This is in many ways a victory story.

It is about a young woman who, for the purposes of this writing, we will call Suzanna. She ran away from her family’s home in Texas as a young teenager after being sexually abused by her stepfather from the time she was nine.

As is often true in such cases, Suzanna was in no way equipped to deal with life on the streets of Los Angeles, which was where she landed. She fell in with older guys, began using drugs, then more drugs. Then one night everything turned tragic when two of the adult men Suzanna hung out with murdered another young girl.

Suzanna did not participate the killing, but she was present for it—drunk and high out of her mind as usual—and she did nothing to try to save the other girl’s life. So at fifteen years old, Suzanna was charged as an accessory to murder. The DA offered her a deal of eleven years in an adult prison.

Suzanna’s lawyer told her it was a good deal, and that she’d better take it. He was probably right. Another teenage girl who was fighting a nearly identical case during the months that Suzanna was going to court, got 25-to-life.

Of the eleven year sentence, Suzanna served just under ten, most of it in Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla

Suzanna found adult prison brutal and frightening, but it allowed her to clear her head. She coped by staying as busy possible. She took as many classes as she could, got her associates degree, got three different kinds of vocational degrees plus a pile of vocational training. She even did volunteer work fixing and refurbishing computers for donation to elementary schools.

Now, at 26-years-old. Suzanna has recently been released. She has managed to get a scholarship to Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, and is looking for a good part time job.

I know of Suzanna’s story because she was featured some years ago in a highly regarded 2004 documentary directed by my friend Leslie Neale. The film was co-produced by John Densmore of The Doors fame, and actor/producer Mark Wahlberg, and was called Juvies. It examined the excesses of the juvenile justice system while profiling 12 juveniles who were tried as adults. Suzanna was one of the twelve.

Leslie first met Suzanna in September of 1999 when she was invited to observe a writing program at Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall, and quickly became fascinated by the lives of the kids she was observing. Juvies was the result. Suzanna and Leslie have remained in contact ever since.

“I’m so proud of her,” Leslie said when we talked a few days ago. “She is really bright and very determined.”

But Leslie is also worried. Suzanna is staying at a sober living house in one of the rougher pockets of the West Valley. In the past few weeks, Leslie says that Suzanne has been stopped and rousted by police when she was walking home from a late class. And one night she was chased by a carload of men.” (Suzanna is blond and quite pretty.)

“So I’m worried,” Leslie said again.

Hoping to help Suzanna, Leslie sent an emailed note around to a number of her friends. It read in part:

“If you or if you know of someone who can help her in the Valley with a part-time job or a room for her to rent, please let me know. [Suzanna pays $500 a month at the sober living home.] I have known her for nearly ten years and know her to be honest, trustworthy and have a positive attitude. She is a fast learner and would no doubt be a valuable asset to any work environment. You can see from her attached resume that she can do most anything from working as a receptionist, file clerk, electronics or computer technician to restaurant work.”

Indeed, her resume is pretty impressive for someone who has spent most of the last decade behind bars.

I told Leslie I would do what I could to get the word out.

Hence this post.

Plus it was an excuse to tell you a victory story. Even though it’s still early days in Suzanna’s efforts to remake her life, it appears that all the signs are good. And that’s victory enough for now.

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PS: Anyone who knows of a part time job or a suitable room for rent in the West Valley may email me and I will respond with Suzanna’s information.

A variety of must reads below:

WHEN WALL STREET’S RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGY BECAME THE BIGGEST RISK OF ALL

Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine ran a very smart feature article by Joe Nocera about those gee-whiz risk management theorems we heard so much about during the early days of the financial meltdown. Here’s how it opens:

THERE AREN’T MANY widely told anecdotes about the current financial crisis, at least not yet, but there’s one that made the rounds in 2007, back when the big investment banks were first starting to write down billions of dollars in mortgage-backed derivatives and other so-called toxic securities. This was well before Bear Stearns collapsed, before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the federal government, before Lehman fell and Merrill Lynch was sold and A.I.G. saved, before the $700 billion bailout bill was rushed into law. Before, that is, it became obvious that the risks taken by the largest banks and investment firms in the United States — and, indeed, in much of the Western world — were so excessive and foolhardy that they threatened to bring down the financial system itself. On the contrary: this was back when the major investment firms were still assuring investors that all was well, these little speed bumps notwithstanding — assurances based, in part, on their fantastically complex mathematical models for measuring the risk in their various portfolios.

