Save Money and Energy - SDGE Program

SDGE FREE ENERGY-SAVING HOME IMPROVEMENTS

SDGE understands that in these challenging economic times some of our customers may need additional assistance in managing energy costs at their home.

You may be eligible to receive free energy-saving home improvements that can help reduce your energy use and monthly bill. Join the more than 200,000 San Diegans that have already taken advantage of this free service and contact us now.

Here are some examples of what you can receive at no cost to you:

w Attic insulation w Water heater blankets

w Door weather-stripping w Energy-efficient lighting

w Low-flow showerheads w Select energy-efficient appliances*

Eligibility is based on income, see the guidelines below. Or, you could qualify if your household is currently receiving benefits from one of many public assistance programs, such as Food Stamps or WIC.**

Number of People	Maximum
In Household	Allowable Income
1 to 2	$31,300
3	$36,800
4	$44,400
For each additional	and $7,600

To find out what free home improvements you might be eligible for and to get started with your home energy savings plan today, visit us online at www.sdge.com/energyteam or call 1-866-597-0597. For hearing impaired customers, TDD/TTY is available 24/7 at 1-877-889-7343.

Dan LaMar
SDGE Manager, Energy Team
866-597-0597

* Existing appliances must meet age requirements to qualify for replacement. Renters must have property owner permission prior to installation. Co-pay may be required for landlords who own appliances and pay tenant utility.
** Contact SDG&E for the complete listing of public assistance programs that may qualify you.

www.sdge.com/energyteam

Letter to PBS Graduate members

Dear Brother,

In order to rekindle, keep alive, and to develop the spirit of loyalty for the fraternity on the part of the graduate members, the General Office is addressing this communication to you. We recognize the fact that there is a large number of our members who have been away from college and out of touch with the fraternity so long that the flame of devotion for Phi Beta Sigma may be growing dim. For this reason we feel that a better understanding of the present aims, program, and needs of the fraternity is necessary before we can hope to have the whole-hearted support of our graduate members. We therefore urge you to carefully consider the following statements.

1. Function of the Graduate Chapters
A graduate chapter may choose any line of work it may desire that is consistent with the ideals of the fraternity; it may function as a study, social, civic, or literary club. Graduate chapters, however, are subject ot the general laws of the fraternity the same as undergraduate chapters.

2. Fraternity Pin
All members should wear the fraternity pin; this is a medium of advertisment which is both wholesome and beneifical in that it shows self-interest, and lets the public know that the wearer is a Phi Beta Sigma member.

3. Recommending New Students
Graduate members should single out high school students, who are planning to, enter college, and refer them ot the fraternity and write the chapter in college where the student plans to attend, or write the General Office in reference to the matter.

4. Visiting Members
Members visiting cities and schools were chapters are located should look up the fraternity members and visit the chapter house when such is convenient.

5. The Douglass Fund
The Douglass Scholarship Fund was established by the convention of 1920 and is now in full operation. This is a worthy effort on the part of the fraternity to be of real service to mankind. The fraternity aims to increase the fund to three thousand dollars; this amount will assure a very substantial scholarship.

6. Fraternity Support
Graduate members are in a far better position to give advice and aid to the fraternity than the undergraduate members and for this reason we are calling upon our graduate members to rall to the support of the fraternity in its hour of need. In making this appeal for your support of the fraternity, we are looking far and away from a mere school organization to to an organization that has taken its place in the great field of human uplift, to an organization that is made up of men devoted to the noble principles for which the fraternity stands. We urge you to not forget the spirit of the fraternity, to help build up a strong graduate organization that shall be, as it ought to be, the backbone of the fraternity. We have always maintained that the fraternity should mean more to its members than what they get out of it while in college.

The friendships we form, the ties of brotherhood, the mutual understanding of each other as result of fraternal association, the spirit of helpfulness and cooperation as proacticed in school should follow us far and away from our school days. These influences, so beneficial while in college, should serve as a factor for good in our lives through the years that follow.

With best wishes for continued success, I am, Fraternally yours,
Founder A. Langston Taylor
a letter from Founder A. Langston Taylor to Graduate Members, 1924
Crescent Magazine

If you live in Chula Vista, Bonita, Coronado, IB or National City

There is a crisis at Southwestern College (SWC): class cuts, freedom of speech issues, and Accreditation is at peril !!!

What are SWC teachers and students asking for:
+ Endorse Norma Hernandez, Tim Nader Jesseca Saenz-Gonzalez for SWC Governing Board election on Nov 2nd.
+ Sign-up for e-updates at ccnado@san.rr.com

More information can be found at SaveourSWC.blogspot.com and swcboardelection.com

I'm Yours

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks, now I'm trying to get back

Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestest
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and then you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love

Listen to the music of the moment people, dance and sing
We're just one big family
And it's our God-forsaken right to be loved loved loved loved loved

So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm sure
There's no need to complicate, our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours

D-d-do do you, but do you, d-d-do
But do you want to come on
Scooch on over closer dear
And I will nibble your ear

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and I laughed

I guess what I be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do, our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

(I won't hesitate)
Open up your mind and see like me
(No more, no more)
Open up your plans and man you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find that the sky is yours
(It cannot wait, I'm sure)

So please don't, please don't, please don't
(There's no need to complicate)
There's no need to complicate
(Our time is short)
'Cause our time is short
(This is our fate)
This is, this is, this is our fate
I'm yours

(c) Jason Mraz, songwriter

The Littlest Schoolhouse

Brainy but easily distracted, the author barely made it through highschool and dropped out of college. Would a program like New York's new School of One, which uses technology to tailor learning to each student's style and pace, have made all the difference?

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Somewhere around the fourth grade, I started fantasizing about dropping out of school. I was in the midst of accumulating the initial marks on what would become a lengthy scholastic rap sheet. I had no trouble keeping up in my class of 30 or so. But I talked whenever the mood struck me, flicked paper footballs across the room, and instead of practicing subject-verb agreement, daydreamed about being reborn as Tony Dorsett. Among my favorite tricks was raising my hand for the lavatory pass, and then heading out for an epic schoolwide spin. I was evolving into the kind of kid who knew the line between hijinks and delinquency, but had no sense of how easily the first led to the second.

This was the mid-'80s-violent crime was rising, while the job pool for high-school dropouts was shrinking. A kind of mania gripped black parents in Baltimore. For black boys, there seemed to be only two roads-college or jail-and my parents would go to any ends to ensure that I took the former. I was the sixth of seven kids, and in my house, school was virtually the only way to elicit parental approval. My mother, herself a teacher, checked my notebook every night, and created progress reports for my teachers to fill out with categories like "paid attention in class," "finished assignments," "did not talk out of turn." My father approached PTA meetings the way a patient approaches an oncologist. Every report of my acting out-and there were many-was treated as an early symptom of 'Amount to Nothing" disease.

Each year, I started school resolved to ward off the diagnosis. But by the third week, I'd revert back to type by clowning in class or lying about homework. My roller-coaster ride through the Baltimore-area schools included two suspensions, two expulsions, and an arrest by school police. In 11th grade, after I was kicked out of the local magnet school, my dad just shook his head and told me I'd disgraced his name. I went on to pull something decent together in my last year of high school and make it to college. But after several years of on-and-off attendance, I finally fulfilled my fourth-grade fantasy and dropped out. In so doing, I achieved a dubious distinction - I became the only one of my father's seven kids not to graduate from college.

I left college with a sense of impending doom, partly convinced that I would immediately start accumulating felony convictions and make the old black-boy prophecy come true. In fact, I went on to a creditable career in journalism. I started a family that has held together, and became a tax-paying (if occasionally delinquent) citizen.

