A Precious Piece of Personal History

Sister Mary Nazi predicted with disarming certainty that I would lose my religion *and* become a Communist within one year if I defected to the local public high school. Threats of going to hell in a hand-basket fell on deaf ears. My mother paroled me willingly (one of the last willing decisions she would make with regard to me) at the end of 9th grade when she discovered an administrative injustice that deprived me of an earned award. To this day I don’t know why the principal, a cranky barren old woman who surveilled the halls between classes chasing down girls who lingered in rest rooms applying make-up, opted to withhold that certificate of achievement purportedly based strictly on test results. What I do know about adult bullying, however, I learned at the feet of the Sisters of St. Joseph that year. But I was free at last, a phrase that would not become an historic epitaph until later that year in 1963.

Gregarious and competitive by nature, I welcomed the challenge of making the transition into the foray of public education. I walked to school, made friends, surfaced as an obvious over-achiever, and enjoyed my new life of learning and self-discovery. I also discovered Bob Knox, who was one year ahead of me and the smartest guy I’d ever met. The adventures we shared shaped many aspects of my reflective thinking, social conscience, critical awareness, and political views. No other intimate relationship comes close to influence Bob’s character and intellect had on my formative years. And I didn’t lose my religion as much as I cast it aside after I provoked pre-Vatican II Father Flynn to refuse me absolution in the fateful Saturday confessional when I challenged his edict that I lose the boyfriend who was leading me into sin. The egregious soul-damning sin: erotic kissing of the French persuasion!

If my mother acquiesced to my choice of high school, such generosity of spirit dissipated as I approached the decision on where I would go to college. Coercion by any other name would still be coercion, so my choice for college, limited by my parents’ refusal to let me apply anywhere else, left me behind at the local university as Bob entered his sophomore year at Yale. Yale exuded a mysterious and seductive ambiance. I envied Bob’s Ivy League education, and New Haven sucked me into its vortex. In the beginning, I embraced the intrigue of just getting there (a jaunt of 90 miles), escaping many times on false pretenses to my mother. Capers quickly lost their luster. After two years of unrelenting parental wrangling and the complicated logistics and alibis, Bob and I stepped into the abyss, eloping to the local courthouse on Long Island with several close friends in attendance in the midst of the last gasp of spring in 1968. The wedding dress, my first Jonathan Logan and white of course, still fits. Upon reflection, I think it made me look a “little bit” pregnant (a very old joke punch line), and this perception (not reality) may have been just the ticket to persuade the middle-aged female judge to perform the nuptials post haste.

Glory days! The music, the marching, the trips to everywhere, the sun dazed days on the Green, and the classic films at the Lincoln and the Film Society! Eyes wide shut, we grabbed the stars right out of the sky. Some of the greatest minds of our generation passed in and out of my life and now return routinely in dreams, always urgent in their cadence and just out of reach. These years count among the best years of my life. The glass was never half-full; it was always overflowing.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention,” as the Sinatra song goes. These many years later, my first love still holds a special place in my life as a source of continuing inspiration and optimism, the ultimate gift of our time.

Pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator

Newsflash to Fran Florez-- Democratic candidate to the 30th A.D. California:

Your current political advertisement berating state prisoners for being on their beds in the middle of the day speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge about prison life. Unless of course, you know perfectly well those prisoners have little choice about where they spend their time. If this is the case, your ad is a poster session for pandering to the low information voter, a tactic eschewed by true Democrats and Independents.

You mention your Shafter experience, citing instances where prisoners picked up trash in the community. Those inmates are usually county prisoners with sufficiently short sentences to minimize their risk by assigning them to jobs in the community during the day and returning them to the county jail in the evening. On the other hand, state prisoners are *not* assigned to community work unless they are Level I prisoners with a very short time to release or are the select prisoners who receive fire fighter training to assist in wild fire management operations. Otherwise, the typical state prisoner is assigned to an institution, which is likely overcrowded to the tune of nearly 200% in many California correctional facilities. Prisoners not requiring special housing arrangements because of their high risk status are assigned to dormitories or gymnasiums or other areas in the prison that have been converted to housing. Fewer than 50% of the prisoners eligible to be assigned to a work detail inside the prison (kitchen worker, porter, groundskeeper, clerk, etc.) actually have jobs because there are not enough jobs for all eligible workers. So, for lack of any other viable alternatives including recreation on the yard or substantive programs that could prepare for them for successful reentry into their communities, they do sit on their beds…a lot. They read, they write, they converse with staff and fellow inmates. Given the circumstances, these are pretty orderly arrangements, a tribute to the staff that supervise and control large groups of folks who have a track record of not getting along well with others.

