A caregiver’s love
Text and Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Claire and Luther Finley got the best Christmas gift ever when Bank of America renegotiated a deal that let the couple stay in their foreclosed house until Claire dies.
Claire has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which is a form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Claire requires 24-hour care, has lost the use of her hands and feet, and her speech is now fading.
Through the Greater Sacramento’s Chapter of the ALS Association’s equipment loan closet, the couple was able to get a motorized wheelchair. Like most caregivers for the terminally ill, Luther manages all the stress and conflicts that coming along with his job, but he wants Claire to die with dignity. Every day, Luther smiles and talks to Claire lovingly, prepares meals, cleans her and runs errands. His only time away is when he walks their six dogs to a eucalyptus grove while another caregiver usually watches Claire.
View 7 photos »
Holiday Door Decorating Contest
Text by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Capitol Weekly joined in the festivities last week with the Holiday Door Decorating Contest at the Capitol. I haven’t seen that much wrapping paper, Christmas lights, Scotch tape, glue and glitter in all my life. Legislators and staff got crafty, creative and competitive – just like on the House floor!
First place went to Room 4061, Sen. Negrete McLeod’s office.
Second place went to Room B-31A the Office of Travel, and 3rd place went to Room 4098, Assemblymember Cameron Smyth’s office. View 8 photos »
Tis the Season!
TEXT BY LILlY FUENTES-JOY
In Sacramento this week, tradition ruled with the 80th annual Capitol
Christmas Tree Lighting and the California Hall of Fame induction ceremony honoring California notables. Crowds gathered in the cold to see 6-year-old Mikayla Jones of Visalia assist Gov. Brown, his wife Anne Gust Brown and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson
light the Capitol Christmas Tree. There were musical performances by the California Army National Guard, the governor’s own Bel Tempo Ringers, the Oakland School
for the Arts, and many more.
A star-studded red carpet was rolled out for the California Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. The honorees hailed from various fields including music, writing, science, sports and acting. Photographer Tia Gemmel captured some of the finest moments from the event View 9 photos »
Putting on the Ritz
Text and Photo by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
The glitz and glamour of Dancing with the Stars came to the Capitol in its own version, “Dancing with the Capitol Stars,” with journalists and politicians competing for the coveted Disco Ball trophy. The glittering event was held at the Crest Theatre – a perfect site, with its magnificently refurbished interior.
The Sacramento Press Club event, which was held to raise money for the journalism student scholarship fund, included ceremonies honoring L.A. Times columnist George Skelton who, among other thing, thanked his wife for reading all his articles.
With Fedora in hand, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg sang a spoof of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” warbling that, “I deal with you guys Capitol Weekly, NPR and the Times....”
The competing dancers trained for two months with professional dancers on the tango, fox trot and waltz. The winner of the dance contest was Karen Skelton – George’s daughter and a nationally known communications strategist – who performed a flawless waltz. View 9 photos »
Wundercars
Text and Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
I love classic American cars!
This past year I have been shooting
at classic car shows throughout Northern California and I’ve seen some vintage beauties. If you want to see these treasures in the flesh, check out the California Automobile Museum, whose collection includes American automobiles from the late 1890s through the 1980s. There are 250 classic cars, race cars, muscle cars, hot rods, turn-of-the-century bicycles, Studebaker wheel barrels and the car that belonged to Henry Ford’s wife.
One standout is the shapely and golden Marquis. Another, and one of the most innovative, is the 1971 Star Streak Motorhome built out of a 1971 Oldsmobile Toronado. It’s huge and the aluminum frame was built with anodized aluminum panels for the outer skin, which requires no paint.
The current exhibit, Wundercars, features German automobiles. These classic Euro beauties featured at the California Automobile
Museum are a timeless showcase of engineering, manufacturing,
and design innovations.
Ja, bitte! View 6 photos »
Text & PHOTOS by Malcolm Maclachlan
Like a lot of people, I’ve wondered what it would be like to own an electric car. And last week I got the chance, though not with a vehicle you’ll ever be able to buy.
BMW hooked me up with an all-electric Mini Cooper - or Mini E - for the week. But, according to the company, this was just a convenient car to turn electric to test out on some consumers and reporters. Two all-electric BMW models will be coming out over the next couple years.
First, the positive. This is an incredibly fun car to drive. It’s super zippy and responsive. The 0 to 60 time probably isn’t all that great - at least eight seconds. But the 30 to 60 is off-the-charts, and it handles incredibly well, making getting through urban streets and highway onramps a breeze.
