29 Minutes of Your Life Can Help Change the World, Starting With the Horrendous Atrocities in Uganda

Make a difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Mike Kulin and his son, Alex,  at a Beach Cities Football Practice. Mike went as long as he could to see his son in action.

A Community-Oriented Family Man Teaches Lessons About Life and Death

By Diana L. Chapman

Pulling me aside at the hospital, my friend told me this about her husband:

It was late at night and everyone had left, she said softly. That’s when Michael Kulin started praying tied to his bed in an entanglement of I.Vs and oxygen tubes while at the Little Company of Mary Transition Care Center.

He didn’t pray for himself. He prayed thanking God for his wonderful family, his friends and his life.

“It’s like Michael had so much faith,” said Camilla. “I was so touched by the beauty of him in this state that he wasn’t thinking of himself even though he was in so much pain.

“That filled my heart and made me love him even more.”  

In a nutshell, that describes Mike, 60, a longtime South Bay resident who gave way to his six month battle with lung cancer Feb. 13 - but not before seeing a barrage of friends and his large family. When we arrived at the hospital, he was always asking how the rest of us were and what was going on in our lives. He was so humble, he didn’t want to talk about himself. He wanted to hear about us – all of us – his friends, brothers and sisters, his kids, his wife, myself and my husband in a constantly crowded hospital room.

He was an amazingly selfless man, the kind the rest of us could learn from.

One day before his death, I met Mike’s friend, Steve, who had known him since middle school. When we went to Mike’s bedside together, he immediately lit up and sat up in his bed: “Steve, Diana. I am so glad you met each other. Steve is a mass marketer and knows everything about photography you can imagine. You could help each other.”

When  a nurse asked us to leave for a few minutes, Steve and I wandered down the hall.

“Can you believe that?” Steve asked me. “He cares more about us than about himself.”

“I would just be whining and complaining about everything,” I confided to Steve, still stunned that Mike wasn’t focused on the obvious pain he was suffering when we saw him shudder and cough as his body broke down. He withered from a hefty football guy to a thin, gaunt man, struggling to live because that’s what his family wanted – especially, Camilla, his son, Alex, 11, and daughter, Anna,17.

There are many things Mike Kulin was. He was a family man, who loved his community, and coached football making sure all the kids played no matter their talent. He never yelled at them and always spoke encouraging words. It was his coaching style. He supported his loving wife, who was with him in the hospital every step of the way. He loved his church, and obviously, he loved God – even when he could have been filled with complete rage that he’d been given a raw turn.

Instead, he was more than grateful for what he had. While many of us grumble about our everyday lives, Mike shone like the sun who enjoyed his life immensely despite all the troubles his family went through with Camilla’s frequent  bouts of hospitalizations due to intense asthma attacks.

When I first met, Mike and Camilla, the duo rescued rabbits (after they fell in love with one as a pet). They were weary of so many of the creatures being euthanized – many abandoned by owners when the Easter jig was up.  They worked as a team in many ways, Mike running errands for Camilla’s Girl Scout Troop; She often helped with his health and life insurance business.

 Mike stood strong as he ushered his wife back and forth to the hospital where several times it seemed she might not make it home. This was just woven into the fabric of their family’s life.

Through all this, Mike appeared happy and healthy.

Before he was diagnosed, the family came to our house for dinner. Mike had lost weight because he had cellulitus and was trying to get into shape. We had a great time and were stunned to hear the news two weeks later.

While at the transitory care center, where Mike died, a friend arrived and told Camilla that he’d only known Mike less than a year.

“If I was half the man Mike was,” he told Camilla, he’d be proud.

“I was in awe at how he managed to coach the kids in such a calm, methodical manner,” said Lawrence Michael John Frontino, who met Mike when he was coaching his grandson, Shane, in football. “With Mike’s help, I now know at the age of 55 what it is to be selfless. With our friendship of only a few months he has demonstrated love of family, gratitude for where he has been and a profound knowledge of where he is going.”

That was Mike, a dying man who showed us dignity and strength in life and in death.

