Mongoose Distro

Ensuing this introduction is a letter written for Simon Wood by David-Matthew Strunk after the release of an article that Wood wrote for New York Magazine about the life and death of Aaron Bushnell. Wood had reached out to Strunk because of his brief history as a correspondent with Bushnell in order to gain information on Bushnell and subsequently decided to paint Strunk in a negative light and include it in the article.

For further context, please read:

‘Aaron Bushnell’s Self-Immolation’ (nymag.com)

‘Shepherds’ by David Matthew-Strunk (mongoosedistro.com)

Open Letter to Simon Van Zuylen-Wood

of New York Magazine

Mr. Wood of New York Magazine,

I got the magazine last night. Exhausted, I feel asleep before reading it. Here it is noon on July 4^th and I’m reading the (Aaron) Bushnell piece. Not sure I’m a fan of being characterized as “David-Matthew Strunk, a murderer”.

A friend of mine I showed it to said, “You should be thankful you’re not in here for getting caught with a 17-year old girl, because then the guy would’ve wrote ‘David-Matthew Strunk, a sex offender’. You would’ve ended up in the hole (solitary confinement) for the fights that would’ve caused.”

Unfortunately, my friend is right. In prison, a murderer is not frowned upon, but a sex offender is worse than an actual leper. I would’ve gotten beat up for it, had I been labeled as such. I guess my point is “David Matthew-Strunk, a convicted felon” would have been a lot better, especially considering that I’m still fighting my case in apellate court.

I did not intentionally hurt anyone. The victim in the situation I’m in here for was a friend of mine. When the paramedics showed up I was trying to administer CPR to the victim and they had to pull me off of him. I learned CPR in a class where we train on rubber human medical dummies.

I am certified and have saved three lives with CPR, two on heroin users experiencing overdoses. It was before Narcan was available to the public. They were starting to lose color and turn blue from lack of oxygen because they quit breathing. The third was a woman experiencing a cocaine overdose. With cocaine, you have to get the person into an ice bath, because cocaine kills you by raising your body temperature dangerously high. So I got all the ice out of my freezer and put it all in a cold-water bath and put the woman in the bath, because she injected too much cocaine and went coma on me. She woke up and came out of it. And no, I’m not the one selling these people these drugs in the first place, I’m just the one bringing them back to life after someone else sold them the drugs. So, I really resent the “murderer” label.

Also, “Agenda 21” isn’t some conspiracy-nut thing that went viral on kook websites, it’s an actual set of protocols suggested at a United Nations meeting. It’s a set of “articles”, it’s a list of items. They got together and wrote up a list of items that they would like to see happen in our future society. The “Agenda 21” list is sort of like the “social credit score” system in place already in China. You may have heard already, but basically China has surveillance cameras literally everywhere, and for example, if you smoke a cigarette and then throw the butt in the street instead of extinguishing the cherry and putting the butt in your pocket for later disposal, well the camera can use facial-recognition technology to identity you, which notifies the social credit network, which can then notify your bank, which lowers your “social credit score” by 10 points.

Just a week ago I saw on the Discovery Channel that there is technology in China in which there is a screen you smile at, and if your smile isn’t “happy” enough, the computer’s security-tech won’t let you open the refrigerator in the break room at your place of employment! This is all “Agenda 21” type social engineering ideation.

I once had a copy of the actual Agenda 21. It is literally a list of proposals created by members of a council attached to the United Nations. I remember one of the articles proposed was to make seating options in public places to be functional but less comfortable so that homeless people won’t feel free to nap or sleep in the daytime in the public areas, forcing them to find approved bedding in approved homeless shelters. Keep in mind, cities big enough to have homeless shelters have a homeless population five times what the bedding space is at the shelters.