I also hardly even used the brakes. There is a regenerative braking feature, like a Toyota Prius or other hybrid, but it kicks in the moment you take your foot off the gas. Even at high speeds you’ll quickly roll to a stop if you’re not pushing the pedal. Given how many accidents happen due to people falling asleep at the wheel, this seems like a feature that more cars should have. And, of course, it’s really cute - way cuter than my beat-up old 2001 Prius.
Now the more mixed - my little Prius is like a C-130 cargo plane compared to the Mini-E when it comes to cargo and passenger room. I actually found myself driving more, unable to combine errands because the little two-seat, no-real-trunk car can carry one passenger and little else. I also didn’t really trust the electrical system in my 1915 Craftsman house. Sure, it’s been upgraded, but I got the feeling if I plugged it in every circuit would flip. This is more a reflection on my house than the car, but it still reflects a wider issue of all the upgrades to both the grid and individual homes that will need to be done to support a large fleet. The new BMW electrics will be larger, with more cargo room and up to four adult passengers.
It’s also “mini” like Maurice Jones-Drew, not Lea Michele. As in, it’s pretty heavy for a car of its size. This helps it hug the road, but it’s not as efficient as it could be. The gas Minis are also not the gas sippers they could be, having chosen more power over greater efficiency (did I mention how fun it is to drive?). The battery comes with a 100-mile charge, but a full eight-hour work day was not quite enough to charge it up at the charging station provided in the garage at Park Tower.
My issues with the car, though, are really about personal design choices - I’m pretty much a “point A to point B” person who never really had a fetish for cars, though I can see how this one is really cool. For those who can afford this as a second car, this could be a great option. And given how inherently inefficient and prone to breakdown even hyper-modern internal combustion engines are, the Mini-E will be cheaper to operate than just about any car that uses gas. For myself, though, I think I’m going to wait for something combining lighter materials and a bit more room before I go the all-electric route. Those things could help eliminate the “range anxiety” that many people get driving electric cars - that, or allow for a smaller battery pack.
View 5 photos »
Text & PHOTOS by Malcolm Maclachlan
You can’t quite call it Chinese-American on Chinese-American violence, but the San Francisco mayor’s race has gotten rough - mainly between interim mayor Ed Lee and Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco. Yee was expected to be one of the leading candidates, if not a mild favorite, heading into the race.
But Lee has emerged as the front-runner to win a full term. The former
city administrator was elected by the city’s Board of Supervisors to finish out the final year of Gavin Newsom’s second term after he was elected Lt. Gov. Lee originally pledged not to run, but buoyed by support, much of it by becoming the first Asian American mayor of the city - with its huge Asian population and famed Chinatown - he changed his mind.
With apologies to the many other candidates - especially city attorney
Dennis Herrera, a longtime major player in SF politics in his own right - this race has largely been shaped by an increasing bitter rivalry between Lee and Yee. Here’s a little of that in pictures. View 6 photos »
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
One refrain repeatedly used in an attempt to discredit the Occupy
movement is that they “don’t know what they want” and “lack a
coherent message.” How they are any more or less coherent than any
other similarly large group of people yelling and holding signs (Tea Party, immigration, anti-war, etc), I’ve never really been able to wrap my head around.
But there is a way people debate in public all the time. Here’s some from the liberal end of the spectrum, as seen around downtown lately.
In the interest of equal time, Republicans and conservatives, please send in images of your favorite bumper stickers supporting your side. As soon as we get enough, we’ll run a page of those too (and I’ll shoot ‘em if I happen to
see them myself). Please email: Malcolm@capitolweekly.net.
And yes, the shark one I just kind of threw in there. View 6 photos »
Photos by Tia Gemmell
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
The Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce held their 17th annual Perspectives conference on Sept. 23. Here's some shots of the latest crop of movers and shakers. View 6 photos »
Photos by Stephen Crowley, Stephen Crowley Photography
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Occupy Sacramento has occupied Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Sacramento for a week now.
The protest - which, as of last weekend, still seemed to include well over 100 people - is one of
scores popping up around the nation in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protest in New
York City.
It’s hard not to draw parallels between this movement on the left and the Tea Party protests that have
been going on for almost three years now. The Occupy crowds overall appear to be younger, poorer and
more racially diverse - but some of the outfits would work in either venue.
