Using a laptop as a virtual school tool. (Photo: fizkes, via Shutterstock)OPINION: A young child struggles in school, is diagnosed with dyslexia, attends a variety of different schools to find the right fit and goes on to a successful career in business and politics. This is the true life portrayal of Gov. Gavin Newsom – a model example of how different school options can have such a profound impact on the lives of our children.
Gavin Newsom, then a candidate for governor, addresses a group last year during a campaign stop. (Photo: Associated Press)Gavin Christopher Newsom is tall and handsome, with a beautiful wife and four adorable children. He’d like to be California’s next governor, and, if the polls are correct, he’ll get his wish. But the golden-boy image attached to the lieutenant governor isn’t the whole picture. Newsom’s life has had its dark times.
Nursing home patients at their facility. Photo: ChameleonsEye, via Shutterstock) OPINION: In 1965 Congress passed and the president signed into law Medicaid. At that time, they decided on how much a nursing home resident should be able to keep from his or her income toward meeting personal needs. They decided that $30 per month would be a fair allowance. The Personal Needs Allowance has remained the same at $35.00 since the 1980s.
Sen. Lois Wolk, center, the original author of the right-to-die bill, embraces Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, who authored the special session version sent to the governor on Friday. (Photo: Jeff Walters, Assembly Democratic Caucus.)Legislation to allow dying people to end their lives with lethal, physician-supplied drugs was approved by the state Senate on Friday and sent to Gov. Brown, who once studied for the priesthood and who has not disclosed his position on the bill.
Last year, 7,308 students applied to The University of California at San Francisco medical school; 149 were accepted. But only one student in next year’s class is undocumented. That’s me. It’s the first time UCSF has ever accepted an undocumented student.
Two years after Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature dismantled California’s $5 billion-a-year redevelopment program, Brown wants to bring some elements back — but he’s offering less money, a different name and a change in local voters’ approval. The crux of Brown’s plan is to expand the reach of the rarely-used, little-known Infrastructure Finance Districts. The districts, or IFDs, have taxing authority and are created with voter approval. They function on property tax dollars and focus on highways, transit and sewer projects, libraries, parks and child care centers.
In the wake of the recent tragedy in Vallejo involving a long-ago paroled life term inmate we are again hearing calls for a reduction in the still small number of life-term prisoners who are granted parole. The usual unfounded accusations and unsubstantiated allegations of continuing danger from all released lifers are again making the rounds.
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story”
By Arnold Schwarzenegger
Simon & Schuster 2012
646 pages
By A.G. Block
Say, kids, I recently spent a fantastic week in the company of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former tank driver in the Austrian Army. Schwarzenegger, who some time ago moved from the Alps to Brentwood, published