Wading In

Fairfield Daily Republic 3-25-10 The Other Side by Kelvin Wade It was sickening learning that a 16 year old girl was gang raped outside of her homecoming dance at Richmond High last October. Witnesses said as many as ten young punks took part in the assault, some kicking the girl in the head. Ten more watched and some took pictures on their cell phones. Seven suspects have been arrested for this brutal crime. Unfortunately, the spectators cannot be charged with anything. While one is legally obligated to contact the authorities if witnessing a crime against someone 14 and under, shockingly, there is no law compelling bystanders to do anything to assist a victim older than that. State Senator Leland Yee, Ph.D., Assistant President pro Tempore, is moving SB840 through the legislature that would make it a crime to watch the sexual assault, rape or murder of any minor and not alert the authorities. Assemblyman Pedro Nava has authored AB984 that would cover crime victim...

Don't fear the Census By Kelvin Wade March 18, 2010 The 2010 US Census arrives in mailboxes this week. The results impact everything from where tax dollars go to socio-economic studies to political representation. Suisun City, as well as other cities, is heavily promoting the census because they know it potentially means more federal dollars. The bad thing was the $85 million the government spent mailing notices to 90 percent of Americans last week notifying them of the coming census. The census has been discussed on the news, newspapers, magazines and blogs. Ads are running on television and radio. So why blow $85 million on those mailers? Now some don't want to fill out the 10-question census form. At a time when fear and hysteria is the norm, you can't blame some folks from being skittish. Last year, Rep. Michelle Bachmann. R-Minn., went on television with her desire to avoid completing the census. Few American politicians bring the crazy like Bachmann. She worried that...

March 11, 2010 Fairfield Daily Republic The Other Side by Kelvin Wade Every so often I’ll read that one of my nephews on Facebook says they’re bored. It’s a pretty common thing for kids to say they’re bored. But how can this be? We’ve created the most leisurely society in the history of the world. How can any child in 2010 be bored? There are books, magazines, newspapers, television with hundreds of channels, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, Kindles, MP3 players, computers, the Internet, multimedia downloads, video games, cell phones, and texting. And that’s not even leaving the house! When I was a kid, we'd play street football, go to the park or ride our bikes up to the since-defunct Eucalyptus Records or the Wherehouse to buy records (Yes kids, I mean the big black vinyl discs that you see in museums today). Or we'd call DART and for a dollar could go anywhere in town like the mall or the library. Growing up, you didn’t dare tell our parents that you were bored. If our dad heard that we...

Sorry is the hardest word Fairfield Daily Republic The Other Side By Kelvin Wade March 04, 2010 Sixty percent of Americans in a recent poll believe Tiger Woods' apology last month was sincere. In the same poll, 64 percent believe the apology should be the end of the matter. That's the power of a sincere apology. The jokes seemed to have dried up overnight and the public and media have moved on to other things. It seems the only time we hear apologies today is when someone is caught doing something and needs to try to wiggle out of responsibility. We've grown cynical about apologies. We've seen too many stand before a bank of microphones and read weak, faux apologies hoping to turn down the heat on their scandals. We're bad at apologies in this culture because we don't teach it correctly. We don't encourage reflection. It's all rote. Our introduction to apologies usually comes very young. It usually comes after we've done something wrong to another ki...