The movement has been accused on lacking a focus or any specific agenda or demands. Though, I’d
argue this is where the parallels with the Tea Party are the strongest. Both movements are comprised of
numerous organizations and thousands of people, though several Tea Party groups are obviously far more
organized at this point. And both movements have one of the prime motivations in common: anger at
President Obama, though for opposite reasons.
The Tea Party also includes numerous different people with many different demands - and sometimes
the demands of some members are in contradiction with demands of others in the movement. The
Tea Party people have pretty clearly stated they want less government spending, lower taxes, less regulation.
Many - but hardly all - are motivated by social issues like gay rights and abortion.
The Occupy movement, meanwhile, has been pretty clear about what they want: the exact opposite.
That is, higher taxes on corporations and the rich, greater financial regulation, and more government
spending on a social safety net. Many, but hardly all, are motivated by social issues.
In other words, one maps pretty closely with the conservative end of the Republican Party, while the
other includes large elements of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. So, besides Obama, I think they
have something else in common: extreme frustration with the two-party system.
And both sides bristle at the comparison. The Tea Party Express folks like to point out that the
Occupy people get arrested more, and the Occupy people say they get hassled by the police for no reason.
Any way, a big thank you to contributor Stephen Crowley for these shots (Stephen Crowley
Photography, scrowleyphotos@yahoo.com). View 7 photos »
Photos by Terri M. Venesio, Text by Genevieve Jerome, Captions by Terri M. Venesio and Malcolm Maclachlan
Let’s get together and get our cannabis cards!
On the weekend of August 19-21, many people attending Hempfest at the Rio Ramaza Marina in Sutter
County did just so, as well as celebrate all things cannabis.
“I’m really just here to get my card,” says Sacramento resident Shane Grimshaw.
Grimshaw was in a car accident last year. Shortly after, he started having dizzy spells, problems with his vision,
and back problems. After missing several months of work, he was finally cleared to go to work; but continues to have problems with back spasms and migraines.
“I saw several specialists. They all kind of treated me like I was crazy or making it up because I’d tell them of my symptoms, yet nothing was showing up on the scans,” Grimshaw states of his experiences with traditional medicine,
“My girlfriend had to take the wheel and pull us over one night when I blacked out while driving, it got that scary.”
In order to get a cannabis card, festival attendees had to fill out paperwork describing the medical issues prompting their need, wait for a short examination and fill out final paperwork. In some cases, patients had to prove they have been receiving medical attention for their medical problems for their card to last the full year. These patients typically were given temporary cards that will only last two months.
This is the first Hempfest in Sacramento, with other successful Hempfests being held in Seattle and Boston. The event was held in Sutter County due to difficulties finding locations that would allow people to partake in marijuana
openly. Despite being legalized for medical purposes, many people at the event refused to be quoted out of fear of potential legal action.
“I was a little worried about coming. I really wanted to see what it was all about, but was worried that it would be a set-up for a drug bust,” says Susan Jerome.
Plenty of security, as well as several Sutter County sheriff deputies, were on hand; and no problems other than parking issues, were reported. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Back in February, we broke a little story about how Assemblyman Paul Fong, D-Mountain View, was going to introduce a bill banning shark fin soup in California. Six months later, Fong’s AB 376 is one of the most heavily covered bills of the year. On Monday, the Humane Society held a series of Capitol events in support of the bill. Most sharks that are harvested - an estimated 70 million a year - are taken for the shark fin soup trade. A delicacy for many older Chinese people, the soup is becoming much less popular among young people, especially after a series of commercials by former NBA star Yao Ming and other celebrities speaking out against shark finning. According to scientists, the loss of sharks is
actually depleting many fisheries, because sharks keep many voracious mid-sized predators in
check. And shark fins have been shown to contain high levels of mercury.
Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, a defender of Chinese heritage and a candidate for mayor of San Francisco, has become its most vocal opponent. But the bill swam out of the Assembly with 65 votes and has been chomping its way through Senate Committees … and
we’re just going to stop and show you a few photos. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
All this talk about redistricting has gotten us thinking about maps. Not just political maps, but how maps help form our perceptions—and how they do and don’t reflect reality on the ground. Enjoy.
MORE FROM YO-SHANG CHENG
Tell us about your work.
