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Dana Parsons• E-mail
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Recent Columns:
Nobody wants to get bad news at 11 o'clock at night, but that's when Ronnie Carmona got the e-mail message last weekend. The legislative bill named for her dead son -- the bill she thought would honor him and bolster her fractured psyche -- had been vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.
Felix Jebbia saw a TV news report the other night about a Florida couple overrun by peacocks.
My Rolodex is sprinkled with names of people from the 1990s who wanted to do something about the gang problem in Santa Ana. One was a former F Troop gang member, another was a mother of a gangbanger, another a community activist. I couldn't track down any of them Monday; none of the old phone numbers worked.
Edith Masherah is following the news this week from Wall Street. She's heard analysts say it's the worst stock market crisis since the Depression and that the potential exists for ongoing financial and economic pain.
Like anyone with money in the stock market, I reacted to Monday's financial news with palpitations, needless lashing out at friends, excessive intake of chocolate items and repeated cries of "Why me?"
What happens when state government doesn't work? When legislators don't do their jobs?
Seventeen UC Irvine med students sit quietly at three long tables in the small classroom, listening to the middle-aged women tell their stories, one after the other. The students are used to hearing from doctors and other health professionals; now, in their third year of the medical school grind, they're meeting actual patients while making the rounds at hospitals.
Consider the various cool terms vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin could have used in describing herself to Republican Party convention delegates Wednesday night:
I'll tell you right up front that Joe Werner strikes me as a pretty cool guy. He's 22, dark-haired and good-looking, with an easy smile, just the right amount of unshaven face and a vibe that suggests he doesn't think he knows everything.
Between nude sunbathers and homeowners who decide what color to paint their houses, the world is full of rebels and renegades.