Layla Bohm, our courts and cops reporter, just returned from speaking to a group of kids at Heritage School.
Speaking to classes and clubs is something we like to do. I’m not sure many of us could top Layla’s ensemble of stories, which includes witnessing a courthourse shooting and covering an incident involving a former roller-skating stripper in a burning motor home.
Even so, we are ready and able to talk about varied subjects: reporting, writing, editing, photography, multi-media transformations, ethics or general directions in news.
So a general shout out: If you’d like a speaker from the newsroom to talk to your class or organization, just let us know. You can call me at 369-7035 or e-mail me at richardh@lodinews.com.
I came down with a cold Monday, but this one is different.
In my lifetime I’ve had colds — cough, runny nose, that punky feeling — dozens of times. Sometimes these colds have been the flu — add on a fever, sometimes chills and a headache. I’m 58, practically an old man. I’ve recovered every time. So what is it this time?
Lisa Alfaro gave my wife Christi some Muco Coccinum — “a homeopathic preparation for the temporary relief of symptoms associated with colds and flu.” Christi trusts Lisa. I should take it, she said. I wrinkled up my nose.
“She’s just trying to help,” said Christi, wondering what was up with me.
Then Arlene Roget came to the office with chicken soup and Zycam. That’s what I need to feel better soon, she said.
Even Brenda Speth, publisher of the Napa Valley Register, got in the act. I called to ask her her help with a newspaper project. But before we could talk business, we had to talk about my voice.
“Have you tried EmergenC? It’s loaded with vitamin C. I’ll bring some to the newspaper conference,” she promised. And she did. Thursday, before we could begin the CNPA Foundation meeting, I had to have some Emergen-C.
And of course, I had to turn to Theresa Larson, our “office mom” here at the Sentinel.
How come I can’t buy pseudoephedrine, anymore, I asked Theresa? It was in the paper, she reminded me. The meth heads are using it to make drugs. You have to go the pharmacist and show your driver’s license.
It’s works better than phenylephrine hydrochloride (the new Sudafed, etc.) doesn’t it?
Yes, said Theresa with a mother’s smile, it does.
There’s something about these Baby Boom moms. I think they all have empty nests. Their children are grown and they can’t be there when the kids get the flu, a traffic ticket or jilted. But this past week, they all had me. And they just couldn’t turn off the nurture in their nature.
I took some of these “new” remedies. Not others. I’m not sure if they helped more than the cough drops and antihistamine that I always take. But I’m getting slowly better.
I believe the final word on curing the common cold is embodied in an old doctor’s joke that goes something like this:
A patient with a viral cold or flu — aggressively treated with analgesics, antihistamines and lots of fluids — returns to health in an average of seven days. Left untreated, it takes about a week.
So I should be feeling much better Monday, ladies. As for the mothering, I regret letting my annoyance show. Friendship is the most important part of a healthy life. Thank you.
Just back from governmental affairs day in Sacramento sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
Featured was Steve Poizner, running against Meg Whitman to be the Republican nominee for governor.
A few notes on Poizner — and other takeaways from the session:
• Poizner has a black belt in karate.
• Spent a year as a volunteer high school teacher in San Jose and loved it. “After serving eight years as governor, I am definitely going back to teaching.”
• Is a self-described geek with an electrical engineering degree from U. of Texas and an MBA from Stanford. A rich geek: He founded two successful tech companies, including one that put GPS receivers in 700 million cell phones globally.
• A big supporter of charter schools, limiting welfare, working toward bipartisan solutions and transparency in government. “I want to put every dime of state spending on the Web so the media and the public have access to it. Most people will be amazed at the amount of waste here.”
• He’d eliminate regulatory barriers and allow out-of-state health insurance companies to operate in California, increasing competition.
• With California being in a recession, with the legislature drawing popularity ratings just above the H1N1 virus, why does he want to be governor? “This is when great leaders step up. There is so much to fix. This is the perfect time to be a reformer.”
• Whitman, by the way, was invited but didn’t show.
Other notes:
• A state senate resolution was presented to Tim Crews, publisher of the Sacramento Valley Mirror in Willows. Crews is pretty much a one-man band keeping the journalistic flame aglow in his community, publishing hard-hitting investigative pieces that make government big wigs squirm. He went to jail for five days for refusing to give up confidential sources in a case that involved a cop who stole a gun.
Crews is no silk-sleeved pundit on Fox or CNN opining above the fray.
Just a guy who works his tail off in relative obscurity to keep the journalistic ideal alive.
• State Treasurer Bill Lockyer spoke (he’s been a featured guest at previous GA days) and was typically literate and reflective.
A Democrat, Lockyer made the case that Californians are not heavily taxed; we’re only slightly above the national average in the amount of state taxes we pay. He said Republicans have contributed to the state’s fiscal meltdown by cutting taxes while expanding prisons. The prison system, he pointed out, has grown much faster and taken a much bigger portion of the state’s budget than has education.
