18 August, 2007

Beginning

[This post originally appeared on my MySpace blog, which no longer exists. The date of the original posting has been lost.]

In considering what my first blog entry should consist of, I thought long and hard. What sorts of things, I wondered, could I write about that the average person would not consider tedious and uninteresting? After all, I'm writing from prison, where day-to-day life is largely regimented and therefore quite uneventful. Somehow I manage to write several longish letters every week to friends and family, however, and those are universally reported as enjoyable, so I must be doing something right. Perhaps, if I'm able to write those letters, I will be able to find subject matter for an online readership, too. Then again, it's entirely possible no one will ever pay this any mind and it will remain one of the millions of disregarded pages on the web, gradually being cultivated for an audience of none. We'll see.

While I don't intend to use this space to address the various controversies surrounding my conviction (there's already a site, FreeByronCase.com, for that), it is inevitable that certain things come up within the context of an entry, here or there. I try like hell to keep from becoming my case, but it's difficult. When something happens in one's life with such far reaching effects, it is next to impossible for the event not to define them to some extent — this is no different. On many days, I find myself wondering about Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Rejean Hinse, Dennis Fritz, Theodore White, and the innumerable others who have lived through being convicted of a crime they did not commit and now lead free lives once more; I wonder if and how they maintained their senses of self when every single day served as a hideous reminder of the injustice they were suffering. That is bound to show through in these entries from time to time. I believe that is all the more reason to write them….