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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is all in favor of those lovely junkets that legislators like so much. But it isn't for the sordid reasons you might expect. It's not so that they can pick up great deals on expensive luggage and fine wines in France, or luxuriate in palatial hotels and feast on the finest viands in the world -- at someone else's expense. It's not about getting free vacations in return for a measly vote or three.
No, it's because the junkets have such educational value for all those bumpkins from the hinterlands who populate the Capitol, and need a dose of sophistication.
Here's what the governor told a big-city audience at the Beverly Hilton -- to much laughter, according to Capitol Alert:
“And that’s why I always encourage the legislators in Sacramento, because some of them come from those little towns. You know what I’m saying? They come from those little towns, and they don’t have that vision yet of an airport or of a highway that maybe has 10 lanes. Or of putting a highway on top of a highway. They look at you and say, ‘Well we don’t have that in my town, what are you talking about?’ So they are kind of shocked when you say certain things."
Weelll, dogies, Arnie. I reckon you got us backwoods types figured out, all right. Big ol' airports, 10-lane highways -- what'll them city slickers come up with next? Movin' pictures that talk?
(Check Capitol Alert here, though you'll have to register.)
I was reading the newsletter from the Lyles Center at Fresno State and what did I find? Good economic news! Unbelievable!
Jeff Thredgold, President, of Thredgold Economic Associates. Jeff writes a weekly ezine called the Tea Leaf. Following are excerpts from his most recent Tea Leaf.
The “dismal science” of economics typically focuses on “bad” news. We do face major challenges..no question. Recessionary pressures are intense..no argument here. However, there are many favorable developments taking place within the U.S. economy. This Tea Leaf focuses ONLY on the “good” news.
* U.S. exports to the world of goods and services are at record levels.
* A year-end 2007 Gallup Poll noted that “more than 8 in 10 Americans say they are satisfied with their personal lives at this time, including a solid majority who say they are ‘very satisfied.’”
* During the early 1960s, the five-year survival rate from cancer for Americans was one in three. Today it is two in three...continuing to climb...and the highest in the world.
* For every dollar of U.S. economic output generated today, we burn less than half as much oil as 30 years ago
* Today’s moms and dads, whether working or at home, are spending four to six hours more per week with their kids than did the previous generation
* Alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the most recently reported year dropped by more than half versus 20 years ago.
* The nation’s jobless rate averaged 4.6% in both 2006 and 2007, the lowest average in six years, and lower than average rates in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
* The American economy added nearly seven million net additional jobs during 2004 to 2006, and added more than 1.1 million in 2007.
* U.S. corporations hold an estimated $611 billion in cash on their balance sheets, a “tool” to help lessen the chance of, or minimize the impact of, a recession.
*The Federal Reserve is expected to reduce its key short-term interest rate for a sixth time no later than March 18, with another cut possible in April. Debt costs for millions of Americans will decline as a result.
* Some 68.6% of the 2.7 million “Class of ‘05” high school graduates enrolled in colleges & universities, the highest ever.
* Productivity of the average U.S. worker rose an average of 2.6% annually during the past 10 years, the largest gains in 40 years. Rising productivity is a long- term key to higher standards of living
* The U.S. rate of home ownership reached 69.2% of households in recent quarters, the highest ever, before declining slightly.
Global economic growth should exceed 4.0% in 2008 (after inflation) for the sixth consecutive year, a development not seen in generations. Strong growth allows millions to rise above poverty
* Air pollution declined 25% over the past 30 years even as the population and the economy grew. Water quality also continues to improve. More progress will occur in coming years as companies see rising value in “going green.”
* Median (half more, half less) family income now exceeds $54,000 annually.
* The U.S. still accounts for roughly 40% of global research and development (R&D) spending.
* Flexible work schedules are now the norm for 43% of workers, up from 29% in 1992 and 13% in 1985. This allows greater flexibility for more people, especially those with children.
* The Consumer Price Index has risen an average of 2.7% annually since 1992.
* Roughly 30% of trash was recycled or composted in the latest year, versus 16% in 1990.
To see Jeff’s complete list, click here.
 Yesterday's Boston Globe has a funny editorial on the pervasiveness of "txt-msg lingo is replacing stndrd english in student academic pprs."
"1 yng friend of rs recently sent us a hand-ritten thank-u note. we were thrilled at 1st but her spelling wuz awful b/c deres no spellcheck for pen and ppr. same ish w/ txting. ppl get uzd 2 slang and 4get the real words."
Any teachers out there experiencing this in your classrooms? Personally, the copy editing part of my brain is too strongly wired -- even in emails, I resist the urge not to capitalize or to revert to texting slang.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain have called for a suspension of federal taxes on gasoline, on the well-intentioned presumption that such action would lower prices at the pump and take some of the burden off American drivers. President Bush has chimed in with his own version of the notion. Barack Obama opposes the idea.
Obama's right.
Dropping the taxes for the summer driving season, as proposed, would give consumers a tiny break for a short time. But most of the tax break wouldn't end up in the pockets of drivers. The price of gasoline is driven by demand, not supply, and the price at the pump will rise to the level dictated by that demand, regardless of the portion of the price that taxes represent.
What that means is that a temporary dip in prices would be followed by increased demand, which would drive prices back up to what economists call the "market-clearing rate." And the increase would go to oil companies rather than the federal treasury.
In the meantime, revenues for the federal highway trust fund -- where the federal gas taxes go -- would decline. That means less money for highways, bridges and other parts of the transportation infrastructure. Here's what Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center (affiliated with the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution) said: Unless the plan’s aim is to boost short-term profits for petroleum refineries, the proposal makes no sense.
And this, from Market Watch:
"I don't think that a gas-tax cut would result in a really big drop in gasoline prices," said James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California San Diego. It's simple economics: Without a corresponding increase in supply, he added, the price would rise again.
But cutting taxes sounds good, right? Got to burnish those populist credentials, y'all. So we'll keep hearing this bafflegab until the campaign and media attention shift to the next foolishness.
This is how desperate Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is for money: He's reversed his opposition to off-reservation casino gambling in urban areas, cutting a compact with a tribe that will put a mega-casino on Highway 99 in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. The state will get a cut of the proceeds, which is all that seems to matter for the governor. The Bee's editorial board opposes this casino and laid out our reasoning in this editorial.
The North Fork Rancheria of the Mono Indians doesn't even have federal approval yet for the casino almost 40 miles from its traditional homeland, yet Schwarzenegger is jumping the gun on state approval. Maybe the Legislature won't roll over so easily on this deal when the compact comes to the Assembly and Senate for approval.
This is reservation shopping by the tribe. No matter how you spin this deal, it goes against Schwarzenegger's opposition to casinos in metropolitan areas.