He lamented the legislature’s lack of collegiality but said “drinking and playing poker together,” as in the old days, isn’t the solution. “It is the glue that is missing and I am not sure how to go about replacing it.”
Just back from a briefing by top LUSD administrators on the budget challenge.
It is, well, staggering.
The district needs to cut about $30 million from a budget of $212 million.
A date to circle: Feb. 16.
Expect hundreds, that’s right, hundreds, of layoff notices to be issued then. Could be 400 or more. (Lodi Unified has approx. 3,000 full-time employees.)
These won’t be individual pink slips with names on them, but legal documentation allowing the district to lay off a certain number of workers in specific categories.
Unless the cavalry arrives, in the form of federal funds, or there are dramatic concessions from LUSD unions, the layoff notices can and will be activated. (An injection of federal money helped soften the blow of the budget ax last year, but district officials aren’t as hopeful this year.)
Cut cell phones and computers, you might say. But 90 percent of the budget is personnel. Much of the budget is dictated by state or federal fiat.
Cut administration, we’ve heard. Sure, that’s possible, but overall administration has already been reduced. And you could eliminate everyone in the district office and the budget would still be oozing red.
So the options, sadly, are quite limited.
After the Feb. 16 meeting, when the notices will be announced, the next big date is June 30, when a balanced budget needs to be finalized and submitted by the district.
This is quite plain: The upcoming weeks will be brutal for the Lodi Unified community.
For eight years or so, News-Sentinel journalists have gathered weekly (or nearly so) for writers’ sessions.
The sessions often focus on journalistic storytelling, such as writing lead paragraphs, using quotes, and organizing the news story.
They’ve veered well beyond writing, though, as we’ve discussed topic such as ethics, song lyrics as narrative, digital photography and Twitter.
We’ve had some excellent guests at our writers’ sessions, including writers for the Bee, Chronicle, LA Times, journalism professors and Pulitzer-winners.
From time to time, we’ve thought the sessions might be of interest for some in the community outside the newsroom.
This Thursday will mark our very first public writers’ session. Chase Davis, a crack investigative reporter, will speak on “Money, Politics and Reporting,” at 1:30 in the library’s community room. (Chase graduated from the well-regarded Missouri School of Journalism, also the alma mater of our city hall reporter, Maggie Creamer.)
Chase works for California Watch, a new, non-profit investigative reporting team that is doing some kick-butt work on, among other things, stimulus spending and state government.
If you have an interest in journalism or politics, feel free to drop on by.
Just heard some sad news. Bob Shamrock, formerly of Lockeford and Lodi, has passed away.
Bob was the dad of Ken Shamrock, mixed martial arts fighter and a UFC pioneer. I worked with Ken on his biography, “Inside the Lion’s Den.” Bob was a long-time foster home operator. He adopted Ken and was a pivotal influence in his martial arts career. Bob’s other adoptive son, Frank, has also enjoyed a successful career in MMA.
Bob had a bright personality and he worked with me hand-in-hand on the book. He was a good friend and man who devoted his adult life to helping young people.
Bob had a penchant for vintage cars and used to cruise around Lodi in a beautiful white Rolls Royce convertible.
In recent years, Bob had moved to Reno, where Ken and his MMA business are now based.
Here is a link to the news of Bob’s death posted at a popular mixed martial arts site:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Bob-Shamrock-Dead-at-68-22072
I’d like your help with a question posed by a loyal reader.
He wonders why reader comments on our online stories are listed from most recent to oldest. He feels it would make more sense to start at the top with the first (oldest) comment, then move downward as comments are posted over time.
Some online news sites, such as the Chronicle and Bee, offer readers their choice of how to sort comments. The software gods that control our site, however, do not allow that flexibility.
We can either sort old to new or new to old.
So how about it?
Should we flip the comments?
Any druthers?
Every year at the end of the Christmas season, the Ensenada Centenaria Rotary Club joins with several Rotary clubs from Southern California to feed some of the needy in Ensenada.
I flew to San Diego with fellow Rotarian Lodi Fire Chief
Leonisa lives in this small room with her five children and husband. I apologize for the quality; I failed to get the flash to work on my wife's camera.
Kevin Donnelly and his wife Cathy. We rented a car and drove two hours to Ensenada. We spent Friday and Saturday helping this effort, as representatives of the Lodi-Tokay Rotary Club. We came with a check for the Ensenada club. We did a little work. Mostly we were witness to the need in Ensenada.
It is a port city of 350,000, a sixth the size of sprawling Tijuana, with its drug violence and masses of would-be illegal immigrants. Ensenada is peaceful, but there are many thousands of people looking for work, battling illness and lacking necessities.
There is poverty and homelessness in Lodi. There is overwhelming poverty in Ensenada.
Kevin, Cathy and I were assigned to Julio Casas, my old friend from the Ensenada group. After we loaded his fellow Rotarians’ pickups with bags of food and cans of tuna donated by the California Sportsfishing Alliance, we went to deliver these “despensas” to the Albergue San Vicente and the Los Olivios district.
