For Quality Relationships--Practice The 4:1 Rule

Alma Jean and I celebrating our 50th anniversary, now over ten
years ago. 

A text  I used for my parenting classes some years ago recommended a simple rule of thumb: For every negative interaction or statement with a child we should make sure we are offering four positive ones.

Too often we parents, mostly by habit, are guilty of creating the opposite ratio, with a majority of words like, "Stop that!" "No!" "You know better than that!" "You should be ashamed!" or with put down questions the child knows there are no acceptable answers to, like "Why do you always have to...?" or "Why can't you ever...?"

Since children are pretty much like the rest of us, only shorter and less experienced, I see the 4:1 rule being equally important in all of our relationships.

Positive expressions and actions have the effect of adding valued deposits to our relationship savings accounts, whereas negative ones are like withdrawals. With a disproportionate number of the latter our relationships accounts become overdrawn and we begin operating in the red. 

Examples of positive expressions are anything informative, interesting, fun, gratifying, praiseworthy, encouraging and/or affirming.

Some acceptable negative ones are expressing our honest feelings about our pain, discouragement, stress, worry or otherwise undesirable experiences.

Unacceptable negative expressions include blaming, shaming, attacking, judging, berating or accusing.

Some negative expressions are necessary and OK if offered in the form of information rather than accusation, and always in the interest of making things better, and never for the sake of causing hurt or harm.

The 4:1 rule, like the Golden Rule, means making sure the majority of our relationship interactions are as we would like them, in some really positive territory.

Daily News-Record "Justice Matters" Column

By KEVIN DREXEL Jun 28, 2025  

'Keep fees' from inmates shift costs to impoverished communities

One practice in Virginia jails that perpetuates the cycle of incarceration is the practice of “Keep Fees” or charging inmates daily rent.

We are led to believe that public funds cover all the costs of incarceration and the operation of our jails. However, jails shift many of these costs onto inmates and their families through excessive fees charged to inmates and through inflated private contracts with private vendors. Vendors commonly offer kickbacks (“bribery”) for signing them up.

A significant percentage of costs for rent, food, communications, hygiene products, and clothing are ultimately passed on to families trying to assist loved ones with basic material and other needs while incarcerated.

Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, comments, “Public prisons are public only by name. These days, you pay for everything in prison.”

According to the Brennan Center, the result is “an estimated 10 million people who owe more than $50 billion resulting from their involvement in the criminal justice system.”

As a 2021 Vera Institute report clarifies, “Fees are not the same as fines. Fines are intended to serve as punishment, whereas fees and surcharges are explicitly designed to raise revenue for the government.

But both fines and fees bring governments revenue as if they were taxes, and this method of funding government inflicts considerable harm on already impoverished communities.”

Examples of proliferating fees, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, are “charges for police transport, case filing, felony surcharges, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and sex offender registration.”

Among the more egregious of these are keep fees, the daily rent jails across the country charge inmates while incarcerated. In Virginia, these run from $1 per day at our local jail to $3 at Middle River Regional Jail, the maximum allowed in the Commonwealth. Such fees disproportionately harm low-income families as the median annual income of a person incarcerated hovers around $19,000. Thus, the multiple jail fees charged could be seen as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional protection against excessive fines.

In a 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that excessive fines were used after the Civil War to re-enslave freed men. In 2019, the New York Times published an article titled “Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment- Both still define our criminal-justice system,” in which the author notes that we cannot understand the excessive punishment that permeates the U.S. mass incarceration system without understanding its roots in the legacy of slavery. The article further states, “Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free black people, making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control.”

It was in the early 1990s that a Chicago law clerk wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune suggesting that inmates with financial assets should earn their room and board through prison labor and pay rent to cover the increased costs of operating jail and prison facilities due to overcrowding.

One of the results of this fee system is that when someone is released from jail or prison, they are often deeply in debt and have very few financial resources. This only perpetuates the cycle of incarceration by burdening former inmates and their families and by creating hurdles that prevent them from successfully reintegrating into society.

Brittany Friedman, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, has done extensive research that shows that jail debt increases the cost of incarceration and that the devastating effects of jail debt can be far-reaching. Dr. Friedman states, “If pay-to-stay is really meant to offset the costs of incarcerating people, then why are we sticking them with a bill that then further tethers them to the system?”

Keep fees may also contribute to inmates on meager jail fares going hungry while incarcerated since any attempt by friends or family to add money to their commissary account to supplement their diet is partially seized by the jail to offset the keep fee debt. This exacerbates hunger and mental distress and is clearly wrong.