Sometimes you meet angels. In my mind, Mike Kulin was one of them and always will be.

Newly elected Councilman Joe Buscaino with his wife, Geralyn, and children, Gia, 5, and Mateo, 9.

Councilman Joe Buscaino Swinging Into Action and Hitting Heavy Early

By Diana L. Chapman

I like it. I like it. I like it.

That’s how I feel so far about our new councilman and former senior lead Los Angeles Police Officer Joe Buscaino, also known around Los Angeles City Hall as “Bustea,” “Buscanacho,” “Busti,” “Bustia,” “Busty,” “Buzarella,” some of the many names Los Angeles council members teasingly came up with while trying to say his name on a welcome video.

So far, the 37-year-old councilman – who has sat on the council less than a month after a victorious ride to fill former Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s shoes– has hit all the right key notes.

He’s jumped on the gone-wild skateboarding practices, showed up when two teenagers were horrifically shot this week in Wilmington and picked the Warner Grand -- a historic theater well-known to locals by the many struggles to save it– to hold his public swearing in ceremony even though he’d already had an official swearing in downtown.

“Who’s idea was that?” I asked his chief-of-staff, Doane Liu of the Warner event.

“It was Joe’s,” Liu said.

It’s called shoring up a rather pale community pride that had grown even paler in recent years.

Packed with about 1,000 residents at the swearing in, Buscaino took all the joking in stride, surrounded by his wife and children, thanked city officials for “butchering my name,” and told the public: “It’s been an amazing journey and a journey we will travel together. It’s because of you that I am here today.”

He added that he plans to partner with Council District 15 communities –Wilmington, Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, San Pedro and Watts—to bring about safer streets, build “a dynamic” waterfront and invigorate the region to become a city gem.

At a ceremony peppered with bouts of humor, LAPD Deputy Chief Pat Gannon, the emcee, told how he spotted Buscaino working with children as an assistant park director and was impressed. He encouraged the young man to become an officer and then mentored him after he joined the force.

 “For years, I got to be his boss,” Gannon said. “That’s all changed. He’s been in office for three days and he already calls me to get more officers in the Harbor Area. What are you going to do?”

Buscaino, Gannon said, received his request since he’s now the boss.

While many speakers came on stage, one who stood out was Isaiah Alexander, who as a youth,  worked with Buscaino to form the city’s first teen community police advisory board in the Harbor Area – which met with such success the LAPD adopted it in all 21 of its regions.

Now 22, the college student said his life improved dramatically with Buscaino’s friendship. He calls him: “Papa Joe.”

“He was with me at all my high school (events), ” Alexander told the crowd. “He was with me when I met my father (for the first time.) He helped me put my first car on the road. The councilman you chose is a caring man and he is loyal.”

Why do I like Buscaino so far? He feels our heartbeat.

He’s showing us true leadership, starting with the skateboarders who are “bombing” the hillsides of San Pedro – racing down them, clocking 40 mph and ignoring lights and stop signs. One 15-year-old skateboarder was killed.

“What are we going to do about the skateboarders?” one lady moaned when we were talking one morning. I didn’t have a clue, but Buscaino did.

He introduced a motion in early February to ask the City Attorney to draw up an ordinance to control unsafe skateboarding – and force them to abide the same laws cyclists and cars follow – meaning stopping at red lights and stop signs.

Not too long after, a horrific event drew the councilman to Wilmington Feb. 26, a Sunday night.

One day after the councilman’s San Pedro ceremony –which followed with a festive block party on Sixth Street --  a gunman shot to death a teen couple walking home in Wilmington at night – making them the sixth and seventh homicide in that community since 2012.

Killed were Carolina Ramirez, 15, a Banning High student, and her 16-year-old boyfriend, Meldrick Melgoza Alvarez.

I was glad to see Buscaino was there, trying to reassure residents and to  offer up a plan – to form a group called Wilmington United to help citizens work more closely with police. It’s first meeting Tuesday brought together police, church and school officials, the councilman’s office, residents and the many non-profits working with children or running gang prevention programs.

