By JOHN M. CRISP, Scripps Howard News Service

A fence along our border with Mexico may seem like a solution to our illegal-immigration problem, but it's a sideshow, a distraction from the thorniest of immigration issues: the 12 million or so illegal immigrants who already live here.Who are these 12 million people? I decided to ask one of them.

We have "spawning season," "breeding season" and "calving season," which make our "summer driving season" sound almost like a naturally occurring phase of the American cycle of life. Americans might watch football in the fall and clean their houses in the spring, but between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we drive.

I was thinking about the power of the wind a few days ago, as I relaxed in the cockpit of my humble sailing craft, which was tied up at a dock in the municipal marina in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The relative power of words, as opposed to actions, has been a recurring theme in the Democratic nomination contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.Republicans are being tripped up by their own words, as well. A principle emerges, one dear to the heart of every English teacher: Words matter, just as much as actions, and sometimes they matter more.

When Geraldine Ferraro and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke out respectively on their behalf, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama may have wondered what they ever did to deserve such support.

One of the privileges of living on the shore of a vast saltwater bay is the opportunity to see bottlenose dolphins in the wild. They play in the bow waves of tankers and cargo vessels transiting our ship channel, and they'll approach a small boat, swim close alongside for a few minutes, breaching and blowing, and then disappear.

My part of the country -- deep South Texas -- doesn't usually get as much political attention as it has gotten during the last two weeks. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both addressed large crowds here, Ted Kennedy rallied Obama supporters on the campus of the college where I work, and Bill Clinton has been to town twice.

Just as with JFK's assassination and the Challenger explosion, I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about a school shooting. On Aug. 1, 1966, Charles Whitman collected his small arsenal and rode the elevator to the observation deck of the landmark tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee isn't likely to capture the Republican presidential nomination, but as a potential vice presidential nominee, his remarks merit scrutiny. Here are a couple that caught my attention recently:

The act of reading has been in the news lately.