The Party's Over

Now for the not-so-happy part of the new year; teaching duties resumed today. On top of that, my track pre-season begins tomorrow. So the days of posting book-length blog entries at 9 AM while enjoying a 2nd cup of coffee are pretty much done. Now it will be shorter stuff (and the crowd goes wild!) posted later in the evenings, as time permits.

Thanks to those of you have taken time to post comments on any and all threads; hopefully there will be plenty of conversation-starters to come. My friend Philip in Samoa pointed me to a link to Larry James Urban Daily blog, which also deals with issues of poverty. I haven't read enough of it yet to know how well it dovetails (or not) with what I have written, and I don't want to comment on Larry James' posts here at my blog... if I feel strongly about anything he's written, I'll post it there. For what it's worth, my "poverty" series is a great example of the page subtitle... "what lurks in the corners of a cluttered mind." Reading the Will article a week ago spurred me to think "out loud" about the minimum wage, which in turn led to poverty, which itself led back to my students who demonstrate that, at least in some cases, "The American Dream" can work. The multiple posts and the length of them are mostly due to the fact that I'm a rookie blogger that had lots of time on his hands. But if you want the "all poverty, all the time" blog, looks like Larry James is the place to go.

Now seeing his blog (and a longish comment thread) on John Edwards, the declared anti-poverty candidate for president, leads me to think a different direction. My next post or two will be ruminations on the various (so far) front-runners for president. I'll try to keep them short.