March 2008 Archives

Below is a story that ran in today's paper. This version has about 100 additional words at the end, as the print version had to be tightened for space.

RIALTO — Five years is more than just a number to Sherrie
Lovell.

It’s measured in stretches of anguished absence from her boys, in the
changes to their faces, their bodies, their personalities. They have
grown into men and warriors, husbands and fathers, all while serving
in the military in wartime, a wartime that seems interminable.

For Lovell, five years is an era.

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“You have to believe in their mission,” said Lovell, a 49-year-old
who will soon become a grandmother for the second time since her
country invaded Iraq in 2003. “But at the same time you wonder how
many more years we can do this. It’s sad. It’s been too long.”

On the five-year anniversary of war in Iraq, Lovell’s small and
tight-knit family is part of the nation’s so-called 1 percent, a
sliver of America’s 300 million whose lives have been more or less
consumed with war for longer than America’s involvement in World War
II.

Her biological son, her stepson and her son-in-law have served in the
war theater at various points over the last five years. They have
aged and changed, mostly on the other side of the globe. Her daughter
is pregnant with Lovell’s second grandchild.

Today’s tableau is a striking change from the 1960’s and 1970’s
of Lovell’s youth, when protests against the Vietnam War often
included blistering attacks on the troops themselves.

Lovell said she remembers the acidic passion of that period, and is
always mindful of keeping her ambivalence about the war separate from
her support of the troops, of her troops.

It’s a tightrope she’s toed for five years.

“I didn’t think we needed to be in Iraq in the very beginning,”
Lovell said. “But at the same time, I back each and every one of them
in what they’re doing there.”

Five years ago, her son Shawn Hanley was a wiry
22-year-old. Today, he’s a strapping 6-foot-2-inch Navy veteran of
two combat tours, one-year stretches in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Spending most of his 20s working for a nation at war has left little
time for the things most 27-year-olds do, his mother said, but he has
managed to get engaged to a local woman.

"He was home from a tour in Iraq and he met her when he went
out to get car insurance,” Lovell remembers. “He proposed right
before he was redeployed to Afghanistan ... they use a lot of Myspace
to keep in touch while they are apart."

Five years ago, stepson James Patterson was a
wispy 23-year-old. He hasn’t grown physically, but the Army weapons
expert who trains Iraqi soldiers has aged emotionally after three
1-year combat tours.

Patterson is now married to an army medic, the union born in the
throes of war.

“He’s been shot at many times,” Lovell said. “I tease him that being
so skinny has helped. But like Shawn, he’s different now when he
comes home. Both of them are more quiet, older.”

Five years ago, Anthony White was a smart-alecky
19-year-old from Sacramento looking to join the Navy. Now, after two
year-long tours in Iraq, White is a father. His wife, Lovell’s
daughter Jamie White, is pregnant again and due in June.
But he hasn’t been there for much of his son Kayden’s 18-month-old
life. He didn’t see Kayden’s first steps, didn’t hear his first
words, and couldn’t attend the boy’s first birthday.

War does that to young fathers.

“When daddy comes home, Kayden doesn’t recognize him,” Lovell said.
“At least not at first. When you come home and your child doesn’t
hardly know you, that’s hard on him.”

At her Rialto home, surrounded by mementos and photos of war and
family, Lovell confronted the elephant in the rooms of all military
families: Tragedy.

She cracked a folder containing documents to pass on assets in the
event of a combat death.

“Shawn said if anything happens, here’s this book,” Lovell said. “I
pray that nothing happens.”

From SBNOW on March 18

Like him or not, Barack Obama is a truly extraordinary presidential candidate, unlike anyone since Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 in terms of speaking directly to issues of race, inequality and other topics seen as too taboo or inflammatory for a major presidential candidate.

So, reeling from attacks about the demagoguery spewed by his church pastor over the years, Obama responded with an instantly historic treatise on race.