In 2005, I was hired by Time magazine. I had an office 23 floors in the air, in Midtown Manhattan. I used to look down on Sixth Avenue and wonder about the distance between my scholastic and professional lives. How could I utterly fail in practice and then succeed in the game? People constantly tell me that I should wear my dropout badge with pride. But I never have. I really wanted to succeed in school. More troubling to me: I've always known that the unquestioning support from my parents allowed me to bridge the gap between school and the world; but all my life, I saw bright kids who couldn't count on that support. What about them? What, I wondered, were schools doing to help them? And if I went to school today, would I find a classroom better able to cope with a student like me?

I took these questions with me to I.S. 339, a middle school in the South Bronx operating a promising after-school math pilot program called School of One. The biggest difference between my work life and my school life is that my job allows for a high level of personalization. Unlike my teachers in school, my editors don't unilaterally insist that I do a story a certain way; instead, we come to an agreement. Intriguingly, School of One attempts to apply that same kind of personalization to the teaching of math. To put that in the edu-speak vernacular of Joel Klein, the chancellor of New York City's schools and one of the program's biggest boosters, School of One tries to "move from the classroom as the locus of instruction delivery, to the student as the focus of instructional attainment."

School of One is the brainchild of a Teach for America vet named Joel Rose. A former Houston area elementary-school teacher, Rose watched the kids who left his class graduate to everything from high school to the county jail. He wanted to know why educators were able to reach some kids but not others. So he tracked down his former students and talked with them about how their experiences in his class had affected their future. After hours of conversation, Rose began wondering about the possibilities of an individualized curriculum.

Teachers generally work on a mass-production model - if 30 kids are in the class, the goal is to find a method that will allow the highest percentage of them to succeed. A great teacher can employ secondary methods to get through to laggards, but given the variables that individual students bring to the class, a handful of kids will inevitably be shortchanged. Teaching each child at his or her optimal level with the optimal technique has traditionally been left to private schools and expensive tutors. But with more schools employing computers, Rose saw a chance to bring boutique education to a mass public-school audience.

He envisioned a classroom broken down into stations, each one designed to teach specific skills in different ways. A kid who needs to learn how to calculate the area of a circle could be taught in a group with a teacher, with a virtual tutor, or with a computer program. "The vision I had was a large open space with different modalities happening at the same time," Rose told me. "I don't know a lot about technology. But I did talk to people who know a lot about technology. I said, 'I've got this crazy idea. Is this even doable?' And they said, 'Yeah.'"

School of One is the tangible result of those conversations. To come up with a way to tailor a lesson plan and teaching method for 320 seventh graders in a pilot program at three schools, Rose collaborated with Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn computer programming firm. Together they created an algorithm capable of weighing a student's academic needs, his or her learning preference, and the classroom resources. Here's how it works: first, the student and his parents and teachers are surveyed about his classroom habits. Then the student takes a diagnostic test to see how well he understands basic math. Those data are then sent to the New York Department of Education's headquarters in lower Manhattan, where School of One's algorithm produces a tentative lesson plan. That lesson plan is then e-mailed to the student's teachers, who revise it as they see fit. At the end of every day, the student takes another short diagnostic, which is used to create another tentative lesson plan that appears in the teachers' inboxes by eight o'clock that evening.

The result is that one student might learn to add fractions at a dry-erase board with a small group, while another student uses the Internet to practice calculating the area of a circle with a tutor in Kentucky, while still another student learns about factoring through a game on his laptop.

Launched in 2009 as a summer program in Chinatown, School of One posted encouraging initial results. An audit by the city school system, weighted for demographics and starting point, found that students' diagnostic scores improved by 28 percent between the beginning and end of the program. Given the school system's intense focus on the achievement gap, the program seemed to Klein and some of his colleagues like a natural candidate for schools with large black and Latino populations.

I.S. 339 was the ideal site for a beta test. The school is 67 percent Latino and 31 percent African American. Almost all of its kids are poor enough to qualify for free or subsidized lunches. Its principal, Jason Levy, is an ardent techie who publishes a blog called Principal 2.0: One Principal's Thoughts on Building a New Kind of School. When he arrived at I.S. 339 six years ago, he obsessed over how he could use technology to improve the school's woeful test scores.

Levy made the school wireless, gave every kid access to a laptop, and had teachers dispense assignments though email. Perhaps most important, he took a rudimentary stab at personalizing education by grouping his teachers into teams assigned to the same students, enabling them to compare notes and design specific strategies for kids who were faltering. The results were impressive. When Levy arrived, only 9 percent of I.S. 339's kids were at grade level in math, and only 12 percent in English. Last year, 62 percent were at grade level iIi math, and 40 percent in English.

But Levy wasn't satisfied. "We [had] had, on our best days, flashes of differentiation," Levy says. "But we hadn't been able to sustain something systemwide. We had all the preconditions, but we didn't have the package."

I saw the package on a warm spring day. It was just after 3 p.m., and kids were streaming out of I.S. 339, laughing and joking. Along with a group of education-policy wonks and potential funders, I met up with Rose in a large first-floor classroom, where a sky-blue School of One banner hung from the rafters and 30 or so kids in small groups were hashing out the nuances of seventh-grade math. Some worked by themselves on laptops, with headsets linking them to a virtual tutor. Others were at a dry-erase board with a teacher or high-school tutor. At the front of the room, a large electronic monitor, like an airport arrivals board, identified every student in the room and the station where he or she should be working.

Before Rose showed us the session, he'd stood outside explaining several charts and graphs on the wall, providing some context for what we were about to see. Everyone else listened patiently. I did my best to fit in, but inside I was agitated. I wanted to figure out for myself what I was seeing, I didn't want it explained. I caught myself thinking, I wish he'djust let us see the damn program. I was much the same in school-bored by the lectures full of instructions on how to experience content, and desperate to experience it myself.

In my junior year of high school, I was assigned Macbeth in English class. I failed English that year-they lost me at hamartia-and was kicked out of my magnet school. When I landed at my zoned high school, for my senior year, I had to retake English and reread Macbeth. But this time I got a teacher who simply handed us the book and told us to go to it, and saved the lectures on hamartia for after we'd learned to appreciate the text.

"Some students can sit for a long time in a classroom, and then some can't," says Blair Heiser, School of One's math coach. "It's not necessarily a learning disability; they might need [to get] the information in a different way."

I think that what went wrong with me and school, went wrong very early and was never fixed. Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, says that one of the biggest barriers for kids in school is the narrow entryway to success. ''You've generally got one shot at school," Willingham says. "And if you're no good at reading and arithmetic, you tune out, and school becomes a place where you're not very happy, where you go to fail."

The problem, Willingham argues, is that the "one shot" is tightly defined-reading in elementary school, for instance, is about pulling the main idea from stories. It's not seen as part of social studies, the arts, or science-classes rarely taught at the elementary level. But the same basic comprehension skills come into play in those areas as well. "I tell music teachers that they need to start telling people that they're reading teachers," Willingham says.

School of One's most promising aspect is the variety of ways it allows kids to succeed at math-the many ways a student is allowed to "get it." Next year, in the three pilot schools, the after-school program will be expanded to replace the current math curricula.

The long-term hope is that the model will prove successful enough to be applied to other subjects. But that will also depend on funding. At the moment, School of One is a public-private partnership. So far, the program has cost $3.3 million. Thirty percent of that funding has come from New York City's Department of Education. But the other 70 percent has come from venture philanthropists like the Robin Hood Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. For all of Chancellor Klein's support, he is insisting that School of One's implementation at any given school not increase that school's overall budget-a stiff challenge that Rose insists he can meet. School of One also faces technological obstacles-it needs a school that's wireless and has a laptop for every child.