Not long after reading this thing about “uncomfortable seating options”, I noticed that a popular coffee shop in my area of Fort Collins, Colorado decided to replace the couches and the stuffed chairs surround the tables in their seating area with wooden pews, salvaged from a defunct Catholic church, and wooden straight-back chairs. Homeless people were coming into the coffee shop, purchasing a coffee, then napping for an hour or two on the couches and stuffed chairs, which probably made the yuppies, who are shop’s “target demographic” uncomfortable. Yet, these same yuppies do the same: they come in, buy a coffee and then sit on their laptop for an hour or two. What’s the difference? Both groups are spending the same amount of money. But, one demographic, the napping bums, make customers uncomfortable, and the other group, the laptop yuppies, does not.

This same coffee shop gets a 501(C)3 tax-break for being counted as a “church” because they clear the tables out and set up 40 to 50 folding chairs in the middle of the shop for the owner to do an hour-long “sermon” on Sundays. Then they put the chairs away and go back to business as usual, selling coffee tax-free. So, I guess the guy wouldn’t feel comfortable just kicking the bums out like Starbucks would, because it wouldn’t be very “Christian” of him?

The point is, this “Agenda 21” is a real thing, not just a tinfoil-hat nut-job conspiracy. It’s not law, yet, but it is being implemented by businesses and whole “test cities” like Fort Collins, Colorado. Every square inch of Fort Collins is on camera, just like in China. There’s a cable channel you can get on TV in Fort Collins that shows the cameras. It’s like a version of the TV show Cops because on this channel you can watch homeless people in alleyways stepping behind a dumpster to take a piss in private, and even before the guy gets done peeing, here comes the cops out of nowhere to catch the guy and arrest him, or at least ticket him. In Denver, if they catch you by yourself peeing behind a dumpster in an alleyway, they charge you with “public exposure”, the same charge that the trenchcoat perverts get for flashing children, then you are a lifetime “sex offender” and have to register on the sex offender website and can’t get a job or live in many places.

So, yes, things have gotten out of control with law enforcement and how homeless people get treated, and Aaron Bushnell was right to agree with me about the things I wrote. Our United States Supreme Court just decided that homeless people can be fined up to $1,000 per day and jailed for sleeping outside. These people are homeless. Where are they supposed to sleep? If they had $1,000 they most likely wouldn’t be homeless! What say you?

____________________________________

In closing, the problem with the Simon Woods of the world is, they are situated to be able to reach such a wide audience and could do a lot of good with a tool at their disposal like New York Magazine, instead of just sensationalizing people like me, people like Aaron. Or can he? He probably could’ve wrote his article in crayon and it wouldn’t matter. No one reads magazines anymore.

David-Matthew Strunk 102504
Sterling Correctional Facility
PO Box 6000
Sterling, CO 80751

Hi there! My name is Nesa Gray. Nesa being an acronym for Neon Electric Space Alien and Grey being my gender spectrum. I am a non-binary transgender and I am incarcerated in the homophobic, racist ass Texas prison system.

I would like to share with you a recent bbq I threw here. Yes, you’re probaby wondering how I did this and that’s one of the things that made it so great! During the end of Oct 2023 while at the Darrington Unit I began requesting a bra. Ok, let me clarify something before we go any further. As a non-binary transgender I don’t identify as male or female, but I do enjoy both sides of the coin. Ok, well at first when I asked laundry for a bra they claimed they knew nothing about it. I then showed them my hormone pills and a handful of my boobies and said I am a certified (in my file) transgender and I have a license to carry a bra. Lol, yes I know it almost sounds like a gun! Boobed and dangerous! Anyway this laundry guy tells me when my boobs get bigger he’ll give me a bra! GASP! That some kind of sexual harrassment, right? Yeah, I thought so too! Sexist bastard. So he moves around without any good answer, so I asked the guards working my section to get me some rank and they did. A 90 year old Sgt. when I told him I needed a bra he looked at me like I’d grown a second nose! Well, as you can tell he was no help.

So next in line was my request for PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) Sgt. who is over the transgender issues in prison. Word came back saying they would be coming to talk to me within the hour, well when the hour was almost over the guard came back to let me know the PREA Sgt. wouldn’t be able to make it because they were in a meeting. Well, ok then. I guess it’s time to bbq! And we’ll just have to bbq without a bra. Just then I see one more Sgt. walking through and when I tried to talk to him he just ignored me and kept walking. 

