Northgate Tries to Leave the MDUSD

Parents of Northgate High school have collected the nessarsy amount of signtures to file their petishion to leave the Mt. Diablo Unified School District. They would like to become part of the Walnut Creek and Acalanes school districts. A district meeting has been schedualed on the issue on 6 p.m. April 9 at Acalanes High School in Lafayette. Public comments will be limited to two minutes per person. School board members are asking people to come to this meeting and voice their opinion on the matter. If you don't want to speak then you are allowed to have signs.

New Poll

A lot has changed since the last time we had a poll...the Republicans have chosen their nominee and the Dems are still in a fight...

As young voters who do you think best represents our ideals? Put another way, who do you want to be the Democratic nominee?

Update: Oil Prices reached a New Record $111 a Barrel

I'm young and on a fixed income...can anyone afford the sky rocketing oil prices though? And how is Exxon Mobil doing so well when costs are so high???

California Sets New Sex Ed Guide Lines

The California State Board of Education has decided that 5^th graders should start learning about STD’s. This decision comes just days after a new study was released saying that 1 in 4 girls between the ages of 13 and 19 have an STD in this country. The past California standards for sex education were that all info had to be “medically accurate, objective and respectful of gay and lesbian youth.” The new standards will not only present information but teach our states 6 million students necessary information for safe behavior.

The guidelines are quite clear: fifth graders will learn about STDs, and middle school teachers will talk about rape and sexual assault, and in high school the curriculum includes information about condoms and the morning after pill.

This decision by the state school board did not come lightly, for it came after two years of discussion on the topic. The new education curriculum will be rolled into already exciting classes on health, drugs, and violence.

Given the new study that reported that 25% of teenage girls in this country have an SDT, are these new sex ed guide lines a good thing? Are they going to teach kids ways to protect themselves from getting hurt? Or are we giving kids bad ideas?...where young...what do we think? All comments on the issue are welcome!

Back to the Drawing Board for Lawmakers

Its time to go back to the drawing board for state lawmakers, who still haven’t passed a plan to save our states education. For a Democratic proposal to raise taxes on oil companies was shot down by Republicans in the Assembly yesterday. Under the proposed tax oil companies would have been taxed an additional 6% on all oil extracted in California and an additional 2% tax on windfall profits. The tax would have made $1.2 billion a year for education.

This plan to help fund our education was fiercely fought by state Republicans who don’t want to raise any taxes to help solve California’s budget problem---even if that means cutting our education. Speaker of the Assembly Febian Nunez (D) Los Angeles had this to say about the Republicans "The Republicans are basically standing with the oil companies. It's a very simple vote, you are either for public education or you with the gas companies who have been making record profit for the last three consecutive years."

Republican Assemblymember Chuck DeVore (R) from Irvine responded by saying "Its bad tax policy, because we already have the highest oil tax or gas tax in the country, our consumers are already paying the most."

However several news agencies have pointed out that this tax on oil companies would not have been passed on the consumer since the bill was written specifically to block such a thing from happening. Also oil companies continue to report record profits, so it’s not like this tax would have hurt the industry. Exxon Mobil reported the largest annual profit by a U.S. company last year- $39.5 billion. The previous record was also held by Exxon Mobil when in 2005 they reported making $36.13 billion. Many teachers and students across the state where hoping that this tax would help solve California education funding problem.

A Time to Run, A Time for Change

I started this blog so there would be a voice for young people, something that I believe is sorely lacking in our community. There is no place for young people to have their opinions heard, though I hope this blog has helped fill the void a bit.

There are so many issues that affect young people today that are being ignored by people in power. So many people don’t think that we as young voters can have any valuable opinions of our own…or at least none worth listening too.

Yet during this election cycle I am proud to say young people are voicing their opinion, despite older people telling them that their voice is irrelevant. Young people are going to the polls in droves and are participating in campaigns like never before. I am really proud of my generation’s accomplishments so far, and I know more are to come. I really want to continue fighting for young people and their ideals, that is way I am official running for Democratic Central Committee of Contra Costa County. I hope I have all of your support…and votes. This election will not be easy for me. I am running aganist four incumbents. Yet if my campaign energises more young people to go to polls, be political active, or at least political aware...then me running is worth it.

CA Budget Crisis- - - Leads to Cuts in Education

As many of you might know California is in another budget crisis. This Governor, who was swept into office on the promises to fix this states budget, has proven that he is no better at handling the budget than his Democratic predecessor. Governor Schwarzenegger’s actions of cutting taxes and failing to get this states spending under control has helped lead this state into a $14.5 billion deficit. --- That’s right, BILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.

So what is our Governor solution to get us out of this mess? A 10% cut of everything across the board, including to education. A 10% cut in education comes to about $4.8 billion dollars cut from this states education funding, this state that is already ranked 47^th by Education Week in per student spending (and that number took into account regional cost differences!). California is spending $1,900 less per student than the national average. West Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi all out spend California in education.

