Categories for Politics

Racism Increases Premature Births and Infant Deaths in America — the Data Is Now in to Prove that Point (Updated January 31, 2020)

January 31, 2020 by

We have important new information about the impact of racism on the preterm birth rates in our country. We now know that African American mothers who feel stress about the impact of racism on their children are more than twice as likely to give birth prematurely. We also now know that the negative impact of the stress actually increases as both education levels and income...

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We Need to Fix This Now

May 6, 2019 by

The situation we face as a country is extremely serious. If we do not intervene now in intentional and effective ways to help every child being born to every group in our country get the right support in the first months and first years of life, we will damage ourselves badly as a country. We have massive learning gaps in our schools, and those gaps...

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So What Do We Need to Do About Chicago?

September 8, 2018 by

There are some key numbers that need to be known and understood in order for us to understand what needs to happen now in that troubled city. Forty-one people were shot in seven hours in Chicago last week. Eighty-five people were shot that week. More than 3,000 people were shot last year. More than 600 of those shooting victims died. More than 80 percent of...

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We Need to Stop Damaging Women

December 1, 2017 by

We need to collectively and intentionally create a set of expectations for the treatment of women by men and by society in every setting that makes life consistently and appropriately safe, accepting, inclusive, respectful, supportive, and enabling at multiple levels for women. The news media is currently full of stories about men in power doing abusive things to women. It is more than a little...

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Ethnic Cleansing By Tribe Is The Syrian Core Reality Today — And The Chemical Weapons Use Is Being Done Entirely In That Context

August 17, 2017 by

Anyone who does not see how central tribes are to the conflict in Syria is missing the point of that conflict entirely. The conflict in Syria is not political. It is absolutely not ideological. It is clearly not philosophical and it is not even vaguely economic. The conflict is entirely, purely, clearly, and obviously tribal. Anyone who looks at that situation and does not understand...

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Governor Brown

Re-appointment to Four More Years on the First Five Commission

December 15, 2016 by

Governor Jerry Brown has just re-appointed me to serve for four more years on the First Five Commission for Children and Families for the State of California. I have been honored to Chair that Commission for the past four years, and I love the work that the Commission does and is doing. Thank you, Governor Brown. The people of California created First Five more than a...

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