California's Governor Seeks Universal Care: Under a plan by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California would become the largest state to attempt to provide near universal health coverage.
posted by kliuless on Jan 8, 2007 - 53 comments

Sherri Finkbine --as reported by BBC News, on this day in 1962 (video clip too)--her travails and travels, the law, publicity, and what happened afterwards. (more here from American Prospect in 05: ...A Gallup Poll taken that year showed that the majority of Americans supported Finkbine, and her case was a turning point ...)
posted by amberglow on Aug 26, 2006 - 16 comments

Teaching the Test
As a student at Jefferson Davis High here, Rosa Arevelo seemed the "Texas miracle" in motion. After years of classroom drills, she passed the high school exam required for graduation on her first try. A program of college prep courses earned her the designation "Texas scholar." At the University of Houston, though, Ms. Arevelo discovered the distance between what Texas public schools called success and what she needed to know. Trained to write five-paragraph "persuasive essays" for the state exam, she was stumped by her first writing assignment. She failed the college entrance exam in math twice, even with a year of remedial algebra. At 19, she gave up and went to trade school.

This doesn't look good for our new, unfunded, "Leave No Child Behind" education bill. Smells like another bait and switch to me.
posted by nofundy on Dec 3, 2003 - 31 comments

The US reserves the right to turn your weak country to glass.
The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday. I fear this news will go unnoticed amidst the terrorism furor.
Why doesn't our nuclear policy get much press these days?
posted by norm on Feb 25, 2002 - 63 comments