As for the classroom of the past-of my past-I entered school just as educators began grappling with the computer's potential to help teachers and students. By the time I was in high school, we were using the computer lab once a week for math. But we were using it the same way we used pen and paper-a teacher at the front of the class and all of us following along. The computer lab bored me as much as the chalkboard. By then, I knew that I wasn't taking to education-asmass-production. I thought I was lazy (and maybe I was) and lacking the will to learn. But as I watched the kids at I.S. 339 working at their own pace and in their own way, I wondered if all I had ever really needed was the equivalent of a warm hug from a cold algorithm.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an Atlantic contributing editor.
He blogs at ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com.
The Atlantic, July/August 2010, p.82

A Hard Look

ABA supports bipartisan legislation calling for in-depth study of U.S. criminal justice system
by Rhona McMillion

Concerns about the state of the nations' criminal justice system are fueling a rare bipartisan effort in Congress to create a commission to undertake a comprehensive study of the system for the first time in nearly 40 years. Sponsors of the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 cite alarming statistics on the U.S. prison population to illustrate the problem. Although the United States accounts for only 5 percent of the world's total population, American prisons house 25 percent of the world's prison population. The number of convicted drug offenders incarcerated in U.S. prisons has soared 1,200 percent since 1980, and there are four times as many mentally ill people held in prisons as there are residing in mental hospitals. In addition to the 2.3 million people housed in state and federal prisons, another 5 million are on probation or parole.

"Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issues of criminal justice," said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., in his floor speech introducing the bill, S. 714. His primary co-sponsor is Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. The bill currently has 37 Senate co-sponsors from both parties.

"Our goal in this legislation," said Webb, "is to create a national commission with an 18-month timeline-not to simply talk about the problems that we have in our criminal justice system but to actually look at all of the elements in this system, how they are interrelated in terms of the difficulties that we have in remedying issues of criminal justice in this country. And to deliver us from a situation that has evolved over time where we are putting far too many of the wrong people into prison and we are still not feeling safer in our neighborhoods."

The Senate Judiciary Committee amended and approved the bill by a voice vote in January. A House version of the bill (H.R. 5143) was introduced in April by Reps. William D. Delahunt, D-Mass.; Marcia L. Fudge, D-Ohio; Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif.; Tom Rooney, R-Fla.; and Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-Va.

Under the legislation, the Commission's 14 members would be appointed by the president and congressional leaders from both parties. All components of the criminal justice system at the federal, state, local and Indian tribal levels would be on the commission's agenda.

The ABA's policymaking House of Delegates voted last August to endorse a study of the criminal justice system. The ABA, which developed recommendations for improving the nation's corrections system in 2004 at the urging of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, proposes that the study consider ways to reduce crime, lower incarceration rates, save taxpayer money, enhance the fairness and accuracy of case outcomes, and build public confidence in the system.

"It is time to be smart as well as tough," says Stephen A. Saltzburg, a past chair of the Criminal Justice Section who also headed the ABA's Justice Kennedy Commission. He says the commission would have the opportunity to look closely at the proper balance between enforcement of criminal laws at the federal, state and local levels.

"There is no silver bullet that will make crime disappear," says Saltzburg, a professor at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., "but there are programs that work and ... individuals and groups who are committed to improving criminal justice in America."

Rhonda McMillion is editor of ABA Washington Letter.
ABA Journal, July 2010, p.67

Obama Is No Liberal

It was a beautiful moment when Barack Obama, with his election, drew the left and right together in one powerful conviction: that he was a raging lefty. It didn't last long, of course. For the right, every day now brings exhilarating proof of his secret socialist mission; for the left, each day brings more disillusion: Afghanistan; Guantanamo; rendition; no prosecution of Bush officials; immigration; Don't Ask, Don't Tell; a health-care law that, okay, might be the most ambitious social legislation in 45 years, but didn't create a single-payer system and was heralded by a truckling executive order on abortion. Promises broken, promises deferred-and also promises inferred. How could he not be a lefty, given that he makes such poetic speeches, given that (and here's another assumption shared with the far right, an uglier one) he's black? Yet deep down, of course, the purists always suspected him, and are as titillated as Tea Partiers to remain in righteous opposition. To what? A wintry pragmatism joined to a novel (for our time) seriousness about applying government to make life better in a nation that, sure, might be willing, even eager, to elect an Indonesian-educated black Hawaiian with an unsettling name, but that finds the full agenda of the unforgiving left, like that of the unhinged right, a bit of a stretch.

by James Bennet
Editor, The Atlantic
July/August 2010, p.42

50 Educational Scholarships offered by the University of Phoenix - July 18 deadline

In partnership with the National Foster Parent Association, the University of Phoenix is offering 50 full-ride scholarships to foster youth, foster care alumni or foster parents, under the banner of the University's First Chance Scholarship program. The scholarship is redeemable at any University of Phoenix campus, including the online program. Foster Care Alumni of America has just agreed to partner with NFPA to promote the scholarships to the foster care alumni community and to assist in the selection of 25 alumni scholarship recipients. The scholarships are offered on a competitive basis, deadline to apply is 18 July 2010. Applications can be obtained via the NFPA website or for more details visit www.nfpainc.org

Preparing Our Students for College: Explaining A-G on June 3rd

Preparing Our Students for College & Career: Access and Success in A-G

Date: Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (PT)
Location: Kearny High School Auditorium
7651 Wellington Way, San Diego, CA 92111

Parents, students, teachers, administrators and other interested community members are invited to participate in a Community Conversation about college and career readiness in the 21st century on Thursday, June 3, from 6:30-8 P.M., at Kearny High School. The event, facilitated by the Education Trust West, is part of data gathering activities that will be included in an Educational Opportunity Audit being prepared for the district. The findings will be used to make informed decisions and determine next steps in the Board of Education's resolution to adopt the University of California A-G graduation requirements for all students. For more information and to RSVP, go to http://www.eventbrite.com/event/691425071

The Failure of American Education

American education, which used to be the envy of the world, is in dire straits. The U.S. ranks 21st among 25 developed countries on overall educational achievement for 15-year-olds.

The U.S. spends almost three times as much per prisoner as per public school pupil.

Only 15 percent of Black 4th graders are reading at or above grade level and only 15 percent are doing math at or above grade level; for Hispanic students the respective percentages are 16 and 21 percent, and they are almost as low for American Indian/Alaska Native students.

46 percent of Black high school students, 39 percent of Hispanic and 11 percent of White students attend the 2,000 “dropout factories” across our country, where less than 60 percent of the freshman class will graduate high school in four years.

Read the full report on the failure of American education at
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-americas-children-2010-report-education.pdf

In Politics, Fact, Fancy Can Blur in Keystroke Bogus Claim Linking Jail, School Raised Election After Election

By Maria Glod and Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post Staff Writers, Thursday, June 4, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/03/AR2009060303566.html

"Imagine if your entire future was determined by what you did in the third grade," says Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe in a television advertisement promoting his plan to expand preschool. "Did you know we use the failure rates of third-graders to help predict how many prison spots Virginia will need in 15 years?"

You didn't know? Could be because it's not true -- at least not in Virginia.

The startling claim has been cited by McAuliffe and one of his rivals, Brian Moran, as they seek the Democratic nomination for governor. It is an appealing bit of political rhetoric, providing a cinematic illustration of the benefits of expanding preschool: Society will reap long-term savings by spending money early on education.

In the world of politics, dubious claims can harden into conventional wisdom in a keystroke. Political campaigns now have access to an unlimited catalogue of reports, speeches and essays that swirl on the Internet. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Colin L. Powell and even the organizers of the Alexandria literacy festival have pointed to the link as a frightening example of how children can go astray. The Washington Post and the New York Times have published opinion columns that reference the connection.

"It's catchy," said Peter E. Leone, director of the National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice at the University of Maryland, often cited as the source of the link. "And it's totally bogus."

But the effort to link third-grade reading scores and prison population has been particularly persistent -- hopscotching from one campaign season to another.