"Placing a casino along Highway 99 right at the foot of the city of Fresno is certainly an urban casino -- there is no other way to see it," said state Sen. Dean Florez, a longtime opponent of the North Fork casino, Florez chairs a key legislative committee in charge of reviewing gaming compacts.
I have read with sadness the stories about the death of Robert Halliburton, who was known as "sensei" or teacher to generations of Fresno karate students. Were you one of his students or did you send your kids to his classes? Share!
I didn't know Mr. Halliburton well personally, but I first started hearing about him a long time ago because one of my colleagues, Chuck McCarthy, was taking karate lessons from him. I loved hearing Chuck's stories about the karate classes, the feats of strength he was learning and I really admired people who were good at martial arts.
As a young, working mother, there was no time for me to take classes, so I did what all frustrated moms do -- I enrolled my son, Scott, into sensei's karate classes two days a week after school. He liked them and soon our house was echo-ing with the shout, "keeeaiiiii! Keeeeaiiii!" He karate-chopped all the furniture for practice and drop kicked my throw pillows until there was nothing left of them. (Better than practicing on me!) And still later, when Scott was in college, I finally took a few lessons at Way of Japan before quickly realizing karate was yet another sport that was not my gift. (I am still trying to figure out which sport is my gift!)
Chuck and I were talking with affection about sensei the other day. Chuck was always full of "sensei" stories, and he still is. He has always spoken of him with only the greatest respect and awe.
One memory he shared with me was during the time when sensei was instructing the Fresno police on how to use their wooden nightsticks effectively... One night in sensei's dojo, Way of Japan, Chuck asked what he was teaching the officers. Sensei walked over to a box and took out a wooden police nightstick. He handed it to Chuck, bared his stomach and ribs and said, "Hit me with it.".. Chuck hit him several times, and sensei just stood there and looked at him.
"One more time," he said, "like you really mean it." Chuck said he really put his strength into it. Then, unaffected, sensei just yanked the stick away from him like he was taking it from a child... Impressive.
Another time, Chuck was practicing hitting the big punching bags on the wall. He felt a tap, then just watched as sensei hit that bag and knocked it right through the wall of his own dojo… Though he was not a big man, Chuck said he had an awesome strength and focus... But he said he always taught his students the right time and place to use their skills.
He was a gift to many families in our community and a lot of people will miss him...
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It's time to vote. Fresno County Clerk Victor Salazar says sample ballots and voter pamphlets will be mailed to voters on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Monday, the first day of early voting, 129,000 absentee ballots will be mailed to Fresno County voters.
This is an especially important time for the campaigns because this will be a low-turnout election. Many voters will choose to vote by mail, and not cast balots at the polls on June 3. Salazar predicts a voter turnout of 25% to 30%. I think it will be closer to 25%. The elections for Fresno mayor, City Council and Board of Supervisors could well be won in the mailboxes of voters. The candidates better have a sophisticated early-voting strategy.
The main reason for the expected low turnout is California decided to hold two primary elections this year. The presidential contest was split off from the other races, with that primary being held on Feb. 5. That has left candidates in the June 3 primary scrambling for attention. It would be a different race if this primary had the presidential candidates on the ballot.
But that's old news. Now the candidates and their campaigns must figure out which voters will actually participate in this election.
 Outgoing Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said he has a plan to reform the legislative redistricting process -- sort of his parting gift to the people of California. Watch out. This is politics at its worst.
It's clear now that a bipartisan redistricting reform measure will reach the ballot in November and Nunez's aim is to confuse voters by putting a rival measure up at the same election. He's engaging in an old political trick. Create a battle between the competing initiatives and the voters will get frustrated, and vote "no" on both of them. The Democrats win by losing.
Don't fall for this phony ploy. Nunez and his pal in the state Senate, President Pro Tem Don Perata, have had chances to reform redistricting every year for the past four. They say they will pass a bill, but something always happens at the last minute.
Make no mistake. Nunez and Assembly Democrats don't want a fair redistricting plan because they might lose seats. So when he says he has a reform measure, he's really trying to complicate the issue.
There is only one true reform: the California Voters First initiative that would create an independent redistricting commission. The measure is supported by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Democratic Controller Steve Westly. Sponsors include groups such as Common Cause, AARP, the League of Women Voters and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
The majority Democrats in the Legislature have had many opportunities to fix a redistricting system that has guaranteed re-election to incumbents. Now it's time for the Dems to step aside and allow the voters to support true redistricting reform.
The Aquarius Aquarium Institute has been working for years to build an an aquarium for Valley children. The ocean is my favorite place on earth and and if you want to get excited about the possibilites, check out the 3-D Imax movie of "Deep Sea" showing at River Park. It's spectacular.
My husband and I caught the film this weekend. It's wonderful. It's the next best thing to scuba diving, and you don't even have to get cold or wet. This was a terrific documentary narrated by Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp. It's funny, fascinating, sometimes violent (it's nature after all) and completely enthralling. I learned so much; I'd love to have a book version.
There were some little kids in the theater who were loving it and chattering about it all the way out. To see the Web site video, click here.
There is a campaign to build an aquarium in Fresno and this film will definitely help everyone to appreciate the educational need for such a place for our kids (and us!) Click here to read about it and see the Art Dyson design.
In these tough economic times, everyone is having to make sacrifices, so why not our legislators in Sacramento? In this column, I think the California Citizens Compensation Commission is onto something when members suggest freezing salaries of the state's elected officials. At least two members of the commission want to reduce their pay.
I'm all for it. Why reward them for doing nothing? More from my Sunday column:
The Legislature is asking cities, counties, school districts and universities to take less money next year to help close the budget deficit. Our lawmakers should be willing to step up and have their pay cut to show that everyone is being treated equally in these difficult times.
That would be a different way of doing business in the Capitol. That's why pay commission members Kathy Sands and Charles Murray showed extraordinary courage in proposing to cut lawmakers' pay.
They showed they have common sense, even if everyone else in Sacramento doesn't.
It would be hard to overstate the impact John Wright has had on Clovis. For the past 30 years he has guided an effort to produce good city planning that has left a splendid imprint on Clovis and the region, raising the bar for planners and elected officials everywhere. The Bee's Marc Benjamin marks Wright's retirement with a story today.
There may be no arena that has a greater impact on the everyday quality of life we enjoy than effective planning in our communities. Wars rage, economies soar and crash, great issues of the day are debated, but I'm not sure anything hits us closer to home than whether a convenience store will be going in down the street, or whether our kids have parks in which to play, or how our neighborhoods are designed.
