...As for me, I am intact, and I don't care.
(from "Bad Blood" A Season in Hell)


For reasons known to three, so therefore not a secret, this will be my last blog post. I'm off to Ethiopia to become a gun runner and slave trader. Send letters to the American Express office in Paris.

I'm something of a politics junkie. As a result, I've followed the current illegal immigration/border security debates with my typical detached fascination. Until last week. On Sunday afternoon, an old friend knocked on my door. For reasons that will become apparent, I'll refrain from naming her. I first met her some 20 years ago when she was working as the nanny for a woman I was dating. She is from Guatemala and is/was an illegal alien. Her presence in this country allowed my friend to attend law school and to ultimately go on to be a very successful attorney.

She left "her country," as she calls Guatemala, because her husband, a construction worker, was injured in an accident and could no longer work. The only "safety net" that was available to the family was for my friend to find work in the United States, which she did.

Some years later, her youngest son arrived in the United States. He was 14 at the time and had run away from home because he missed his mother. My friend sent her son home, but he reappeared a month later at my friend's doorstep. After a lot of yelling and screaming, she enrolled him in school and found him part time work.

Years passed and my friend's son graduated from high school. He and I talked quite a bit about his future. Ultimately, I convinced him to enroll at a local city college and gave him an old computer of mine to do his work.

Several years ago my friend's mother died and she went back to Guatemala. I thought that she had gone there permanently and never thought I'd here from her or her son again.

Last week she knocked on my door and invited me to a party. Her son's graduation party from a Cal State College. He majored in computer science and graduated with honors.

I've heard many people demanding that we round up 12 or so million illegal aliens and deport them because they are a burden on our society. The illegal aliens I've known have been some of the hardest working people I've ever met. Yes, they do tap into the free education offered and, without access to medical insurance, do "clog up" local emergency rooms. However, does this country really want to deport someone like my friend's son who has now graduated from college with a skill that is desperately sought after? This country was burdened by the cost of his education. But in the same way that investing for the future always causes an immediate burden. Look at the dividends. Do we now tell him to leave?

I've heard the argument that illegal aliens are criminals because of their status. My friend is a criminal because she needed to support her family. My friend's son is a criminal because he missed his mother. These aren't criminals, at least not in my mind.

Rant off, comments welcome.

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I last posted. However, this failure to blog convinces me that blogging and novel writing are mutually exclusive.

I'm pleased to have just received a copy of Mark Young's episodes. At a glance, it looks like I've just received a scrap book of old friends' pictures. I spent many a morning marveling over the poetry that Mark posted on his blog. I'm pleased to see that he's continuing to do so, though I've been a little remiss in reading his new blog as religiously as I did Pelican Dreaming. Mark's poems run the range from humorous pun to melodic song. They are always poems that should be read out loud as his word choice is invariably perfect.

I also want to complement Cafe Press. I've had some problems with a couple of other small distributors. However, Cafe Press is a top notch outfit if my experience is typical.

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My parents have left for a month's vacation in China, Tibet and Nepal. If their prior vacations are any indication, they will probably spend a great deal of time on the front lines of a revolution. They managed to be in Moscow during the fall of communism and in Argentina during a military coup. Dad particularly has always wanted to be in the thick of things. He ran a MASH unit for Fidel Castro to pay for college tuition. He spent more time in Vietnam during that "incursion" than anyone should have. His most recent forays have been helping out following hurricane Katrina and delivering pharmaceuticals to out of the way locations in the Dominican Republic. I'm looking forward to more tales of adventure. Bon voyage.

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Brandon and Ian continue to progress academically. I've set up an academic regimine for each of them and we spend at least three hours a day studying. It has been a struggle at times, particularly for Brandon. His prior teachers would not, probably could not, force him to study. However, we now have reached an accomodation. He does what I tell him to. He gets to negotiate and I get to say "no". He no longer has tantrums and he no longer breaks things in anger. As to the latter, I have simply forced him to pay for anything broken. He quickly realized that his outbursts have consequences. His latest testing shows that he has improved his reading ability by three grade levels since I returned in August.

That's all for now.

Wednesday, April 19
7 p.m.
Los Angeles Central Library, 630 West 5th Street (downtown Los Angeles)

Organized by the Los Angeles Poetry Festival and Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, and co-produced by the Los Angeles Public Central Library, L.A.'s most prestigious annual event for the rising poets introduces audiences to some of the most spirited and promising talents to emerge from the city's poetry community. Each year six readers present their best ten minutes on the state of the Library's Mark Taper Auditorium.

This year meet a cross section of lively, talented writers who are making an impression in the Los Angeles Poetry community: Carlye Archibeque, Larry Colker, Jerry Garcia, Claudia Handler, Julianna McCarthy and Sung Y. Yi.

Free. Parking under Library is $7.

What every 12 year old boy wants for his birthday - ring side seats at the implosion of a building.

My best friend Jeff is the head of the San Diego office of the architectural firm Gensler and Associates, and when he saw that the 94 year old Hotel San Diego was going to be imploded on Brandon's birthday, he got us the best seats in the house. The boys were thrilled. His daughter was terrified. Brandon thought this was about the best birthday present ever.

A grand time was had by all, except for Klarissa, Jeff's daughter, who is still shaking.

(Just to give an idea of how close we were, these pictures were taken using the camera on my cellular phone.)

Learning the Wrong Things From Poetry



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Fill your house with books if you want little Billy or Beth to grow up to be an academic all-star. Shakespeare is good. But stay away from poetry -- books of poesy on your shelves may dumb down your child.

A research team headed by demographer Jonathan Kelley, of Brown University and the University of Melbourne, analyzed data from a study of scholastic ability in 43 countries, including the United States. The data included scores on a standardized achievement test in 2000 and detailed information that parents provided about the family. The average student scored 500 on this test.

The researchers found that a child from a family having 500 books at home scored, on average, 112 points higher on the achievement test than one from an otherwise identical family having only one book -- and that's after they factored in parents' education, occupation, income and other things typically associated with a child's academic performance. The findings were presented last month at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in Los Angeles.

Of course, it's not the number of books in the home that boosts student performance -- it's what they represent. The researchers say a big home library reflects the parents' dedication to the life of the mind, which probably nurtures scholastic accomplishment in their offspring.

They also found that not all books are created equal. "Having Shakespeare or similar highbrow books about bodes well for children's achievement," they wrote. "Having poetry books around is actively harmful by about the same amount," perhaps because it signals a "Bohemian" lifestyle that may encourage kids to become guitar-strumming, poetry-reading dreamers.

Yep, it's all poetry's fault.