There are many such models, but by far the most widely used is called VaR — Value at Risk. Built around statistical ideas and probability theories that have been around for centuries, VaR was developed and popularized in the early 1990s by a handful of scientists and mathematicians — “quants,” they’re called in the business — who went to work for JPMorgan

Read the rest: [The art’s particularly good too.]

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FORGET THE CASUALTIES IN GAZA, IT’S REALLY ALL ABOUT IRAN

Sunday’s LA Times and New York Times both featured opinion pieces that rationalize the staggeringly disproportionate bombings of Gaza by advancing the theory that Israel really isn’t fighting the Palestinians or even Hamas, that the real target is Iran.

First here’s a clip from the LA Times Op Ed by Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren:

The images from the fighting in Gaza are harrowing but ultimately deceptive. They portray a mighty invading army, one equipped with F-16 jets that have bombed a civilian population defended by a few thousand fighters armed with primitive rockets. But widen the lens and the true nature of this conflict emerges. Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, is a proxy for the real enemy Israel is confronting: Iran. And Israel’s current operation against Hamas represents a unique chance to deal a strategic blow to Iranian expansionism.

(I’m sure it’s comforting for the loved ones of the dead to know that those killed are merely proxies, and “deceptive” ones, at that.)

Then over at the NY Times, Bill Kristol doesn’t bother with civilian deaths—”deceptive” or otherwise—as he babbles with breathtaking lack of anything resembling human concern about how Israel will succeed in Gaza:

An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror — and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East. Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism. The combination of such terror movements with a terror-sponsoring and nuclear-weapons-seeking Iranian state (aided by its sidekick Syria) has produced a new kind of threat to Israel.

But not just to Israel. To everyone in the Middle East — very much including Muslims — who aren’t interested in living under the sway of extremist regimes. And to any nation, like the United States, that is a target of Islamic terror.

It always makes the collateral damage so much less…you know….damage-y if one can simply monsterize the enemy as other with terms like “almost death-cult-like” and “terror-friendly.”

PS: By comparison, the editorial from today’s Haaretz takes a much saner tone and urges the Israeli government to listen to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recommendation of a “lull” in the fighting. The Haaretz editors point out that more days of attack “…and hundreds more dead on the Palestinian side will not enhance Israeli deterrence; it will only undermine the political and moral basis of the operation.”

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A FIRST CLASS MUSIC EDUCATION COSTS….NOTHING

This last is not really a must read. Instead, the LA Times article by Charles Koppelman falls more into the category of a much welcomed and pleasant read, coming as it does on the same day that we read that our lousy fiscal climate may drive the California Universities to accept fewer than usual deserving in-state students because the UCs need the bucks provided by the higher ticket out-of-state tuition that non-California students are required to pay.

Koppelman’s article profiles the Colburn Conservatory of Music, a world class music performance school located across from Disney Hall in downtown Los Angeles, which takes students based simply on talent and merit and charges…..nada, nothing, zip, zero for tuition. The late businessman Richard Colburn made the tuition-free school possible, with ongoing support from the Colburn Foundation.

Anyway, it’s a nice piece. Read the rest here.

The Rosebowl is on as I type (Go Trojans! Fight on!), so I want to draw your attention to a rather winningly encouraging commercial that will be running at some point during said bowl game.

(Pete Carroll rules! Trojan defense is awsome! Must stop Derrick Williams! In the nicest possible way, of course. Fight on! ….ahem. Sorry.)

The commercial features students from ICEF Public Schools, a South LA charter school group that operates 13 schools serving 3000 of LA’s minority kids. Founded in 1999, ICEF—which stands for Inner City Education Foundation—takes kids from low-performing urban areas, and has an impressive record of academic success.

For instance, in 2007, ICEF graduated its first senior class from the View Park Preparatory Accelerated Charter High School and sent 100% of its graduating class of 71 kids to college—-This in our fair city where the LA-wide public school graduation rate hovers at a dismal 50 percent and only 10 percent of south LA seniors go on to college. Actor Don Cheadle gave the keynote address at the graduation.