John Wright weathered some storms over his years as Clovis' chief planner. He emerged as one of the true heroes of that sorry period in the early '90s we know as Operation Rezone, when council members in both Clovis and Fresno were literally in the pockets of corrupt development interests.
Through it all he kept an even keel, and he managed to realize a vision of livable neighborhoods, delightful trails and open spaces, and a revitalized downtown Clovis. Wright would be the first to say he didn't do it by himself, but he really did provide the sort of leadership that is all too rare in our communities. We're all fortunate that the retirement he plans will be a busy one, including the Valley's Regional Blueprint, studying the preservation of farm lands, the Clovis general plan and special projects, including a large regional park along Dry Creek.
The shooting of a Roosevelt High School student by a Fresno police officer should be a wakeup call to a county that has been lacking in adequate mental health care for children for decades and for years has had no in-patient mental health facility for children and adolescents.
As we wrote in an editorial in Sunday's Bee, the incident has caught the attention of Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and Police Chief Jerry Dyer. That's excellent. There are painfully few champions of the mentally ill because there is a pointless stigma attached to mental health. It's a ridiculous discrimination because almost every family is touched in some way by mental illness. The police chief and the mayor, because of their wide view of the city, can see it all quite plainly. As one community activist puts it, "All roads lead to mental health." That's not an exaggeration.
The unfortunate part is that it resonds to treatment very well, in fact the treatment is often more successful than the protocols for other chronic illnessnesss uch as diabetes or heart disease. Left untreated, however, and results are in the news every day.
Too much money, some say. Too much risk. Really? Well, think about the costs and risks of mental illness to our justice system, our social welfare system, our education system.
J. Michael Gallagher, a health care expert, who now lives in Incline Village, wrote about mental health care in Fresno over the years in a Valley Voices essay.
There is a lot we still do not know about the tragedy at Roosevelt High. But at the very least, we must learn as we go from this heartbreak, promising to do all that is in our power to ensure that it never happens again.
Some of you will begin seeing your economic stimulus checks in your bank accounts beginning today. So what are you going to do with the money? You're supposed to stimulate the economy by spending the money at retailers like Gottschalks, Target and Wal-Mart, but many may be using the extra money to pay for gasoline, which is now at $4 a gallon. What an irony. Oil companies are sucking up consumer dollars, and retailers are bearing the brunt of that change in our spending, and now money intended to be spent on other things also will go to the oil companies. Heckuva job with the economy, Mr. President. Of course, he did come from a Texas oil family.
The IRS reports that rebate checks for everyone who filed their tax returns by April 15 will get to Americans by the middle of July.
I'm surprised that we're not seeing more advertisements from retailers going after the rebate money. Seems like an advertising pitch for a retailers could be something like this: "Spend $100 on these sale items and we'll match that with $100 in store credit." But I'm no ad guru and the smart folks at the ad agencies know better than I do.
Bush, meanwhile, has this to say about how to spend the checks: "The money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, the grocery store, and also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown."
So the checks now are to offset higher prices for gas and food? Wow. When he signed the stimulus bill in February, he said it was aimed at boosting overall consumer spending. Now it's to offset higher prices.
We already know of the many ways the Bush Administration has tried to put the best face on failed policies in every part of W's domestic and foreign agenda. The pattern is a simple one: Bush policies fail and administration sycophants blame others. The war and the economy are the two must blatant examples.
But don't forget about Hurricane Katrina. A Veteran's Administration nurse wrote a letter to a paper in Albuquerque about the inadequate Katrina reaction and the Iraq war disaster, and the president sent the FBI after her, suggesting her letter "represents sedition." A letter complaining about Bush policies now is sedition? The New York Times points out that means her letter incited rebellion against the government? VA officials were only too happy to bully the nurse, Laura Berg, and bring the FBI into the case.
But what about the First Amendment? The president is trying to get rid of that, too. Can you imagine what our Bill of Rights would look like if Bush and Dick Cheney wrote them?
Berg finally escaped prosecution and now the PEN American Center is honoring her for standing up to power by using her freedom of expression. The Times says the PEN American Center is a literary organization committed to free expression.
Isn't it about time the presidential candidates danced to your tune, followed your orders, listened to you face to face and behaved like your puppets for a change? It can happen today, just click here.
 Peggy Noonan, who was a speechwriter for the first President Bush and a special assistant to President Reagan, says the current President Bush doesn't have many supporters as his second term winds down. Noonan had this to say in her column today in the Wall Street Journal:
"In Lubbock, Texas -- Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism -- they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president's poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one -- not one -- defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one."
Consider what she wrote today: Even in rock-solid conservative Fresno, Bush has lost support. to the point that a conservative commentator has concluded that he's through. Good thing this is an election year. Bush will slip out the back door very quietly.
Noonan was in Fresno Wednesday speaking to the San Joaquin Valley Town Hall on "The White House and American Politics." She was a huge hit, organizers say, and was very gracious with her time when students wanted to talk with her. Another great program put on by the San Joaquin Valley Town Hall.
Town Hall had another excellent lecture series this year and has stellar programs scheduled for the new season. Click here to see what's in store for you in the 2008-09 Town Hall season.
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, just sent me a very personal e-mail about his campiagn. I know it was sent only to me because he addressed the e-mail to "Jim." So now he has my attention. We are obviously very close and personal friends.
"I need your help today on a very important survey project," McCain wrote in this private e-mail directed only to me and nobody else. "Please take a moment right now to fill out your Victory 2008 Critical Issues Survey by clicking here."
Then my pal, the senator, suggested that after I finished the survey, I should "make a special gift" to help the Republican Party. I knew for sure this was a personal e-mail because all my friends send me e-mails asking for money.
Some, like my friend in Nigeria, are going to give me big money in return -- $21 million from the Nigerian -- if I just send a good-faith token to him along with my bank account number and credit card account.
I wonder if Sen. McCain knows my wealthy foreign friend, Dr. Clement Okon. Maybe he will give the senator $21 million, too.
But back to my very personal and private email from Sen. McCain. . . "Jim, after you complete your Critical Issues Survey online, will you help me and Republican candidates across the country fight back by making a contribution of $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50 or $25 to Victory 2008?"
I'm going to have to wait until the $21 million shows up from Nigeria. I'll surely help when this money arrives. Maybe Sen. McCain can help me help Dr. Okon. After all, he would have plenty of money if Nigerian bureaucrats weren't holding it up. We'll all be rich when this technicality is resolved.
All this is true. I know that because it's on the Internet.
Sevag Tateosian, one of our regular letter writers, let us know (via a MySpace bulletin) that representatives from the city of Fresno and the Armenian National Committee will raise the United States and Armenian Flag at 9 a.m. today at Fresno City Hall in commemoration of the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide that began on April 24, 1915. All are invited to attend.
