I read in the Jan. 19 paper an article (“Bill would revise terms ‘prisoners,’ ‘inmates’ in statutes,” Page B1) that would be quite humorous if only it were not true.

Our State House has before it a report based on a bill that legislators passed last spring to rewrite statutes to refer to prisoners as “residents” and probationers as “clients of the Department of Corrections,” among other changes.

In the same edition of the paper (“Norwegian mass killer seeks parole 10 years after attacks,” Page A4), I read that the country of Norway is a few cars ahead of us on the crazy train in that a killer of 77 people in 2011 is being considered for parole after only 10 years as a “resident” and that – in any case – he must be released after only 21 years “in residence” because 21 years is the maximum sentence possible for mass murder in Norway.

This is where such enlightened thought will lead.

I am reminded of a quote by British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, which I shall paraphrase, in part, as “we have educated ourselves into imbecility.”

James Michaud
Wells