I don’t consider myself a geographer, I come at mapping more from the computer science/coding/dataside. I like making sense of large data sets, finding patterns within them, so I got interested in information
visualization while working on my master’s at Berkeley’s School of Information. The program is very
interdisciplinary and flexible in its curriculum so I ended up spending some time in the Geography department making maps. Cartography and information visualization are definitely related, but mapping comes with its
own conventions and a very long history. It’s a nice balance between getting to work with a lot of data and
producing an aesthetically pleasing artifact. I really enjoy the way it engages both sides of my brain.
What makes maps more compelling than other types of data?
I think a really important thing about maps is how accessible and intuitive they are to people. There’s an immediate entry point with maps that charts and graphs don’t have. When you see a map, your first instinct is to try and place yourself on it, or to find some place that’s recognizable to you. There’s a clear way to orient yourself amid all the data and that immediately gets people more engaged. It can be much harder to do that with an individual point in a scatterplot.
Because of that, I think they’re really great for starting discussions and conversations about things. There
are a couple of interactive crime mapping websites that I think are really provocative, like Stamen Design’s Crimespotting (crimespotting.org) and Trulia’s Crime Map (http://www.trulia.com/crime). It really grabs your
attention seeing this information about places that you frequent or recognize. Even with things less serious than crime, like the baseball/hometown team map. There’s a lot of free and open data being published these days, and I think that one of the best ways to share this information in a meaningful way to people is by
mapping it.
Another side to this is that asking people to draw maps for you is a really great conversation starter
or prompt. People’s senses of space are really personal, idiosyncratic and interesting. As part of my thesis
project (groups.ischool.berkeley.edu/mentalmaps), my project partner and I interviewed 20 or so people about
their perceptions of San Francisco and had them draw maps of their neighborhoods and the city as well.
People have an incredible amount of knowledge about places that they may not consider to be “official” in
any particular way, but can still be useful to others. There are a number of interesting projects like Dotspotting
(http://dotspotting.org/) and Local Ground (http://localground.org/) that make it easier for people to share their personal knowledge with others. View 4 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy• Text by Malcolm Maclachlan and Lilly Fuentes-Joy
If you were out on California highways last weekend, you probably saw one or more of the big lit signs notifying drivers of an abduction of a 16-year-old boy in Antioch - along with a license plate number and a description of an SUV. If you follow the news, you might know that the suspect was caught on Tuesday.
The boy he allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint wasn’t physically harmed.
On Monday, the California Highway Patrol led members of the media through a pair of training sessions at their Sacramento headquarters about the program that created those signs: the AMBER Alert. It’s named for nine-year-old Amber Rene Hagerman, who was snatched and murdered in Texas in 1996 in a case that remains
unsolved. The programs created in her honor are in use all over the country, and in several other nations.
Statistically speaking, the nine-year-old Amber Alert program appears to be successful beyond the wildest dreams of those who started it, at least in California. Of 223 abducted children for whom AMBER alerts have been issued in California, 218 were recovered alive, with five having already been taken out of the country.
There have been 106 arrests of suspects, including 36 of people who committed an offense that is every parent’s nightmare - abduction off the street by a complete stranger.
Not that the system is perfect. The idea behind the alerts centers around one depressing statistic: of children who are abducted and then murdered, three quarters are killed within three hours of being taken. But there have been cases where it has taken the agency hours or even days to issue an alert. In some other states, there have been murders blamed partly on a slow AMBER response.
This is because the law, as written, requires that the case satisfy four requirements: a confirmed abduction of someone 16 or younger (or significantly disabled), where there is a legitimate fear of harm, and some information that could be used to help find the suspect and victim. It’s not meant for cases where a child has run
away, or even when illegally taken by a parent unless there is a reasonable expectation they may harm the child.
In fact, about 60 percent of requests for AMBER Alerts are rejected. Eleven requests over the years have been determined to be outright hoaxes, including two already this year. View 9 photos »
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
Budget in the bag (for good or ill), we get an actual summer recess this year. So I took the opportunity to tag along on a State Capitol Tour led by Senate consultant Ken Cooley. Cooley is a walking encyclopedia on weird bits of Capitol history and architecture. The tour was meant partially as a primer for other staffers who want to brush up for leading constituents around the building. “Much of our job is to establish goodwill with the public,” Cooley explained. View 8 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy •
Text by Lilly Fuentes-Joy and Malcolm Maclachlan
This week, no stress, no controversy. Just the State Fair! Our photographer Lilly Fuentes-Joy was there to take some shots - but she couldn’t seem
to find any place selling the Maggot Melt sandwich.