 Our lead editorial in today's paper denounces the cowardice of the American government in refusing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.
Tonight, our editorial page editor, Jim Boren, is speaking on the politics of the genocide resolution at an ecumenical service and program organized by the Armenian Church Interdenominational Committee. It will begin at 7 p.m. at the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church, 2226 Ventura Ave.
Mike Lukens over at San Joaquin Valleyfornia has taken a look at the latest voter registration numbers and concludes that the Valley is still red, but not as much as you might think. Click here to see Lukens' analysis that finds that three counties in the north part of the Valley -- Merced, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus -- now have more registered Democrats than Republicans.
"Additionally, four counties saw a decline in the number of registered Republican voters since February 2007, compared to only one county seeing a decline in registered Democratic voters," accordng to Lukens' post. "Still, the Republican advantage remains rock solid in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties."
If you look at the eight-county region as a voting bloc, Republicans continue to outnumber Democrats in total registration. There are 612,997 registered Republicans to 563,823 Democrats, according to San Joaquin Valleyfornia. That means the GOP has 43% of the voters compared with 39.5% for Democrats in the eight-county region.
 According to Yahoo news, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent Dutch critic of Islam will publish a children's book intended to involve young people in the debate over multiculturalism. A spokeswoman for the writer says "Adan & Eva" will be released in Dutch May 29 and later translated into other European languages.
Hirsi Ali, born in Somalia, later became a Dutch lawmaker. She lives under protection due to death threats from Muslims offended by her work, particularly her screenplay "Submission" with filmmaker Theo van Gogh, which focused on the abuse of Muslim women. Van Gogh was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim radical for perceived insults to Islam.
I recently finished reading Hirsi Ali's autobiography, "Infidel," and found it to be a fascinating book. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with in a children's book.
Hirsi Ali was named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” of 2005.
(Associated Press photo)
Robert Cruickshank, in his very useful California High Speed Rail Blog, offers links to op-ed pieces in Capitol Weekly by a pair of strong advocates for the proposed system: Quentin Kopp, the former state legislator and retired judge who is now chair of the state's High Speed Rail Authority, and Rep. Jim Costa, the Fresno Democrat who, as a member of the state Legislature, pushed the original legislation to create the high-speed authority.
Kopp and Costa make the strong case -- again -- that high-speed rail will be an environmental and economic bonanza for the state.
Costa writes: "Construction of the system is estimated to generate almost 300,000 jobs. Following construction, the system will provide 450,000 permanent jobs in California. These jobs will have a huge ripple effect into other areas of California's economy, such as the service and manufacturing industries. Overall, for every dollar invested in this system, we will see two dollars in return."
Kopp offers this: "High-speed trains will eliminate nearly 18 billion pounds of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming each year. That's equivalent to removing more than one million vehicles from our roads annually. They will also reduce dependence on foreign oil by up to 22 million barrels per year."
Cruickshank speculates that the arguments presented in the two op-ed pieces are the framework for the coming campaign to pass the November bond measure, which would raise almost $10 billion to actually begin construction of the long-delayed and much-needed high-speed rail system.
With gasoline prices soaring and oil running out, with greenhouse gas emissions threatening us in many ways, with unemployment rising, especially in the construction trades, the case for high-speed rail has never been more compelling. California's growing population will demand more of everything, including transportation, and the cost of meeting that demand by just building more freeways and bigger airports would be several times the cost of the high-speed rail system.
California has always bragged about its leading-edge mentality. This is the place where the world is re-invented every day, we like to believe. But in rail transportation, the state and the nation have fallen behind the rest of the developed world. This nation invented passenger rail travel, and now we have a chance to take the lead again -- if we have the vision and the courage to seize it.
If you want to see my already-red hair explode into flames of temper, set up an expensive government program that is supposed to help children without including a mechanism to make sure it's working.
This enrages me. How about you? And it looks like Los Angeles has done exactly that. As Deborah says in "Everybody Loves Raymond": Idiots. A story in Monday's Los Angeles Times describes anti-gang prevention programs that dumped hundreds of millions of tax dollars into programs and the officials have no idea if they are working. I'm not heavy into mandates, but this is one initiative I would go door-to-door to promote. In every government program should be a mechanism to measure effectiveness and oversight.
The Times story says that millions were spent, yet the officials have no idea if they are helping anything. It's possible that you could count the kids helped by these programs on one hand! From the Times:
City officials received an evaluation of L.A. Bridges' intervention programs two years later, which found that one city contractor had taken two teens out of gangs. Meanwhile, gang-prevention contracts were so lax that workers could meet the city's requirements by taking certain children to a baseball game and a picnic in a 12-month period . . .
This should be a lesson for Fresno, which gets a warm feeling everytime the cops round up a group of gang members. That's pretty easy to measure. Gang member in jail. Score one for society. Yes and no. Even the police chief warns that we cannot arrest our way out of the gang problem. The most important part of the whole program is prevention -- unless we want to keep losing our young people and then sign over our paychecks every week to the prison guards union to essentially be their parents throughout their adult lives. The way we are building prisons in this state, that is not such a far-fetched idea. That said, how much do we know in Fresno about the effectiveness of our own prevention programs?
 I attended the dedication of an Armenian Genocide memorial at Baird Middle School Monday evening. This memorial was created by students, with the help of their outstanding teacher, Tom Snyder, and the many friends of Baird School. It's in the school's Peace and Tolerance Plaza. The garden is a fabulous spot that also includes memorials to the Jewish Holocaust, Japanese-Americans interned during World War II and the victims of 9/11.
Walking to my car, I thought about what I just witnessed in this shady plaza between classroom buildings. This is a school and community that understand the importance of history and why we must continue to spotlight the injustices and tragedies of the past as we shape the imperfect world of today. There is something very special going on at Baird Middle School.
Parents, public officials and politicians helped unveil the latest memorial dedicated to the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915. Journalist and author Mark Arax spoke, telling a very personal story about his family's connection to the genocide. Many in the audience had similar stories of that tragic time when the Ottoman Turks began the systematic roundup and murders in this genocide.
This is a genocide that most of the world knows and accepts as fact -- most of the world except Turkey and the United States government, which refuses to call it genocide. The reason our government has balked at calling it genocide is not because those who run our country don't believe it was a systematic extinction of a group pf people. They don't want to upset Turkey because of strategic reasons. How cowardly.
The Baird event Monday kicked off a week of activities commemorating the Armenian Genocide. Thursday, April 24, is Armenian Martyrs Day, representing the beginning of the genocide when the Turks began rounding up 250 Armenian community leaders and intellectuals. This would lead to the death of 1.5 million Armenians.