Fortunately, some state and national groups are working to address some of the injustices of excessive fees in jails and prisons, but regrettably, this has not been true of jails in the Valley.

Kevin Drexel is the founder of Stand 4 Count, working to support the needs of individuals, families, and marginalized groups impacted by incarceration, and is a part of the local Valley Justice Coalition, a local citizen voice for criminal justice reform in our community and in the Commonwealth since 2014.

Kevin Drexel is the founder of Stand 4 Count, working to support the needs of individuals, families, and marginalized groups impacted by incarceration, and is a part of the local Valley Justice Coalition, a local citizen voice for criminal justice reform in our community and in the Commonwealth 

Some Amendments To The Ten Commandments

I keep hearing politicians promoting having the Ten Commandments posted in public buildings and in school classrooms. But in the interest of having these Ten Words align with the values of most politicians promoting them, the following amendments may be necessary:

I. Exceptions to this first rule are such gods as Mars, Mammon, and MAGA America.

II. Images and statues glorifying war and warriors are always permissible.

III. God may be named and the Bible used to advance a political agenda.

IV. A weekly Sabbath for religious observances is a good thing if it doesn't interfere with profit-taking  or war making.

V. Government programs may provide some aid to our aging and ill parents and others if they really need it, but on the other hand, such programs may need to be the first to cut in favor of other budget priorities.

VI. Killing people and destroying things can be laudable if done systematically, on a mass scale and by government order.

VII. Adultery, sexual harassment and multiple divorces are generally a bad thing, but can be overlooked if they are a part of our favorite politicians' life stories.

VIII. Forcibly stealing land and livelihoods from native Americans or others for the sake of US expansion has proven legitimate and necessary.

IX. Bearing false witness, denying facts or telling outright lies are all OK if done to advance a political cause or candidate.

X. Thou shalt not covet doesn't apply to wanting to annex whole countries like Canada or Greenland.

Local Citizens Gather To Prevent Food Waste

Multiple grocery cart loads of frozen foods behind the Harmony Square Food Lion drew dozens of people stopping by to help themselves yesterday. 

Turns out one of their main freezers malfunctioned overnight and the management had no choice but to discard thousands of dollars worth of items which were at various stages of thawing, but were still cold and partially frozen. Somehow the word got around in the community and people descended in droves to salvage what they could and get it into their own freezers and refrigerators. 

All of which brings up the question of what could be done to avoid having all of this go into the landfill, and in ways that would be both safe and a blessing to people in need--and to the environment.

As it is, the management of supermarkets like Food Lion feel prevented from offering food like this at a reduced price or even free to worthy recipients. I spoke with one of their managers yesterday about whether a non-profit facility like Gemeinschaft Home could be given opportunity to receive some of this windfall, and the only answer she could give, quite understandably, was that they could not risk any liability should their food cause an illness.

Question: Shouldn't there be some organization that could inspect food of this kind and be a channel through which it could be safely shared?

What do you think?

Will Another Stone Age Follow The Age Of AI?

“After WWIII, the next war will be fought with sticks and
stones.”    - Albert Einstein

It's hard to imagine how we would survive if our current economic system were to collapse. A World War III or a successful cyber attack on our transportation, energy and other technological-dependent infrastructure, would render most of us helpless. 

In 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression, around 25% of the population of the US were farmers, and the percentage of people with substantial gardens was significantly higher. Many children grew up learning how to grow, harvest and preserve food, sew clothing and provide for other needs.

So should we be raising concerns about our loss of basic survival skills as we become an ever more modernized, industrialized and urbanized society?  

Less that 2% of our population earn their living on farms and ranches today, and many of these are "factory farms" rather than family farms that produce not only commodities for world markets but much of what the family needs for their own food and other needs.  While 43% of the population today still grow some of their own vegetables, the average garden size is about 600 square feet, according to one source, and provides only a fraction of what is needed to feed a household.

We need more conversations about how we and our children and grandchildren can learn basic survivor skills.

And maybe spend some time learning from our Amish and Old Order Mennonite neighbors.

A Parade Of Death Along Constitution Avenue

Two of the sixty-ton M1 Abrams tanks and one of the M109A7 Paladin Self-propelled howitzers that were among the hundreds of killing machines displayed in the June 14 parade.

