As noted here a week or so ago, Ronald Reagan's close friend and confidant George Shultz published an op-ed declaring that if Ronald Reagan was president today, he would take action to restrain climate change. Along similiar lines, this week Reagan's biographer Lou Cannon published a tough warning about drought and California that began withContinue reading “The sound and sights of the California drought”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
California vs. the megadrought
Disasters by their nature are enormously loud, chaotic, disruptive events. Think the scream of hurricane winds, the crashing of boulders in floods, the phenomenal roar of a huge wildfire. Drought is different. Drought stays quiet. Its powers cannot be seen directly, save in the unblinking glare of the sun. Drought lacks drama. Yet — as oneContinue reading “California vs. the megadrought”
Obama at Selma: the true meaning of America
In his extraordinary speech at Selma this past Saturday, President Obama said something I've never heard any other American President say in forty-odd years. He lionized those who walked into this country without papers, looking for a better life. They were the "hopeful strivers," he said, part of the nobility of this country, and deserved mention with the marchers atContinue reading “Obama at Selma: the true meaning of America”
GOP: Party of Big Pizza — and obesity?
Last year at this time I started working on a story about childhood obesity in a couple of small towns in Ventura County, and how different the picture looked in an upscale, mostly white town such as Ojai, where childhood obesity runs behind the national average of about 35%, and how it looks in the poorer, mostly Latino town of Santa Paula, where childhood obesity prevalence is among the highest in the state, at about 48%.
Interviewing the director of food services for Ojai's schools, I learned that she does not allow frozen pizza at all for her students eating school lunches, and did what she could to discourage parents from bringing pizza to after-school events. By contrast, I heard from a student at Santa Paula High, most students went for the frozen pizza at the high school every day.
Naturally I wondered if there was a connection to the high rates of obesity, but my adviser at USC/Annenberg's Health Reporting fellowship, discouraged me pointing the finger of blame at a single food for Santa Paula's obesity problem.
So my ears perked up when today I came across a characteristically strong but unusually wide-ranging column from Paul Krugman at the NYTimes, who argues that based on contributions, it's fair to say that Republicans are "the party of Big Energy and Big Food…and in particular, the party of Big Pizza."
Could caloric frozen pizza explain the obesity problem among kids eating free and reduced lunches?
Save the groundfish: the great Sand Dab supper
It's rare to see a professional cook write an op-ed for a newspaper such as the Los Angeles Times, but Kelly Whitaker makes a plea for a fishery which I second from the bottom of my heart. I have made sand dabs for supper countless times because yes, they're irresistible. Please don't let them go away. Help these fishContinue reading “Save the groundfish: the great Sand Dab supper”
Reporter: In defense of the gotcha question
Somebody had to defend the much-despised "gotcha" question. Ron Fournier, veteran reporter, digs into the legend and finds all kinds of juicy examples. Writes it up with great depth and precision. For example, where did the phrase "gotcha" come from? Fournier agrees with another reporter, and suggests that Bill Clinton might have introduced it intoContinue reading “Reporter: In defense of the gotcha question”
To know yourself you must sometimes be by yourself
Last month Backpacker magazine ran a tough-minded Mark Jenkins essay on journeying alone called Go Solo. At its heart it goes something like this: Ever since Aron Ralston got himself caught between a rock and a hard place in Utah’s Blue John Canyon, hung there for five days, and then amputated his right forearm toContinue reading “To know yourself you must sometimes be by yourself”
The soar into the stratosphere of the 1%
As one news organization after another has gotten on board the income inequality bandwagon, the graphics have gotten ever telling. Each seems to be competing to best tell the story graphically. The WSJ had an especially good set of interactive graphics on Inequality in America lately. But here's the simplest and perhaps the best toContinue reading “The soar into the stratosphere of the 1%”
An inequality graphic that’s not a chart but a cartoon
Take a glance at this depiction of the raging income inequality debate. It's refreshing, because on this subject there have been approximately 573 stories, studies, and graphs, graphs, graphs posted in the past 48 hours or so in the press, and this is about the only one that's been humorous. It's incredible, the volume of this debate, and its implications, inContinue reading “An inequality graphic that’s not a chart but a cartoon”
A Cubist from California (with wit)
At the Museum of Modern Art is an exhibit of modern abstract painters, the first since an epochal show from l958. It's called The Forever Now. The title hints at the problem facing the painters in the show: what can be painted that hasn't been painted before? Or, as Peter Schdjeldahl puts it in TheContinue reading “A Cubist from California (with wit)”
Kit Stolz 