History won't be right until this genocide is acknowledged by Turkey. The United States could help this along by calling it a genocide.
(Photo by Bee photographer Darrell Wong:The Armenian Genocide memorial is unveiled in the Peace and Tolerance Plaza at Baird Middle School on Monday.)
A couple of bills in the Assembly would strip teens of their drivers' licenses if they drop out of school, with some exceptions. Here's today's story on the effort.
I like the idea, but I'd go it one better: Don't let anyone have a drivers' license until they reach the age of 18. Or 21, maybe. After all, cars are the No. 1 killer of teens. If we really cared, we'd keep them from settling in behind the wheel until they get a little older.
A hardship? Hardly. Let 'em ride the bus. Maybe we'd get more and better buses in Fresno if there were more riders.
Not that it would help much, I suppose. Driving around Fresno it's as easy to spot grownups driving stupidly as it is to catch teens in the act.
President George W. Bush has given us a failing economy (just like his daddy), gas prices at $4 a gallon and headed to who knows where, and an unwinnable war that he once thought was over (remember "Mission Accomplished"?), so how can anyone think that anyone else could be a worse occupant of the White House? We don't have to see how history judges Bush 43. He's been bad for everyone except the oil companies and the defense contractors.
On Sunday, Democrat Barack Obama said the obvious, and that caused another dustup in the Democratic presidential campaign. Obama said McCain would be better a better president than Bush has been. That's like saying that Tiger Woods will be a better golfer than Jerry Ford. Click here to read the news story about Obama saying McCain would be better than Bush.
Democratic rival Hillary Clinton immediately pounced on Obama's comment: "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain," Clinton said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
My question for Sen. Clinton is this: Do you think McCain would be a better president than Bush? She'd duck that one. But it's a simple yes or no question.
I don't know how stating the obvious is going to put the Democratic nominee at any disadvanatge in the general election. Ir's not endorsing McCain or even saying you think he's going to win in November.
This is what Clinton should have said in response to Obama's statement:
"You're darned right that McCain would be a better president than Bush. Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever -- bar none. That doesn't mean that McCain is worthy of election in November. McCain doesn't have to be very good to be judged better than George W. Bush. That's why a Democrat will be the next president."
The bad guys get a lot of help from governments in their quest to steal your personal information and turn it into credit cards and checking accounts. My column today talks about government's complete disregard for protecting your sensitive personal information. Fresno County is among the worst, with incident after incident of personal information going astray. But county officials just shrug their shoulders, and refuse to take responsibility for their mishandling of the information.
Click here to read my column on this growing crime.
Another example of California's myopic priorities is illustrated in a story in today's San Jose Mercury News.
Faced with the choice of their teeth or their children, women prisoners are getting their teeth pulled out.
The Journalism Center on Children and Families sent me an e-mail today talking about Edwin Garcia's piece, which reveals that In California women’s prisons, dozens if not hundreds of inmates are faced with the same wrenching decision: To gain access to a host of vocational-training and drug-rehabilitation programs for non-violent offenders, they must be cleared of pre-existing health problems. Prized programs include a course that teaches parenting skills while allowing them to live with their children in special housing. One rotted tooth could block women from entering a program, but there’s a severe shortage of dental care in prisons.
Faced with a long waiting list, inmate Sarina Borg had a tough choice to make. She could wait for months, maybe more than a year, to have her rotting teeth fixed by a dentist; or she could get them pulled – and be reunited with her baby daughter. Officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation say the dental and health clearances are necessary because the specialized programs are based at smaller community prisons and don’t have dentists or doctors on site.
OK, how is this fish-brained logic? Let me count the ways: First, everything possible should be done to keep mothers bonding with their infants. Poor bonding leads to a whole host of problems not only with the mother, but her child.
Second, when was the last time your company hired a woman without half her teeth? That leads to joblessness, which leads to poverty and all of its pathologies. Poor dental care is an open door to all kinds of future health problems, which leads to a whole new set of very expensive remedies. The suffering should be consideration enough, but if you just care about the money in your own pocket, it's a whole cheaper to fix a few teeth than to fix unemployment, poverty, homelessness, severe health problems and emotional damage.
Is anyone out there thinking beyond the next election cycle?
 The self-absorbed George Stephanopoulos, whose journalistic credentials are that he cleaned up Bill Clinton's messes in the baby boomer White House and women think he's cute, showed why he shouldn't be asking questions at a presidential debate. He badgered Barack Obama with questions that have been asked and answered for months. But his partner, Charlie Gibson, wasn't much better, peppering both candidates with trivial questions, and not asking substantive questions until late in the debate. Here's The Bee's editorial on Wednesday's big Pennsylvania debate.
There's nothing wrong with asking candidates tough questions. That's expected. Questioners also should ask about controversial moments on the campaign trail. But they should be part of a range of questions that cover the enire campaign issues, including the Iraq war and the economy. The trivial shouldn't dominate a 90-minute debate (it seemed like 20 minutes because of all the ABC commercial breaks).
Stephanopoulos was stunned that he was criticized for his questions. That's understandable. Most people fawn over this guy, and he gets a pass because he's a celebrity. He lives in a bubble, so don't expect him to ask questions the rest of us would ask. Let him ask questions on Entertainment Tonight and get him off a legitimate network news show.
And you can't say much about Gibson's performance. For example, he pressured both candidates to promise whether they'd be the other's running mate, and wouldn't let go. That was a low point of a debate with many low points.
The news story on the polygamist sect in Texas grows more distressing by the day. What do you think of the way it's being handled?
I have so many questions that I hardly know where to start. Why did it take so long for law enforcement step in to protect these children? Women have been reporting abuse in polygamous compounds for years, yet it was allowed to grow to 400 before anyone steps in? Is it possible that separating these children from their mothers is compounding the trauma the children have already suffered? Is the state of Texas adequately prepared to get this right and adequately care for these children while the legal system grinds on? Why isn't there a national call for resources to address this, the biggest case of its kind in history, to give these children the best possible care?
Richard Wexler, who heads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, says on his blog the actions in Texas remind him of a notorious comment made by a general during the Vietnam War. Surveying the destruction of a village he explained that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
"So here’s the third side of the story in Texas," he says: "Don’t destroy these children in order to save them."
And here's more:
It’s common for people to complain that news stories are “one sided” and journalists didn’t get “the other side of the story.” But often the bigger problem is when journalists stop at two sides.
That seems to be what is happening now in Texas. We hear the mothers deny that anything at all was wrong and the state justify tearing the children from the mothers as the only way to get their stories out of them. (When this Blog predicted this would happen, and predicted the rationale, I noted that it also would be easier to get the children’s stories if they waterboarded them. Memo to the Texas child welfare agency: I was being sarcastic; please don’t get any ideas.)
