unloved Girl in Spokane WA writes (Dear Abby 28 July 2011)

"Dust and clothing have started to build up in my bedroom. I have told my mom, and she doesn't do anything about it, and I'm tired of telling her! The mess makes it hard live in.

"I think she does not love me since she will not do anything about the mess. What should I do?"

When is obstinacy your best bet?

Torquato Tasso writes (Jerusalem Freed V.3) "so fickle and changing is this world, we find that to be constant we must change our mind."

Are you as catty as an ancient historian?

>
> Polybius writes (XII 15) "Agathocles in his early youth was a common prostitute, one willing to associate with the most licentious characters, a jackdaw, a buzzard, a man who would face in any direction on request. Besides all this, Timaeus says that when Agathocles died, his wife, as she was lamenting him, cried out: 'Ah, what have I not done to you! What have you not done to me!'. . . . And yet Timaeus' description of Agathocles makes it clear that the man must have possessed some remarkable natural advantages."

When does a fire burn down?

How do you make money here?

Candace has taken me to a casino -- my first time ever. Buffets, blinking lights, chips, craps, slots, tiles, Niagara Falls.