The $4.8 billion cut is being passed on to school districts that have been told to cut programs in order to save money. My school district, Mt. Diablo Unified School District has proposed cutting 4^th and 5^th grade music, Freshman sports, Liberians and library budgets, High School VP’s, Special Education services and much much more. It wasn’t until a virtual student uproar did the school board decide to keep 4^th and 5^th grade band and freshman sports, yet many of the before mentioned programs have been cuts, and it is the children of my school district that are left to suffer.

When will the government stop scarifying the needs of child for their own political gain? It is time that we as young voters stood up for our needs and tell the government that a 10% cut in education is outrageous! It’s time for us as young people to fight for our needs, if we don’t fight for them, no one will.

I'm a woman so all issues are my issues!!!

So I'm a "Good Ol' Girl". What does that mean? Well, it means I'm part of a womens organization that is designed as a social networking group (think, the "Good Ol' Boys Culb" but for girls). So as a member of this group I go to meetings, the latest of which was a Presidential candidate forum. So basically representatives from the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards campaigns where all there trying to sell us on their candidates. It was a great event with about 60 women in attendance there was even an LA Times reporter there and I got interviewed!
I talked about how I was supporting John Edwards and I was doing so because of his stance on college education, the two Americas and health care. The reporter turns around to me and say "so, your supporting him on national issues not womens issues." After that I could help but think, "what the hell, what do you mean not womens issues?"
If I'm a women doesn't that mean that all my issues are "womens issues"? What did that reporter expect for me to just talk about abortion and pay equity? To me that point of view hurts women. Women are capable of thinking about more than two issues. We can think about Iraq, education, health care, global warming...women can think about anything we want. Women can make any issue they want "their" issue...I find the implication that I can only think about abortion and pay equity offensive. Education is MY issue! First of all getting more women into the work place and into high ranking jobs is very much a womens issue...and how do we do that...by going to college. I can't go to college if I can't pay for it.
All issues are my issues! All issues are womens issues!!!

The Grinch

SCHIP was the bill that would provide healthcare to millions of Americas poorest children and it was vetoed. I know that the President vetoed SCHIP (twice for those who are keeping count) a while ago but I just found this video and thought it was neat.

John Edwards: MTV-MySpace Presidential Dialogue

MTV that I can finally watch

Announcement Video

This is Joe Biden. He is running for President as a Democrat. He is a long time senator on the Foreign Relations committee.

Teacher Could Get 40 Lashes For Allowing Her Class to Name a Teddy Bear Mohammad

Here is another case from a Muslim country that could result in the whipping of person, and what was her crime you ask? As a teacher she let her class name a teddy bear Mohammad.

Gillian Gibbons is a Liverpool woman who traveled to Sudan to teach the elites children. Now she is charged with "inciting hatred, insulting religion, and showing contempt of religious beliefs," a crime punishable by up to 40 lashes. So how exactly did she "incite hatred, insult religion, and show contempt of religion"? She allowed her primary school students so these to name a class teddy bear Mohammad. (Primary school is elementary school in an English system...so these where very young kids who named the bear Mohammad). Mohammad is of course the name of Islam's holiest prophet, likenesses of whom are forbidden by the religion.

The bear was part of a project that was meant to teach the students about animals. One girl bought in a bear and each week a new student would take the bear home with a journal that they where to update with the bears activities. The class voted as a whole to name the bear Mohammad. A total of 23 students voted to do this, an huge a majority of the class. Mohammad was also the most popular boys in the class.

Ms. Gibbons has been in prison since last Sunday. Police bought her in for questioning and then arrested her, despite the fact that her colleagues insist was an inadvertent mistake. The school points out that Ms. Gibbons had only been in the country since August. The school director says "This was a completely innocent mistake." "Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam." The director also describes what happened when the police came to the school to arrest Ms. Gibbons "We tried to reason with them but we felt they were coming under strong pressure from Islamic courts," he adds. "There were men with big beards asking where she was and saying they wanted to kill her." The fate of the school is now also in question. They have had to close their doors until at least January because they fear reprisals by Islamic extremists.

Ms. Gibbons can be sentenced to six months in prison, a fine, or a public lashing under Sudan's blasphemy laws.

***Update*** Thousands took to the streets of Sudan calling for the EXECUTION of Ms. Gibbons!!!
****Update****Ms. Gibbon was sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation back to England.
*****Update***** Ms. Gibbon's was released from prison and sent back to England before her sentence took place. The leader of Sudan had to step in on her behalf.

High School Musical News

Disney has released High School Musial III news. They say for HSM III will be on the big screen and it will have all their original cast members! It will be senior year for the wild cats, so that means graduation and the prom...Though this will likely be the last High School musical, however there are rumors that if a fourth movie was ever made it would star a completely new cast.

sorry, this might not be a political news story but these movies are so cute I had to post the news.