« March 2007 |
Main
| May 2007 »
Brian Lewis, who writes for the editorial pages at the Springfield News-Leader, wrote this touching poem about Virginia Tech Engineering professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, who died that
day protecting his students from an assassin's bullets.  There's a multimedia presentation of it, complete with photos. Or, if you prefer, here is the text. (There is an introduction at the beginning. )
The Bee doesn't normally print poetry, but this, I think, is a special case.
Never forget. Talk to a Jewish person about the Holocaust and you'll likely hear
those two words. Never forget.
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is an important holiday in
Israel and in the Jewish community. This year Yom Hashoah fell on
April 15. It was observed on Monday, April 16.
That is the day, Seung-Hui Cho killed 33 people at Virginia Tech
University. Engineering professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, died that
day protecting his students from Cho's bullets. I thought about those two events quite a bit.
Then I read an obituary of Professor Librescu in the New York Times where his son Yossi Librescu said, in a telephone interview from
Israel: "He was passionate about life. He had no fear of death."
That inspired me to write a poem about the two of them for a poetry
slam, a competitive poetry event, last week. I have no idea if the words of this poem reflect the emotions of Yossi
Librescu. It's a tribute to him and his father. Librescu is survived by another son, Aryeh, and his wife, Marlena.
A poem for Liviu Librescu, a poem for his son Yossi Librescu
Remember.
I remember
as a child
I worshiped my father.
And now he's dead.
He loved life, was passionate about it.
And he knew death, knew the stench of it.
But never did he fear it.
He knew it too well.
He knew that fear was worse than death.
He never forgot
Ha Shoah.
Gas ovens, firing squads, mass graves.
And it never ends.
What was a 23-year-old punk with a gun to him?
He stood in the door,
he took five shots.
And he told his students to live.
Jump out the windows and live.
He died so they might live.
I thought of him as a Jew.
I thought of him as my father.
And now my mind flashes back
to scenes from the movie Gladiator.
A general who became a slave,
slave who became a gladiator.
We, a people enslaved,
we've become a mighty nation.
And I,
I am the son of a murdered father,
cousin to a murdered nation.
It never ends.
They want us dead again.
Iran, Iraq, the Palestinians.
They want to kill my brothers,
my sisters, my children, my wife.
What did the warrior say?
My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius,
Commander of the Armies of the North, loyal servant to the true
emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.
And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.
Father to a murdered son. Son to a murdered father.
Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.
And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.
Except, except I will not.
I will not have my vengeance.
I've had enough death.
I will be vulnerable.
I knew a man once who said,
Death smiles at us all.
All a man can do is smile back.
And so I smile.
I remember everything.
I remember lines
from that movie.
What we do in life,
echoes in eternity.
And so I will do something with my life.
And I will remember.
I will make my father proud.
I will savor every moment.
I am because of him.
I live because of him.
And so do they.
He told his students to live.
Jump out the windows and live.
And I know
they will live and
they will remember.
Contact columnist Brian Lewis at blewis@news-leader.com
(Associated Press photo)
Fresno Planning Director Nick Yovino is back on the job after suffering a heart attack in January, and that's great news, for Nick and his family and for the people of Fresno. 
It's easy, even conventional, to speak the word "bureaucrat" with a sneer. It's also unfair in most cases, most especially so with someone like Nick Yovino. His vast expertise and his passion for Fresno and its people combine to make him valuable all out of proportion to his public servant's pay.
And more good news from today's story in The Bee: High on Nick's agenda now that he's back in the saddle is the need to "Breathe life into downtown by prodding developers to build homes that young adults would want to live in." May it soon be so.
That's the question two writers address in our Sunday Vision section. 
Andrew P. Morriss says Gore's plan would shatter the U.S. economy.
On the other side of the issue, Matthew R. Auer argues that Gore's ideas are the right approach to the problem.
What do you think? You can comment here or send a letter to letters@fresnobee.com.
(Photo: VNU DIGITAL PHOTO)
The research is conclusive -- breastfeeding is one of the best things mothers can do to ensure their babies get a healthy start in life. Breastfed babies are less likely to be obese, have healthier immune systems, less likely to get asthma -- the list goes on and on. The American Academy of Pediatrics says this:
" Extensive research, especially in recent years, documents diverse and compelling advantages to infants, mothers, families, and society from breastfeeding and the use of human milk for infant feeding. These include health, nutritional, immunologic, developmental, psychological, social, economic, and environmental benefits.
Best of all -- it's free! How often do you get a deal like that in life?
Fortunately, lots of folks are encouraging mothers to breastfeed by making it easier on them. For example, they provide comfortable little areas where moms can nurse in a quiet and private spot. Others just let them know that their business is forward-thinking, family friendly and the mothers are encouraged to feed their little ones if needed. There is even a little sign you can post outside your church, office or business to let mothers know that breastfeeding is encouraged there. Edie Jessup of Fresno Metro Ministry has put one up at their office and challenged other congregations, organizations and businesses to do the same. I got an e-mail from her recently that said she's getting a very good response to her challenge.
Would you like to send a healthy message? Here's the Web site, where you can download the icon. www.mothering.com/sections/action_alerts/iconcontest/icon-pictures.html
Want to know more of the benefits? They're pretty impressive. Here's a list from Wikipedia
Benefits for the infant
The health benefits of breastfeeding are well documented.
Breast-fed babies have a lower risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and other diseases. Suckling at the breast encourages the proper development of the infant's teeth and speech organs. Suckling also helps prevent obstructive sleep apnea. Also, breast milk is at the right temperature and is immediately available from the breast.