“No neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles should experience the horror of having anyone, especially teenagers, gunned down in its streets,” Buscaino said. “I want this task force organized to share valuable information with the LAPD and help deliver desperately needed resources to Wilmington.”

Already, we are breathing in the fresh air Buscaino brings to the low morale of the Harbor Area and Watts. It’s more than refreshing. It’s a burst of light.

LAUSD Board Member Richard Vladovic tours new campus to open this summer.

This Summer, 500 Lucky Students Will Land at San Pedro High School’s State-of –the- Art Annex Overlooking the Pacific Ocean

By Diana L. Chapman

Coming this August, 500 students will unload from buses that come off Gaffey Street to attend a controversial, but ecologically modernized campus – promising soon to become one of Los Angeles Unified School District’s brightest stars.

Surrounded by educational facilities – such as the Marine Mammal Care Center – the new $80 million campus opens its doors Aug. 14 and will welcome students from San Pedro High’s Marine and Police Academy magnets.

A lottery will be held for an additional 50 seats for San Pedro high school residents at facility, now called the John M. and Muriel Olguin Campus. They too will be enrolled in one of the smaller learning communities.

The campus,  perched atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific,  will also fall under the jurisdiction of San Pedro High and its principal, Jeanette Stevens.

On a recent tour, LAUSD School Board Member Richard Vladovic, who oversees the Harbor Area, was delighted by the school which sits on 28 acres of land on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur.

“I am impressed,” said Vladovic, whose staff dealt with irritated neighbors who contended the school would cause severe traffic clogging and change the area’s serenity. “This school will facilitate teaching and capture children’s imaginations.

“This will be a classic and San Pedro High will be a classic campus too.”

Stevens, who attended the same tour, said she’s mesmerized by the new high school that was intended to reduce the overcrowded student population at the main school.

“It’s amazing. It’s fabulous,” said a pleased principal Stevens. “It’s a prize for San Pedro. It’s going to elevate our enthusiasm for San Pedro High School. We are going to be rejuvenated by this.

“Our neighbor’s will be proud of their backyard.”

There is much to be proud of. The campus includes eight new buildings and is graced with 30 new classrooms, a competitive swimming pool, a sparkling, fresh gym, with room for 882 visitors to sit on bleachers, an amphitheater with 780 seats, five outdoor basketball courts, one soccer field, a library and a performing arts-multipurpose room.

Three of the building’s rooftops are covered with solar panels to provide energy for the entire school. The floors were constructed from recyclable materials and all the school’s landscape will be drought resistant, said Rick Shirley, the project manager who has helped build nine other LAUSD schools.

“There’s always construction wrinkles to work through,” Shirley said, adding that the neighbors have made few complaints during construction. “This project has gone pretty well.”

In addition, the campus will be graced with low maintenance,  low water landscape with over 200 trees, including 98 coastal oaks, 25 sycamores, 15 Catalina ironwoods and 12 Torrey pines. Shrubs such as Manzanita, dwarf coyote brush and coastal sage will also spruce up the school, Shirley explained.

Neighbors of the campus who were particularly concerned about the school were able to win scores of concessions from the district, including that there should be no night-lighting outside for sports or any access to students off of Alma Street.

Still, there are many happy administrators who will be running programs at the Olguin facility.

“I am so excited for the opportunities that will be available at the Olguin Campus for all San Pedro High School students,” said Sandy Martin-Alvarenga, coordinator for both magnets. “Marine Science Magnet students will benefit in many ways, one in particular is the proximity to the Marine Mammal Care Center and the Oiled Bird Center. This will allow our students the opportunity to see the practical application of their studies.”

Police officer Cynthia Deinstein, who oversees the police academy magnet, considers the move for her students a godsend – especially because the new campus will have an obstacle course and a pool.  Her students, she said, had to compete without the use of such a course against the other LAUSD magnets that had them. San Pedro high did not.

“Like everyone else, I’m very excited,” Deinstein said. “I’m optimistic. We’ll have a pool and an obstacle course and we’ve never had that opportunity before. When competing, we didn’t have that luxury.”