But here’s a third side of the story: The children may well have needed to be removed from the ranch. But under the laws that govern American child welfare systems there is no way they’re going back until and unless their “stories” are fully known; and probably not then, either. So there was no excuse for further traumatizing them by tearing them from their mothers. There is no reason the children and their mothers could not be resettled, in effect, as refugees.
The ABC News website tells the third side of the story today. Though the headline asked who did more harm, the sect or the state, that’s not really the issue. One can believe the sect did more harm and still think it’s a bad idea for the state to harm the children further by separating them from their mothers.
A short aside: Most of the Associated Press stories you are reading about this issue are being reported by former Fresnan Jennifer Dobner, who studied at California State University, Fresno and worked for The Bee.
 What are your thoughts on the incident that happened yesterday at Roosevelt High School, in which a student attacked a campus police officer, who then shot and killed the student?
Did any of you have students at Roosevelt? If so, were you able to communicate with your child to find out if they were safe?
What would be your reaction if an incident like this happened at your child's school? Do you think any aspects of the incident could or should have been handled differently to ease parents' concerns?
Fresnobee.com will have live video from a joint press conference at City Hall with Fresno Police and Fresno Unified School District representatives at 11 a.m. Evidence from the attack will be presented.
(Photo by Tomas Ovalle/The Fresno Bee: Mr. Martinez addresses parent in front of Roosevelt High School Wednesday near the scene of a shooting where a youth was shot and killed.)
(Cross posted from CentralValleyMoms.com)
Next week is TV Turnoff Week, a time to take a break from our daily worship of the almighty flat screen. It's designed for families with children to get them to be more active and creative, but it might be an eye-opening exercise for adults, too! Has anyone tossed out their TV recently? How’s it going? Or have you tried the no-TV week before? How do you manage TV time with the kids? Share!
I like TV a lot. It's one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I justify it because I usually watch programs while reading at the same time (TV's too slow for me.) But I confess to being a hopeless news junkie. Even after working all day at the newspaper, I still like all the early and late local news shows plus the national stuff like "Good Morning America," "Meet the Press," "60 Minutes," "Dateline," "Valley Press." I know, it's an addiction. My husband is just as bad, and he's also got sports going somewhere in the house most of his waking hours.
If you want to try to go a week without TV, here is my list of Top 10 suggestions for news junkies:
* Read The Bee (well, of course!) and work the puzzles as a team with your spouse.
* Write a letter to the editor and get something off your chest.
* Post your position on a vital issue on OpinionTalk blog.
* Listen to the latest podcast by Jim Boren and Bill McEwen.
* Read the Web sites of the candidates you love and hate.
* Order your favorite political T-shirts and bumper stickers. (Republican Hottie and Obama mama are among the big sellers).
* Fix the auto-sets on your radio to jump from news station to news station.
* Walk precincts with your favorite candidate.
* Go to the library and read obscure political journals. Write OpinionTalk about what cool stuff you find there.
* E-mail your list of neighborhood priorities to the candidates of your choice.
It's surprising to me that a conservative organization such as the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce wants political candidates to give them sensitive personal information. You'd think that members of the chamber, of all people, would respect the personal freedom of the candidates to say that such a request is an invasion of their privacy.
But chamber officials say they need the Social Security and driver's license numbers of the candidates so they can do background checks before offering their candidate endorsements in the June primary election. Nothing wrong with investigating candidates you might support, but you don't need the Social Security and driver's license numbers to do a thorough check. The information the chamber needs is in the public domain and easily accessible through the Internet. Click here for The Bee's editorial on this subject.
All this came to light when Fresno County supervisorial candidate Debbie Poochigian refused to hand over her information, saying it could lead to her family being a victim of identity theft. Her opponent, Nathan Magsig, said he had nothing to hide and complied. Then Magsig tried to make political points out of the issue, claiming that Poochigian was trying to avoid public scrutiny.
Magsig may have jumped the gun on this issue. At the very least he's just plain wrong about a fundamental privacy question. But he'd fit right in with this county government and its naive view of ID theft. The Fresno County Board of Supervisors has ignored major problems in the county when bureaucrats have lost personal information of those dealing with the county. It seems that Magsig is joining with the board members who don't think ID theft is a big deal.
Look at the county record:
-- Fresno County health officials say 279 birth certificate applications that list personal information of Valley babies and their parents are missing after they were mailed to the state. An envelope containing the birth certificate applications arrived at the state Department of Public Health in Sacramento damaged, but with most of the forms missing.
-- In February, county officials warned thousands of CalWORKs clients that they could be victimized after a laptop computer was stolen. The computer was taken from a county office but belonged to Supportive Services Inc., a nonprofit agency.
-- Last May, a computer disk with personal information from thousands of home health-care workers was lost on its way to a company in San Jose.
But you haven't heard a peep out of the five county supervisors on this issue. You'd think they'd at least investigate the problem and try to prevent it from happening again. Now we have a candidate running for a seat who has the same head-in-the-sand attitude about identity theft and protecting county records.
It's shameful. You'd think others in the community would learn from this mishandling of personal information. But not the chamber.
Mike Lukens over at San Joaquin Valleyfornia has compiled a list of San Joaquin Valley delegates to the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Denver in August. Click here to get the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama delegates from seven Valley Congressional districts.
The delegates were elected Sunday, and were apportioned to Clinton and Obama on the basis of the results of California's Feb. 5 presidenial primary election.
You can listen to the latest political podcast from Boren and McEwen by clicking here. We take on Democrats who register to vote, but never seem to get around to going to the polls on election day. This is stuff that no one else will tell you.
We also offer our opinions of last week's Fresno State student fee vote, and whether it's a good idea for President John Welty to impose the fee over the objections of students.
In the final segment of this week's podcast, we announce our political winners and losers of the week. You might be suprised at our choices for this week.
This is the only place you can get political commentary from two of the Valley's most veteran journalists. Listen here for commentary that your friends will be talking about next week. You'll be saying, "I already know that. I listen to the Boren-McEwen podcast as soon as it's posted."
Join the cutting edge.
The Associated Press is reporting that Iraq's financial free ride may be over. Both sides of the aisle are looking looking at Iraq's surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up more of the tab, particularly for rebuilding buildings and infrastructure.
"I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they can," said Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
What do you think? Phil Fullerton of Fresno, a retired lawyer, makes the case that Iraq absolutely should pay its own way. He sent me his thoughts in an e-mail last week:
The United States should be assessing Iraq and the Sunni Arab lands at least a part of the costs of the current and future occupation and for the prior war. To not do so is fiscal irresponsibility.