Breastfeeding is associated with lower risk of the following diseases:
Allergies[21]
Asthma[8][20]
Autoimmune thyroid diseases[22]
Bacterial meningitis[8]
Breast cancer[19]
Celiac disease[23]
Crohn's disease[24]
Diabetes[8][20]
Diarrhea[8][20]
Eczema[25]
Gastroenteritis[26]
Hodgkin's lymphoma[8][20]
Necrotizing enterocolitis[8]
Multiple sclerosis[22]
Obesity[8][20]
Otitis media (ear infection)[8][20]
Respiratory infection and wheezing[8][20]
Rheumatoid arthritis[27]
Urinary tract infection[8]
Breast milk has several anti-infective factors. These include the anti-malarial factor para-amino benzoic acid (PABA),[28] the anti-amoebic factor BSSL,[29], lactoferrin, the second most common protein in human milk, that binds to iron and inhibits the growth of intestinal bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella, [30][31] and IgA which protects breastfeeding infants from microbial infection.[32]
Breast milk contains the right amount of the amino acids cystine, methionine and taurine that are essential for neuronal (brain and nerve) development. [33] A New Zealand study tracking over 1000 children for 8 to 18 years found small but measurable increases in cognitive ability and education achievement. This remained even after adjusting for other factors (such as maternal education level).[34]
One study suggests that in resource-poor settings where safe infant formula is unavailable, exclusive breastfeeding (as compared with "mixed" feeding where breastfeeding is combined with formula, solids or animal milk) may reduce the risk of HIV transmission from mother to child in infants less than 6 months old.[35]
Unlike human milk, the predominant protein in cow's milk is beta-lactoglobulin, an important factor in cow milk allergies. [36]
Is the political cartoon your favorite part of the Opinion pages? If so, you'll like this art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York - a project that would be interesting to do locally as well. According to the New York Sun article, Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi will spend a week top a hydraulic lift, making political drawings in black Magic Marker on the tall white walls of the museum's Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium while visitors look on. Now, that's the best kind of graffiti -- edgy, political and invited.
From The Sun: Mr. Perjovschi, trained in painting under a communist regime so strict it prohibited the study of artists newer than Picasso, said he is wary of being tied down, artistically or otherwise. "It gives me freedom to redraw," he said of the temporary nature of his irreverent cartoons, which range from gun-shaped human bodies to a figure with sweat stains labeled "global warming." "I can travel with my own drawings -- that's very nice," he said.
Mr. Perjovschi's work, part of MoMA's ongoing Projects series, officially opens next Wednesday. Until then, he will continue to draw directly on the atrium's walls for several hours a day while museumgoers watch, transforming the work from drawing to performance. When the exhibit -- Mr. Perjovschi's first solo exhibition in America -- closes August 27, the walls will be returned to white.
I can see our own SW Parra having a good time with a project like this... What do you think?
So, you think you've got the secret password thing all figured out by always making your password "password"? Clever, right? Wrong. Forget it! That's way too easy. No wonder identity theft is off the charts. I sympathize, however, because it's tough remembering all those passwords. And if you keep a directory somewhere, well that makes you vulnerable. I create passwords and promptly forget them! Good, huh? Anybody got a good system for creating passwords that you can tell us about without compromising your own security? Share!
Here's one of my systems... It's not very original but it seems to work. I create a password like, for example, thebee1, and then every couple of weeks or so I change it to thebee2, thebee3, thebee4 and so on through all the numbers. For some reason, I can remember the number I'm on. Not sure why but it seems to stick.
Here are the 10 most common passwords:
1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)
The much-ballyhooed prison reform package that rocketed through the Legislature and was signed by the governor this week is already drawing fire from several quarters. Here's our editorial on the issue from today's Bee.
A lot got left out of the legislation in the rush to photo-op in Sacramento. Among the important elements stripped from the bill were a review of the tangled state sentencing structure, changes in the dysfunctional parole system and a widely praised proposal to house 4,500 nonviolent female offenders in correctional centers near their homes, instead of the more costly alternative of state prison.
Nor is it clear that the three federal judges who have California's prison system in their judicial sights will buy the "reform" as adequate, according to The Sacramento Bee's Andy Furillo.
But my favorite reaction, reported by Jenifer Warren in the L.A Times, came from Franklin Zimring, a professor and corrections expert at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. He said, "This is a deal about practical politics and beds. So it's going to satisfy the Sealy mattress company, and that's about it.'"
If you think watching the principal kiss a pig to motivate kids to read sounds fun, get a load of TeacherTube. It's designed to resemble YouTube, and it's not blocked off the school sites like YouTube often is. Some of these are at least as funny as Nora, the piano-playing cat.
Here is a blog item from Teacher magazine that tells all about it and ... well ... Mrs. Burk, the rapping math teacher, sings about how to change a mixed number to a simplified fraction.. Um, OK> The video called the "walkthroughs" is pretty hilarious, too. I'd like to see some of our great Valley teachers getting their videos posted up there. How about it?
TeacherTube
Techno-educator Dan McDowell of A History Teacher reports on the recent launch of TeacherTube--a YouTube look-alike that's devoted exclusively to educational videos. Teachers can use the site to upload professional development videos and projects created in their classes, as well as to view, download, and comment on other educators' videos. The expectation is that noneducational and inappropriate videos will be "flagged" by users and removed from the site.
For McDowell, the great advantage of TeacherTube is that, unlike YouTube, it's not blocked by his school. But he notes that its success will depend on whether it can attract a critical mass of users. "Teachers definitely need to try it out. Create, upload. The only way to really increase the value of this resource is for all of us to contribute to it."
In any case, there's some wonderfully creative stuff already up on the site. This one, for example, has the makings of an instant classic: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303&page=1&viewtype=&category=mv
Myser Keels died Sunday. He was the founder of the Fresno West Coalition for Economic Development, and a strong and important figure in southwest Fresno for many years. 
Keith Kelley, another southwest Fresno stalwart, forwards the information that Myser's visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. today at Yost and Webb Funeral Chapel. Services will be Saturday at Saint Joseph Baptist Church, on California and Martin across from Edison High School.
I first encountered this quietly powerful man back when his coalition was leading the fight to bring a supermarket to southwest Fresno, an area long overlooked and neglected when it came to services of all kinds. I wrote several editorials for The Bee in support of that effort -- some of the proudest work I've ever done.
But it was people in the community -- led by those like Myser -- whose persistence and determination not to be left out any longer led to the eventual victory in 1999. The Kearney Palms shopping center has been a success from the day it first opened, silencing the ignorant and sometimes prejudiced naysayers of years past.
Here's more from Keith on his longtime friend:
In Memory of Myser Keels
"My reward only comes from God. Nobody here can pay me for it" -- Myser Keels.
To city leaders, Myser Keels was once quoted as saying "You better get used to seeing me, because I'm going to be here." Not surprising to anyone who had the honor of meeting him. He was there to fight towards bringing the Social Security Administration building back to West Fresno. He was there in 1996, when due in large part to his diligence and willingness to speak out against inequity, it reemerged as a fixture in West Fresno.
He was heard nationwide in Tavis Smiley's New York Times bestseller, "The Covenant with Black America," as strong voice stating "we want choices" for the residents of West Fresno when it had no major grocery store to shop at. He was there when the area's first supermarket opened in 1999, which according to Tom Beggs, Kearney Palms developer, was largely due to Mr. Keel's "tireless work and unselfish devotion."