There are also a few perks for the public.  For the first time, the San Pedro High swim team will have a school pool to work out in. Under an agreement between LAUSD and the city of Los Angeles, the pool will be opened to the public and be run by city’s aquatic department.

Harbor College is also expected to hold night classes at the site.

The new campus is also hemmed in by numerous educational facilities that can help students academically. Those include the mammal care center, the International Bird Rescue, the Fort MacArthur Museum along with the Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, which houses many local artists who teach.

Dear Readers: This is a reposting due to embedded coding going out to subscribers. I apologize and have reposted so it's easier to read.

LAUSD NOT LISTENING THEN AND NOT LISTENING NOW

By Diana L. Chapman

Peering at the distraught, crying students at Miramonte Elementary School – a campus that has riveted the nation with scandalous child abuse allegations and the removal of two teachers --  makes me believe “the adults” in charge have done it wrong once again.

Los Angeles Schools Superintendent John Deasy, I’m afraid, needs to look directly into those young faces and realize that stripping them of 85 of their good teachers along with administrators, janitors and school aides --amounts to stripping them of everything they know in their second home.

 Their school.

Between the chaos of police, reporters and school officials descending on the South Central campus – scary enough for anyone let alone children who can barely grasp what’s happening --  Deasy has just scrubbed excess salt into the open, wounded hearts of the students  and branded the now former staff with guilt by association.

“It’s clear that LAUSD does not have a plan,” said UTLA President Warren Fletcher at the school of 1,500 students, one of district’s largest elementary campuses. “They’re making it up as they go a long and the kids are paying the price. LAUSD is making a tragic situation even worse and traumatizing the entire school unnecessarily.

Parents and students want their teachers back.”

Can you blame them?

The vastness of Deasy’s action – apparently unprecedented in LAUSD and perhaps the nation – can’t help but trigger  more unsettling emotions among parents and students alike. They protested the move at an early Thursday morning UTLA press conference carrying signs such as “Don’t condemn all for acts of a few”  and showing anger that once again, they had not been consulted.

While initially believing the move was temporary, Fletcher said he was told the staff would not return at all.

 Such action will largely disrupt the children’s academic progress while they try to build bonds with new instructors. Having a substitute teacher for one day can be a huge interruption in learning. What will removing the entire staff do?

But this is the LAUSD way, a rubber stamp in the second largest district in the nation, serving nearly 700,000 students. Rottenness by some, means everyone pays.  

Unless there is going to be a horde of new arrests – which seems unlikely unless Deasy knows something we don’t– this move makes no sense and can only be more harmful to the students.

At the center of the allegations are two long-time Miramonte teachers: Mark Berndt, charged last week with 23 counts of lewd conduct, after a drug store photo tech contacted police about hundreds of photographs that involved students being blindfolded and possibly being spoon fed Berndt’s semen.

The other teacher, Martin Bernard Springer, 49 was arrested last week for three counts of lewd contact for allegedly fondling a student.

LAUSD fired both instructors, who have pleaded not guilty to the crimes.

At this juncture, we have to ask ourselves why the administrators weren’t on top of this in the first place after the school received several complaints about Berndt.

As a longtime volunteer at Los Angeles schools, I’ve seen injustices that are just plain wrong – nothing as horrendous as this – but issues that should not be happening at public schools.

It’s driven me crazy (and cannot be taken on without major battles), but underscores why parents need to return and become part of the campus package, no matter if it’s a charter, private or public school. It’s a necessary checks-and-balances and brings out a better chance of student issues actually being taken seriously.

It’s more than sad that when students stepped forward at Miramonte – a campus tucked east of the 110 Freeway in South Los Angeles --  to complain about Berndt or Springer, they were told they shouldn’t make things up.

Perhaps we should start out by listening to the students first and giving their complaints a full investigation, rather than a wave of hand.

No one listened to the children then.

And no one is listening to the children now, who are begging for their teachers to return.

You don’t have to hear how they feel. You can just look into their faces.