In Virginia, at least, it is definitely untrue. Barry R. Green, director of Virginia's Juvenile Justice Department, said that when officials draw up six-year plans for how much prison space the state will need, they rely on factors that include arrest and conviction trends, but not test scores or any other education data. A policy group convened at the end of the process discusses general social issues, Green added.

Since the ad began airing in Richmond, Norfolk and Roanoke, McAuliffe's campaign has said third-grade scores aren't part of the official formula Virginia uses to plot prison construction. But the campaign says the ad was designed as a tangible and understandable way to bring home the idea that quality preschool is a smart investment.

"We feel comfortable using third-grade reading scores as a way of communicating, in shorthand, the importance of education in predictions of long-term social behavior, including predictions about crime rates, which are then used to determine the number of prison beds that we are constructing," said McAuliffe communications director Delacey Skinner.

Moran made a statement similar to McAuliffe's in a radio interview last month: "If you don't have them by third grade, it's hard to get them back. We use our third-grade reading exams to determine potential for prison later on."

Leone has not ruled out the possibility that a state uses elementary test scores this way, but he has not found one.

"It's like an urban legend," Leone said, adding that he has been fielding calls for years from reporters and politicians researching similar assertions. Last year, he said, a member of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's staff called to check it out.

Prison officials in California called the claim "absolutely untrue," saying they must perennially debunk assertions that the state uses elementary reading in prison forecasts. A New York-based education group co-founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein pulled the information from its Web page in April after an online journalism site labeled it "fiction."

Still, the contention persists, growing more credible with each repetition. Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, former head of the U.S. Education Department's research arm, is sometimes cited as a source of the claim. He said he heard it and repeated it about six years ago in comments that can be found on the Internet. Later, he tried to trace it to its source and came up blank.

"I don't know if it is true or not and regret contributing to the dissemination of what may be an urban legend," Whitehurst said this week.

In campaign literature distributed with the ad, McAuliffe pegged the line to comments made by Norfolk Judge Jerrauld Jones at a teen violence summit he attended last year with another politician. Through his secretary, Jones, former director of the state Juvenile Justice Department, declined to comment.

The campaign also noted a state Department of Criminal Justice Services report that lists failure on third-grade reading tests as a factor that increases the risk of committing a crime.

Where else might McAuliffe have gotten the idea? Robley Jones, lobbyist for the Virginia Education Association, said possibly from him. Jones said he can remember saying something very similar at a recent roundtable discussion on education attended by McAuliffe.

"If it's an urban legend, I'm probably one of those guilty of keeping it alive, because I thought it was true," Jones said.

Jones said he plans to stop saying that the state uses the scores to plan prison construction -- but he said he believes there is a correlation. "I think it may be almost a meaningless distinction, whether or not Virginia is actually using the figure," he said. "The fact of the matter is that the figure could be used accurately."

Diana Owen, an associate professor of political science at Georgetown University, said that despite the input of experts, future candidates will now have one more source to use to make the same claim. "A factoid like that will have another life in another campaign," she said. "Now that that ad's out there, people will cite the ad. I'm sure of it."

So now you know -- totally an urban legend.

San Diego Career Connections Scholarship - May 17th deadline

Career Connections Scholarships are supported by 2009 Career Connections Event Sponsors and the San Diego Industry Liaison Group

Scholarship Criteria
Applicants for the Career Connections Scholarship must be youths who meet the following eligibility criteria:
· A senior in high school and planning on attending college or post-secondary education or training or currently attending college or post-secondary education or training or currently participating in a youth employment program
· Minimum GPA 2.5
· Between the ages of 16 and 21
· A resident of San Diego County
· Foster youth transitioning to independence and youth with disabilities are encouraged to apply
· Serious candidates are responsible youth who demonstrate leadership potential and/or provide positive role models for other youth, show the ability to make good choices, and who desire to improve their skills and abilities to succeed in an academic or trade environment.

Awards Process:
· Applications must be received by May 17, 2010
· Applications will be reviewed by the Scholarship Committee
· Scholarship Awards: 2 Scholarships will be awards in the amount of $650
· Scholarships Awards will be presented on Saturday, June 5, 2010, during the Urban League of San Diego County’s Golden Pyramid Scholars Event at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, in Balboa Park. Program begins at 10:00am
· Winners are requested to be present

Send completed applications and essays to the following address:
San Diego Industry Liaison Group
P.O. Box 261112
San Diego, CA 92196-1112
Attn: Career Connections Scholarship Committee

Applications must be received by May 17, 2010
Additional information can be obtained from info@sdilg.org

There is little room for meaningful fiscal reform

Until there is meaningful discussion and debate on the California state budget and the formula for funding and allocation to Student Education verse the Prison+Correction System, there can be no meaningful reform.

Did you know that the cost of a single 50-year prison sentence in California is $2,450,000 ($2.45 million dollars per prisoner).

This amount could pay for 277 years of tuition at the University of California; 499 years of tuition at California State University; or 3,926 years of tuition at a Community College.

Since 1984, California has built 21 new prisons and only 4 new universities.

Until we have a meaningful and honest debate on the priorities of our society and how we allow a small number of labor unions to shape and dictate the debate towards their own agenda, there will never be true reform.

Did you know that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), founded in 1957 is widely considered one of the most powerful political forces in California politics. CCPOA made the largest contribution to the No on 5 Campaign in 2008, contributing one million dollars. The CCPOA union members currently pay $79.87 per month to the union and as of 2002, the union had 31,000 members, at which time union dues totaled $21.9 million per year. Lobbying efforts and campaign contributions by the CCPOA have helped secure passage of numerous legislative bills favorable to union members, including bills that increase prison terms, member pay, and enforce current drug laws. The CCPOA takes the position that correctional officers perform an essential public service that puts their members in great danger, and strives for a safer California. CCPOA critics assert that the union has become too powerful in California politics, that it has used its power to unfair advantage, and that it has been an impediment to constructive debate and openness about the state of California prisons. The union has been criticized for the way it uses its relationship with crime victims, including its financing of two statewide victims' advocacy groups.

Please contact your CA Assemblymember and Urge YES Vote on AB 2401

Please send this letter or one of your own to your Assemblymember today. This is one of the most important bills the legislature will consider this cycle. We must stand together to help make it impossible for the Governor to veto this bill.

Some CSU campuses are building dormitories and moving towards giving out of state/service area students admissions preference. Providing housing can be a profitable enterprise for CSU campuses. But the real purpose of the California State University is to educate our young people not to run hotels.

Dear Assembly Member,

I urge you to vote for AB 2401 when it comes before you in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 12.

The purpose of this bill is to establish that the various campuses of the California State University (CSU) should give priority, in admissions, to applicants from each campus's service area. For example the California State University, San Diego, should give higher priority, for admissions, to applicants from the San Diego area rather than to applicants from other parts of the state, or from out of state.

Frankly, that has been part of the mission of the California State University for many decades. That policy makes it possible for students to limit their college expenses by living and eating in their parents home.

And there is a significant difference between attending CSU, while living at home, or attending a distant campus of CSU and living on campus or in town. According to the CSU web site, in academic year 2009-2010, the cost of attending CSU while living at home is an average of $14,591. Attending a campus, that is distant from home, while living on campus, costs an estimated $20,106 or living off campus costs an estimated $21,145. So living at home could save a student almost as $6,000 per year.

Some CSU campuses are building dormitories and moving towards giving out of service area students admissions preference. Providing housing can be a profitable enterprise for CSU campuses. But the real purpose of the California State University is to educate our young people not to run hotels.

The California State University has a long, honorable history of providing quality education at minimal cost to the people of California. It should continue to focus on that; superior education at minimal cost.