Ok, maybe a little stress and controversy. View 7 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
It’s all lies,” said Megan McPherson, a spokeswoman
for the city of Roseville. “There is no ban on dancing in Roseville.”
That didn’t stop members of the Capitol Swing Dancers from staging this protest - featuring West Coast Swing, the official California state dance - at The Station in Roseville last week. The 7,000-square-foot restaurant
is at the center of a fight which the city says is about noise and citizen complaints. But owner Len Travis said it’s about the city’s efforts to push people to the nearby
redevelopment zone, where the city has invested $13 million.
“It is redevelopment that has caused all of this, there is no question in my mind,” Travis said.
Here are some images from the dispute. For more, see our story on page A1. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Meanwhile, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission is preparing the second draft of their maps for the state Legislature and California’s 53 congressional seats. While those maps don’t come out until late next week, the commission has released some information and “visualizations” of what some of the districts will look like.
Not surprisingly, they made some people angry in the process. The maps we’re showing here depict proposed Congressional districts, and come courtesy of Paul Mitchell and Redistricting Partners. These are Mitchell’s recreations of the commission’s second-draft
proposals, and don’t represent any sort of advocacy on his part. View 4 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Photos Scott Duncan
The Capitol Weekly launched our third foray into our conference
business last Thursday with our look at the California Coastal
Commission. This commission was created nearly four decades
ago, but even many people who work in and around government
don’t understand it well. It was created when voters passed Prop. 20 in 1972, with the mission to “Protect, conserve, restore, and enhance environmental and human-based resources of the California coast and ocean for environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and
future generations.”
It has also become a flashpoint for criticism among developers and property rights advocates. This page gravitates toward panels
where there was conflict, though we also had great presentations from Natural Resources secretary John Laird and Commission executive director Peter Douglas. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
This month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released the first
prisoners under the state’s new medical parole program. That program was created last
year when Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, agreed to carry SB 1399 on behalf of prison receiver Clark Kelso, who has been working for almost four years to reduce the budget of the prison health care system. The goal of the law was to help Corrections save money by moving prisoners who were so
sick they pose no threat to public safety out of the prisons, where they could be cared for more
cheaply. According to California Prison Health Care Services, they expect to save $10 million in
the first year. After months of considering some of the first cases, the Board of Parole Hearings began to make decisions on particular cases last month. They’ve approved three cases so far and rejected
one. In at least some cases, prisoners could be returned to custody if their conditions improve.
Even when the bill was under consideration, Leno and Corrections acknowledged that, at
least in the near term, only a relatively small number of inmates. But those inmates can cost hundreds of thousands a year to care for, meaning the state can save money, even if paying for their
care outside via Medi-Cal.
But how many is under dispute. Corrections has identified about 40 cases for consideration,
and estimated saving between $5 million and $10 million for the first year. Leno countered that
figures show there should be up to 700 prisoners considered for parole, and savings could be
$200 million a year without compromising public safety.
“It’s been torturously slow,“Leno said. “Gov. Schwarzenegger signed this into law last October.
lt’s taken nearly a year to get the first candidate in front of the Board of Parole.”
He added that, at this rate, “it will take a decade” to go through the list of prisoners who
might be eligible, and many of them will likely die first.
Corrections spokesman Luis Patino said his agency is trying to move candidates through the
process as quickly as possible. They’ve had to draft regulations, and have been releasing
people even as these regulations are still in the public comment period. Then they evaluate
prisoners whose names are sent over by the receiver’s office, making sure they meet the
conditions for parole, and only then can they be heard by the Parole Board.
