The Roland Allen Post

I have a lot of “favorite” Flannery O’Connor short stories . Flannery O’Connor’s   short story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," is included in   The Complete Stories . This story is somewhat haunting, possibly because O'Connor freely borrows key images from a number of her other stories. For example, the image of the car as a vehicle of freedom and justification is used in   Wise Blood   (with its main character   Hazel Motes   noting that a man with a good car doesn't need salvation); and the notion of Catholicism as a dismissible un-advanced and "old" religion by a character who hasn't the patience to think deeply about spiritual things is used in   The Displaced Person  and other places. And, as is common, the story includes a widowed woman  with an invalid adult daughter who is unmarried. (It's interesting how often O'Connor uses this image since she was a physically afflicted, unmarried adult daughter living with a widowed mother. ...

I thought I'd share a bit of my every day life in southern Orange County, California  since I spend quite a bit of time at the beach, particularly at the end of the work day. This video is in Dana Point , just behind Ocean Institute. View Larger Map

I haven't read Andrew Ferguson's Crazy U , but I did read his article "How to get your kid into the Ivy League," which was published in the March 18, 2011 issue of The Week . Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College I read stuff like this all the time because "getting kids into the Ivy League" is what I do for a living. Or, at least that was people think/hope I do. Actually, I'm a former admissions officer who worked at two hyper-selective and desirable universities. I'll post more on that later. My take-away from Ferguson's article is at the end when he says that the highly competitive admissions process forces kids to eschew being Lisa Simpson. Rather, in applying to college, applicants become charmers, like the character Eddie Haskell in Leave It to Beaver . I see it all the time and my heart sinks when a bright student comes into my office to discuss his college essays. He'll read the essay prompt and as...