I found it heartening that on the day of the nation's $45 million military parade in D.C. that some 30,000 attended a ceremony in Chicago's White Sox stadium Friday to hear Pope Leo XIV speak via video. According to the Catholic Diocese of Chicago, the first 10,000 tickets for that event, at $5 each, were sold in the first 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, the highly publicized event celebrating the Army's 250th anniversary drew a crowd of an estimated 20,000, and the No Kings Day gatherings across the nation Saturday attracted some 5 million participants in over 2000 cities.

I don't want to read too much into those numbers, and I intend no disrespect for the well over a million men and women who are a part of the Army's active duty and reserve forces  They, along with members of the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard and other military units, are all fellow citizens I respect and love, but are under the command of a gigantic Defense Department with a budget equal to that of the combined spending of the next nine most heavily armed nations in the world, including Russia and China.

What saddened me Saturday was the realization that our massive Department of Defense is intended to protect us by threatening the use of every means possible to destroy as many of our enemies' lives and means of livelihood as efficiently as possible. Not one of the multimillion dollar death dealing machines in Saturday's parade was designed to feed the world's hungry, heal its sick, house its homeless, preserve its environment, or educate its young. 

Yet some will say that kind of investment is necessary to protect us and to make the world a more peaceful and habitable place. But how has the world benefited from our prolonged wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to cite some recent examples of how the world's greatest military might has been incapable of bringing peace and human wellbeing through military means.

As Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, "To go marching down Constitution Avenue looks like you've won something, Unfortunately, the way things have been going, it's been pretty tough for our military to achieve its objectives lately." 

But what about World War II, you ask, which resulted in the loss of some 50 million lives and at a cost of trillions of dollars worth of destruction?

A far better way to have prevented that holocaust would have been having the citizens of pre-war Germany, then one of the most Christianized countries in the world, simply refuse to support the rise of an authoritarian and hyper-nationalistic regime bent on promoting "Deutschland Uber Alles." And a far better way to defend against enemies is to win their friendship through cooperative efforts at improving the lives and fortunes of our neighboring nations around the world.

The direction we are going now, a hundred years later, will almost inevitably lead us to World War III, the effects of which could destroy us all.

Pentecost And The Rocktown High School Graduating Class Of 2025

Our grandson Ian was an honored part of Harrisonburg's
Rocktown High School's first graduating class.

Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs.

Acts 2:9-11 (NLT)

I was impressed by how many nationalities were represented in the Rocktown High School class of 2025 Saturday night. As graduates' names were called out for each receiving their diploma, I couldn't help but note that the event was on the eve of the Christian celebration of Pentecost.  

The Hebrew word for Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, is Shavuot, celebrated 50 days after Passover, a commemoration of God's gift of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And in the Genesis portion of Torah, we are told God's blessings are to extend to all the nations of the earth through a great multitude of descendants of Abraham and Sarah.

Here in our community people from multiple nations have become an integral part of our community, one that waa designated as a Welcoming City by the Harrisonburg City Council in 2016. Due to the availability of work in the poultry, agricultural and construction industries in the area, the proportion of foreign born persons in our area, according to one source, has grown to 16.7 percent of our population. This compares to 10 percent in the state of Virginia, and 13.7 percent nationwide. 

So there are now more than 50 languages spoken by students in the Harrisonburg City school system, which serves a total of over 6,400 students. Judging by the names of the 233 in the Rocktown senior class roster, well over half of the members of our grandson's class may be members of families with deep roots in, and strong ties to, other nations and cultures around the world. 

While followers of Jesus are called to "go into all the world," the world has literally come to us, and in impressive numbers. For all the challenges this can create, I see this representing a diversity that can truly bless us as we work, learn and grow together. What better way to become acquainted with other languages and cultures than to develop friendships with our neighbors from around the globe? 

I see the gift of tongues in the Acts account as not simply being a miraculous sign of the Spirit's presence, but a means by which people are able to communicate good news and a deep sense of shalom with God and each other. In the end, the Bible envisions a future in which Spirit-empowered communities everywhere faithfully live out God's will on earth as in heaven.

For these and other reasons we should resist by whatever means possible the current wholesale detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors without due process. We need to remember we are all either native Americans, children of imported slaves or the sons and daughters of immigrants. And that as God's children we all made of one blood, breathe the same air, and are dependent on the same life giving soil and water for our survival.

In the forever future we are all to become one.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:9 (NRSV)

Note: I recently posted the following by a local immigrant: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2025/05/guest-post-ices-impact-on-local.html