More than anything, Mr. Keels was there for anyone and everyone who needed him. A 1958 graduate of Edison High, Myser Keels was an unassuming man... a man whose grace and warmth was evident in every smile and embrace, a man who had unwavering faith in the potential of West Fresno and its residents. The Fresno Bee said Mr. Keels "...represents the best qualities of leadership: vision, integrity, compassion and strength. His spiritual presence is an important reminder to all of us, to 'do my best to do what is right.'"
On April 22, 2007, Myser Keels passed away. Undoubtedly, the legacy of his work will continue to be an inspiration to residents and community leaders alike. The culmination of his assertive work as an advocate, Fresno West Coalition for Economic Development, will continue the vision our founder, Mr. Keels, set for West Fresno. We mourn his passing, and offer our greatest condolences to his family.
In memory of founding chair,
Fresno West Coalition for Economic Development
(Photo by: Craig Kohlruss/Bee file)
Jarah Euston, Fresno's blogging queen and founder of www.fresnofamous.com, is moving on. In August, she's starting the MBA program at the Wharton School. She promises she will stay in touch via the Web site, which she sold this year to McClatchy. I'm happy that she's got this great opportunity to study at Wharton, but selfishly, we'll miss her in Fresno.
All we can say is, bring some of those bright ideas back when you finish, Jarah.
She promises she will stay in touch via the Web site. Here is her farewell note;
You can take the girl out of Fresno...
And you know the rest. Before you learn about it on the street, I'd like to tell the Famous community that I'll be leaving Fresno this summer to continue my education.
In August I'll be starting the MBA program at The Wharton School [1] at the University of Pennsylvania. As the name might imply, this school is not in the Central Valley.
The decision to leave Fresno was not an easy one. Fresno will always be home. If you'll forgive my sappiness, my heart will always be on Olive, in vacant downtown buildings, at Kern Street Coffee, Javawava, and Yoshi Now!; there might even be a ventricle lingering at Fig Garden Village and Roeding Park.
While I may have an exit strategy, I'll never abandon Sour Grapes or this community. As long as there is Internet I'll be on Famous. Please say hello and goodbye in the coming months as we run into each other at shows, ArtHops, and dark downtown alleys.
Michael Hanson, superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District, has written a letter to district employees laying out the education successes of the school system. You can read the letter here.
Now that the district is in contract negotiations with the teachers union, there will be a lot of charges and countercharges about district operations. This is the superintendent's view.
E-mails are convenient. They're quick and easy. They're used for all manner of communication these days. But some think the word "send" is the most dangerous four-letter word in the language.
We've all seen examples, recent and not-so-recent, of people getting in varying degrees of trouble over e-mails, from officials in the White House to an employee at a local school district who just quit his job in the midst of an investigation over "offensive" e-mails.
Robert Fulford, writing in the National Post (of Canada), offers his review of the new book, "Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home"(Knopf). It's by David Shipley, who runs The New York Times Op-Ed page, and Will Schwalbe, editor-in-chief of Hyperion Books. The book, Fulford says, has many examples and some good advice for those who use e-mail.
E-mail a friend about it. Carefully.
It speaks well of our community's compassion that many people, including California State University, Fresno and Fresno City College have been featured in The Bee honoring the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre with memorial services and other tributes. At State, there is a memorial garden next to the library. Two Virginia Tech alumni now teach at Fresno State and they were asked to read the 32 victims' names at the ceremony.
Today's young adults are often criticized for not being engaged in the public discourse. That is certainly not true when it comes to this issue. University President John Welty set a good example, telling his young students that this is a time when it is "very important that we reach out to each other." Fresno State is sending a banner to Virginia Tech, which I am sure the student body will greatly appreciate. It's so hard to know what to do to comfort people enduring such pain, and the truth is anything helps, any small gesture is going to be appreciated.
At Fresno City College, the students decided to send paper cranes and offers of service to Virginia Tech. Paper cranes are a symbol of peace and hope. There is a popular book called "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." Here is the story from the Web site
The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it's connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.
The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.
Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako's friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.
In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:
"This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world".
Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako's monument in Hiroshima.
There also is a statue of Sadako in Seattle.
It's Turn Off the TV Week, an admirable goal that's been adopted by the California Obesity
Prevention Initiative. I think it's a fine experiment for families to try. Excessive TV viewing is being linked to all kinds childhood pathologies -- none of them are good.
According to Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle, some San Francisco area school officials are joining children across the country participating in the annual TV-Turnoff Week, but not for the same reasons as most schools. In 2001, the event started as a way to address health issues, with the idea that children were spending too much time on the couch watching television and not enough time interacting with family or exercising.
However, schools like Visitacion Valley in the Bay Area are looking for ways to reduce violence and aggression in the community and on the schoolyard -- and they've put television and video games on the list. Research has found that children who cut back on screen time are less verbally and physically aggressive on the playground, said Stanford Associate Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Thomas Robinson.
For Adbusters, it's more about having our kids bombarded with unwelcome and unhealthy commercial messages. "It's about saying no to unfettered corporate media concentration and to the democratic deficit that results. And it's about challenging the heavily distorted reflection of the world that we see on the screen, a reflection that is keeping us ill-informed and unaware of the very real political and environmental crises that we all currently face.
I've never really tried this experiment in the family with kids in the house. Have you? Share! My inclination is that it wouldn't be a big deal at the moment, since our teenager in residence is far more attached to the computer than the TV.
Do you need any more reasons to take a week off? The American Academy of Pediatrics has an exceptional list of guidelines about TV on its Web site:
Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, doesn't talk food policy with his mouth full. Good for him. To draw public awareness to the issue of trying to feed a family healthfully on a food-stamp budget, the governor is trying it himself for a week -- spending just $21, which is what the average recipient receives. The average person in California has it a little better, with about $36 a week to spend, on average. Still, we would love to see California's public officials do likewise. They could easily spend that much on dinner in Sacramento.
The Oregon governor made some predictable tradeoffs, swapping his preferred Progresso soups at $1.53 apiece, for three packages of Cup O'Noodles for 33 cents each. That was just the beginning of his rude awakening.
Here's the whole story of the Oregon governor's shopping trip:
By JULIA SILVERMAN, Associated Press Writer
SALEM, Ore. - If Gov. Ted Kulongoski seems a little sluggish this week, he's got an excuse: he couldn't afford coffee.
In fact, the Democratic governor couldn't afford much of anything during a trip to a Salem-area grocery store on Tuesday, where he had exactly $21 to buy a week's worth of food -- the same amount that the state's average food stamp recipient spends weekly on groceries.
