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From Los Angeles Times

Where are fireworks allowed? Here's a list for L.A. County

A majority of cities in Los Angeles County ban "safe-and-sane" fireworks, according to the county fire department.

In the county, 49 cities and all unincorporated areas ban fireworks. Thirty-nine cities permit safe-and-sane devices -- those that do not explode or fly. The state fire marshal determines which fireworks are considered "safe-and-sane," and they are labeled with a state seal.

Most cities in L.A. County say that even "safe-and-sane" fireworks can be dangerous. Sparklers, for example, can reach temperatures of 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, and can cause serious burns and fires. Below is a list of cities in Los Angeles County that permit and ban fireworks sales:

"SAFE AND SANE" ALLOWED: Alhambra, Artesia, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bell, Bellflower, Bell Gardens, Carson, Commerce, Compton, Cudahy, Downey, Duarte, El Monte, Gardena, Hawaiian Gardens, Hawthorne, Huntington Park, Industry, Inglewood, Irwindale, La Mirada, La Puente, Lakewood, Lawndale, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Monterey Park, Norwalk, Palmdale, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Rosemead, San Gabriel, Santa Fe Springs, South El Monte, South Gate and Temple City.

NO FIREWORKS ALLOWED: All unincorporated communities, Agoura Hills, Arcadia, Avalon, Beverly Hills, Bradbury, Burbank, Calabasas, Cerritos, Claremont, Covina, Culver City, Diamond Bar, El Segundo, Glendale, Glendora, Hermosa Beach, Hidden Hills, La Cañada Flintridge, La Habra Heights, La Verne, Lancaster, Lomita, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Monrovia, Palos Verdes Estates, Pasadena, Pomona, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, San Dimas, San Fernando, San Marino, Santa Clarita, Santa Monica, Sierra Madre, Signal Hill, South Pasadena, Torrance, Vernon, Walnut, West Covina, West Hollywood, Westlake Village and Whittier.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/safe-sane-fireworks-list-legal-los-angeles-county.html#more

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Generic drug ruling leaves out consumers

How is it that the maker of a brand-name pharmaceutical has to provide information about potential side effects but the companies that produce identical drugs don't?

June 29, 2011

Even Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion saying that makers of generic drugs don't have to warn patients about newly discovered dangers, agreed that the idea made little sense. How is it that the maker of a brand-name pharmaceutical has to provide information about potential side effects but the companies that produce identical drugs don't? If this is the price the public is expected to pay for cheaper drugs, it's far too high.

In a 5-4 decision issued last week, the court rejected lawsuits by two women who suffered serious side effects from generic versions of a medication used for stomach ailments. The women claimed that state law in Minnesota and Louisiana required all drug manufacturers to update their warning labels when they have new information about potential dangers. But the court noted that federal law put the generic drug makers into a bind by requiring such medications to carry the exact same warning labels as their brand-name equivalents. Brand-name drug makers are held responsible for giving consumers updated warnings, but what happens when a generic manufacturer discovers new problems with the same medication?

The court rightly said that when federal and state laws conflict, the former takes precedence. And it would indeed be strange and confusing for identical drugs to carry different warnings. But there was nothing to keep the makers of these generic drugs from bringing key consumer safety information to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or from contacting the brand-name maker to suggest a label change, both of which they failed to do.

If the federal rules don't do enough to protect consumers, manufacturers — of medicine or anything else — have a moral responsibility to protect the public from being harmed by their products. Any drug company that discovers a previously unknown danger from its medications should be required under federal law to report the information quickly to the FDA and recommend a label change; the agency should then require uniform warning labels by all the affected pharmaceutical companies. Generics should not be known as buy-at-your-own-risk drugs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-generics-20110629,0,3571354,print.story

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From Google News

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Violent Video Games Accessible To Kids

Youths in Eureka and Wildwood have a First Amendment right to buy violent video games, no matter how gory or graphic, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week. A couple of Moms Council parents and a local game shop owner weigh in.

by Chase Castle and Julie Brown Patton

U.S. Supreme Court judges ruled Monday that retailers and rental places cannot deny children the right to buy violent video games. With a gaming shop located in Eureka, how does this new ruling affect local consumers?

In a decision that reversed a 2005 California law, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said access to violent video games is protected under the First Amendment, regardless of the consumer's age.