According to its statement of purpose, ICEF Public Schools “will transform South Los Angeles into a stable, economically vibrant community by providing first-rate educational opportunities and annually graduating 2,000 high school students.”

In other words, ICEF along with Green Dot and others are working to remake the education possibilities in Los Angeles, inspite of the ongoing blockades thrown up by LAUSD.

After years and years of so many of LA’s children being allowed—to our shame and heartbreak—to slip through the educational cracks, these break-throughs in the charter school world this past year, are a source of much welcomed good news.

The bad news is that the lovely 30-second commercial is funded by Citigroup. In other words, some part of our $326 billion in tax dollars bailout of the self-same Citi-folks was used to buy this high ticket commercial. (A Super Bowl spot costs $3 mil these days. I’m sure a Rose Bowl spot is cheaper, but still…..)

Interestingly, originally the commercial was going to be billed as a “Chairman’s message,” but Citigroup wisely decided to back-out of the limelight and merely let the schools and the kids shine, rightly deducing I suspect, that otherwise the spot would draw exactly the criticism I am leveling.

A better use of bucks than executive bonuses, I suppose. (I notice that on Wednesday, new Citigroup chairman, Vikrim Pandit announced that the companies top executives would be forgoing bonuses this year. Nice of them. A little late, since in 2007, the year in which many of the decisions were made that led Citigroup into this year’s trillion dollar catastrophe, the companies top executive officers earned more that $70 million in compensation.)

Citigroup aside, looking into the faces of these smart, beautiful kids—-who represent all the kids nationwide whom our future rides—-seems like an excellent way to begin 2009. They remind us what is possible—-and what, in the end, really matters.

Happy New Year, everyone!

(7-0 7-7 14-7 24-7 31-7 38-24! Go Trojans. Go Mark Sanchez! Woo-hooo!!!

Also, Go OU, and then let’s take a long hard look at who should be declared the national champions damn-it! Fight on!)

Or indirectly anyway.

The hits from the Madoff mess just keep on coming.

The newest casualty, according to the Wall Street Journal’s law blog, is the JEHT Foundation, a New York City-based philanthropy focused on juvenile and criminal justice, human rights, and election reform. Unfortunately it seems, JEHT’s major donors invested with Madoff. As a consequence, the foundation will close up shop in January.

JEHT was the primary funder for such organizations as the Texas-based Innocence Project, the Death Penalty Information Center and Families Against Mandatory Minimums, The Sentencing Project, the Vera Institute of Justice and more, says Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy.

All extremely worthy and important organizations, and all to a greater or lesser degree imperiled because of one man’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

ONE GOOD NEWS NOTE in the criminal justice realm: This spring Virginia Senator Jim Webb plans to introduce legislation to reform the U.S. prison system, the retooling of which is a longstanding passion of his. And according to the Washington Post. Webb not only intends to introduce the legislation, he plans to push hard for it. Given Webb’s slightly tough-guy reputation, say friends, nobody’s going to accuse him of being soft on crime, so if anyone can get away with pushing sentencing and prison reform, it’s Jim Webb.

We’ll be watching, and cheering him on.

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NOTE: I’m half in vacation mode this morning, but will post more later today before we all take off to make New Year’s resolutions. (You are all making New Year’s resolutions are you not?).

I generally stay off this issue, but as the bombing in Gaza continues to worsen and the Los Angeles Times insists on printing blatantly one-sided accounts, like this one, to supposedly inform us, it is time to offer a few counterweights.

(Note to LA Times reporter Michael Muskal: When writing a “primer” about the “key factors behind” any given conflict, like, say, the violence being rained down on Gaza, it is generally considered comme il faut to actually present the “factors” affecting both sides of the conflict, not to merely offer a justification for the side with which you agree, which is activism masquerading as journalism.)

To put a bit more of a human face on the situation, here is an essay written on the second day of the bombing by Dr. Akram Habeeb, Assistant Professor of American Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.

As a Fulbright scholar and professor of American literature at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), I have always preferred to keep silent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I always felt that it was my mission to preach love and peaceful coexistence. However, Israel’s massive offensive against the Gaza Strip has spurred me to speak out.

