| October 2006
President Clinton sent every principal in the country a book promoting it. The initiative must have failed, because today you don't see many kids in school uniforms and the issue seems to have dropped from the media radar screen. It is the nature of much so-called educational innovation to capture the imagination with or without adequate evidence to support claims. People can intuitively agree that having same sex classes might help some kids, but when you look at what studies exist to support this, there isn't much. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools, whether it is in academics or athletics. It states: "No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid." This latest initiative appears to have started when the US Department of Education announced that Title IX restrictions would not apply to experiments in grouping students on the basis of sex. I can find no reason why federal law is being waived for this except that many feel that Title IX, the gender equity law, applies only to how much money schools should be spending on school sports.
Wayne Henning: Stadium's future rests in hands of city, residents
We encourage members of the community to attend in order for us to hear your opinions on all of the data provided. Because it is important that residents have access to and understand all the information presented by Gateway, I also strongly encourage residents to attend the advisory board meetings in January and February. These are working meetings, so we will not be soliciting comments. However, it will be valuable to hear all the information in order to reach an informed opinion about the future of Roberts Stadium. Wayne Henning is chairman of Roberts Stadium Advisory Board. .
Physician boosted spirits of patients
Thomas J. Zirkle, a longtime physician at Loma Linda University Medical Center, was reaching out to patients at the hospital, hosting a high school radio program where he would play the organ and give a small devotional talk to boost patients' spirits. "He had a strong desire to care for others from early on," said son Jonathan Zirkle of Loma Linda. The physician and medical missionary died Jan. 11 in Loma Linda. He was 71. Zirkle was born July 17, 1936, in Loma Linda to Thomas I. Zirkle, a surgeon, and Florence Zirkle, a homemaker who had trained as a nurse. From an early age he was interested in the medical field, fires and firefighting, and playing the organ. After graduating from Loma Linda Academy, he earned a bachelor's degree in religion and pre-med from La Sierra College in Riverside.
Tolerance the word for engrossing 'People of the Book'
When the subject is genocide, readers tend to gravitate to the stories of survivors. It may be that people crave happy endings, but I prefer to think that you need a little light when trying to understand so much darkness. In her new novel, "People of the Book," Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Geraldine Brooks tackles a most unlikely survivor: The Sarajevo Haggadah, a 15th-century Jewish artifact that has managed to elude some of history's most notorious bad guys, from Inquisitors to Nazis. What is known about the book is enough to have Indiana Jones heading off in hot pursuit. In this novel, Brooks bends her imagination to uncovering the rest. "People of the Book" opens in 1996 just after the Bosnian war. The Haggadah has turned up in a bank vault, where it was hidden by a Muslim librarian who rescued it under heavy shelling.
Nonprofit group adapts homes to fit wheelchairs
At 4 years old and 40 pounds, with dark curly hair and round eyes that peer from glasses a little too big for her nose, Glorianna Jackson is the kind of cute that melts hearts. And, like parents everywhere, Glorianna's just want the best for her.
What would best serve Glorianna are a front-porch ramp and a new bathroom with a universal design. Glorianna was born with spina bifida, a disabling birth defect of the spine. She uses a wheelchair, and it's likely she will never be able to walk without the aid of crutches.
"She's getting heavier every day," says her mother, Lisa Jackson, "and it's harder and harder to lift her."
.
Jude Law's 'Sleuth' pulling power
Not content with the challenge of roping the greatest living playwright into penning what would become his first film script in ten years, the ambitious Hollywood star also decided there was only one man who could step into Olivier's shoes - step forward Sir Michael Caine, 35-years wiser, two Oscars better off (Both for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - for 'Hannah and Her Sisters' in 1987 and 'The Quiet American' in 2002) and now a Knight of the Realm after being awarded a CBE by the Queen in 2000. Caine recalls: "We were at dinner one night and Jude said, 'I'm thinking of asking Harold Pinter to rewrite 'Sleuth' ' and I told him, 'Well I'd be interested, but I wouldn't be interested in redoing the one that we did, because I think we did a pretty damn good job of it back then.' "But Pinter completely rewrote it.
The Shrink's Progress
ORINDA, Calif. -- Debbie, a 17-year-old now down to 86 pounds and ever closer to her secret goal of 81 pounds, slowly awoke in her bed on a hospital intensive care unit. She was so groggy from her drug overdose that the only thing she noticed was the painful burning sensation in her nose. She then discovered that she couldn't move her hands to rub the unpleasant sensation away. Debbie had survived her suicide attempt and finally figured out that padded leather restraints secured her wrists and ankles to the sides of the bed. The burning sensation came from a tube that had been inserted through her nose down into her stomach. The tube had been used initially to pump out whatever pill fragments in Debbie's stomach had not been absorbed before she reached the hospital. After monitoring her for awhile the medical doctor decided that because her nutritional condition was so precarious, the nasogastric tube would be used for feeding Debbie's malnourished body.
|
