Our Work

Rick Schmitt on health care reform, and single adults

Our Rick Schmitt has a piece looking at one of the potential winners from the federal health care reform efforts: Single, childless adults. From his story for Kaiser Health News, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Inquirer:

While Medicaid is the main government health insurance plan for the poor, the joint state-federal program has excluded Matthews and millions of other adults with no dependent children since the 1960s. Medicaid has been limited mainly to children in poor families, the elderly, pregnant women and the disabled. 

Some states have tried to fill the gap, but childless adults now comprise a majority of uninsured Americans. The lowest-income members of the group would be among the big beneficiaries of the Democratic health insurance overhaul plans in Washington.

Robyn Norwood on Olympic medals, and the NHL stars who won them

Our Robyn Norwood has a piece in the Los Angeles Times examining the return of gold and silver Olympic hockey medalists to their regular jobs -- playing in the National Hockey League. From her story: 

 Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick and forward Dustin Brown, both silver medalists on the U.S. team, stepped onto the rink at the Kings' practice facility in El Segundo Monday morning by 10 — about 19 hours after Canada won the gold in overtime in Vancouver. 

The pair rode the bus back to the Olympic Village after the game, caught a cab that took them to a car they had reserved and then rode to Bellingham, Wash., where they caught a Sunday evening flight that got them home by 11.

After practice Monday, they boarded a flight to Dallas, where the Kings play the Stars on Tuesday night. Canadian defenseman Drew Doughty — the first active King ever to win a gold medal — and U.S. defenseman Jack Johnson were meeting the team in Texas. 

"I got a chance to sleep in my bed for at least one night," said Brown, the Kings' captain. "Last night was the biggest game of my career. The outcome was not what I wanted, but it was definitely a lifetime experience for me. It's going to be difficult to flip the switch, but I'm sure I'll find a way to do it."

Kevin Crust takes up blogging

Member Kevin Crust has begun blogging for Hollywood News, and just posted just a little while ago on reports about writer-filmmaker Cameron Crowe's next movie project, "We Bought a Zoo." From his post:

It’s an adaptation of a memoir by British writer Benjamin Mee and “The Devil Wears Prada” screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna has penned a script, but Crowe is likely to do some rewriting. “Zoo” recounts Mee’s experiences when he moved his family to a dilapidated mansion with an accompanying wildlife park in southwest England. The family took on the task of reviving the preserve but was devastated by the cancer prognosis and deteriorating health of Mee’s wife, Katherine.

Scott Martelle on a reported rise in militia, Patriot groups

Our Scott Martelle writes this morning on AOL News about the Southern Poverty Law Center's warning that militia and Patriot groups surged last year. From his story:

The number of American anti-government militia and "patriot" groups, largely dormant since their heyday in the mid-1990s, mushroomed at an "astonishing" rate last year, raising "grave concern" about the potential for future domestic terrorism, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The nonprofit civil rights organization, which tracks the hate movement and anti-government groups, counted 512 militias and related groups in 2009, up from 149 groups the year before. And, it said, the movement has added a layer of racism largely absent a decade ago.

Janet Wilson on James Cameron, 'Avatar,' and the environment

Member Janet Wilson reports for Grist that director James Cameron sees himself as the film industry's "greenest" director, and the worldwide success of 'Avatar' is a blow for raising environmental awareness. From Wilson's piece:

 “I wanted to do a film that had a deeply embedded environmental message ... but do it in the form of a science fiction action adventure,” Cameron told local public radio host Elvis Mitchell. “My feeling was if we have to go four light years away to another planet to appreciate what we have here on earth, that’s okay.”

He wanted, he said, to pack such an emotional wallop that by the time the film’s giant, sheltering tree is felled, everyone in the theater would feel moral outrage. Further, after the triumph of nature’s creatures over evil military contractors, he wanted the audience to feel hopeful enough to do something.

Susan Brink on planning for the end of life

MSNBC has picked up member Susan Brink's three-part package on planning for the final days of life. Brink wrote the pieces for Kaiser Health News. From her first story: 

 When 87-year-old Bunny Olenick suffered a massive stroke in December 2008, doctors told her family there was no chance she could recover fully, although her limitations probably wouldn't be known for months. A neurologist told her sons that if she did survive, her ability to communicate would be diminished, and she would likely need around-the-clock care for the rest of her life. What would Bunny want them to do? 