Kulongoski is taking the weeklong challenge to raise awareness about the difficulty of feeding a family on a food stamp budget.
Accompanied by reporters and food stamp recipient Christina Sigman-Davenport, Kulongoski headed straight for a display of organic bananas, only to have Sigman-Davenport steer him toward the cheaper non-organic variety.
The governor pined wistfully for canned Progresso soups, but at $1.53 apiece, they would have blown the budget. He settled instead for three packages of Cup O'Noodles for 33 cents apiece. Kulongoski also gave up his usual Adams natural, no-stir peanut butter for a generic store brand, but drew the line at saving money by buying peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.
"I don't much like the looks of that," said Kulongoski, 66, staring at the concoction.
Other shoppers in the store were bemused by Kulongoski's quest.
"Obviously, he doesn't shop often," Barb Sours of Salem said, as Kulongoski bounced around the aisles in search of granola. "He's all over the place."
Kulongoski did pause to chat with shoppers John and Bonnie White of Salem, telling them all about his $21 limit.
"Don't spend it all in one place," John White warned.
Along the way, Sigman-Davenport, a mother of three who works for the state Department of Human Services and went on food stamps in the fall after her husband lost his job, dispensed tips for shopping on a budget. Scan the highest and lowest shelves, she told the governor. Look for off-brand products, clip coupons religiously, get used to filling, low-cost staples like macaroni and cheese and beans, and, when possible, buy in bulk.
At the check-out counter, Kulongoski's purchases totaled $21.97, forcing him to give back one of the Cup O'Noodles and two bananas, for a final cost of $20.97 for 19 items.
After the hourlong shopping trip, Kulongoski said he was mindful that his week on food stamps will be finite and that thousands of others aren't so lucky.
"I don't care what they call it, if this is what it takes to get the word out," Kulongoski said, in response to questions about whether the food stamp challenge was no more than a publicity stunt. "This is an issue every citizen in this state should be aware of."
News item from The Bee:
"American car buyers turn to Japan"
For the first time, Toyota has surpassed General Motors in sales for a qaurter. The rise of Toyota has been tracked for some years, and most observers have felt it was only a matter of time before GM's 70-year run as the world's leading automaker ends.
News item from the Detroit Free Press:
"U.S. cars show no fuel-efficiency gains in 2006"
The fuel efficiency of the U.S. fleet was stuck at 25.4 miles per gallon in 2006, unchanged from the year before, and lower than it was 20 years ago.
The Free Press reports: "GM's domestic car fleet averaged 29.2 mpg, the same as a year earlier, while its truck fleet fell 0.1 to 21.7 mpg Ford Motor Co.'s averages declined for both cars and trucks, with a 0.4 mpg drop in cars to 28.2 and a 0.6 mpg drop in trucks to 21.1."
And this: "Toyota had the most fuel-efficient North American-built cars of any automaker, averaging 34.7 mpg, an increase of 0.3 from 2005."
Although I've considered myself an on-again/off-again runner for years, I've always been ambivalent about setting a goal for myself to complete a marathon. I've walked a half marathon, and will take part for the second year in a row in the 199-mile Relay from Calistoga to Santa Cruz in less than two weeks.
My brother and sister-in-law have become involved with Team in Training the past few years, doing marathons around the country and raising thousands of dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. But between the training and the fund-raising, that has just been a bigger commitment than I've been willing to make, with a small child, three older children and a full-time job. When I run, I just want to put on my shoes and do it, when it fits in my schedule. 
My motivation to set a goal for a marathon has changed with an announcement in today's newspaper. A marathon is returning to the Fresno-Clovis area in 2008, sponsored by the same organizers who put on the Trail of 2 Cities half-marathon in November.
The route looks good, the time of year is tolerable running weather and it's in my home. How much easier could it be to motivate myself to do this thing for myself? I'll be 42 years old then, but it's something to shoot for. Want to run with me?
Today is Jeans for Justice Day and I'm trading my business attire for dress blues.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness month. A Woman's Place in Merced, a battered women's shelter, is one of the local sponsors of the national Jeans for Justice Day. There will be a barbecue in Merced's Courthouse Park from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Call for tickets: 209-725-7900. It's co-sponsored by the Atwater, Livingston and Merced and University of California Merced Police Departments and the Merced County Sheriff's Department. The Livingston officers are taking charge of the barbecuing. There will be a clothesline at the barbecue with jeans emblazoned with the ignorant phrases of the past that blame the victims for their rapes: "She asked for it." "She wore a short dress." "She was drunk." "She dated him before." "She was in his room at 2 a.m." "She was dancing sexy."
On Jeans for Justice Day, supportive people are encouraged to:
* Wear jeans...participate and protest
* Talk about it...challenge harmful attitudes
* Change it...Join together to make our community safer from sexual assault.
What's the significance of the jeans? According to the organizers, wearing jeans during Jeans for Justice Day became a symbol of international protest of harmful attitudes about rape in 1999 in response to an Italian Supreme Court decision to overturn a rape conviction because the victim wore jeans. The court ruled that it is impossible to take off tight pants, such as jeans, without he cooperation of the person wearing them and said it is impossible if the victim is struggling.
The outrage was global. Women legislators in California wore jeans to the Capitol to bring attention to the issue. I hope they'll do likewise this year.
I especially liked the comment from an Italian union official, Stefania Sidoli, who said, "We thank the court for having enriched women's wardrobes with a new garment. To the business suit and the little black dress, we can now add the anti-rape outfit: a comfortable and resistant pair of jeans."
There are stickers available to wear that you can get by calling 725-7900. Even better, at the same time, send a $5 donation to assist an organization that works to prevent sexual assault and to help the survivors. In addition to all the Merced County law enforcement agencies, here are some Fresno resources:
Fresno County Sheriff's Department, 488-3111
Fresno Police Department, 621-7000
Child Protective Services, 255-8320
Adult Protective Services, 255-3383
Rape Counseling Services hotline, 222-7273
Marjaree Mason Center hotline: 233-4357
Victims services: 488-3425
A Woman's Place in Merced crisis line: (209) 722-4357
We got word this morning from Alex Traverso of the office of Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), that AB1634, the Healthy Pets Act, has just passed the Business and Professions Committee by a vote of 7-2. Here is our editorial on the subject.
One of the many battles in the Fresno Unified School District these days is over 30 extra instructional minutes in grades one, two and three. . . Administrators say it would help raise student performance. The teachers union says the district doesn't know whatit's talking about.
We come down on the side of more class time. Here's today's editorial on the topic.