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," Scalia said in the case's majority opinion. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

Owner of Eureka-based B&B Game Shop, Jay Hathaway, said no one typically asks him about game ratings. "Most parents, I'd say 99.9 percent, don't really care. Some come in with their kids asking about games together, but about the only time that happens is for really younger children."

Hathaway said he doesn't think it's a problem for most families because "kids playing games are able to separate reality from fantasy games."

He said the Supreme Court ruling doesn't change his business at all. "It's fine. We've never seen any problems with that."

Eureka-Wildwood Patch Moms' Council parent Layla Azmi Goushey said she agrees with the court's decision because the ruling upholds the right of all individuals to free speech and access to ideas.

"Freedom of speech is an important component of democracy, and it supports our growth as individuals and as a society. This does not mean that I think it is OK for preteens or young teenagers to have access to video games with violent or sexually explicit themes," she said.

"Parents are responsible for knowing what their kids are doing."

She said many times, parents supply the money for preteens and young teenagers to purchase video games. "However, inappropriate and violent messages are everywhere in our society, and most of the same kids whose families own X-Boxes and Wiis, also have Internet access. The Internet contains ideas and messages that are just as inappropriate as the violence in video games," she said.

What we all need during this age of rapid, easy-access to information, said Azmi Goushey, is to become more aware of the responsibilities of this access.

"We must learn to 'read' the messages available to us through our new technologies and treat that information responsibly. Children should be taught how to determine which information is credible, useful and supportive of a positive direction for their lives," she said.

Although many schools are introducing information literacy into their curriculum, Azmi Goushey believes parents should not depend on schools and retail outlets to teach essential values and responsibility.

Diane Engle, also a Eureka-Wildwood Patch Moms Council parent, said she, too, agrees with the court's ruling. "It is the parents' responsibility to monitor what a child is purchasing, renting and playing. There are many parents today who are relying on the government to supervise their child," she said.

"It's the same thing as taking toys out of Happy Meals because Happy Meals 'make kids fat.' No, Happy Meals do not make kids fat—it's their parents who can't say no when kids whine for the toy!"

Reasons for Disagreement

Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority ruling, arguing that the California law should have been upheld.

Breyer wrote that Monday's ruling created a division within the First Amendment since the Supreme Court has upheld bans forbidding the sale of pornography to minors.

"What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?" Breyer said. "What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman—bound, gagged, tortured and killed—is also topless?"

Thomas disagreed with the majority on the basis that other exceptions to free speech already exist when dealing with minors.

"The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that 'the freedom of speech,' as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors–or a right of minors to access speech–without going through the minors' parents or guardians," Thomas said in his dissent.

Although the original California state law never took effect, it sought to stop the sale of any video games to children that depicted "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being."

Although he ultimately concurred with the majority's decision, Justice Samuel Alito cited concerns about the ruling, in part because of the extreme nature of other video games, including some that aren't available at most or any walk-in retailers in the U.S. Among other titles, Alito alluded to the game "Manhunt 2," which involves the dismemberment of bodies and awards points to the player for how creatively and grotesquely he mutilates his murder victims. He also cited the PC game "Ethnic Cleansing," in which the player selects a specific minority group then proceeds to gun down members of that race. Another game cited in Alito's judgement footnotes was "RapeLay," where the objective is to rape a mother and her daughters.

"For all these reasons, I would hold only that the particular law at issue here fails to provide the clear notice that the Constitution requires," Alito said. "I would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem."

Looking Ahead

Alito said the court in the future may rule on an issue dealing with a broader scope regarding video game content and access if and when it reaches the Supreme Court.

Monday's case did not specifically address the sale of games rated Adults Only by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, for example, which typically are associated with pornography but sometimes apply to games with "prolonged scenes of intense violence." Few if any major U.S. retailers carry Adults Only-rated video games.

Scalia said the United States does not have a history of blocking children's access specifically to violence in other forms, citing several examples, such as fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel , which concludes with the story's protagonists killing a witch by baking her in an oven.

Although lower courts concluded that video games were a unique exception partly because they're inherently "interactive," Scalia said media including books such as the Adventures of You have had interactive and sometimes violent elements for decades; similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Adventures of You allow readers to change a story's plot by giving them options for what page to which to turn.

"Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore," Scalia said.

A complete copy of Monday's ruling in the case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, is available here.

http://eureka-wildwood.patch.com/articles/violent-video-games-accessible-to-kids

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The Nation: The Other Face Of Illegal Immigration

Courtney E. Martin is the author of the forthcoming Project Rebirth: Survival and the Strength of the Human Spirit from 9/11 Survivors and the recently released Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists . She is also an Editor for Feministing.