Ok then. It’s now the time we’ve all been waiting on. IT’S BBQ TIME!!! I hope you’re hungry because we’ve got all kinds of goodies! BBQ blankets, grilled sheets, roasted mattresses and sauteed clothes! A bit of tissue and paper bags on the side! Here’s how it went. My grill aka locker has a top and bottom shelf and an open area on the side that smokes real good so all the bbq items can be smoked. Well, I loaded the bottom rack with two succulent blankets, a nice tender pair of sheets, two mattress filets, a couple paper bags and a roll of tissues for appetizers! Once the flames reached the blankets all was going well. I even added a blanket on the top rack and the smoker was doing it’s thang! The smell of the bbq went all throughout the prison and so did the smoke and within the hour all sorts of people started to show up.

The guards came by, and the PREA Sgt. even left her meeting. The Sgt. that ignored me even came by and yep, he got ignored! A couple of nice girls came by who were new and wanted to know what the special occassion was. They were a bit hostile at first but when I let them know my name was Nesa and that I was a non-binary transperson we instantly became friends! One told me my name was beautiful and the other said if she ever had a daughter she wanted to name her Nesa. One person came by and let me know there were no bras here because this is a male facility. I told her I’ve had bras at every unit I’ve been to and I’ve only been to male units. Then someone else tells me they have to order them. Then someone tells me I’ll get them when I get my bra license renewed! Well, all the bbq items cooked real good and the smoker did it’s thang so good it left my cell completely black but that’s the price of having a good bbq. I still have no bra but it was a great time and I’m already planning the next one! Till next time… Ta Ta

write to Nesa:

Spencer Butler 2020566
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

Hey there. I’ll continue with yesterday’s diatribe on utilizing an existentialist point of view to describe the world around us. As stated, the abstract loses its reality when paired with this philosophy. However, with the following, I’ll attempt to show that the existentialist’s belief in only the concrete existence of things is absurd. I will use negation, and concrete metaphor to describe the period of time known as the present. In this instance what I mean by “present” is the cronos present rather than the linear or cyclical present.

The problem with the cronos representation of the present is that from mankind’s point of view, there is no “present.” The following will describe this idea:
[Never standing still, its captivity eludes humanity. Unhindered by highways, bi-ways, dead ends, or skyways, from north to south, east to west, the subject freely roams. A mouse will muzzle a million mustangs before a man will imprison this monotonous mite. A slave to the past, to the future a master, steady as an oak through any disaster. Providentially tuned to a limitless principle, transcendentalism restlessly seeks its tangibility. No caliper can gauge nor will any scale weigh, yet it fills every clock, watch, and hourglass, and even eternal time and space, with its presence. If man could live within its parameters, he’d be God’s equal: this ever elusive point bisecting the past and the future.]

Not many philosophers have argued against the existence of the “present.” As a matter of fact, many of them, along with past holy men, have spent lifetimes attempting to explain, describe, or live within its parameters. I can meet the existentialists half-way on this abstract idea of the “present” by including a scent of transcendentalism. In a sense, time itself cannot exist within a world of existentialism. But for the sake of argument the focus will be on the “present.” With this in mind I have used two descriptive words which when used together create a novel term, “bifurcated meridian.” This term describes the cronos present better than the existing term, “present.”

Philosophers, theologians, and everyday folks have, since the dawn of language have improperly applied the word “present” to a point in time. Yet the “present,” though residing within the bounds of time, cannot bed anthropomorphically experienced at all. The past and the future live within the bounds of eternity, yet both have lifespans. Can one measure the life of the present? I think not. Life cannot even be, in the present. The perpetually reoccurring, non-apprehendable, and incalculable stratum called the “present” are actually endless immortal wonders trapped in eternity. This imperceptible duration is the incorruptible everlasting evanescence that passes yet never leaves. Time is a marker for existence, existence resides only in time, and without past and future tenses, existence cannot coexist with the “present.” The age old term the “present” fails to capture the iconic marvel philosophers and theologians and writers of Utopian fiction (think Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’) have attempted to seize. The so called “present,” as a term to describe itself, is useless to an entity (mankind) for which cannot fully experience its reality. Thus the term or rather more than a term, the “bifurcated meridian” is a philosophy claiming that because the time between the prime meridian of the past and future is incalculable though it exists it existence is outside of time and is experienced fully only by entities also existing outside of time. The “bifurcated meridian” is simply the highest place where the past and the future can be viewed from or contemplated.

