A brief divorce to name some names

On the heels of stating my reluctance to identify letter writers by name, I am about to do just that.

I hesitate to name names because of my unfair advantage; that is, I will always have the last word. Sometimes that’s OK because the writer deserves either kudos or a smack down.

Most of the time, however, letters to the editor of this paper are not personal, and, it seems to me, the number of really nasty ones has declined over the years. Civility is returning.

Of course, there are exceptions. When I wrote last Christmas about my shopping habits, which include paying cash and not using credit cards, one reader had a major beef.

Clipping my column from the paper, she (the handwriting was a dead giveaway), wrote in the margins, “You sure your name isn’t Cheney or Bush? Arn’t you lucky you braggart that you can pay cash. Shame on you for lording it over the poor and helpless.”

Did I deserve that?

Notice that I wrote that I pay cash and did not mention whether I was buying one gift or 20 or whether I was buying them at the 99 Cent store or Neiman-Marcus.

But that really doesn’t matter. I don’t mind saying that I make a very good living but that I work very hard at it too. Many nights during the week, I am hunched over the computer working until late in the evening, as my wife will attest. And recently, yet another trip to New York took me away from my son’s first two Pony League baseball games. The money I made was no consolation but I had scheduled the speaking engagements months ago, before I knew the baseball schedule.

So, no, I don’t think I deserved that. I’ve worked hard for everything I have, and I make no apologies for being able to spend freely at Christmas or any other time of the year. I grew up with nothing and had more challenges than most people and still managed to overcome them.

But a letter in the Daily Pilot on March 7 hit me hard, and I owe both an apology and an explanation.

A few columns ago, I wrote about MySpace.com and how parents need to be vigilant, not just with MySpace, but with everything on the Internet.

In painting the picture of how this instant information and communication can be destructive even in homes where everything seems to be OK, I told the story of a 14-year-old girl who was a straight-A student and whose parents were not divorced.

The not-divorced part struck a chord with Kathy Clark of Newport Beach.

I believe that divorce is bad for kids. I believe the data that shows that divorce has many long-term negative effects on kids. But I also believe that some couples are doing their kids a favor by divorcing and that being divorced does not always guarantee that the children will grow up having difficulty establishing long-term relationships or any of the other troubles associated with kids of divorced parents.

What I did was unfairly paint divorce with a very broad brush. So, to Kathy Clark and to readers who are divorced but who work hard to provide a good home for their kids, I am sorry.

Another recent letter was not addressed to me, but to Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor. The writer stated that the mayor had misstated her position on burying telephone poles and wanted him and everyone else to know of her position.

Under normal letter-writing circumstances, this letter would not be given a second thought. But it was written by Katrina Foley, a Costa Mesa city councilwoman and colleague of Mansoor.

I don’t get it. These people work a few feet from each other a few times a month. How is it that the mayor got his colleague’s position wrong on an important issue? And why is his colleague writing to the Daily Pilot stating that she read his “misleading statement” in this newspaper.

It seems to me that these two need to stop using the Daily Pilot as a go-between and start talking directly to one another.

After all, it’s not like they’re a divorced couple.