AB 2401 directs the California State University to do just that. Please vote for it in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Sincerely,

SDSU Says “No!” to Local Students

Did you know that SDSU has denied admission to 4,000+ CSU-qualified students from San Diego who applied for Fall 2010?

SDSU’s administration (President Stephen Weber, Provost Nancy Marlin, Ethan Singer and Sandra Cook) says it’s due to budget cuts. But many community leaders, parents, students and taxpayers know otherwise and have made their opposition known for months!

Join us in opposing this injustice against our youth. We are fighting to keep the doors to SDSU open for local students!

Use your cell phone ASAP and call the CSU Chancellor and our local CSU Trustee and tell them to restore the local guaranteed student admit policy and make SDSU stop denying our students!---Chancellor Charles Reed (562) 951-4700 & CSU Trustee Linda Lang (CEO of Jack in Box): (562) 951-4020 or (858) 571-2121

Please also ask your friends to call!

USC Leventhal's School of Accounting, Summer Leadership Program - application deadline May 14th

**Application Deadline extended to May 14, 2010
On-line NOW!!!

We are seeking 45 high school students who will enter 10th, 11th, and 12th in the Fall of 2010 for USC Summer Leadership Program, July 18-24, 2010

**Preferred GPA Minimum 3.0**

Students must be entering 10th, 11th or 12th this Fall 2010

The primary objective of the Leventhal School of Accounting Summer Leadership Program is to increase the understanding and awareness of accounting and business career opportunities among high school minority youth in the public and private school system. We are seeking 45 high school students who will enter 10th, 11th, and 12th in the Fall of 2010.

The goal of the Summer Leadership Program (SLP) is to bring the accounting experience to the selected participants. As a result, the week-long event is tailored to show students the opportunities available to them in the accounting industry and at the University of Southern California . For example, the Accounting Workshops provide students with a preliminary understanding of the profession in terms of careers, methodologies, and education. In addition, the Case Study Competitions allow SLP students the opportunity to apply what they have learned in the workshops through hands-on activities. Other activities include:

Activities:
Accounting Workshops
Case Study Competitions
Tours of two of the Big Four Accounting Firms
Field Trip to the Paramount Pictures
USC Information Sessions
Social Bonding

Leventhal's Summer Leadership Program (SLP) is a week-long on-campus event to introduce High School students to the opportunities available to them in the accounting profession and at USC. In true college freshman fashion, the students live in dorms for the duration of the program and attend a regimen of classes at USC.

Parents are also involved. On the first day SLP reviews the week's activities and program facilitators discuss critical issues that will assist parents in preparing their children to enter the university. Parents will also attend the students' end of program presentations and banquet.

USC Summer Leadership Program http://www.uscslp.org
Ms. Audrena Goodie
Program Coordinator
agoodie@marshall.usc.edu
213-740-8304

Hey, Soul Sister

Hey, hey, hey

Your lipstick stains on the
front lobe of my left side brains
I knew I wouldn't forget you,
and so I went and let you blow my mind
Your sweet moving,
the smell of you
in every single dream I dream
I knew when we collided,
you're the one I have decided who's one of my kind

Hey soul sister,
ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo,
the way you move ain't fair, you know!
Hey soul sister,
I don't want to miss a single thing you do...tonight

Hey, hey, hey

Just in time,
I'm so glad you have a one-track mind like me
You gave my life direction,
a game show love connection we can't deny
I'm so obsessed,
my heart is bound to beat right out my untrimmed chest
I believe in you,
like a virgin, you're Madonna,
and I'm always gonna wanna blow your mind

Hey soul sister,
ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo,
the way you move ain't fair, you know!
Hey soul sister,
I don't want to miss a single thing you do...tonight

The way you can cut a rug,
watching you's the only drug I need
You're so gangsta, I'm so thug,
you're the only one I'm dreaming of
You see,
I can be myself now finally,
in fact there's nothing I can't be
I want the world to see you be with me

Hey soul sister,
ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo,
the way you move ain't fair, you know!
Hey soul sister,
I don't want to miss a single thing you do tonight,
Hey soul sister,
I don't want to miss a single thing you do...tonight

Hey, hey,hey

Tonight

Hey, hey,hey

Tonight

lyrics by Train

Dream

Surely those who are reluctant to do what is asked of them should be the more admired. Surely those who are afraid, who question themselves, who doubt their own abilities, but who, under pressure, rise to the moment, are our true paragons. Surely the man facing a mass of restless people, who puts aside his prepared speech to say those hauntingly beautiful words — "I have a dream..." — surely this man becomes the Zeitgeist.

"I say to you today, my friends: so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream... I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave -owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhoodVI have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

"I have a dream...™

With that speech Martin Luther King, Jr. realized the hopes of two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was the largest civil rights demonstration ever held in the United States, and after a hot summer's afternoon of political speeches the crowd was listlessly beginning to fray on the edges. But when that soaring, powerful voice began those rhythmic and cadenced sentences, people became rooted, silent. And when he had finished and stood there beaded in sweat and took a step back from the microphones, for a moment, a brief moment, there was a stunned acknowledgment of what King had said. Then a roar of acceptance rose from tens of thousands of throats in tribute to the man who had articulated their lives. Across the country, millions more watched a live television broadcast: the moral force of black America's demands for equality was undeniable.

At the end of that year, 1963, this man, Martin Luther King, Jr., would be proclaimed Time magazine's Man of the Year. The following year, he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, at thirty-five, the youngest peace prize-winner ever, and only the third black man to receive the honor. In the eyes of his followers and those whose suffering he portrayed, he had become an icon, but it was not a status King sought. Rather it had been thrust on him and, in a sense, forced him to confront his destiny: the threats, the arrests, the harassment, and, eventually, the assassination. In public he was a man of the people, in private he was a reluctant hero. But he was well aware of his own qualities, and because of this empathized with people, both those he led and those whose fears he challenged.

"We often develop inferiority complexes and we stumble through life with a feeling of insecurity, a lack of self-confidence, and a sense of impending failure," he told his congregation one Sunday in 1967, a year before he was killed. "A fear of what life may bring encourages some persons to wander aimlessly along the frittering road of excessive drink and sexual promiscuity. I know this. I know it from my own personal experiences."

This was King in an hour of truthfulness when he needed to reach out to ordinary people in the hopes of arousing their understanding that while he might be the man at the head of the protest marches, the man calling for freedom in the face of police violence, the man incarcerated, he was, too, as vulnerable as were they. And yet, when the hour came, King was quick to put aside his anxieties and face any hardship no matter how frightening. Then, undaunted, he would act on their behalf. In that selfless courage lay his capacity to inspire.

excerpt from Introduction to "Dream: The Words and Inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr." by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

What Are Your Salary Requirements?

Aside from "Why did you leave?” the question "What are your salary requirements?" is probably the one that causes job seekers the most discomfort. The company holds all the cards, and they're not letting you peek. You know that if they don’t like your answer, you might easily kill any further discussion.

As if the question isn't awkward enough at any time, it's usually asked at the beginning of the process during a phone interview or a quick intro screen by HR to see if they want to bring you in for an interview. Worse yet is when you're told to put the number in your cover letter. You feel as if you’re walking through a minefield, because you’re tossed if you don’t follow their directions, and you’re tossed if they don’t like your answer.

In actuality, the question isn't what's unreasonable, but rather when it’s asked and how the answer is weighed. The purpose is to weed people out. Remember you’re selling and the hiring company is buying. Give buyers a reason to say no and they will. People look for concerns, because that helps them believe they’re eliminating problems.

So although it's not a problem question, the sooner it's asked, the more of one it becomes. What the company is attempting to determine is if you're realistic about what you're looking to make in relation to their range and your experience. But when your number is unrealistic, however they define that, they generally remove you from consideration. Unfortunately, especially when they require the number in your cover letter, the number isn’t taken in context with your skills, so your resume rarely gets even a cursory glance.