As I continue to study and consider this synthesization of two opposing philosophies, existentialism and transcendentalism, I hope you or your audience might wish to hear more about it.

Take care and holler at me.

Peace, Ross.

Ross Hartwell 4358586
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX

It is safe to say, regarding the United States, that there has never, in all of its history, existed a properly functioning democracy. That is to say, that there has never been a time when arbitrary class distinctions did not separate the governed from the governors, when social equality and the benefit of the people was of greater concern than political expediency and the profit and power accrual of the politicians. Likewise, there has never been a person who was involved in governmental affairs who sought after such, excepting only Thomas Paine, who was himself not a politician, but a writer; largely a political writer.

We are taught from childhood that the United States was founded as a “Representative Democracy,” but this is an equivocation which even the highly respected Patrick Henry railed against. And Ross Perot, in his 1992 presidential campaign, offered: “The British aristocracy we drove out in our Revolution has been replaced by our own version, a political nobility that is immune to the peoples will.” A democracy intimates a pursuit of the peoples will. Such is a pursuit which an aristocracy will not undertake. And History readily demonstrates that the people’s will has never been a prioritized concern of the U.S. Government, nor of the governments of the several states.

The United States was founded on the propositions that (a) “aII men are created equal,” and (b) that they have “certain inalienable rights; that amongst these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But what does “all men” mean? What does it mean to you? This phrase, like so many others in law — the Declaration of Independence is a legal document –is oftentimes corrupted by our want of understanding. And our understanding itself is oftentimes corrupted by educators who either misteach or allow our own misunderstandings to persist uncorrected. To an innocent fifth-grade schoolboy, “all men” meant everybody, all people, all of mankind. He could not have been more wrong. Perhaps his teacher’s understanding of the phrase was as flawed as his. This was not the understanding of the founding fathers–Note the patriarchal connotations her–who penned it. Consider:

Women were, because of their gender, excluded slaves were, because of their social status, excluded the indigenous and free black populations were, because of their skin color, excluded; The poor were, because of their want of wealth, excluded those persons of the middle-class were, because of their want of property, excluded and non-Protestant Christians were, because of their religious beliefs, excluded.

Plainly, “all men” was an exclusive coterie. At the time of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, it consisted of the wealthiest and most powerful and influential white men in the American Colonies. The same, excepting a smattering of tokens, is true of today’s America. This fact testifies against America’s social and political progress, and for its stagnation in these environments. It witnesses to the fact that our leaders today, two and a half centuries after the signing of the Declaration of Independence are no better people, and no better at leading than George, the British king that our founders abhorred.

Neither, however, are “We the People” blameless: For it is we that have sat idle while our leadership has exploited us and alienated us from those “certain inalienable rights” which include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is we who have allowed our leaders to assemble the world’s largest prison population. And it will be we who condemns ourselves and our posterity to abject slavery if we do not get off our hands, and act.
President Biden even said:

Freedom has never been guaranteed. Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, defend it in the battle between autocracy and democracy, between the greed of the few, and the rights of the many.

-Zeke Miller, AP White House correspondent, “Biden says each generation has to ‘earn’ freedom, in solemn Memorial Day remarks” (May 28, 2024)

This fact is true, even if the fight takes us in front of our own government, though, undoubtedly, this is not what Biden had in mind when he said it.

Steven McCain 2096064
Wainwright Unit
2665 Jovian Motley Blvd.
Lovelady, TX 75851

The bottomless abyss of the ultimate rejection is the foundation of her irreconcilable soul. This epiphany of devastation impacts resoundingly by reflection representing her stark unpleasant future. Distraught acceptance of the echoing sledgehammer of a living death invites her to slumber.