Last night, during the second night of Israel’s unprecedented attack on Gaza, I was awakened by the deafening sound of intensive bombardment. When I learned that Israel had bombed my university with American-made F-16s, I realized that its “target bank” had gone bankrupt. Of course Israeli politicians and generals would claim that IUG is a Hamas stronghold and that it preaches terrorism.

As an independent professor, not affiliated with any political party, I can say that IUG is an academic institution which embraces a wide spectrum of political affinities. I see it as prestigious university which encourages liberalism and free thought. This personal point view might seem to be biased; therefore, I would invite anyone who would doubt about my assertions to browse IUG’s website and research its history. They would learn about its membership in various international academic institutions, the active role its professors play in scholarly research as well as prizes and research grants they have received.

Why would Israel bomb a university? Israel did not only target my university last night. It also bombed mosques, pharmacies and homes. In Jabaliya refugee camp Israeli bombs killed four little girls, sisters from the Balousha family. In Rafah they killed three brothers, aged 6, 12 and 14. They also killed a mother, along with her one-year-old child from the Kishko family in Gaza City ….

And then there is this from Italian journalist, Vittorio Arrigoni, who has been writing from Gaza:

Read the rest of this entry »

Although I have made much of my living writing about murder, mayhem and tragedy, I’m still having trouble putting down anything that is terribly coherent on the subject of Richard LoCicero’s death.

Fortunately, however, blogger (and WitnessLA commenter) Reg has written well over at Beautiful Horizons about why our friend Richard—the blogger, commenter, former college teacher, former Vietnam war military intelligence officer—was someone who mattered.

Here are a few clips:

His trademark was incisive commentary rooted in a deep reading of history and literature. He was opinionated but, more than opinion, he was informed and analytical. Richard’s knowledge of history was prolific.

[SNIP]

…Richard was a son of Southern California in it’s Post-WWII heyday. He served in Vietnam as an Intelligence officer and had a broad knowledge of the history of U.S. intelligence agencies. He seemed to have read every important book on the CIA ever published. And he’d taught for a time at university, although he’d long parted company with academia. I gleaned a few other smaller things reading his comments over the years - he had a passion for railroads and a taste for single malt scotch.

Richard died on December 15 in a skilled nursing facility in Santa Ana, California. Those of us who had gotten to know him in the often strangely intimate online world have been—-as many of you have expressed here—-completely devastated by the news.

It was early this past summer when we learned that the man whose wit and intelligence that we’d come to appreciate in various corners of the web, was homeless, living on the street, and suffering from a daunting laundry list of physical problems including congestive heart failure and all the complications of diabetes. We also learned that he did all his posting and commenting and reading in whatever public libraries he could manage to get to given the limitations of his ailing body.

After Richard confessed to his predicament, I asked if he would chronicle some of this experiences in journal form to be posted here. His email logistics in doing so were often quite challenging and working them out led to us talking from time to time on the phone.

Usually Richard would call me collect around the first of every month right after he got his new SSI check, meaning he had the money to stay for a few days at a Motel 6. This in turn meant, for a little while at least, he had access to a telephone. When we chatted, we sometimes talked about Richard’s physical condition, which was deteriorating, and the fact that he probably should get some kind of therapeutic help for the depression that came and went with increasing frequency. Other times he would give me his latest take on that day’s political news, and regale me with quirky and darkly funny tales from the world of homelessness.

Mostly, however, we talked about literature. Richard was one of the best read people I know—which is saying something. His love of good writing was deepened by his love for and knowledge of history, politics, the law, and a whole array of other topics. I inevitably came away from one of these nighttime chats (they somehow usually occurred around 10 p.m,) feeling I had gotten far more than I had given.

For instance, when in early fall of this year, I found myself on a George Orwell reading kick, Richard was the ideal conversational companion. He had read pretty much all of Orwell’s work, both the fiction and the nonfiction, and was able to discuss each book and/or essay with vivid and insightful enthusiasm. Even better, for my selfish purposes, he knew the work intimately enough to be able to give me unerring advice as to what I might want to read next.

To paraphrase the rock-and-roll poet, everybody dies, baby that’s a fact. But the thing that haunts in Richard’s case is that is the suspicion that our friend RLC died mostly because he was homeless. Or to put it another way, Richard’s condition deteriorated because he was too sick to withstand the rigors that homelessness imposes, particularly in Orange County, where the number of those in need of shelter so greatly exceeds the number of beds.