“I’m certainly in no position to second-guess the Board of Parole Hearings commissioners,”
Patino said when asked about the Martinez case. “We’re certainly doing what we can to
relieve the burden on taxpayers. But we also have a responsibility to make sure the process
is done carefully.” View 5 photos »
Photos by Robin Douglas
Text by Robin Douglas and Malcolm Maclachlan
This week we have some photos of the Delta from Robin Douglas, a communications specialist with the Water Education Foundation. The group recently conducted a tour of the Delta. Here are some updates from ground zero in California water wars. View 6 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Text by Lilly Fuentes-Joy and Malcolm Maclachlan
California’s disabled and special needs population have become one of the main faces of our ongoing budget battle. Our photo intern, Lilly Fuentes-Joy, headed out to the 8th annual Disability Capitol Action Day last week to get some of their stories. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Events at the Capitol last week marked both Bike Month and the Amgen Tour of California, considered the nation’s most important bicycle race. Sponsored by the Sacramento Commuter Club and other groups, Bike Month challenges people in the region to
bike at least one million combined miles - a goal they reached this week. How much fuel does biking save versus driving? When you consider that a gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories (no, you can’t actually drink it, at least not safely) a car getting 25 miles-per-gallon needs 1,240 calories
to go a mile. A human on a bike can ride a mile with about 35 calories. Replacing a million
car miles with a million bike miles saves about 40,000 gallons of gas and replaces it with about 35 million calories consumed by humans. In terms of the environment, this is a net positive - except when those calories come
from red meat, which can take a tremendous amount of energy to create. But that’s probably
a different photo set. View 5 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
There was a full week of protests at the
Capitol last week, demanding that lawmakers raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations in order to fill in the multi-billion state budget gap - something GOP lawmakers clearly
aren’t going to agree to. The main event, all five days’ worth, was sponsored by the California
Teachers Association (CTA), but there were others, as well. Here are some shots. View 5 photos »
Stephen Crowley is a photographer who has been doing some work for us in recent months. Here’s some of his other work, along with that of two other photographers who have a show this weekend during the
Second Saturday Art Walk.
“Yosemite - Through The Looking Glass” is “A fresh photographic perspective of the National Park icon. This show features new works from three of Sacramento’s up-and-coming photographers. This collaboration is a result of
several years of joint photography in Yosemite as well as a ‘friendship-first’ approach to creating images.”
You can check the show out at Shine, 1400 E St., until June 4, with a reception on Saturday, May 14, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. View 5 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Text by Lilly Fuentes-Joy and Malcolm Maclachlan
The state’s Democrats gathered at the Sacramento Convention Center last weekend. Here are some shots. View 6 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
National Crime Victim’s Week was two weeks ago. Crime Victims United and other groups marked the annual event with two large rallies near the Capitol.
Here are some shots. View 6 photos »
The Lisa Project
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. To mark the event, the Lisa Project has come to Sacramento. This free, traveling interactive exhibit tells the story of child abuse and neglect in a very visceral way, with photos, statistics—and an audio guide that includes portions of 911 calls. It will be at Rose of Lima Park in downtown Sacramento (7th and K streets) through the end of the month before moving on to Manteca. Check TheLisaProject.org for hours.
In conjunction with the event, Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, appeared with former abused kids at the exhibit to promote his AB 1188. This bill would elevate the status of several crimes against children to more serious charges, especially physical abuse and child trafficking. View 6 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
In the course of covering politics, sometimes things pass in front of you that you just can’t make sense of. Here’s a small sampling of the strange and disturbing. View 4 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Text by Lilly Fuentes-Joy and Malcolm Maclachlan
Members of the California Republican Party gathered in Sacramento this past weekend, and our photographer Lilly Fuentes-Joy was there. View 6 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Photos by Anais Dodson and Lilly Fuentes-Joy
The California State Student Association and the Student Senate for California Community Colleges held a large rally on Monday - one in a long line of many we’re likely to see this year. Let’s check their work. View 5 photos »
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
For nerds who like free food, the environs of the Capitol can be the promised land. Here’s a sampling of the academics and experts who have given lectures around here in the last few months. View 5 photos »
Screen shots courtesy of CalChannel
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
The California Channel recently celebrated their 20th anniversary. Since 1993, the channel has been funded entirely by the state’s commercial cable operators, at the cost of over $1 million a year. But they receive programming from
Senate and Assembly television services, who make their legislative coverage possible each week.
Here’s some shots of familiar figures from the 1990s (complete with fashion that may remind you of the 1970s or ‘80s). And check out our new political discussion show with the CalChannel, “Politics on Tap.” View 6 photos »
Photos by Lilly Fuentes-Joy
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
California ProLife held their annual Lobby Day on Jan. 26 to mark the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the
Supreme Court case which legalized abortion across the U.S. Here are some shots from that day’s activities. View 6 photos »
Photos by Stephen Crowley Photography
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Here are some shots of the Jan. 17 MLK Day events in downtown Sacramento. They were sent to us by photographer Stephen Crowley, a former computer industry engineer who has started a photography business. Look for more of Stephen’s
shots in our paper in the coming weeks. You can check him out at <a href="http://www.wix.com/crowleyphotos/crowley" rel="nofollow">www.wix.com/crowleyphotos/crowley</a> View 5 photos »
Images by Phil Vu, PolicyMap.com • Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Last week, we ran a story about how the percentage of home loans in California backed by the Federal
Housing Administration and other government agencies jumped from 1.3 percent in 2004 to 23.6 percent in 2009. This data came from PolicyMap.com, a non-profit venture that compiles data for government clients.