To complicate that further, if a company were to glance at your resume to see if there might be a reason to set a phone interview and ask you if you’re firm on that figure, almost every person’s resume fails to communicate their skills as strongly as should be done. In those instances, the job seeker has further contributed to his own demise. Either way, the company ends up making a decision about you based on a number instead of your capabilities.

But with so many people applying for one position, especially in the last few months, a company feels they need some way to cull it down as much as possible. As a previous recruiter for 22 years, I know well there are other ways to do this more effectively, but in the meantime, let’s discuss how you can handle the problem, which is a far easier task.

Since that question is going to continue to pop up frequently either too early in the process or without being put in context, you’re going to have to handle it. When you’re told to put it in your cover letter, ignoring it will only result in your being eliminated for not following directions. The best way to keep yourself in control of the outcome is by answering the question, but without answering the question.

Not only will this keep you from being pigeon-holed, but you have the opportunity to make a very sensible point, which one hopes will resonate with the hiring company. In any case, it’s not a point with which they can argue and when your tone of voice is professional and respectful, you won’t be viewed as contentious.

The best stock answer, both verbally and for your cover letter is, "I'm interested in a fair and equitable offer for the right opportunity," or your own equivalent of that message. Salary requirements are only a part of the total picture, as is the salary offered. No matter from which side it’s being viewed, a number alone doesn't – and shouldn’t - define the full scope of what's being discussed.

authored by Judi Perkins
Judi Perkins, the How-To Career Coach, was a recruiter for 22 years, consulting with hundreds of hiring authorities throughout the hiring process. She’s seen over 500,000 resumes, knows how hiring authorities think and how they hire. As a result she understands and teaches what other coaches don’t: why the typical strategies in finding a job so often fail, what to do instead, and why. She’s been on PBS’s Frontline, will be in the May issue of Smart Money magazine, and has been quoted frequently in numerous articles for CareerBuilder, MSN Careers, Yahoo Hot Jobs, and the New York Times, among others. She’s also been featured as an expert in numerous career books. Sign up for her free newsletter at www.FindthePerfectJob.com

Slow Love - How I was laid off - and learned to love life again

by Dominique Browning

For 12 years, I had a job I loved as the editor of House & Garden, a magazine that celebrated the good life. It would be an understatement to describe this enterprise as part of a company not primarily in the business of philosophical, spiritual or moral soul-searching. Conde Nast's roots and branches are in the material world. The good life at House & Garden generally meant cultivating your own backyard rather than being involved in the body politic. I pushed against the limits of making a so-called shelter magazine by publishing articles about spiritual issues and the environment, but I always felt clear-eyed about how things stood. I spent more than a decade in the belly of the beast of muchness and more. That was a precarious place to be when the real estate bubble began to leak.

The folding of the magazine was ruthless. Without warning, our world collapsed. No one was expecting it, though with five publishers in 10 years, we had our share of turmoil. I came to work on a Monday in 2007, went to the corporate offices for a meeting, had a different meeting, got the news and was told to have everything packed up by Friday. Security guards were immediately posted by the doors.

In the four days we were given to pack up our belongings, I was overwhelmed with an urge to hoard and began stuffing every House & Garden paper bag, pencil and notepad I could get my hands on into a box, so that I would never run out of office supplies. I salvaged enough to run a small corporation from my kitchen. I didn't think of this as stealing. I thought of it as a twisted sort of recycling — part of the strange new economy of severance into which I had been thrown. Everything with our logo on it was destined for the Dumpster anyway.

Even so, a few weeks later I realized I had some gaping holes in the inventory: I had no ink for my printer. The pages of my resume looked faded, ghostly. You would think I was fading, too, but I wasn't. I was getting plump. All I could think about was food. This was the beginning of being hungry all the time. My addled brain interpreted the white noise of unemployment to mean that I was going into hibernation, that I had to lay in reserves. After the closing of the magazine was announced, my public line was, "We had a great run, we took a magazine from zero to 950,000 readers in 10 years, fabulous renewals, we won awards, published six books" I was a zombie. "Great run... 950,000 readers... six books...."

But privately, I was in a whiplashing tailspin. My nightmare had finally come true. For years, I had a profound dread of unemployment that went way beyond worrying about how to pay the bills. I would like to say that this was because of the insecure nature of magazine publishing, but my anxiety had more to do with my own neuroses — though I didn't think of it that way. Work had become the scaffolding of my life. It was what I counted on. It held up the floor of my moods, kept the facade intact. I always worried that if I didn't have work, I would sink into abject torpor.

I have always had a job. I have always supported myself. Everything I own I purchased with money that I earned. I worked hard. For the 35 years I've been an adult, I have had an office to go to and a time to show up there. I've always had a place to be, existential gravitas intended. Without work, who was I? I do not mean that my title defined me. What did define me was the simple act of working. The loss of my job triggered a cascade of self-doubt and depression. I felt like a failure. Not that the magazine had failed — that I had.

The thing about running a magazine is that there is always too much to do. I liked not being in control of my time — I was always busy. I didn't want time to think things over, things like feeling guilty about spending more time with my office mates than with my children; feeling sad that those children were leaving home; or feeling disappointed in love or frightened by terrible illness. Everything else, in other words. The demands of my job kept me distracted. Besides, no one else was paying my mortgage. With the closing of the magazine, my beloved family of colleagues was obliterated. And so was the structure of my life.

Within hours of leaving my office for the last time, I could hardly bring myself to care about my reputation. I just wanted to eat. I began calling every employed person I knew to take me to lunch. I wanted to fill my calendar with the promise of meals, even if they were only penciled in — this, after all, being Manhattan. Only food could ward off the rage, despair and raw fear that overcame me.

How had I managed to get this far in my life completely unprepared for the unknown—which I had always known was out there?

During my first post-employment lunch, my panic was full-blown. It was all I could do to keep myself from wrapping a dozen breadsticks in a napkin and tucking them into my bag. I floated the idea, actually, and my companion laughed slightly, nervously, gauging the level of my seriousness. I managed to control myself. He is a good friend and gave me loads of advice, which I heard through my frantic chewing. I ended the meal extracting a promise of several more meals in the future; I wanted friends bearing menus.

After a few weeks of being unemployed, I began to settle into a routine — of getting up.

"Today is Saturday," I said to myself one morning. I repeated this several times, trying to convince myself to get out of bed. Saturday is what I came to think of as one of the nice, days, like Sunday—that is, when I considered days at all. "Today is Saturday. No one is working today, so you are no different from anyone else," I would say out loud.

In fact, I found it hardly necessary to be aware of what day it was. One of the pleasures of a workday morning had been to rise early, have a cup of tea, walk through the garden and get to the train on time, where I could read the paper front to back. Now that I did not have to get to work, I no longer had a structured time to read the daily paper, so I would pile it into a stack, thinking I would get to it later, until I realized I was creating a weekly daily.

I missed Fridays especially. They once meant relief, time for rest and housekeeping. Now every day was Friday. Or Monday. Whatever.

Time hangs heavily on the unemployed soul. If I ate an egg at 8 a.m., by 9:30 I was starving. I became obsessed with eggs, gazing on their refined shape in wonder. Perfect packets of nutrients. I ate eggs all day long. When I had a job, I never thought about eggs.

I would feel busy, and then, when I was in bed again, realize I had done nothing. The last time this happened I had a newborn and was so exhausted from nursing through the night and keeping an eye on the sleeping infant all morning that I couldn't get into grown-up clothing until late in the afternoon. For heaven's sake, I hadn't even thought of it as grown-up clothing since I was a 5-year-old dressing for kindergarten. Frankly, I no longer saw any reason to get out of my pajamas at all. A long coat covered everything up when I went out for food.

The pace of my life had become so slow that I was struggling to keep up with it.

