Federal alcohol Prohibition lasted more like 12-13 years (1920-1933, following the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919.)

My point stands.

Firt of all, this high school senior is barely literate.

Actually, the anonymous author of that letter writes reasonably well. She should be able to write grammar better- as it is, she writes in the grammar of the English being spoken by and around her in her community. It appears to me that her biggest "problem" there is her usage of the verb "to be" (is,are, "going to", etc.)

She should clear that up, because employers and business correspondence want "is" and "are" instead of "be."

She could probably use some vocabulary building, too. All of us can use that.

But those are fine points. They don't affect her command of written content and narrative, which are not only completely coherent, but well above average. She'd make a good reporter or journalist, in fact. She knows how to build and conclude a story. A lot of people don't get how to do that.

I used to grade school achievement tests for McGraw-Hill (they a center at Mather Field, here in Sacramento), including ones for the subject of English at the high school level. I was not an easy grader, either- out of hundreds of tests I reviewed in the months I was there, I gave out exactly one grade of 100.

Believe me, I've seen what "barely literate" or "borderline literate" looks like. And I've seen what "illiterate" looks like. The writing of the author does not come close to fitting those descriptions, either under the McGraw-Hill rubric for grading high school English composition, or to my personal understanding.

In fact, if I had seen a composition like that one when I was grading high school English Comp at McGraw Hill, it would probably be the best writing that crossed my desk all week. Even with the minor issues of grammar.

(Note: I just used a sentence fragment...I think the grammar police should get over it, but I'd correct it by putting it after the second comma in the previous sentence if I were writing for a grade, or for a business letter. It would be clunky, but "proper.")

To return to the problems of the schools and the neighborhoods:

The girl who wrote that letter has been living in Prohibition Era Chicago ever since she was born. Al Capone came back- 100 Al Capones, with 1000 times the money running through their hands.

1920s Prohibition only lasted 11 years. These days, it's been on so long that the business has gone inter-generational.

America- when are you going to do something about that?

You figured out what to do with the alcohol Prohibition, in the 1930s...what's taking so long this time around?

Al Qaeda attacking targets in Israel entails stepping on the territory of Hamas. Hamas does not share the Salafist-Wahhabi religious fanaticism of the leaders and foot soldiers of Al Qaeda. Furthermore, the Hamas organization draws much of it's support from the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran.

That's a recipe for "strain", including the huge risk of an internecine turf war, if the two groups get too familiar with each other.

So my impression is that thus far, any alliance between Al Qaeda and the pro-Palestinian armed resistance movements is carried on almost exclusively at the rhetorical level.

You have a tin ear for reading essay work.

I guarantee that Poor Old Richard is not Elephantman.

I don't have much use for the graphic scenario you anticipate as the fate of the writer, either.

Anonymous, please excuse us at this comment thread. It has already turned out to be more about us than about your story, and I can't say that this comment here has helped all that much. But I can offer an apology for that, with the hope that things get back on track.

the tinyurl one doesn't open for me.

I'll link at my signature with the original, see if that works:

The Pakistan Defence link worked for me.

But for convenience, I've shrunk it via tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/ylfoo6t

[link at sig]

The author of Mother Courage, who I previously neglected to mention: Bertolt Brecht.

And the play is about the Thirty Years' War, not the Hundred Years War.

(In my defense, it's a common mix-up. I also have plenty of company in not knowing when either of those wars started or ended, why they were fought, or their historical outcomes. I do know this: they both sure did last a long time.)