Phil Olenick, 59, and his brother Steve, 57, knew that modern American medicine can offer few compassionate exits from this life. Artificial measures in the intensive care unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — things like ventilator-assisted breathing or feeding tubes — stood a chance of prolonging life for Bunny Olenick but in a condition they knew she would abhor. 

In the era of modern medicine, there is often no easy way to navigate between an acceptable quality of life and a death with dignity. That was underscored by two recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that some aggressive measures might actually increase pain and speed declines among frail elderly.

Our members join the Chile quake and tsunami coverage

Members Chris Kraul in Bogota, Colombia, and Scott Martelle in Los Angeles hopped on coverage of the Chile disaster, with Kraul filing to the Los Angeles Times on the quake itself, and Martelle filing to AOL News on the anticipation in Hawaii over a powerful tsunami.

From Kraul's story:

 One of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history rocked Chile on Saturday, killing at least 214 people, toppling buildings and freeways, and sending sirens wailing thousands of miles away as governments scrambled to protect coastal residents from the ensuing tsunami.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared parts of the country "catastrophe zones" in the wake of the 8.8 magnitude quake, which was centered about 70 miles offshore from the port city of Concepcion.

With images still fresh of Haiti's devastation from an earthquake last month, the world woke up to new disaster -- and fears of another catastrophic toll.

From Martelle's story:

Residents of Hilo, on the Big Island, watched nervously as the ocean receded about three feet, then swelled, well aware of past tsunamis that killed more than 200 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings. This time, the surge came in like a rambunctious tide, but it didn't rise into the bayside downtown.

 [---]

"Unlike little islands, which a tsunami can just go flying past, the Big Island is large enough that it slows down the advancing tsunami waves and gives them a chance to build up, " Walter Dudley, a tsunami expert at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, said this morning from Hilo. "The other thing is Hilo Bay is funnel shaped ... Succeeding waves get bigger and bigger."

Nancy Wride on UC Irvine's Law School

Our Nancy Wride has been busy lately, including this piece for a law magazine on the University of California-Irvine's new law school. From Wride's story:

To recap: UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, his legal gravitas pulling heavyweight faculty from the cream of American law, founds California’s first public law school in 40 years. He is hired. He is un-hired after qualms arise over how his liberal leaning will play in a right-tilting county.

The ensuing national storm over academic independence momentarily threatens the law school’s future. But the fleeting drama leads to cool-headed review and he is rehired. The smoke quickly clears as billionaire Irvine developer Donald Bren and other essential funders in Orange County’s establishment, plaintiffs’ attorneys Mark P. Robinson, Jr., Joe Dunn and Anne Andrews among them, underwrite the vaunted faculty – and every student’s tuition is paid the first year. 

In November, Dean Chemerinsky offered a progress report on the school’s website. It concluded: “We could not possibly have a more impressive or nicer group of faculty, staff and students to create what I believe will be a very special law school.”

Scott Martelle on Elif Batuman and Russian literature

Our Scott Martelle has this review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of "Possessed," a debut collection of literary travelogue essays by Elif Batuman. From his review:

If you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that when you hear "Russian literature," you think of college classes you wish you'd cut -- and books that can seem as long as a Siberian winter.

But in this delightful debut, Elif Batuman makes you look at Russian literature from a fresh perspective, using an unusual blend of memoir and travelogue as she delves into the lives and personalities of such Russian literary giants as Isaac Babel, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.

Many of the chapters are extensions of pieces Batuman first wrote for The New Yorker and n+1 and range geographically from Palo Alto, Calif., where Batuman managed to lose one of Babel's daughters at the local airport, to Uzbekistan, where Batuman spent a few months studying Uzbek. 

In a sense, the details of Batuman's essays are less significant than the tone. She cruises through minor crises with an air of detached amusement, eye focused on the little absurdities that make travel -- and people -- fun.

Saul Daniel's Chatsworth Roundup scoops the majors

Member Saul Daniels, who puts together The Chatsworth Roundup newsletter, beat the major media Sunday with this piece on Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposal to do away with the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. From the Chatsworth Roundup:

 DONE is finished. 

Expect the announcement from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office Monday that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), which oversees the city's 90 Neighborhood Councils, will be disbanded and only nine of its remaining employees will shift to the Community Development Department (CDD). 

The mayor already ordered the elimination of the departments of Environmental Services and Human Services in an attempt to ease the city's budget crisis.

The bomb dropped at 6:30 p.m. Friday leaving DONE employees wondering about their futures over the weekend, a staffer said.