Benjamin Rose
November 24, 1998
Post #789 – 19981124
I am wishing to speak to Mustafa Please…er I mean Oh Captain My Captain…er ummm well anyway Hello there Genius who has inspired me over the years…I am writing both to wish you a belated Chappy Chanookah and to inform you that I have been accepted to Clarion University for the MLS Program so that I might become a librarian and stock every book by you and your Misses in triplicate no less. I am totally excited and once I get the word that they will loan me the thirty thousand dollars I need to persue this I will be happy because then I am truly going to be heading to graduate school in June. The aforementioned they is actually an it known as uncle whiskers or Uncle Sam or the USA Govt.
In any case and to the point more further I am curious of your take on an issue that both bothers me and leaves me feeling helpless to resolve it: I have heard of late that roughly 45 to 50 percent of all convictions in courts of law are persons of caucasoid distraction. However, 75 to 80 percent of the prisons are populated by minorities. Do you think that a person could possibly remedy this by teaching the younger crowds about the beauty of literature? Do you think it presumptuous for a Middle Class White Male such as myself to attempt to persue such an endeavor? and finally do you believe such an endeavor is possible without living in the inner cities. (I am sort of phobic of large cities after having been mugged last year in Portland Oregon.)
I felt that you who be the fount of all knowledges mighht have an answerto this completely serious issue.
Yours in good health and fine reading,
Benjamin Rose (persuing Librarianship fr the next Millenium)
Daniel replies:
This is not to say that librarians are the finest, best and most valuable people in our society--but they should be.
I am fond of saying, (to myself, because who else will listen?), that being a writer of (good) books for kids is as important a thing to do as exists in all the world. I can imagine a (good) librarian saying the same thing.
If you can get mugged in Portland, Oregon, I imagine you can get mugged anywhere.