If you are really serious about getting the boys off the bunks, then let’s hear about how you as the Democratic candidate for the Assembly seat in your son’s Senatorial District plan to address involuntary idleness in the state prisons. Let’s hear about how you would advocate for a fair share of the CDC&R budget to improve the availability of life skills opportunities for those who want get off the bed and “to learn how to fish.” A well programmed prison is a well managed prison. Corrections officials who have studied the issue know that viable programs for deserving prisoners improve the working conditions for our corrections personnel. It’s certainly worth the effort to attempt to reduce the attrition rate of our trained personnel while providing an opportunity and the proper conditions for fundamental and enduring change to prisoners willing to invest in themselves.

We can do better!

Racing toward 60...

Everyone I know treats milestone birthday years with some degree of dismissiveness until the first time a sentence begins with the words “now that I am 60 …”. Ever since my friend Linda decided to get a tattoo to celebrate her 60th year, I resolved to confront my mortality and get down to business.

I am not going to wait for the official chiming of the clock this year. Instead, I am planning to get a healthy jump on living the dreams these many years deferred. The nagging problem rests not with the doing, but the choosing. Some projects remain appealing; here they are, in no particular order, with no evidence extant of being easily achieved

1. Learning to play golf
2. Taking a Berlitz course in Spanish
3. Running a 5K somewhere in New England
4. Travelling to Ireland and the UK
5. Writing a poem worthy of publication in the New Yorker
6. Documenting one full year by season in photography
7. Packaging a portable “Wrongful Convictions” course
8. Corresponding more the old-fashioned way through letters
9. Going off the grid once each week
10. Converting to Judaism

Stay tuned!

It's All Plagiarism

According to a quote attributed to Shakespeare, there is "nothing new under the sun." No new ideas, no new words, no new metaphors, no new imagery, no new nada. So what was Hillary's camp thinking when their best laid plans led them to hurl the charge of plagiarism over Obama's bow?

My scalp, raw from repetitive clawing, begs for relief. I've finally stopped scratching, but I am still stumped. The situation reminds me of some TV promotions, so slick, almost flawless in their cleverness, and yet I cannot tell you what product they were shilling.

I cannot recall what Obama was supposed to have lifted. What I do remember is a scowling Hillary trotting out both the allegation and the conviction with her characterisitic smugness. Obama, rallying his charm and honesty, cops to accepting the line (what was it again?) from his campaign co-chair and personal friend Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts.

Hillary should be ashamed, especially after parroting a rehearsed glib one- liner intentionally mischaracterizing Obama's slogan. The obvious lift from a million-dollars-a-month advisor who undoubtedly directed her to make sure she delivered that barb at some point when she felt she was in command did more to undermine Hillary's credibility than any fleeting titter of approval she received from her supporters in the UTA crowd at the debate.

We all blur the contours of so-called originality. I pass jokes off as my own all the time, having long ago lost the source. I have incorporated some of the best pedagogy I know from professors whom I admired for their style and substance. When I give solicited or unsolicited advice, who knows where that widom or detritus originated? Crediting the masters is a often fool's errand.

Let's be clear, there are times when attribution is mandatory. When we research, publish, or proffer oral or written work as our own for a benefit (grades or professional evaluation) or profit (financial or psychic), the obligation to fully disclose all our sources is our only ethical, moral, or legal option.

Now that I think about it, maybe Shakespeare did not shape the observation that there is "nothing new under the sun." Does Ecclesiastes ring a bell? As for that source...

I suppose you are wondering why I asked you here today...

I had an epiphany a few weeks ago. Well, maybe not a full-blown revelation, but an eye-opener, nonetheless. I realized I am a closet blogger! Lots of my friends blog. They maintain on-line diaries, contribute regularly to creative writing communities, and advocate for their personal or political causes. But me…I am more of a drop in, drop my load, and run fast blogger.

Case in point…the New York Times. I can’t help myself. I read an article, the topic grabs my attention and I am off! The most recent post concerned flying, specifically, why we do it. Of course, I am not half the frequent flyer as most of the contributing bloggers, but my post appeared. It even generated some specific responses. This, of course, is the high point for me. Most times, my comments dapple the landscape of a generally more verbose, colorful, and incendiary array of commentary. But I don’t care if most readers pass me by. I do it because it feels good. Occasionally, I visit an academic blog of an erudite law professor whose blog I link to from a listserv to which I am totally unqualified to post. That doesn’t stop me. Usually, I hurl what I believe may be comic relief when the scholarship gets so dense even Socrates would cop a headache. Sometimes I actually make them laugh. But I don’t care if no one laughs. I do it because it feels good. In a moment of introspection, I realized that sometime during my early childhood I must have decided everyone was entitled to my opinion. The blogosphere has become my Great Enabler. I don’t see myself as a regular contributor to any blogspot. Too much pressure! Too much like work! I can’t even handle the thought of a bowling league. You know the having to be somewhere every Tuesday night at 7 p.m.? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just doesn’t feel good.

Encouraged by Linda (see her Blog as Trudger), I took the plunge. Welcome to my BLOG!