“I just need a room,” he kept saying to me. “If I have a room, I think I can handle the rest.”

But Richard never got a room until he was so sick that the only place possible was a bed in a skilled nursing facility—where the care may or may not have been adequate.

Richard LoCicero was a Vietnam Vet and a man with a big lovely mind, a wicked sense of humor, a stupendous amount of courage, and a generous heart.

The fact that we live a society that could find no room for him—literally not one room—is simply incomprehensible.

Yet, this post is meant to be about appreciation rather than grief or fury so, to that end, I think again I will defer to a clip from reg’s post at Beautiful Horizons:

…..rather than dwell on the obvious, I feel more compelled to look at what Richard accomplished even in the face of the most hopeless imaginable fate. His love of history, politics and prose; of sharp debate and wry observation; of reading, of writing and telling us how he saw it, drew Richard to travel miles many days, with a weak heart and a bum leg - literally not enough oxygen in his blood and fighting off infection - to spend an allotted hour in front of a library computer checking in with his “internet friends” and interlocutors, writing his commentary and then, no doubt, spending a few more hours in this haven from the cruelties of the street nestled in a book. I can’t imagine the intellectual will and physical courage that took and I didn’t fully appreciate just how profound Richard’s efforts were until they were done and Richard was gone.

An LAPD command staff friend once told me the following about the elements necessary to successfully train good police officers: “The idea is to create critical thinkers, not just tactical experts, people who can not only shoot a gun brilliantly but who also know when to shoot the damn thing — and more important, when not to.”

According to Sunday’s LA Times, members of the Inglewood police department aren’t terribly clear about the last part of that weapons-related equation.

To wit:

In the span of four months this year, Inglewood officers shot and killed four people, three of them unarmed. The Times’ review of court documents, law enforcement records and interviews shows that the problem is not new.

* Five of the 11 people shot and killed by Inglewood police since 2003 were unarmed. They include a man who fled when officers tried to stop him for riding his bicycle on a sidewalk. An officer said he fired when the man reached for a bulge near his waist, which turned out to be a rolled-up T-shirt.

* Several officers — including a training sergeant – have complained about the department’s policy on when to shoot and about a lack of training.

* To investigate shootings by police, the department has assigned the vice president of the Inglewood police officers’ union, which advocates for officers accused of wrongdoing, and a detective accused by a prosecutor of lying about his own off-duty shooting.

* Two Inglewood officers were involved in using electric Taser guns on unarmed suspects four times in five weeks — including on one man’s genitals — prompting defense attorneys to call them the “Taser Twins.”

Read the rest.

Inglewood Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks is a smart, personable woman who came to her present position with many promises to correct the department’s past problems, including the promise to root out problem officers. In addition, she was kind enough to make herself open and available to several of my USC students whom I assigned to cover the Inglewood police last spring and talked about the changes she intended to make in the department.

My students also found that the Inglewood police had a big public image problem, and that a great many Inglewood residents did not feel at all protected and served by their cops.

Thus when one reads things like the above description of who will be investigating these questionable shootings (…the department has assigned the vice president of the Inglewood police officers’ union, which advocates for officers accused of wrongdoing, and a detective accused by a prosecutor of lying about his own off-duty shooting) it is difficult to imagine what Chief Seabrooks could possibly be thinking.

Maybe Chief Seabrooks in over her head. It takes a strong, steady, confident leader to be able to change an entrenched police culture.

If Chief Seabrooks isn’t that leader, she must be replaced.

Photo by Gary McCarthy, Los Angeles Wave

No, not your drinking water. The drinking water that is the only water allowed he inmates in one of California’s prisons, namely Kern Valley.

The LA Times has the report this morning. But those of us who get collect calls from inmates have been hearing tales of hideous drinking water in various prisons in addition to that of Kern County. But little has been reported.

Good for the Times for doing a balanced job.

May you give and receive much love during these holidays….

In the spirit of the season, here are three lovely songs from some great women. Only one is on-the-nose-Christmasy, but they’re all beautiful.

Emmylou and Patty Griffin…. singing My Baby Needs a Shepherd

Patty Griffin and Natalie Maines singing Mary.