This page shows the home loan data, as well as unemployment data, compared between these two years. For more, see our interview with PolicyMap director Maggie McCullough in this week's issue. View 4 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
To many, 2010 may be a year best forgotten. No matter your political persuasion, you could find something in the budget, the election results or
the numerous stories of corruption to make you want to pull a Spotless
Mind job on the year that was. But let’s just relive it one more time instead. View 21 photos »
Photos by Tia Gemmell, Riverview Media Photography
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
The California Museum of Women,
History and the Arts and the first couple welcomed the 2010 California Hall of Fame class with a ceremony on Dec. 14. Among the inductees not pictured here are:
late Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, film director James Cameron, Silicon Valley venture
capitalist John Doerr, late Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini, author and activist Anne Lamott, Gold Rush era magnate Levi Straus, and some actress/singer who was popular in the ‘60s and ‘70s who didn’t want anyone to take her picture.
Facebook founder View 7 photos »
Photos by Tia Gemmell
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
The Sacramento Press Club held a Gridiron Dinner on Dec. 1. Modeled on the famed annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington, D.C., it brings politicians,
journalists and entertainers together for a night of cocktails,food and speeches - all while raising money for journalism scholarships. My thanks to Brian Joseph of the Orange County Register and Mary Beth Barber with the California Arts Council for helping organize the event and for sharing
their recollections of it for this page. View 7 photos »
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
I recently had the chance to do a ride-along with the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Special Services Unit (SSU) as they were checking in on possibly dangerous parolees in a town on the edges of the Bay Area. The SSU
is a unit with 39 members statewide who work as a kind of external police force for the CDCR. Much of the time, they’re located in different places, acting as liaisons with local police forces trying to keep track of people who’ve come out of prison.
Every few weeks though, they get together and do early-morning drop-ins on parolees of concern. Up to 90 percent of their work involves current and former members of prison gangs. In many cases, inmates leave with their heads filled with messages to pass on to people on the outside - though prison gang members also often get illegal access to cell phones as well. And, as has often been noted, it can be very hard
to leave a gang.
“We get information that these guys may be up to something,” explained a lead officer. “We let them know
they’re being watched.”
For the SSU team it means late nights and early mornings, complete with lots of coffee, energy drinks and even emergency pee tubes for long stakeouts.
The unit was established way back in 1964, partially in the wake of the “Onion Field” killing. In that case, a pair of Los Angeles Police Department officers were kidnapped by two parolees they had pulled over, not realizing they were armed and dangerous. One officer
was killed, the other seriously wounded. This led the CDCR to decide they needed to do more to keep local police forces updated on the presence of potentially
dangerous parolees in their midst. View 7 photos »
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan
Eleven hundred miles of coast, 159,000 square miles of territory, 38 million people … and 200 game wardens to cover it all. That’s the set-up for “Wild Justice,” a new series about California Fish & Game wardens from the National Geographic Channel. We ran a feature on this back in March, but we wanted to offer an update ahead of the show’s premier episode airing this Sunday, Nov. 28, at 9 p.m. (check your local cable listings). The channel will show
11 episodes total this fall,
depicting bust and stakeouts from the deep woods to exotic animal markets. Here are some shots the
Dept. took during filming. View 8 photos »
Text and photos by Malcolm Maclachlan
A few photos in recognition of the nation’s veterans, from events that occurred on or near Veterans Day last week. View 6 photos »
Perspectives 2010
Text by Malcolm Maclachlan •
All photos by Rudy Meyers, courtesy of the Sac Metro Chamber
Over 2,000 people gathered at the Convention Center on Oct. 15 for the 16th annual Perspectives conference held by the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce - but we didn’t have a chance to run photos until now because of our election coverage. The event often
features odd combinations of speakers, and this year was an extreme example. Both of the
headliners were former governors - and that’s about all they had in common. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the de facto leader of the Tea Party Movement, while former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Not surprisingly, they offered very different diagnoses of what to do to fix our country. But some of the less-known speakers stole
some of their thunder. Have a look. View 5 photos »