Incredibly, the Fresno Teachers Association argues that more instructional time doesn't make a difference in a child's learning. So why are we sending our children to school?
Here's a passage from Monday's story in The Bee quoting FTA President Larry Moore:
But Moore said he personally rejects the notion that more class time must equal a better education.
"There's no research to show that," he said.
"The district is obsessed with test preparation."
Prom season is in full swing in the Valley and our teenagers are obsessing, as usual, over the who, what, when, where and why of prom night. I thought that things were pretty elaborate here in Fresno on prom night, what with all the expensive dinners and dresses, limos, tuxes, professional makeup and hair appointments. But hey, we're leading the simple life compared with some other parts of the country. A recent USA Today story describes kids who are making prom an entire weekend event that's practically a wedding celebration. I've always thought an organized after-prom party sounded like a good idea. But folks in other places are not only having an after party, but a pre-party dinner as well. That makes it a three-day ordeal. If you've ever seen those goofy kids on the "My Sweet 16" show on MTV you get the idea. Can you say "overkill" ? Scary, very very scary.
I'm a news junkie, and a jigsaw puzzle junkie as well. So it was the best of both worlds for me over the weekend, when I passed a few hours assembling a 500-piece puzzle showing the front page of The New York Times after the Titanic sank. 
Later I was browsing on the NY Times Store Web site (I've got to get the puzzles from when we landed on the moon and when JFK was assassinated!), when I came across this great gift idea.
You can have a 400-piece jigsaw puzzle created, featuring a front page of The New York Times on any date from 1888 to present. What a great idea for birthdays, anniversaries or just as a memento of a historic event.
Sometimes it takes so little to make children happy. One of the cool things about being a pop star would be the ability to write your name and make someone's day. That happened recently, thanks to Ricky Martin and many big-hearted local folks.
Here's the way consultant Phoebe Wall Howard and Micheline Golden of Children's Hospital, Central California, tell the story:
14-year-old Fresnan Cyhara Valdovinos was admitted to Children*s
Hospital Central California on Tuesday, April 17 experiencing
respiratory distress. The resident physician noticed that Cyhara
appeared sad and learned that she was planning to go to the Ricky Martin
concert at Save Mart Center on Wednesday evening with her mom and aunt.
She had a new dress, is a huge fan and didn't want to miss it.
Knowing she wouldn*t make the concert, Children's Hospital staff
were able to secure her the next best thing--an autographed photo of
Ricky Martin, made possible by our friends at Univision 21 Fresno.
Cyhara has Hurler-Scheie Syndrome, a genetic disorder that occurs in
one of 25,000 births, which prevents the body from producing specific
enzymes. As a result, cells do not perform properly and can cause
progressive damage throughout the body, including the heart, bones,
joints, respiratory system and central nervous system.
For a child faced with many challenges, the signed photo of Ricky
Martin truly brightened Cyhara Valdovinos' day.
The Associated Press has just reported the death of journalist and author David Halberstam in a car crash in San Mateo County. Halberstam, 73, was one of the finest investigative reporters to ever work in American journalism, and a personal favorite of mine. 
He began his career covering the Civil Rights movement in the late '50s, and reported from Vietnam in the 1960s. He won a Pulitzer Prize for that reporting in 1964.
My favorites among his books include: "The Powers That Be," about the history and dynamics of media giants -- Time magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and CBS. He also wrote compellingly about baseball, in "The Summer of '49," and "October 1964." One of his most recent efforts was "Firehouse," in which he documented the lives of a group of New York City firefighters, almost all of whom perished on Sept. 11.
He'll be missed.
On the Op-Ed page in today's Vision section, two writers take on the question "Should Congress extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2010."
One says that "leaving more money in private-sector hands can lead to more employment, business activity and investment, which lead to more taxable earnings for the Treasury."
On the other side of the argument, the opposing writer contends that "the lost revenue resulting from ill-conceived tax cuts is devastating to the standards of the neediest."
What do you think Congress should do about the Bush tax cuts? Send a letter to letters@fresnobee.com.
The controversy over showing the video of the Virginia Tech killer isn't even a close call for me. We want and need to know why this horrible crime occurred and the killer is trying to tell us. The more we know and understand mental illness, the better.
The killer's writings and rantings are invaluable clues into the workings of these tragic and mysterious diseases. We truly know so little about the brain and mental illness when compared with our knowledge of physical illnesses. We need more videos, not fewer. People need to see what these people sound like, what their writings look like. So the next time a concerned teacher, neighbor or friend takes these valuable clues to law enforcement and the psychiatric community, we will recognize the common symptoms and take these cries for help seriously.
Now I would like to see even more stories and videos on mental illness. Let's see videos and stories on the lives of each and every one of those students and professors who lost their lives, including interviews with the families whose lives are now devastated. For all those impressed with the notoriety of the killer, let us also give them the truth -- the devastation caused and the tremendous loss to our society of these bright young people and valuable professors.
The pathetic testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday left me wondering whether he really believes that he can hang onto his job. If he's loyal to President Bush, Gonzales should step down over how he handled the U.S. attorney firing mess, as well as the many stories he has told about his involvement in the process that lead to the firings. Gonzales has lost all credibility on this issue.
Even Republicans in the Senate were skeptical Thursday. This is from today's Los Angeles Times:
"Your characterization of your participation is significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the committee.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the explanations "a stretch."
"It's clear to me that some of these people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or at the White House and, you know, we made up reasons to fire them," Graham said.
"There are some very serious problems, Mr. Attorney General," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). "Your ability to lead the Department of Justice is in question."
Sen. Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.) was more blunt. "The best way to put this behind us is your resignation," he told Gonzales, becoming the second Republican member of the Senate to call for the attorney general to quit.
I won't get into what the Democrats said. The Republicans seem to have a handle of Gonzales' ability to lead the Justice Department.
NBC continues to draw criticism for the way it handled the videos sent to the network by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui. The network has been blasted by critics in and out of the media for airing parts of the videos, and now it's getting hammered for branding the images with the NBC logo.
According to the New York Times, "In interviews yesterday several competitors questioned some of NBC's decisions concerning the way it distributed the images, which went out accompanied by a list of rules for how they could be used, including points like: 'No Internet use. No archival use. Do not resell,' and 'Mandatory credit; NBC News.'"
The Times goes on: "One aspect that clearly irritated many of NBC's competitors was the impression of the logo 'NBC News,' which the network burned into every image from the material. Mr. [Paul] Friedman of CBS said he had thought about calling NBC executives Wednesday night to suggest they remove the logo simply to distance the network from the material. 'It may backfire for them to be so closely associated with footage that makes people's flesh crawl,' Mr. Friedman said."