Recent press coverage has indicated that Iraq is amassing a huge surplus from its oil revenue, coupled with the inability to spend it due to the violence. Meanwhile, the companion coverage tells of huge US cost, including a recent book by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz indicating the cost could go to trillions of dollars. So why shouldn’t some of this Iraqi surplus be used to pay for the US protection?
Likewise, the Sunni Arab lands like Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates are amassing huge profits behind our military shield.
The assessment of moneys by one dominant power upon another subordinate land has an ancient history. Athens in the Fourth Century BC and four centuries later Rome charged its satellites for the cost of its military protection. (“Give onto Caesar,” etc.) And the whole British and French colonial systems were designed to bring proceeds to the powerful central nation.
If this is offensive, as many would find it, belying our protestations of altruistic motives, then there are many examples of nations paying financially where there was not such a dominant relationship. In World War I we charged nations for our help and they incurred debt to pay for it, although admittedly, only Finland paid its debt. During World War II we called help to Britain “Lend-Lease” at least implying that there would be a return of the items or their payment. And the first Gulf War where Kuwait was liberated from Saddam was almost totally paid for by the Arab lands.
Of course, there are odious examples as well: the reparations charged to Germany after World War I are often blamed for World War II. Or the stripping of German factories after World War II by the occupying Russian forces left bitterness in the defeated land.
The charge to Iraq could be twofold. While our troops were there, it could be as much as 50% of their oil revenue. After all, we are basically providing most of the protection and many services to the land as well. And, if and when we leave, then the payment could be reduced to a modest royalty to extend over many decades.
Iraq is not a nation stricken by poverty but a land with rich resources which are now being harvested for their benefit (and some say for the individual benefit of its leaders).
Of course, Iraq is a democracy and they would have to vote to approve such a payment. However, they should be told that they must pay, or we would depart. People like John Murtha, Congressman from Michigan, have argued that we should threaten to withdraw to clear the heads of the leaders of Iraq and to force them to their long-delayed reconciliation. By demanding payment, we would achieve the same head-clearing experience without withdrawing.
In the possible event that they refuse, we would have a clear answer to our remaining there: a refusal on their part to pay would indicate a total lack of support for our troops and would justify a withdrawal based on their wishes. And such payment would also hasten their wish for us to leave, something to be devoutly wished.
Of course, there is the argument that this is a war of choice based on totally false intelligence and therefore not their fault, a weighty argument. However, we are there. And the current government has only attained power due to our invasion, and is a democracy replacing the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The reality of the situation therefore indicates that we are benefitting this regime, and most claim are necessary for the stability of the land.
There is a false feeling among Americans that our wealth and power are limitless. In reality, we cannot afford all that we are doing and are incurring huge dual deficits: our national budget and a trade deficit. It is this feeling of grandiose power that I think has kept us from demanding payment. Sort of like an aging impoverished Godfather arrogantly demanding the dinner check. We should not be too proud to ask for financial assistance.
It is time for the US, instead of imperiously acting as if we could afford all of this Middle East warfare, to humbly take hat in hand and to search for money and financial benefit to help with our disintegrating national and trade deficits.
Indeed, in the same spirit, one can argue that we are damming a Shiite flood eminating in Iraq, Iran, and Syria from overflowing and destroying the Sunni oil producing nations, like Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates, and that they should be contributing too. They are harvesting huge oil profits and should surely contribute for their protection, as in the first Gulf War.
Earth Day (April 22) has morphed from environmental to political to now -- supremely commercial. Being green makes green. Doubt it? Take a look at Advertising Age magazine, which came out with a story today carrying the headline: "Is Earth Day the New Christmas?" What do you think?
Personally, I look for companies to back up their green promotions with year-round action. If it's just a gimmick to attract those of us who are trying to do the right thing for future generations, well that's just a white sale; it's not a philosophy. I like to do business with companies that have more significance to their mission statements than just "Make Profit. Repeat."
Everybody's jumping in on this. Locally, Imax at River Park even in on it with a movie called "Deep Sea 3D." See Donald Munro's story about it by clicking here. Here are some of the examples given by the magazine:
* Newsweek subscribers can fashion the cover of the April 14 issue into an envelope to send plastic bags to Target in return for a reusable tote bag.
* At Banana Republic, 1% of sales from April 22 through April 27 benefit the Trust for Public Land.
* Macy's has a "Turn Over A New Leaf" campaign by making a $5 donation to the National Park Foundation. In exchange, customers receive 10% or 20% off most merchandise the weekend of April 26.
* Then there's Toys 'R' Us' launch of "enviro-friendly playthings."
Now, I also sometimes subscribe to the "Seize the [Earth] Day" school of business. With that in mind, it seems like this could be a good opportunity for groups like the San Joaquin River Parkway Trust, Tree Fresno, the zoo and other community groups to partner up with businesses for some fund-raising.
I see that a bill by Assemblywoman Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, is on the Assembly Transportation Committee Agenda. High school students who are under 18 and missed 15 straight days of school or 20 days in a semester or had been declared habitually truant could lose their driver's licenses or learner's permits under this bill. What do you think? Is that something that's likely to get enforced or will it be just another toothless law? Would it be a good incentive to keep kids in school or just give unmotivated people an excuse not to work or go to school?
The Assemblywoman's Web site says:
Currently, juvenile courts have the authority to suspend driving privileges of those deemed as habitual truants but there is a lengthy and complex process involving the local educational agency and law enforcement in order for the process to reach this stage however, so this rarely occurs. From the 2002-03 school year through 2005-06, it is estimated there were over 280,000 dropouts, but just over 5,000 of them had their licenses suspended through this process -- less than 2%. If the affected individuals return to school and meet the minimum academic requirements at the end of the next grading period, their driving privileges will be reinstated.
OK, so now the "big issue" between the Democrats is which healthy, Ivy League, multimillionaire presidential candidate is the elitist? Do they really think they can convince us they are both just down-home, regular folks? Do they think what we need in Washington is someone who can go duck hunting with us or sit down and drink beer with our buddies?
I'm not buying it, are you?
Russ Minick, The Bee's deputy editorial page editor, takes a look at former high school classmate Barbara Morgan, who took her dreams to outer space last summer as a teacher astronaut aboard the shuttle Endeavour. Morgan, a 1969 graduate of Hoover High School, returned to the campus at First and Barstow last week to offer a few lessons to students about science and life.
Russ tagged along and offers his observation in a column you can read by clicking here.
Here's a taste of Russ' column:
China's already eating our economic lunch, given its massive stake in U.S. national debt and our huge trade deficit. Will they soon be eating our intellectual dinner as well?