Inhumanely laying in the fetal position staring at her feet, psychologically she is suddenly tossed into the societal maelstrom of racial bigotry and gender hatred by ignorantly confused perpetrators and fraudulent miscreants.

She suffers from the melancholic malady of being the victim in the victimless crime of her own existence. For her, luck was not a fleeting thing, but rather, nonexistent. The impact of the gratuitous trauma of recognizing her failed life left her disheveled thoughts in a roaring silence.

Humanistic desensitization, punctuated with the asylum of emptiness, conjures the ghosts of tortured sleeplessness, ultimately depriving her of a personal identity. Previous accomplishments quickly fade into a shameful memory of emotional despondency. In failing to acknowledge self-recognition, she feels less than a nobody. A disgusting waste of self.

Conscious nightmares, a place of myriad torments and endless pain, wander aimlessly behind haunted eyes. Many of her delusions get unchained to become real life experiences.

Objectively laying alone, she is not convinced this is truth, as her peripheral vision witnesses the slow expanding sanguinary pool in pursuit of slumbering peace. At some point confrontational negative social interactions must terminate. Possibly, and hopefully, sooner than later.

In the vulnerable position of acquiescence, she feels compelled to earnestly peruse their facial expressions of satisfaction.It is a fast, easy read, not only does she identify with the downtrodden characters, but empathizes in resonation of their debilitating agony. Being their desired target, she intimately knows the personal surreptitious anguish which motivates their pointless savagery. Debauchery inflicted by scalawags.

A disturbing reverie instilled by the obsequious sycophants, who espouse meaningless platitudes and live in worthless cliches, plague her as the equivalents of those gnashing teeth while consuming ripped flesh. This does not make her a vegetarian.

She is fully immersed in drinking the vile elixir of the intoxicating infliction of devastation. Being waylaid, without provocation under the premise of gender hatred, in her journey toward unmitigated liberation, she is driven farther into the eviscerating void of irrelevance.

The unidentified author of her pain whispers the sleep of death while her murky consciousness quests for truth, with no navigational influence to effectively comfort her. Rapidly reminiscing of her initial social awkwardness of exposed passion whilst clutching the expiring cloak of integrity and dignity. She employs a policy of freely floating in the direction of minimal imposition of anguish while discovering that loneliness and love are the only two real truths of life.

Her crippled soul, intermeshed with her dismal destiny, is confirmed by the illuminated darkness of intrinsic pain that is intertwined with her confused state of catastrophic failure. The erasure of her personal identity floats with undefined purpose to an uncertain destination. She is caught in the cataclysmic miasma of the consequence of being her own collateral damage.

Her crystal-clear journey of unmitigated hopelessness is subtly enhanced with a sordid slippery path of acrid sludge. She is led by the delusional anticipation of pleasure through the internal desire for a momentary respite, just a sliver of heavily diluted peace, a flickering scintilla of light. Such an iota of happiness isn’t to be had, experienced, nor imagined.

Clandestinely hidden in the forgotten recesses of the black pulsating shadows of her overburdened mind, she submits to the vociferous hatred plaguing her existence. She embraces the crushing evisceration of anguish which leaves her in a state of excruciating breathlessness. Straining, gasping, distended strangling for a whisper of fresh air, a partial inhale, just wee little taste of hope.

The beauty of imagination is its adroit ability to propel her to delve deeply into a place of the blackest darkness in appreciation of the landscape of misery with its unique, horrible and disturbing visions.

She acknowledges that the repetitive history of violent abuse was not to be her destiny, however, she intuitively is optimistic to encounter something substantially worse. History is not destiny, but in the motivational analysis of pain and pleasure, they are found to be conceived and accepted as identical. Both, pain and pleasure, crawl shamelessly into the abandoned human husks of the spiritually destitute and the emotionally bankrupt. These are the remnant human shells abdicated in defeat at the oppressive whim of those who claim perfection and infallibility – the economically superior, the self-righteous, and the politically expedient.

