Weekend chats and spats
We are finishing up the weekend pages this afternoon, and I promise you plenty of good material for your morning breakfast chats -- and spats. Saturday is Valley Voices Day in The Bee and this week we have one of my favorite features, Young Voices. This means a whole page of commentaries by our younger readers, usually high school students and 20-somethings.
This week Clare Godinho of Fresno City College talks about the warning the school got from the accreditation team. She says the school should seize this opportunity to shore up some weak spots. Amy K. Noel of Fresno State has a touching piece about her experience as a soccer coach to some little girls. It should make any high school or college student think about getting a team of her own. Senah Parvez, an Edison graduate who now attends Stanford University, says some of Fresno's health care disparities can be addressed if we all improved our "culture competence." By that she means more respect for one another's ethnic and religious traditions around health care.
Sunday's Vision section is full of good conversation starters. Jim Boren laments state election overkill, saying this droning "all-election all the time" marathon is draining the substance from our public policy debates. He says this should "disgust" voters.
David Mas Masumoto writes Part 2 of his letter to his daughter, Nikiko, who is studying at UC Berkeley. You may remember last month's letter, where he basically told her not to come home because he feared the Valley was not open minded enough to challenge his daughter. In Part 2, he makes a right turn and tells her that he hopes she will come home and make a difference in the Valley, to make it better. I am so fond of these pieces by Mas; they are letters to all of us.
We also have an interesting piece by Kathleen Parker on the topic of "Are Men Necessary?"... Increasingly, women are choosing to leave real men out of the family equation altogether, to the detriment of society, she says. Maureen Dowd is her usual sassy self, poking satirical fun at the Bush administration and wondering if they've been taking too much Ambien.
Be sure to take a look at Blogging Across America, our weekly excerpts from the blogoshphere. There is some fun and wacky stuff in there. I compile that feature every week, and I'd really like to hear from you about your favorite blogs, especially those with comments on public policy. Send me your favorite links -- maybe even your own.
Have a great weekend...
Comments
The blogs I enjoy most are gathered on my blog links page. Among those, I particularly recommend:
Alas, A Blog is an excellent feminist blog, long on useful statistics and thoughtful arguments.
Obsidian Wings Writers from all over the political spectrum write for Obsidian Wings; Hilzoy writes incredibly well crafted articles.
In economics, both Brad DeLong and Marginal Revolution are excellent.
For good stories about motherhood, One Good Thing has great writing.
Posted by: ScottM | March 27, 2006 8:37 AM