"How are you today?" my sister Nicole asked whenever she called. She phoned several times a day.'' How was your morning?'' my sister wanted to know.

"Incredibly busy. Unbelievable."

"What were you doing?"

"Sleeping."

In this way, being unemployed is a lot like being depressed. You know how there are millions (O.K., a handful) of things you swear you would do if you only had the time? Now that I had all the time in the world — except for the hours during which I was looking for work — to read, write, watch birds, travel, play minor-key nocturnes, have lunch with friends, train a dog, get a dog, learn to cook, knit a sweater, iron the napkins and even the sheets, I had absolutely no energy for any of it. It made no difference that music and books and nature had long been the mainstays of my spirit. Just thinking about them exhausted me. I had absolutely zero experience in filling weeks — what if it became years?—with activity of my own choosing. Being unemployed meant being unoccupied, literally. I felt hollow.

"Today is Saturday. Get out of bed."

Saturday meant that I could feel a little bit normal. Saturday is not a workday. What mattered was that everyone else's Saturdays were different from Mondays and therefore the same as mine. I rose early. I made a breakfast of the leftovers from a post-employment lunch and then I put on a hat and mittens. Did I mention that we were all fired just as the holiday season was upon us? So much for Thanksgiving.

I headed into the streets. The early sunlight slanted across the shop windows. Everyone hurried past me. Suddenly I noticed that the men on the sidewalk looked strange; they were in overcoats and polished leather shoes and carrying briefcases. The women were dressed up. They had introspective, determined, grim faces. Strange for a Saturday. That's when it hit me. It wasn't Saturday. It was Friday.

After a month of unemployment, it had come to this — foraging for my dinner, at 4 in the afternoon. In my own kitchen. I had developed a habit of eating leftovers from meals enjoyed days earlier; my breakfast of spaghetti and meatballs at dawn sickened me by noon. Before too long, I was hungry again, but balky, wary of my own housekeeping. Better to have a drink. Safer.

Normally I like a bottle of Guinness stout when I need a nutritional hit, but I'd gone through my supply. I spotted a nearly empty bottle of Lillet moldering at the back of the refrigerator. Sugar and liquor only improve with age, right? I emptied it into an oversize breakfast cup and read the recipe on the bottle. A twist of lime? Who keeps limes? I threw in a slice of lemon. Then a few more. Haifa lemon. Vitamin C. I like to rehearse the nutritional content of my food, and there are times when a drink qualifies as a meal. I took a sip, and it wasn't half-bad, or, I suppose, it was only half-good. Note to self: Next time, make an effort. Have a whiskey sour. More vitamin C.

Drink in hand, I decided it was time to wash the windows on the second floor. I could use a little exercise, I thought. Funny how sugar works: suddenly a surge of energy. Cleaning was an activity I had thrown myself into in recent days. I might be a mess, but at least I could control the mess in my house.

"How are you today?" my sister asked. She was down to calling two or three times a day. "How was your morning?"

"Incredibly busy. Unbelievable."

"What were you doing?"

"Vacuuming."

I got a big sponge out from under the sink, filled a bucket and climbed the stairs to my bedroom. A few more sips of the Lillet to fortify me for the job, and my mind was racing. As I reached for the corner with my sopping sponge, sucking on the lemons at the bottom of my cup at the same time, I imagined the casement snapping under my weight. I watched myself fall out the window. I watched my cup shatter on the flagstones.

I looked down from the window and saw myself splayed on the stone terrace, my back cracked and spine twisted — like the lime that's supposed to be in my drink? — my head resting at a birdlike angle. This is where they (who?) would find me four days later, when it occurred to them (who, though?) that I hadn't been seen for a while, hadn't kept an appointment (do I have any?) and hadn't called the children.

The children? I can't help it. I think of Alex and Theo as children still, though they are grown and out of the house. The children were not going to be the ones to find me broken-necked on the terrace. Frankly, no one would. I'd rot.

I decided I was in no condition for housekeeping this evening and dropped my sopping sponge into.the bathtub. O.K., so now I had watched myself hit bottom. That's what you have to do to get better, right? Anyway, I was hungry. For a change.

There were three jars of peanut butter — protein! — on the shelf. I didn't even bother to find my reading glasses so that I could choose the freshest jar, but I took down a dessert plate, just to maintain standards. I fished around in the utensil drawer and found a spoon, unscrewed the lid and dredged deep. I dolloped the stuff onto the plate — an extra helping so I didn't have to go back downstairs for seconds. I put the plate of peanut better, a half bottle of wine, a glass and a linen napkin on a tray and climbed back to my bedroom.

I started to lift my glass in a toast.

"To nothing."

I thought better of it.

"To life!" I said out loud. Then I gave myself another one of my hourly lectures. Buck up. Just because something failed doesn't mean you're a failure. Just because something has ended doesn't mean it was all a mistake. Just because you've been rejected doesn't mean you're worthless and unlovable. Sound familiar? It should, if you or anyone you know has gone through a divorce. This felt like the same thing.

Worse. I had no control over any of it. And no one was holding a safety net for me. For years I relied on only myself, but my confidence was shattered. Now what?

I began keeping notes about how I was feeling, what I was doing. Writing had always been my way to absorb things; I often wrote out my troubles. It even crossed my mind to write for a living. I had not changed my lifestyle while I was working at Conde Nast, so I had saved some money. I knew that writing wasn't lucrative, having spent my career supporting writers. But I figured if I got consulting work and lived carefully, I could subsidize myself. Then I developed a strange typing problem — and I am a world-class typist, having spent years as a secretary. I kept mssng the "i" key — thngs kept comng out whtout t. There was certainly nothing wrong with the middle finger of my right hand. Mssng the "i" meant constant retypng. That was the end of wrtng.

Within months of House & Garden folding, the entire economy was in freefall. Advertising was vanishing, layoffs and buyouts were announced. I was beginning to feel like an antique, an artisan whose skills were no longer even respected, much less needed. Editing? How quaint. Managing creative people? All we're trying to manage is to get rid of more of them.

It was strange and maddening to be forcibly retired. Even the generational rhythms were out of whack. It seemed just yesterday that my father retired. How could we have reached the same stage of life together?

Four months after being laid off, I decided to sell my house in the suburbs of New York. The stock market was sliding perilously. I didn't want to spend my savings maintaining the mortgage and high taxes. I wanted to be out of debt.

It took me ages to create my home — 25 years, and all the years before that of daydreaming about how I wanted to live. This was the home I thought I would grow old in. It was a forthright, dark, wood-shingled, center-hall colonial revival, nearly a hundred years old. It was supposed to be my Forever House — the home you think you will never leave, the house you love beyond all others, where you've recaptured only what made you feel safe and happy in your childhood and left the rest behind. The Forever House is where you've passed along the values you admire to your own children — and filled the rooms with laughter and tears.

I called a real-estate broker, a cheerfully competent person who arrived disconcerted at the kitchen door, unwilling to brave the front path overhung with gnarled, carefully pruned azaleas. They gave the entrance character. Was I thinking, Character doesn't sell, when I made my home? No. I was thinking, This looks good. To me. We toured the house: "And over here is the laundry room, with bookcases built in — "

"I've never seen so many bookcases!" the broker said. "People don't want bookcases. They don't even want libraries. They want media rooms. Where did you say you hid the TV?"

I could see her mind whirring as she began to figure out just what type of character she had on her hands... single, unemployed, not going out much, reading instead. We walked through the kitchen. She eyed the walls warily.

"Interesting color. Very."

Isn't that what people say when they can't think of anything nicer to say?

"You've decorated your house so beautifully," she continued. "This kitchen is gorgeous. Now you're going to have to clear all the counters. Books. Knickknacks. All the stuff, I love what you've done with this house. Make sure you put it all away."