During the two days, we all thought about how little we were able to do with our $1,500 check and a few hours of volunteer work. Kevin, I think, had the right perspective.
“No one can solve this problem. But we can help those we can. And that’s good for everyone,” he said. I suppose that’s the sort of perspective a firefighter brings to his job.
The Albergue de San Vicente is a shelter for “internal migrants” run by the Catholic Scalabrinian Order. We were told by Sister Maria Rosa that the shelter serves poor Mexicans who have lost their jobs and come to Ensenada looking for work, Mexicans who have been deported by the U.S. and poor Latin Americans from other countries who are stuck in Mexico with immigration difficulties. It’s open to women, men and families. It’s tiny, and people are only allowed to stay three days. The Albergue of San Vicente may not be the only homeless shelter in Ensenada, but it’s much smaller than Lodi’s shelter and Ensenada is about the size of Stockton — with more need per capita than Stockton.
Our next visit was to a low-income housing “development” in Los Olivos. People there rent a plywood two-room hut with a dirt floor and peeling paint for 300 pesos a month — $23. Their main rooms, I would guess, are 12 by 18 feet. I went inside two dwellings. Each had two beds and a gas-fired burner in the main room. A woman named Leonisa told me she lived there with her husband and five children. The space was lit by one bare lightbulb. There was a TV. The typical electric bill is $38.50 a month.
I presume no one in Los Olivos has a regular job. One woman had a crate of tomatoes in her front store room. She makes a cash income by reselling the tomatoes two or three at a time to her neighbors.
I didn’t have time to examine sanitation, but surely there were outhouses. Imagine what happens to the sewage when it rains? Nearly all the kids have head lice and other, more serious illnesses.
This is home to 200-250 people — maybe 50 families, I’d estimate. We came with 40 bags of food (rice, beans, flour, powdered baby formula, cooking oil). Plus we had 40 bags of canned tuna and 40 blankets. Nearing the end of our “despensas,” we gave the last few families a choice between a 20-pound bag of food or 10 cans of tuna and a blanket. Everyone who had a choice took the food and looked longingly at the blanket and the tuna.
Afterwards Martina Valles Pimental of Los Olivos delivered a heartfelt thank-you speech. Later she asked me:
“When will they come back?”
I’m not sure, I told her. Probably next year.
She thought a moment.
“A year — if God permits it. Thank you.”
Tijuana and San Diego are a single metropolis welding together Mexico and the West Coast.
Corruption and drug violence are major impediments to Mexico’s economic success and its ability to employ, feed, educate and house many of its citizens. These economic failures are what drive millions of Mexicans to look for work and hope in American towns like Lodi.
When I lived in Mexico in 1978, corruption in government and business were widely accepted and meekly criticized. Denouncing corruption then was like complaining about the weather — a useless exercise.
Since then, drugs, drug money and drug violence have accelerated, creating fear among millions of Mexicans — to say nothing of thousands of San Diegans. Now, finally, some Mexicans are doing more than talking about corruption. President Felipe Calderon is on a crusade to clean up police departments throughout the republic.
In Tijuana, he appointed former Army officer Julian Leyzaola to be Secretary of Public Safety and ordered him to hold the city’s police accountable for public safety and betrayal of their duty.
On Dec. 21 we front-paged a story about Leyzaola. He has fired and jailed many corrupt cops. New, honest officers have begun arresting and even gunning down some of those in the drug trade. But the drug lords are pushing back and many cops have been killed by paid assassins.
Our paper doesn’t have the space for the entire 2,700-word story by AP’s Elliot Spagat. In fact, we had to cut the abridged version of Spagat’s work. But those who know how important it is to have honest institutions in Mexico will be riveted by this report.
Click here to see the complete story and photos which AP published Dec. 20, 2009.
If you haven’t yet, check out the Pens on Fire blog here at lodinews.com. (You can also get a sense of POF in Wednesday’s Pano page in the print edition, where we republished several of the entries.)
This is our collaboration with some really bright students at Lodi High.
The school’s paper, The Flame, was doused this year for lack of enrollment.
Yet we heard some of the students still wanted to do journalism.
We’ve gathered several times here at the LNS, talked ethics and libel, and now their blog is launched.
The name, “Pens on Fire,” was suggested by Erica Seiler, a gifted young writer. Check out her account of working as an LNS carrier. It is colorful and funny. This girl is going places.
Dario Leventini is shooting photos and writing for the blog. Dario is multi-talented and incredibly motivated. It amazes all of us that he is only a freshman.
John McCallie has played a leadership role in getting POF going and his entry on writing on the backs of hands is as informative as it is entertaining.
Destini Chumley is working on some entries and we hope to post those soon.
Sentinel staff writer Maggie Creamer has stepped up to handle much of the coordination and mentoring for Pens on Fire.
Take a look here:
http://www.lodinews.com/blogs/pensonfire
Also, if any other students at Lodi High would like to participate, we’re quite open to that.
You can contact one of the students above, or reach me or Maggie at 369-7035.