Mark this reporters words: Excerpts of this speech will be a staple in political philosophy books within a decade. Surely, this is the most complex and poignant address of race and class in America by a major 21st century American political figure. It owes lineage to RFK's famous address after MLK's death and MLK's own "I have a dream," to slavery and Jim Crow; to the combination of righteousness and ruggedness that marked the nation's birth.

Imagine, a presidential candidate with the courage to utter the words " ... stained by this nation's original sin of slavery," and then close with an example of a young white woman who exemplifies America's openmindedness and optimism that we can make tomorrow's democracy even better.

It sort of felt, in fact, like a sequel to MLK's shining moment, a more complex and somber, yet hopeful, assessment of race relations in the post Civil Rights era.

That the speech was a brilliant meditation on the condition of race relations in our time is without doubt; how it will play politically, in this election, remains to be seen. The real question is has the speech done enough to assuage the trepidation raised in the throngs of white voters unsettled by Obama's pastor's angry rhetoric.

We'll see.

Among the highlights: "I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love."

Below is a few notes I've gathered about Rick Avila, longtime local businessman and city government candidate.

He may lose his home because of a complicated set of circumstances that led him to default on a loan with Arrowhead Credit Union.

Click below to read a blog exclusive:

SAN BERNARDINO — It’s not 1967, but our California State University campus is about to explode in protests.
Two protests, one linked to a statewide movement, are scheduled to unsettle the normally placid campus today.

Faculty, students, staff, and the administration will join to at a meeting in Santos Manuel Student Union at 10 a.m. to argue that cutting the Cal State system will exacerbate the state’s budget shortfalls.

At 11:30, a peace protest will launch in opposition to America’s involvement in the Iraq War.

The protest will include open microphones and be held at the Lower Commons patio and is hosted by Amnesty International, the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine.

So there is an interesting little story in the Press Enterprise about the San Bernardino Police Department and the city's West side.

The headline is pretty rough: "San Bernardino police chief moving too slowly on sensitivity training, activists say," but the story is comparably mild.

The story doesn't get tough until about seven paragraphs in, then goes on like this:

"Activists said they appreciate the officers' overtures. But they worry that a departmental culture that appears to condone arrogance and brutality could persist.

"Because of the long history we've had here in San Bernardino, I think we're going to need a more intense intervention than going on a field trip," she said."

The history and context of the story is this: The Westside contains the city's poorest and most heavily Latino and black communities. It also is wracked by crime. The Police Department is overwhelmingly not Latino or black, and has had a number of public relations nightmares in the West side over the years. The Justice Department intervened late last year to mediate the squabbles.

The last flash-point was when 16-year-old Terrell Markham was shot and badly-maimed by an officer last year. The boy was allegedly carrying a handgun, and the shooting was deemed justified by the District Attorney, but the community was outraged.

Chief Billdt's reform appears to be sending officers on day trips to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angleles. As reforms go, that's obviously not too radical, costly or difficult. This story seems to indicate there is some discontent over whetber a museum trip is enough to heal the wounds.

Whether it is ultimately enough to make a difference, to soothe relations that clearly are raw, is for the future to decide. .

So right here, in Loma Linda, sits one of the finest medical simulators on the West coast, right up there with the one in Palo Alto.

Think of life-like human replicas with sundry bodily functions, pushing budding doctors and nurses to the limits. Everything from surgery to delivering babies, the students at Loma Linda University Medical Center are put through the rigors of hands-on learning at the center.

LOMA LINDA — There’s no substitute for learning by doing.

But sometimes that’s easier said than done.

In the medical profession, for instance, learning by doing can be, well, impractical.
But Loma Linda University Medical Center clears that hurdle for thousands of students annually with one of the West Coast’s top medical simulation laboratories.

