The Republican Party is toiling away on its love song to the American people, but as they court the nation, they are also busy deciding on a sweetheart for the 2012 presidential election. The GOP roster is filling up and today Rick Santorum threw his hat into the race - joining the likes of Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty. Though it’s still early in the process, prominent members of the Grand Ol’ Party like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman have yet to issue official statements of their intent. Conservatives everywhere are watching and waiting to see: who will be the belle of the ball at the Republican party?
By most anyone’s estimation, a recession would be the perfect recipe for a crime spike. But in the last several years, and in fact consistently over the last 20 years, crime rates have been falling in cities nationwide. A new report from the Brookings Institution provides a snapshot of 100 metropolitan areas, which have become increasingly safer; when communities become more diverse, economically and demographically, crime rates tend to fall. In California, where the economy has been depressed for going on five years, the rate of violent crime has fallen to a 44-year-low. What happened to the old conventional wisdom that in bad economic times, crime increases? That’s not the only thinking that was turned upside down in the crime statistics: the gap between suburban and city crime rates declined dramatically; the social characteristics associated with crime, like immigration or ethnic diversity, had limited connection to crime rates since 1990. Has the U.S. simply become a safer place in which to live?
There is perhaps no greater symbol for American cuisine, and all of the good and bad that goes along with it, than the Golden Arches of McDonalds. The Happy Meal wars started years ago, when health and nutrition advocates targeted McDonalds for their aggressive marketing to kids and the connection between childhood obesity and the cheeseburger, fries and cheap toys that come in each friendly-looking child’s meal. San Francisco and Santa Clara counties banned the sale of Happy Meals, New York City and even Nebraska considered bans. McDonalds and other fast food chains fought back, pushing legislation that would restrict how local governments could regulate restaurant food. The latest shot comes from public health advocates who are pressuring McDonalds to stop using Ronald McDonald as their mascot. Who should exercise the ultimate control over whether you or your child can eat a Happy Meal?
You know the old joke about education—the engineering major says, “how does it work?” the English major says, “do you want fries with that?” Now, the first study ever to try and quantify lifetime earnings of different majors shows that that joke may be funny because it’s true. According to previously unreported census data definitively linking college majors to career earnings, those who majored in engineering, computer science or business earn as much as 50% more over a lifetime than those who major in the humanities, arts, education and psychology. Overall, the study conducted by the Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found a college degree was still worth it: workers with a bachelor’s degree can still expect to make 84% more in a lifetime than a colleague with only a high school diploma. But as the recession and increasing college costs renew the age-old debate of the value of a college education, are those “critical thinking skills” promised to dance majors really worth it?
California fell short in the federal government’s controversial “Race to the Top” program for federal funds, but might not leave the track empty-handed. Instead of winning a 700 million dollar grant, the Golden State, which was considered a front-runner for the payday, could instead receive a modest consolation prize of up to 50 million dollars. The state will still get another chance to compete for the big bucks—the Department of Education announced yesterday another round of competition, this time boasting a prize of 500 million. In order to qualify for the last round of competition, local school districts pledged to embrace controversial reforms such as linking teacher evaluations to standardized test scores and allowing poorly performing schools to be converted into independently run charters. Critics argued that states like California are too willing to trade desperately needed one-time funding for unproven, aggressive policies handed down from the federal government. How will California do things differently to win and what can what reforms can be expected if we do win?
The Academy-Award winner Alan Arkin has always been a supremely gifted role-player on screen, delivering deadpan comedy and harrowing realities to his audiences. Now he emerges as a charismatic storyteller, revealing in his memoir, <i>An Improvised Life</i>, his childhood epiphany that ever since the age of five he had wanted to be an actor. However, it wasn’t until many years later, while on a location shoot overlooking the Hudson Valley, that he discovered during an intimate conversation with one of his co-stars what he had really been doing throughout his life, in pursuit of his artistic dream. “With that one statement I realized that what she’d said about herself was the impulse behind all of my own interests, all of my needs, all of my studying, compulsions, and passions,” Arkin writes in the beginning pages of his book. “This is dedicated to everyone who wants to be the music.”
Patt Morrison is known for its innovative discussions of local politics and culture, as well as its presentation of the effects of national and world news on Southern California.