Part of her purpose in visiting Hoover was to help inaugurate a new magnet program in technology at the school. Three "academies" in the program will be focused on drafting, architecture and video technology. That's good news for Hoover and students throughout the Fresno Unified School District.
It's also the very sort of 21st century vocational education that is badly needed in the Valley and elsewhere.
Barb addressed that at Hoover.
"There's so much out there," she said. "There's going to be a ton of stuff to learn."
In my latest column pointing out why the California Legislature should be abolished, I explain how inept the lawmakers have been in solving the state's problems. Even on the things they are required to do -- pass a balanced budget on time being a basic obligation -- they have failed miserably time and again. Click here to read other reasons that Californians need to take control of their government from the current batch of legislators.
Here's more from today's column:
There was a time when California had the best legislative system in the nation. Now it's known for the massive budget deficits it creates.
This once exceptional elective body now has legislative leaders such as Assembly Speaker Fabián Núñez of Los Angeles, who has no qualms about using campaign funds for lavish European travel, or Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland, who tries to bully everyone he deals with -- well, not the special interests.
We don't get much on the other side of the aisle. The main goal of Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines of Clovis and Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto is to block the Democrats from raising taxes or getting a budget out on time. Anything else is not in their job description.
This is an interesting web site that pulls together San Joaquin Valley information, with the overall goal of looking at the Valley's problems on a regional basis. The site was created by Mike Lukens and you can take a look by clicking here.
"San Joaquin Valleyfornia is meant to help inform conversations throughout the Valley as our leaders and citizens work to address the critical issues that we face as a region," Lukens told me in an email. "I believe the site can be a place for people to go to find out about a wide range of issues. On a larger scale, I envision the site as a place where people have an opportunity to think beyond their particular city or county and think regional."
Lukens pulls together news stories and editorials from Valley newspapers and has a handy listing of web sites of politicians, think tanks and regional groups. This is a nice info-aggregator.
I've bookmarked the site, and think you may find it useful.
Did you notice that part of this week's "Idol Gives Back" show was filmed in Goshen? In case you missed it, The Bee's Lew Griswold wrote about it last month: Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson visited Goshen Elementary School to meet students and shoot video "Idol Gives Back" fundraiser show. "American Idol" chose Save The Children as one of the charities for the second annual fundraiser, which is trying to raise $100 million. Save The Children is one of the charities that benefits from the show and it chose Goshen Elementary, where it sponsors an after-school literacy, nutrition and physical activity program, to feature on the show.
Abdul and Jackson spent more than two hours on campus then took a car tour of Goshen, a poor community along Highway 99, while the cameras rolled. It was a very touching piece.
Before you give to charity, you might want to check it out on charitynavigator.com.
By the way, if you want some interesting insights into the charitable habits of the Democrats running for office, take a look at this editorial from The Dallas Morning News:
Hillary Clinton likes to say she’s been working for change
all her life. She sure has. That’s some pile of change she and husband
Bill have collected since 2000. According to tax returns released the
other day, the Clintons have grossed $109 million since leaving the
White House.
To their credit, they were unusually philanthropic, giving
about 10 percent to charity during this period — far more than Barack
and Michelle Obama. The Obamas gave away about 6 percent of their
million-dollar 2006 income to charity, above the national average. But
prior to his 2005 book deal, the Obamas gave significantly less. The
Chicago Tribune’s examination of tax records found that in 2002, before
Obama ran for the Senate, the couple’s six-figure income put them in
the top 2 percent of U.S. households — but they gave a measly 0.4
percent to charity.
Lest you think of Clinton as Lady Bountiful, read the fine
print: Between 2001 and 2006, the former first couple directed most of
their philanthropy to the Clinton Family Foundation. They gave $6
million to the foundation, which has disbursed less than half of it.
Could there be political quid pro quos at play here?
Clinton’s personal charity to her chief political strategist,
Mark Penn, ran out this week when he could not reconcile his divided
loyalties. Despite Clinton’s opposition to a free-trade accord with
Colombia, Penn refused to give up the contract his public relations
company, Burson-Marsteller, has with Colombia to promote a U.S.
free-trade agreement.
Obama has failed to take action regarding an equally serious
conflict of interest with his senior foreign policy adviser, Gregory
Craig.
In the Senate, Obama faces a vote on two free-trade accords,
one involving Colombia and another involving Panama. Craig, a lawyer,
represents Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, the president of Panama’s
legislature, who is wanted by the United States for the 1992 murder of
an American soldier.
The disposition of Gonzalez’s murder case directly affects
the Panama accord’s outcome.
Because those interests directly conflict with Obama’s Senate
duties, it is time for Obama to draw the line.
His failure to do so undermines his credibility and presents
an easy target for his opponents.
 The Fresno Bee Opinion Talk now has a presence on MySpace and Facebook. If you participate in either of those social networking sites, add Opinion Talk to your contacts. It's one more way to stay connected with the debate on politics and public policy issues facing Fresno, our region and beyond.
Superintendent Marilou Ryder can see that whatever they are doing about absences in her school district isn't enough, so she's trying something else. That's just smart. What do you think?
A story in today's Bee says folks in the Central Unified School District are divided about Ryder's effort to draw attention to the excessive-absence and truancy problems in the district by using one child as an example. She sat in on all the classes for Makel Martinez, an eighth grader at Rio Vista Middle School, when she did not come to school. Read today's editorial on the topic by clicking here.
Some people are saying it "humiliated" the student. Doubt it. Remember, this is a generation of kids who take videos of themselves imitating "Jackass" stunts and post them on YouTube for the amusement of the global community. In middle school culture, missing school is not something that makes you an outcast. Wearing the wrong lip gloss; putting on the same outfit two days in a row; buying "yesterday's" shoes; having a bad-hair day; being too skinny, heavy, tall or short; flirting with the wrong boy; listening to the wrong music; having a hobby your friends don't understand; enjoying your parents in public; hugging your little brother, sure. But missing school? Not an issue.
Now, the parents. Well, all they had to say was the truth -- that attendance is very important to them, that their daughter is an excellent example of a child who never misses a day unless it is absolutely necessary. And on this day, she was very ill from allergies and had a doctor appointment. It certainly wouldn't have been good to have her running a mile on that dusty track if her lungs and sinuses were already compromised with allergy issues. Oh, and thanks very much for all the notes and the gift bag. See you tomorrow.
One of my colleagues makes a good point that it would have been better if the district chose a student with truancy issues rather than someone with excessive excused absences. They might even get a family that would happily make the point to get through to a truant child.
Ryder should keep experimenting. This stunt could use a little fine tuning but it's got people talking. As they say in the concert business, it all starts with BIS (butts in the seats).
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