I think there's a case to be made for the decision to publish the images, as disturbing as they are. But NBC soiled itself -- and weakened its case -- by the crass manner in which it handled this matter.
I love new beginnings. Even simple things like opening colorful new file folders, putting new bouquets of flowers into my vases, meeting new people, starting new writing assignments are energizing for me. I'm easy.
A family friend is making a far more significant change in her life by giving up alcohol, something that started out as a comfort but gradually took over until it caused her nothing but grief. She celebrated this fresh start recently by spending a day handpainting her collection of wine glasses, planting a little flower in each one and then giving them away to her friends. On the outside of each one it said "A gift of new life." I think of her every morning as I see it on my countertop. When I water the little flower planted inside, it's like a little gesture that I hope will strengthen her, too.
This woman is a champion. Bravo for her! How about you? Have you had a new beginning big or small that you celebrated in a memorable way?
I was discussing the Virginia Tech tragedy this morning with a former Bee colleague, Shirley Melikian Armbruster, who now works as a spokeswoman for California State University, Fresno. She had just put together this list of methods they use at the university for communications during an emergency.
This is a teaching moment. Now is a perfect time to review the emergency communications resources at our schools and workplaces with our colleagues and family members:
1. Building safety officers. Each campus building has a designated safety officer (or officers), who personally notifies occupants of an emergency or need to evacuate. Emergency plans include established building evacuation procedures and sites for assembly away from the building. That information is available at www.csufresno.edu/police/emergency.htm.
2. Messages are posted on the university Web sites and the student Web portal, www.csufresno.edu, www.fresnostatenews.com and http://my.csufresno.edu.
3. The campus emergency radio station (1040 AM)
4. Fresno State's emergency telephone hotline (559.278.4000)
5. Mass e-mails to students.
6. E-mails to the campus community.
7. Portable electronic signboards located at the entrances to campus.
8. Distribution of news and announcements to area news media, who provide important alerts and updates about campus emergencies.
Vigilance and mutual regard are our allies in maintaining a safe and healthy campus community. Emergencies can be reported by dialing 911 from any campus phone. There are also 57 blue-light emergency phones and 50 other emergency phones in elevators and buildings on campus that automatically connect directly to University Police.
We suggest you add the University Police main phone number - 559.278.8400 - into your cell phone.
Fresno State also is looking into a cell phone message system. Following the shooting incident on our campus last fall in which, thankfully, no one was injured, campus police and public safety officials met with two potential vendors to establish such a service. The service would send a message to voluntarily registered cell phones.
Public safety also is evaluating use of LCD signboards on major buildings.
The University Police Department and campus public safety officials will study procedures and policies at Virginia Tech to learn from this tragedy. Our police chief, David Huerta, plans to travel to Virginia Tech as debriefing sessions are held for law enforcement.
The safety of our students, staff and faculty is, of course, our most important concern. As we join in mourning the unimaginable losses at Virginia Tech, we are determined to make whatever improvements may be necessary to protect everyone.
We invite your questions and concerns on this issue. Contact Amy Armstrong in University Police Department at amarmstrong@csufresno.edu or Shirley Armbruster in University Communications at shirleya@csufresno.edu.
I could have seen this coming.
An article by Associated Press television writer David Bauder reports:
"With a backlash developing against the media for airing sickening pictures from Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, Fox News Channel said Thursday it would stop and other networks said they would severely limit their use."
Within minutes of the news yesterday that NBC had received a "multimedia manifesto" from the Virginia Tech gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, images and video segments from the package were posted on the MSNBC Web site, and aired and re-aired throughout the evening.
Some journalists -- most, probably -- would argue that Cho's message have news value that makes it worth airing. I disagree. I didn't think it was sensitive to the grief of the survivors or the families of the victims. And I think it sensationalizes Cho's actions, setting the stage for copycats to try to emulate the media attention that he managed to achieve, even in his death.
On the Poynter Web site, ethics group leader Kelly McBride discusses NBC's decision to air excerpts of the video, photos and text sent to the network in a podcast. The Poynter Institute is a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists.
What do you think?
An article on the Los Angeles Times Web site talks about what Californians think they know versus what they actually know when it comes to smart diet choices.  There's even a four-question quiz, focusing on menu choices from Denny's, Romano's Macaroni Grill, Chili's and McDonald's. I only got one of the four questions right (maybe because I worked at Denny's for years before becoming a journalist). How will you do?
The rush to ethanol may have hit a roadblock. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today on a study that suggests burning ethanol as a vehicle fuel could produce more, not less, smog-forming ozone than gasoline. That's bad news for people with respiratory diseases such as asthma.
The study was done by Mark Z. Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford. He said "our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage." The study was published in today's online edition of Environmental Science & Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society.
David Pimentel, an ecology professor emeritus at Cornell University, told the Chronicle that "The burning of ethanol releases large quantities of ozone, a serious air pollutant. In addition, the use of ethanol as a fuel releases formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, plus benzene and butadiene. All of these are carcinogens and are a threat to public health."
It's never easy.
I'm encouraged that one of the unexpected consequences of the Imus mess is some delayed attention to the issue of misogyny in rap lyrics. I have found it inexplicable that so many young women of all races have tolerated such degrading treatment. They even sing along. The formidable Oprah Winfrey admitted on Monday's show that she hasn't taken the issue on before now because she didn't want to be "out there all alone" on the issue. Well, on her show Tuesday, she took it on. Good for her. It was interesting to see the rap industry defend itself to Oprah, but the the most intriguing part of the discussion was "Where do we go from here?" with suggestions for making a difference long after the Imus fuss dies down.
I like what Diane Weathers, former editor in chief of Essence magazine, says on Oprah's Web site. ""Women must take the lead in the fight against misogynistic images of women in hip-hop. You cannot go to the industry, people in the industry, and expect them to fix this," Diane says. "Women have to say, 'No.'"
Oprah included a panel of seven women from Spelman College on the show, which is well summarized on the Web site. Spelman women are not new to the topic. In 2004, female students at the college made headlines when they protested a scheduled performance by rapper Nelly at their school. At the time, students said they were upset at how the rapper treated the women in his videos. They say they have been called a ho and that the negative stereotypes in some hip-hop songs are being applied to all black women. "I've heard a lot of rappers say that they are speaking about the 'hos from the street' and the hos from their experience," says Leona, a student. "But they have to understand that men don't make distinctions between those hos and us. When we go to a club they don't say, 'Let me see your school ID' and distinguish whether they're going to call us a ho or not."