Here, in about a half-dozen faux hospital rooms and 10 artificial people - think manequins with sophisticated respiratory, cardiovascular and even reproductive systems - tomorrow’s top nurses, doctors and anesthesioligists hone their skills by performing complex medical and diagnostic procedures.
It’s very realistic, except for the stakes.

***********

The New York Times is reporting that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is linked to a high-priced prostitution ring.

It's an early juncture, but it looks like Spitzer's once incredibly promising political career is in smoldering ruin.

So, in case you haven't noticed, the city of San Bernardino collectively scratched its head two weekends ago when the Sun printed a front-page story touting crime being at its lowest level in decades.

"What?" many readers no doubt wondered, has not the city's narrative - from newspapers, politicos, activists, police brass, etc. - since the late 2005 death of 11-year-old Mynisha Crenshaw been that crime is terrifyingly out of control and requires massive resources (largest jump in police funding in city history), new taxes (Measure Z, making our sales tax highest in the area), and bold new programs (Operation Phoenix) to contain?

Well, according to Chief Michael Billdt, Mayor Pat Morris, and a trove of statistics police assembled and provided to our newspaper, it's all about context and proportion. According to these stats, crime is actually way down and been generally steadily falling since 1985, at least when numbers are examined on a per capita basis.

All the numbers except the most important one: Criminal homicides, which are more than double what they were in 1985. More on that later.

Basically, population has risen while total crimes have not, meaning the rate of crimes per person has fallen, meaning the city is safer, Billdt and Morris claim.

There is at least one major problem with all this, and it was pointed out by a criminologist in the above referenced story: Most crime statistics are subjective, or at least subject to imprecision.

First off, people may not report crime if they don't trust or like the police. Second, police have reclassified, misreported, or used a number of other techniques to manipulate crime rates over the last few decades.

To be clear, I'm not saying that is happening in SBPD in 2008, but it has been documented or alleged to have happened in other departments in the past, including SBPD.

There is one stat that seems immune to subjectivity: Criminal homicides.

And what does this stat tell us about our city?

The dry truth is that it indicates something close to the opposite of what Billdt and Morris contend.

In 1985, the city recorded 17 homicides. In 2007, the city recorded 47. This is a statistic provided by the Police Department but publicized only here, on this blog. Due to its exactitude, most criminologists will tell you this is the most reliable number when gauging big-city crime.

Think about that number, 17, for a moment. If we had 17 homicides in a year now, how would our politics be different? 17 seems like an especially low number for a city that hasn't seen less than 40 killings in years.

Even scaled for the rise in population, this comparison of numbers shows a homicide rate that has virtually doubled since 1985. That's a lot more killing.

Morris said the answer to the question of are we safer today than in 1985 is a "resounding yes."

Predictably, this has raised the ire of members of the council and City Attorney James F. Penman.

Objectively, we're talking about nearly three times as many killings today as 1985. Per capita, nearly double the murder rate.

Regardless of what the other stats say (and they say the city has less crime), the fundamental truth remains that public leaders are making the argument that the city was more dangerous then - despite far more bloodshed now.

How about these numbers to choke on your morning cereal over:

295,608 people who live in poverty in the county as defined by federal guidelines.

- 126,952 Children live in poverty in the county

- 7.2 percent of babies who are born with low birth weight in the county, the third-worst rate in the state

- 14.7 percent of children live in poverty in the county

Source: California Food Policy Advocates

Any way you look at it, the county has a shameful record of dealing with poverty.

Below is a story in the March 5 paper about a new program that has what poverty economists have always espoused as part of the answer: Helping people take advantage of and leverage public assistance - which nearly everyone gets in some form or another.

But problems remain, mostly in the structure of some "anti-poverty" programs. Perhaps the worst is the way in which assistance programs have always overlooked the value of asset accumulation in alleviating poverty. They basically punish recipients for saving by stopping benefits when a threshold is reached, thus, incredibly, making poverty "profitable," at least in the short term, by rewarding people more for having less in their bank accounts or making less at their menial jobs.