She knows what it means to be alone, lonely, and in the dark. Leaving all things unguarded as she went forward deeply into the blackness of the conscious unconscious.

If nobody wants to claim her down here where she doesn’t belong, than maybe somebody up there has a place for her. Some place she feels invited, welcome, and at home – where she belongs.

Hugging herself while lying quietly vulnerable. A warm humble embrace of peace with the world. Her place.

Write the author:

Scott Smith 278891
191 Constantine Way
Aberdeen, WA 98520

Steven McCain 2096064
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

Steven McCain 2096064
Wainwright Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266

We will keep this in our “print” section and do our best to keep it updated regularly.

1

How she gave me that attentive focus

which my heart so earnestly demanded

that we never shared so much as one kiss

breaks me even more than if commanded

to destroy my own emotional state

sinking to the lowest depths of sadness

where the only target for me to hate

is my passion that resembles madness

pushing onward always to my demise

she’ll continue with her thoughtless action

all my suffering kept under safe guise

nevermore her loving occupation

tragedy defines the constant current

why did she just love me for one moment?

2

What is it that makes me want to hold her?

my deprivation fuelling wanton grief

lusting after her, I just won’t falter

despite every attempt to feel relief

her ignoring me shouldn’t draw allure

looking as if she would rather vanish

reminiscent of tumultuous war

as if my mere presence would her’s tarnish

perhaps to her I’m not significant

that she’ll ne’er love me speaks to just as much

furthered by how I bring detriment

selfishly longing to not remain such

should she change her mind, I’ll be awaiting

hopeful that one day we’ll commence dating

3

Will she ne’er take my hands and hold me tight?

waking in her arms such a distant dream

how we’d share the sight of each by moonlight

gazing to each so long as we will deem

her dominance rids me of my courage

though my heart is warmed at her soft guidance

my shy fear sows so much awful carnage

upon my tender heart’s wont of romance

can I place the blame at my own two feet

or is there no one who is culpable?

the butterflies she gifts me are a treat

her role making them is negligible

I have no doubt that if she did want me

she would grab my hand and my heart is hers

I, thus, have no shock that this cannot be

she holds the reigns that bring my heart guivers

μ

her

hips

walking

away

∑

She’ll

never love me

like her

4

Her laugh rings clearer than any bird’s call

so subtly subsumed by her fresh joy

beauty that grows with her chest’s rise and fall

I love the happiness of a tomboy

her confident daily activity

warmth flowing unto all her acts unique

like bright sun’s ray can spark proclivity

of sapling unto growth of what once weak

supporting those so close, so tenderly

her tomboyish allure so feminine

her walk and talk decidedly girly

so slightly tinged with traits oft masculine

how sweet to taste the sunshine even far!

her radiance impossible to mar

5

Those rare shy moments with hesitation

where her discomfort shows in control’s lack

how cute she looks in her contemplation

I want her help to paint the whole world black

to see her wake unto herself at last

free of authority’s dreary power

no longer subservient to the past

her fullest form allowed to now flower

I’d take her hand and help her on this path

false consciousness divorces her from this

e’er enslaved to the capitalist wrath

she should just pull me closer for a kiss

her tender hands pulling my lips to her

her interest for me no longer falters

Δ

I miss that

look in her eyes

when she was

excited

seeing me

φ

I await her

command;

her hand

6

Her tomboy disregard for my femme cares

my choosing to embrace feminity

how trite to state love negatively pairs

there’s seldom virtue in timidity

so powerless, so helpless, yet I’m sure

the weak submissive overcome the strong

I’m thankful that exceptions are so her

so powerful, her dominance I long

until she makes me distant from disdain

could cold come any harsher than her ice?

her disgust at my presence is so plain

sole satisfactions of my prior vice

I linger in the frost til she will warm

ne’er quite restored to what warmth she once had

her sweetness assumes such a changed new form

and just to see her once more I’m so glad

Sofia DeFerrari 23976151
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
24499 SW Grahams Ferry Road
Wilsonville, OR 97070