Posts Tagged: focus
News
Ted Gray and Jason Bryant committed violent felonies when they were 22 and 20 years old, respectively. Consequently, the young duo received lengthy prison sentences. That was then. Today, they are older and wiser and cofounders of Creating Restorative Opportunities and Programs (CROP). It aims to help formerly incarcerated people striving to be productive members of society.
Opinion
OPINION: Everywhere you turn these days we’re being told that government doesn’t work, that our democracy is too polarized to deliver for everyday people. The budget Gov. Newsom recently signed tells a different story. It will help turbocharge our recovery from COVID-19 and make a historic commitment on another urgent public health crisis: Alzheimer’s.
Opinion
OPINION: Recent reports found that youth detention facilities are failing to adjust spending rates even after facility populations have drastically dropped. California youth are not committing violent crimes at the rate that was once predicted, leaving many detention hall beds empty.
Opinion
OPINION: Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” Rules enacted a decade ago that were intended to protect California’s iconic salmon and Delta smelt populations aren’t working and federal agencies are now in the process of modernizing them, this time using much better science.
Recent News
The new CalPERS president, Priya Mathur, lost her board seat this week, defeated by a Corona police sergeant, Jason Perez, who wants to shift the $360 billion investment fund toward higher yields that secure pensions with less focus on social issues. Mathur, a Bay Area Rapid Transit District analyst serving on the board since 2002, rose to the leadership post in January.
Opinion
The government nearly always takes the straightforward approach to problematic chemical substances by simply restricting or banning their use. This approach fails to control the replacement(s), so we all too often end up with regrettable substitutions – the use of other chemical substances that perform no better than the substances they replaced in terms of environmental and human health toxicity.
Opinion
OPINION: Growing up in New Orleans, summertime brought mixed feelings. It meant the end of the school year and endless snow cones, but also the beginning of hurricane season. Here in California we experience extreme heat in the summer and floods and fires throughout the year, all made worse by climate change. Unless we take action now to prepare our communities, many will suffer, some more than others.
Opinion
If you’ve been following the debate in Sacramento over the use of foam cups and food containers in California, you probably have heard some rather outlandish allegations related to their safety. After 40-plus years as a toxicologist, I can clearly state: There are no adverse health effects on humans from polystyrene foam food and drink containers.
News
With the Affordable Care Act facing an uncertain future, could California set up its own universal health care system as an alternative?
Opinion
OPINION: A lot of well-meaning, smart and politically savvy professionals cringe at the idea of putting together Spanish language advertisements. In seminars and forums they twist in circles trying to convince the audience and themselves that Hispanics can be easily reached in English. While the reasons may vary, in reality these are just excuses to mask an underlying concern: the fear of screwing up.
Former state prison inmate Jason Bryant has co-founded a group to help inmates re-enter society. (Photo: Tammy McCarley)