Common acknowledges that there is a problem and it is deep-rooted in society. Asks a student named Devon, "Is it okay to continue it?"
No, says Common. "Let me say to the sisters from Spelman we acknowledge there's a problem and we [the hip-hop community] want the help. When I talk to cats on the street, they don't want to be in that situation. We don't want to be in this painful situation," Common says. "And we are apologizing for the disrespect that does come from the mouths of men to women."
Above all, Common says, a solution will emerge once everyone acknowledges the need for change. "We want to change this world and it starts with us. The way we think, the way we speak, the way we act towards ourselves and towards others, because when we've got that love for ourselves, we're going to look at each other no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what mistakes the other person made and say, 'I love you,'" Common says. "We want change for this world. And it starts with our hearts." >
California continues to lead the nation when it comes to efforts to clean up polluted air. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency has effectively take the state's new, tighter emissions standards for small engines, such as those that power lawnmowers, and made them apply nationwide.
California won a waiver from the EPA late last year, and the new rules went into effect here in January. They had faced stiff opposition from Sen. Kit Bond, R-Briggs & Stratton, who said he was trying to protect jobs in his home state of Missouri. Sen Dianne Feinstein led the charge to get California the waiver, and now the rule will apply across the country.
That's good news. Small engines produce about 7% of all smog-forming pollutants from mobile sources in the U.S.
The EPA estimates that by 2030, the proposed standards would eliminate 2.7 million tons of carbon monoxide, 630,000 tons of hydrocarbon emissions, 98,000 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions and 63,000 tons of particulate matter.
If you thought that production dance number with the rich little old ladies in "The Producers" was just a fanciful hoot, well, hold on to your oxygen tanks.
Check out this commentary from Ad Age magazine, titled "Pimp My Walker." It seems today's folks may be limited by their mobility, but not by their sense of style. Walkers and canes are now getting customized with lights, gadgets, race-car paint - rhinestones? Well, why not?
My knees are going fast. Maybe I should plan ahead and order a walker now that's tricked out with little rhinestone designs of Scoopy, The Bee's mascot. Here's my motto in pinstriping: Keep on buzzin'! How about lighting them up like the kids do their cars? Or how about a built-in digital message board that changes messages on command? The singles can even flirt with little messages on our boards that say "nice eyes" and "you're cute." The really bold guys can just post their cell-phone numbers up there and say, "Call me!"
Yikes, I'm scaring myself now.
Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, met with our Editorial Board today in response to my recent column on prison reform. Members of the prison guards union say they were unfairly treated in that column and in other commentary that has appeared in The Bee. They wanted to give their side of the story.
It was an interesting discussion, and we still have disagreements with the union. But we do agree that the only way to get a handle on the ever-increasing prison population is for more resources to go into prevention measures and rehabilitation.
As the session closed, Jimenez, who is from Fresno, said he has vowed not to cut his hair or beard until the CCPOA gets a new contract with the state. It's been nine months, and he's looking pretty scruffy. He said he hopes he can cut his hair and beard soon.
Sunday's story by E.J. Schultz on the barriers to getting a Valley Fever vaccine reminds me of a warning I got last week from the The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The children's doctors are alarmed that the soaring costs of vaccines combined with lower reimbursements from insurance companies will result in fewer children getting vaccinated. That could mean outbreaks of preventable diseases.
One of the points made by the AAP regarding vaccines is particularly annoying to me. There is, it seems, a stigma mentality among physicians. Some folks are at the top of the food chain and others at the bottom. Pediatricians, ridiculously, seem to be at the bottom when it comes to reimbursements. I see this as a remnant of society's prejudices against women and children, that they are somehow less important than men. We see this, of course, quite blatantly in medical research, which is so unfairly focused on men despite federal laws mandating women get their fair share. There also seems to be a stigma against physicians who specialize in preventing illness in favor of those who repair the damage.
In Sunday's Vision section, we are using a story by Jean P. Fisher of the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. that says that despite federal law passed in 1993, researchers still are not routinely doing the types of studies needed. "It's a very new issue," said Phyllis Greenberger, president of the Society for Women's Health Research. Under that law, women are to be included in all federally funded biomedical research unless there is compelling reason not to do so -- for example, the condition is male-only, such as prostate disease. Studies also are supposed to report results by sex, detailing the clinical benefits and side effects for men and for women, not just what they are in patients overall. But a paper published in December in the Journal of Women's Health reported that women made up just 37% of participants in all federally funded studies published in major medical journals in 2004.
But that's a battle for next Sunday. Here is the warning from the AAP:
" Childhood vaccines are among the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century and are vital to growing up healthy," said AAP President Jay E. Berkelhamer, MD, FAAP. "However, the system for delivering vaccines is broken, and we're going to be in real trouble if it's not fixed soon."
Pediatricians spend tens of thousands of dollars and must frequently wait months before payment by payers (including Medicaid and private health plans). Often payments are below the cost of the vaccine. Gardasil, the new cervical cancer vaccine, costs physicians $360 for the recommended series of three doses per person. RotaTeq, the vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus, costs $190 for the recommended three doses. Even the routine measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine costs $86 for the recommended two doses. In addition to the cost of the vaccine, additional costs of ordering, storing, inventory control, insurance and spoilage expenses need to be considered. However, payers are not recognizing these true costs. As a result, some pediatricians are unable to offer the newest vaccines.
About 85% of children in the U.S. are vaccinated at pediatricians' offices. Because the current system threatens to greatly reduce or even eliminate the physician provider role, the AAP is concerned that this will fragment care causing many children not to get the comprehensive and preventive health care they need.
Results from a national survey of pediatricians conducted by the AAP in 2006 indicated that less than half of pediatricians think vaccine reimbursement from private and public health insurance is adequate. Typically, pediatricians are among the lowest-paid physicians.
"Pediatricians are not looking to make huge profits off vaccines," said Jon R. Almquist, MD, FAAP, chair of the AAP Task Force on Immunization. "We're in pediatrics because we care about children - but we shouldn't be expected to subsidize the public health system and perform our jobs at a loss. We've carried this burden for long enough."
The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.
Verne Gay, writing for newsday.com, has an interesting take on one aspect of the Don Imus affair: All those media pundits and TV news stars who lined up over the years to appear on Imus' show, but then scuttled for cover when the talk-show turkey blew off both his own feet with his bigoted remark about Rutgers University's women's basketball team.
