Monthly Archive for May, 2007

She fooled the military, too

Published on May 31, 2007 in Social Issues. 2 Comments

So the unfolding saga of Azia Kim isn’t quite over. Evidently, she faked letters from Stanford that would allow her to join ROTC at Santa Clara University (Stanford doesn’t have ROTC but they have an agreement that students can join ROTC at SCU) and excelled as a cadet. To prove her progress at Stanford, she had to fake a transcript. If I ever faked a transcript, I guess I’d give myself great grades, too. Her grades were so great, ROTC gave her a Dean’s Award.

What’s interesting to me is the reaction of the Stanford community. Out of 40 students interviewed, 30 said she should be required to pay Stanford back the per diem rate of dorms etc., a total that would come out to $42,000 for the ten months she spent on campus. Wow! No wonder regular folks can’t afford to send their kids to Stanford.

I had no idea that I was getting such an expensive education….

Share

Continuing the List of Books For Boys

Published on May 26, 2007 in Books & News, Children's and Young Adult. 6 Comments

A few books I failed to mention in my earlier list of books for boys were the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The young adult book industry has been exploding books for the last few years, stuffing them into the dark recesses of the publishing stomach and then belching them out to fanfare and wonder. So I haven’t yet tried to compile a list of books for boys that have been published in the last twenty-five years or so–that’s going to take some time. It’s a-comin’, though.

Share

Speaking of squatters…and imposters…and university students

Published on May 26, 2007 in Books & News, Social Issues and Young Adult. 8 Comments

This past week, Stanford has had to kick two women off campus who were posing as students. The first young woman, Azia Kim, 18, apparently told her friends and family that she had been accepted to Stanford. Then she kept up the deception by actually moving here last fall. She managed to live in a freshman dorm all year until this week by leaving a window open and sneaking in. She was able to get away with it because she posed as the roommate of a young woman who believed her story that she didn’t have a key and allowed her to leave the window to ”their” dorm room open.

The second young woman,  Elizabeth Okazaki, posed as a physics graduate student for several years Continue reading ‘Speaking of squatters…and imposters…and university students’

Share

Miner on the Move

Published on May 25, 2007 in Books & News, Social Issues, U.S.-Mexico Border and Young Adult. 0 Comments

UTEP’s alumni magazine, NOVA, did a short interview with me, which was published in the Spring issue. After pressing on the link provided here, scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it. Wow, my eyelids sure look, um, heavy or something in that photo.

Share

PBS Mormon Special

Published on May 25, 2007 in religion. 0 Comments

If you missed the PBS 2-hour special on the history of Mormonism, you can now watch it online at http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/.

Share

City of Men (Cidade dos Homens)

Published on May 23, 2007 in Social Issues and Young Adult. 2 Comments

city_of_men.jpgRecently, I’ve been watching episodes of Cidade dos Homens, a Brazilian tv show about the favelas (slums) in Rio. They were produced and ran long before the film, City of God, and I’m finding them to be somehow more accessible and human than City of God (which I loved). The kids who play the main parts are actually from favelas in Brazil, so they bring their personal experience to the table. Great stuff. Especially if you’re really interested in street youth, which I obviously am.

Share

the first part last

Published on May 18, 2007 in Books & News and Young Adult. 0 Comments

first-part-last.gifI just finished the first part last, a young adult book by Angela Johnson that tells the story of a 17-year-old young man in Brooklyn raising his newborn daughter by himself. The book is great, and I recommend it, because it does explore the tenuousness and instability of a young person who, for the most part, does the right thing but who has been thrust into responsibilities too great for them.  I loved the concept expressed in both the title and in the very first chapter: “But I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They’d be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end. Then everybody could end their life on their momma or daddy’s stomach in a warm room, waiting for the soft morning light.”

Share

So Many Books, So Little Time

Published on May 18, 2007 in Books & News. 0 Comments

I just found another one of those “projects” that become a book I mentioned in an earlier post. In this book, Sara Nelson decides to read one book each week for an entire year. Then she wrote about the ways literature intersects with our daily lives, published as So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading. Must be a trend. Why do we find neat little projects like this so fascinating? What is it about setting a goal, even a somewhat silly goal (like cooking through the Julia Child cookbook in one year), that makes for good reading?

I read more than one book per week, this is basically my job right now, and I’m not sure I could make a project out of it….But I suspect I’ll love Nelson’s book, when I get around to reading it.

Share

Sniffer Rats Take Over Mozambique’s Landmines

Published on May 11, 2007 in Africa and Books & News. 0 Comments

I was looking for a Bruce Cockburn song called “The Mines of Mozambique” and instead found this interesting video about how HUGE sniffer rats are being trained in Mozambique to seek out landmines. They may seem like huge rats to me but they’re too small to actually set off the landmine, so they’re perfect for locating the several thousand unexploded landmines throughout the country. Here’s the link to the video, if you want to watch what these rats do.

rats.jpg

Speaking of rats, Continue reading ‘Sniffer Rats Take Over Mozambique’s Landmines’

Share

Speaking of the Homeless…

Published on May 9, 2007 in Bay Area and Social Issues. 0 Comments

Speaking of the homeless, there is a group of homeless men (in their forties, fifties, and sixties) and one woman (in her forties) who hang around our neighborhood, mostly in the park down the street where I walk Dussen every day but sometimes around the side of the corner mechanic. One of them likes to read Tom Clancy novels, “anything adventurous,” he told me. They all like Dussen a lot. When they see me on my way to school, with my computer/book luggage behind me, they always ask me if I’m “running away.” I wish I could–not from home or writing but from all the other work that takes up so many hours. I was going to hang out with Dussen in the park today because it’s actually warm for once around here but realized I wouldn’t be able to stay there AND get work done because these old homeless guys wanted to talk to me as long as I stuck around. So back to the computer grind for me. It would have been nicer to work outdoors…..

Share