Finally Dolly Parton singing Go Tell It on the Mountain
If you have any to add, list away.

In the meantime, joy to you all.

I had been remiss. I hadn’t talked to Richard since before Thanksgiving and I somehow misplaced the telephone number for the skilled nursing facility in Santa Ana where he had been transferred.

I tried half-heartedly a couple of times to find it in my endless piles of papers and notebooks with no luck. Stupid, I thought, and figured he’d call me.

The weeks passed, and I kept meaning to do more but somehow it did not make it to the top of my To Do list. I was busy. There was teaching, I had my MFA and book deadlines, there were other people with louder emergencies….yadda, yadda, yadda.

A million excuses.

Finally today, I thought I’ve got to find Richard no matter what it takes. It is, after all, the day before Christmas.

I called Coastal Community Hospital the place where I remembered he’d been last before he went to the skilled nursing facility. After several dead ends, I located the social services person who had made the transfer arrangements when Richard left Coastal Community back in early November.

(See this post for a bit of that back story And go here for all 11 posts about Richard.).

The social worker was a kind, intelligent-sounding guy named Dan, and he remembered Richard. They’d had a couple of good conversations, Dan said.

“Yeah, Richard’s really smart,” I said. “Not someone who should have been living on the street. He wasn’t working because he was sick. It wasn’t right.”

Fortunately Richard had given the hospital staff verbal permission to provide me with information about him, and Dan had notes to that effect. This meant he was able to get around the HIPA regulations. But he was doubtful he could find the transfer information this late in the game, he said. After putting me on hold for a few minutes, Dan came back.

“A Christmas miracle! I found it.” He give me the number for a facility called Country Villa Plaza.

“He wasn’t in very good shape when he left here,” Dan said. “So I imagine he’s still there. He told me when we talked that he’d finally realized he needed some help. But truthfully he should have gotten help sooner.”

Although short of a hospital, what alternatives were there? Santa Ana’s shelters are jammed five times over.

“Yeah,” Dan said glumly.

I called Country Villa Plaza right away. The young woman who answered the phone sounded very young indeed. She said Mr. Locicero was not in residence. I got pushy. I was his emergency contact, I told her. If he was discharged I should have been notified. Dan told me this is what I should say if they gave me any trouble. Since there was no one else that Richard put down as family at the hospital other than me, they would likely give me the information.

The young woman became nervous. “He was discharged on December 15,” she said.

“To where?” I asked. Dear God. He can’t have been foolish enough to go back on the street again. Surely.

“I’ll transfer you to medical records.”

I got Roger in medical records who seemed irritated to be working today, and was extremely reluctant to give me any information at all. He was suspicious of my inquiries from the get go, although what there was to be suspicious about was never clear.

“I know he was discharged on the 15th of this month,” I said. “I just need to know where. I should have been notified.” I repeated the mantra that Dan at the hospital had given me.

Roger put me on hold. When he came back I could feel that somehow the air between us had changed.

“I’m sorry to tell you….” he began.

He didn’t need to finish. My heart dropped through the floor ahead of his words.

“….that Mr. Locicero passed away.”

God damnit, god damnit, god damn it. I let him down. I should have called him earlier. I should have done something.

Richard, I’m so, so sorry. So sorry.

I tried to get additional information out of Roger, anything at all. Not that it mattered. I just couldn’t stand not knowing at least something. Surely Richard should not die without at least one person who knew him being told what had killed him? Was it a fast downhill slide? Was there something that could have been done? Where and how was he buried? Perhaps all pointless questions. I mean really what difference did it make now? But still….. Still. Attention should be paid.

Roger grew testy. “You weren’t on his card. There was no family member on his card. And you weren’t on his card,” Roger emphasized this again. “So I can’t give you any information. I am prevented by HIPA laws.” blah, blah, blah.

“Look, he’s dead!” I said finally. “Can’t you at least tell me why he died?” No, Roger said. He couldn’t. He couldn’t let me speak to any of his nurses either. After fifteen minutes of every kind of pestering, I gave up. Heck, Roger was within his rights.

And it was, after all, a bit late to do my pestering. A month earlier would have served Richard far better.

So, that’s all I know.

And it is terrible news.