Gay calls them "figs," for "frequent Imus guests." The list -- a long one -- includes NBC's Tim Russert, CBS' Bob Schieffer and ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
Most cobbled together some sort of rationalization for their relationships with Imus. NBC's Brian Williams got closest to the truth, perhaps, when he made mention of "the obvious fact that many of us have been on-air guests of his, a relationship both sides have benefited from over the years."
The only ones to come out of all this looking good -- Imus' misogynistic racism notwithstanding -- are the Rutgers basketball players.
I'm working on a photo slideshow for my dad's 60th birthday. Some of the images and music that he's picked harken back to college shootings that took place during his formative years -- the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song "Ohio" about when four students were killed by National Guard troops called in to quell anti-war protests on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio in 1970, pictures from a family trip to Texas in 1976 that show the Austin Tower from which Charles Whitman shot and killed 16 people at the University of Texas in 1966. 
Neither of those incidents resulted in as many casualties as today's shooting in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. At last report, the death toll is up to 33 including the gunman.
In 1979, the Boomtown Rats had a No. 1 hit in the United Kingdom called "I Don't Like Mondays." According to Wikipedia, lead singer Bob Geldof wrote the song after reading a newspaper report on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children playing in a school playground across the street from her house. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her only explanation for her actions when captured was "I don't like Mondays."
(Associated Press photo: A row of ambulances is parked near Norris Hall the site of a shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Monday. A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.)
I was alerted by one of my girlfriends to this disturbing bit of breaking chocolate news.
Here's the gist of it, according to the article:
Two of California's oldest confectioners, See's Candies and Guittard Chocolate, are battling an attempt to loosen government rules that dictate what ingredients go into the sweet stuff.
Legally, the candy that melts hearts and comforts the broken-hearted is made with cocoa butter and, in the case of milk chocolate, whole milk. But the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a trade group, wants to let confectioners substitute cheaper ingredients: vegetable oils and milk-protein concentrates.
If you want to voice your opinion about keeping chocolate pure, you can go to this Web site. Why mess with such a good thing?
If you are among the legions intrigued by the new bestseller "The Secret," be sure to look at Sunday's Vision section. Tim Watkin has quite a different take on this book than its hordes of fans. He says there is a dirty little secret lurking inside those covers that seems to blame innocent victims - the ill, for example -- for the bad things that happen to them in their lives.
Our administrative assistant, Pam Rowse, is reading the book right now and she likes it very much, but she gets Watkins' point. I haven't read the book yet, but I've read and heard a lot about it. It appears to be a repackaging of the power of positive thinking, which Dr. Norman Vincent Peale explained very well decades ago. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a whole generation that doesn't even know who Dr. Peale is, and perhaps it's time for a new teacher. That theory of positive thinking or "the law of attraction" has been validated many times from sports psychology to Holocaust survivors and I'm a believer in it as a general philosophy of life. However, it is only a tool for specific situations and I'm always amused when people take useful ideas and try to apply them to everything. Gee, let's go to Darfur and see if positive thinking can change the life of this starving 5-year-old. If it doesn't, then let's just discard this idea as ineffective.
As the saying goes, "keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
If you are really fascinated by "The Secret," you might be interested in checking out www.pbyoga.com, which contains all the details of Perfect Balance Yoga's presentation by Dr. Janette Marie Freeman Saturday from 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the studio, 5091 N. Fresno St. The Web site says this about Dr. Freeman: Her "own transformation took her from a scared and lonely single mother of three, to ordained minister, author, dynamic teacher, and president of a national organization, through the repetitive practice of life-enhancing principles. She is the creator of Mind Prints, which are positive sleep repetition audio programs for children and adults.
She is the author of "Why Did This Happen to Me Again? Your KEYS to Lasting Transformation" and is co-author with Dr. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and Terry Cole Whittaker in "Wake Up and Live the Life You Love - in Spirit". www.janettemariefreeman.com"
The session costs $25 and you can call 222-6212 for details.
It amazes me how the cultural crises of the moment seem to collide every year during prom. One year it was dirty music; the next dirty dancing. This year binge drinking is the big issue.
And in at least one school in Georgia, it's actually -- segregation, if you can believe it. In a recent Associated Press story about Turner County High School in Ashburn, Ga., we learn that this school, until this year, had segregated proms. Blacks go to one; whites to another. The United States in 2007. Unbelievable.
Thankfully, this year, the students are trying to party together. The story says this senior class also set precedence earlier this year by abandoning the practice of naming separate white and black homecoming queens. This year, a mixed-race student was named the county's first solo homecoming queen.
This morning I was hearing reports from Saudi Arabia being filed by Diane Sawyer about the Third World conditions for women there, despite appalling affluence. And now I see in my own country this evidence of intolerance among those who should be the most open-minded: young people. I can only shudder at what century their parents are living in. At the same time, I applaud the school seniors for making this bold step for change in what must be a repressive place to live. The principal also is a hero in this story, doing everything he can to make this prom a success.
I'm not sure why I'm so surprised when even our church services are so often segregated, but stories like this remind me of why I appreciate living in the Valley with its rainbow of ethnicities working things out together. It's not always smooth going, but at least our kids can have fun at a dance together and we have homecoming queens of all races.
I hope everything goes well at the prom and the young people are rewarded for their courage to change for the better.
According to an Associated Press article, Karl "Rove's lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush's chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored computer system."
Really, he didn't mean to.
Yeah, I believe him.
Cartoon by Rex Babin/The Sacramento Bee
I spent my mostly uneventful baseball career on the mound, culminating in a short span of years as a mediocre high-school pitcher. But it left me with a love of that aspect of the game that isn't widely shared by most fans, who prefer booming home runs and plenty of scoring.
So last night's 2-0 Grizzlies' victory over the Tacoma Raniers was just about perfect for me. (I could have done without the stiff breeze and the chilly temperature.) The Grizzlies sent their young phenom, Tim Lincecum, to the mound. He's the top prospect for the parent San Francisco Giants -- and now I see why. The home team managed a couple of first-inning runs, and that was it for the offense. But it didn't matter to Lincecum (and relievers Scott Munter and Brian Wilson, who pitched the eight and ninth innings, respectively). Here's The Bee's story.
Lincecum shut out Tacoma for seven dazzling innings, allowing just four hits. He walked two batters and struck out nine. He's got a blazing fastball -- measured at a top speed of 98 mph last night -- and good command of several other pitches. We had seats right behind home plate, the best spot for pitcher-watching. The entire game took only an hour and 52 minutes to play. Sweet.
Get out and see this kid while you can. He may not be playing in Fresno very much longer.
|