Knickknacks? Maybe houses are like children. You can see yours only through eyes of love. Soon strangers would be tromping through my house, passing judgment, but the only way to have an open house is to shut away everything that made it your home.

"Don't worry," the broker went on. "You don't have to be here. You shouldn't even be in town! I'll handle everything. Don't forget! Counters! Walls! Personality! Cleared!" The broker smiled graciously. She was fantastically reassuring.

I felt as if I were in the presence of a dying beast. If Wendy and her brothers could have a big dog for a governess — well, this house could be my Nana. It was steadfast, if creaky; it gave me years of solace and protection. Every once in a while, when I thought of how I was about to abandon it, I would lean into a wall and kiss it. I loved my house.

I could not step past the threshold of a son's room without becoming engulfed in memories, triggered by things as slight as the worn patch on the armchair where my elbow rested while cradling a nursing baby. This was the home I imagined my children would return to visit, with their children, whose first steps would be taken in the garden, their tiny fists curling around the white azalea branches for support, just the way their fathers' had. I wish we still lived in a world in which houses were passed down through generations, but our sense of home has become portable. That may be one reason we invest our possessions with so much more meaning — they, rather than rooms and gardens, carry the memories.

The house sold quickly. It struck me that I had lost House & Garden, the job, and was now losing house and garden, the life. What took years to create was about to be undone in a matter of minutes. Come to think of it, kind of like being blasted out of a career.

I had access to a city apartment owned by a friend, but I couldn't commit to living there all the time. It made me too sad — an unresolved chapter of my last decade. I decided to move to the small, coastal Rhode Island town where, after divorcing years ago, I bought a run-down Modernist house that had been on the market for years. I was rebuilding it. I know I was lucky to have such a choice — no, not just lucky! I had worked hard to save enough to buy that house. It was a wrenching move. I was haunted by the anxiety that it wouldn't be the last, either. This was just the beginning of letting things go — starting with the Forever House.

I called Alex. "How can I give this house up? I'm walking around thinking this has become the museum of my happiest moments. I'm making a big mistake. Don't you think? The museum of my happiest moments."

Alex was used to me by now.

"Time for a new museum, Mom."

Spring blew in so wildly that year that it seemed unnatural, or perhaps I just noticed what spring feels like once I wasn't sealed in a climate-controlled building all day. Weather — the actual experience of it, not the forecast — is one of the more dramatic discoveries to come with a slower pace of life. There were days at the office when I didn't know whether it was muggy or cool, or if it had rained. It dawned on me that there was something unsavory about having been so cut off from nature that I was surprised by the golden hue in the slant of light at four in the afternoon — on a weekday, no less.

I took to wandering in my garden at all hours. As if to give me one last chance to change my mind about leaving, spring unfolded in splendor. The daffodils multiplied generously and spilled across the front in a riot of gold. Bunches of hellebores appeared in March and nodded their prim white, mauve and purple caps for more than two months; when I bent down to turn up a small head and peer into a quiet, trusting face, I winced at the thought of leaving them vulnerable to whatever depredations a new owner might visit upon them. I apologized in anticipation. I strolled the paths, examining the thick, furry spools of the unwinding ferns; the gnarled purple fingers of the peonies clawing out from the damp, fragrant earth; the green stubs of the Solomon's seal; the sharp tips of the hosta encircled by improbably large patches of bare ground that would soon be hidden by gigantic leaves, bearing aloft the fragrant white wands that seduce the moths at dusk.

With all the anxiety about the move, my brain flipped a switch, and I went from sleeping all the time to being utterly lost in sleeplessness. In exhaustion, my memory faltered. Black holes gaped open before me as I spoke; in the middle of a sentence I groped zanily for safe passage to the next word. During the moments of sleep that I could snatch, I had vivid, disturbing dreams. I was being born — I was blinded by a bright light — and seconds later I was dying. I was reaching for the telephone to call an ambulance but couldn't remember which number to dial: 411? 911? 411? 911? 411? 911? What did I need? Help? Information?

I turned to the wisdom of the ancients. I went to Ovid, where women run from rapacious gods, and Dante, where women writhe in purgatory, and Homer, where women unravel their work, and finally I pulled off the shelf the old black leather-clad King James Version of the Bible I was given in high school. I read feverishly from cover to cover. I had forgotten how much of it is about fear—over and over again, the response to change, even to the miraculous, is fear. I was fighting fear. And what was I so afraid of? Being alone with myself long enough to wonder what is the purpose of my life? I turned most frequently to the Psalms, whose gorgeous, intricate, sensual prayers blanketed me in wonder. There I found my anthem for that year, the most eloquent expression of grief I ever read: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels."

One night, at four in the morning, in a panic of sleeplessness, I went to my piano and on impulse pulled an old volume of music off the shelf, J.S. Bach's "Goldberg" Variations. I picked my way through the first aria, which has a quiet, dignified, spare quality. It is elegant, contained; it holds much in reserve. The music did nothing for my sleeplessness; if anything, within hours I was more completely, wonderfully awake than I had been in a long time. Unexpectedly, I felt a peace suffuse my bones as I lost myself in Bach's lines. My own anxieties were no longer drumming through my brain; my mind, that hobbled old draft horse, stopped loping along in the same nit it followed night after night. It was locking into someone else's harmony.

Bach has become a nightly visitor. I am obsessed with him: his musical tricks, jokes and puns; his charismatic energy and passion; his resilience through tragedy; his rigorous discipline; his bedrock belief in a force greater than anything human.

I have to teach myself, all over again, how to practice, how to silence the critic in my head. I have to remind myself that the repeats matter, that respect for the rests is important. What my fingers lack in speed, my heart makes up in feeling. If I have to, I will crawl through sarabandes and quadrilles, letting the dance fill my soul.

Slowly, slowly, the months go by, each one a variation transposing loss, loneliness and anger to gratitude and hope. I no longer dread the advent of another rosy dawn. As I stop struggling so with fear and simply accept the slow tempo of my days, all those inner resources start kicking in — those soul-saving habits of playfulness, most of all: reading, thinking, listening, feeling my body move through the world, noticing the small beauty in every single day. I watch the worms, watch the hawks, watch the fox, watch the rabbits. I open my heart to new friends. I settle into my new home; its healing balm has been there all along, nestled in a sofa that beckons me to pick up a book, hovering outside the window inviting me to take a walk. I find room in my life again for love of the world, let the quiet of solitary moments steal over me, give myself over to joy. What a surprise! That I can cook a meal for my children, or take a long walk on the beach, or watch an osprey wheel through the sky, or set down a page of thoughts — these are moments of grace. Old Testament loving-kindness, the stuff of everyday life.

One adventure is over; it is time for another. I have a different kind of work to do now. I am growing into a new season. At the water's edge, watching the tiny, teeming life of that mysterious place between high and low tides, the intertidal zone, I begin to accept the relentless flux that is the condition of these days. I am not old and not young; not bethrothed and not alone; not broken and yet not quite whole; thinking back, looking forward. But present. These are my intertidal years.

In those sleepless nights, when I am at the keyboard, I connect with something I may have once encountered as a teenager and then lost in the frantic skim through adulthood —the desire to nourish my soul. I do not have the temerity to think I have found God; I think instead that I have stumbled into a conversation that I pray will last the rest of my life.

I cannot move through the music the way I hear it in my head. Nothing works the way it used to. My hands feel stiff. But every once in a while, I accomplish a passage adroitly. Fingers dance over keys. I take all the repeats. I observe the rests. I enjoy myself. And I am happy for small-boned miracles.

by Dominique Browning
Dominique writes a column for the Environmental Defense Fund Web site and has a new blog, SlowLoveLife.com This piece is an excerpt from "Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas and Found Happiness," to be published next month by Atlas & Company.