The contentious debate over immigration was given a human face last week when Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in a New York Times Magazine article. In a very personal essay, Vargas detailed his journey from boyhood in the Philippines to a prestigious journalism career in the United States. Vargas admitted to breaking a number of laws to conceal his citizenship status over more than a decade of working illegally for a range of high-profile publications, including the Washington Post , the Huffington Post and The New Yorker . The essay quickly rose to the top of the "Most e-mailed"list at the Times and landed Vargas, and his compelling story, on a major media sites over the weekend.

Vargas's personal story is vital because it complicates the usual terms of the immigration debate: outsiders vs. insiders, deserving vs. undeserving, legal vs. illegal. After all, one can't help but see Vargas, though undocumented, as the consummate deserving insider — an American Dream hero incarnate, transcending race and class boundaries to make a real impact through his reporting. It's nearly impossible to see a picture of the goofy adolescent, who watched "Frasier"to better his English or hear the story of his choir teacher's admiration for him, and think "criminal."

Publishing this piece is not the end of Vargas's advocacy on immigration. The article coincides with the launch of new campaign Vargas co-founded, Define American. Its aim is to inspire a new conversation about immigration, particularly in unveiling the truth about what its founders call "a growing 21st century Underground Railroad"for undocumented immigrants who are helped along by teacher, pastors, friends, and employers. Vargas told his Twitter followers: "I've written hundreds of stories. very few on immigration. now, i will write solely about immigration."

But Vargas, in writing openly about his immigration status in a climate of polarized views on the subject and increased criminalization of undocumented immigrants, is at risk of being deported. As he wrote in the article: "I...am working with legal counsel to review my options."Jehmu Greene, co-founder of Define American and the daughter of two former undocumented immigrants herself, said of Vargas, "Of course he's afraid. But he's been living in fear for the past eighteen years. He has the support of the Filipino American Legal Defense Fund and he is taking responsibility for breaking the law."

Vargas may have made the biggest media splash, but he is not the first undocumented immigrant to out himself for a cause. In 2010, thousands of undocumented immigrants told their stories publicly in an effort to humanize the fight for the DREAM Act — which would have created a pipeline for them all to achieve legal residency. The DREAM Act passed the House but failed in the Senate in December of last year. Marquette University student Maricela Aguilar, an immigrant from Mexico, was one of the student activists who outed herself. Despite the DREAM Act's defeat, she didn't feel her admission was made in vain. "I'd much rather have that out in the public than just living in fear,"she told The New York Times .

The bravery of Vargas, Aguilar and others shines a light on how dangerous this kind of transparency is for immigration reform activists — and how imperative it is that we not only celebrate their bravery, but protect them so they can continue their critical work. Their stories have the power to shift hearts and minds, not only because they humanize a contentious issue. Their stories demonstrate that there is no reasonable option for undocumented immigrants like Vargas, who don't have an identity or a community rooted in the country of their birth, but whose only option for obtaining American citizenship was, as an immigration lawyer told him, leaving the country, accepting a 10-year ban on returning, and then applying to return legally. Their real life experiences reveal just how illogical, unsustainable, and unjust our current immigration policies really are, and how desperately we need comprehensive reform.

The threat of deportation for citizens like Vargas — young and with no criminal record — are, admittedly, slim. Spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cori W. Bassett, told NPR in an emailed statement: "ICE takes enforcement action on a case-by-case basis — prioritizing those who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by their criminal history and taking into consideration the specific facts of each case, including immigration history."

But this doesn't mean that the undocumented immigrants who tell their stories are not at risk. A couple of high profile cases have revealed how arbitrary the deportation process has become. Steve Li, then a 20-year-old City College student became a symbol of the kind of deserving immigrant youth who the DREAM Act would help as he awaited deportation in fall of 2010, inspiring a Facebook campaign. Li's plight inspired the attention of Senator Dianne Feinstein and other politicians and he was released from an immigration detention center in Arizona after two months. So far, he remains in the US, though he hasn't achieved any legal status.

Mandeep Chahal, a sophomore at U.C. Davis, was also threatened with deportation this year, despite being the very model of a student the failed DREAM Act would have helped. She was voted "most likely to save the world"by her high school classmates after starting a humanitarian nonprofit. Like Li, Chahal and her mother, who also faced deportation, were saved by a robust Facebook campaign. Her lawyer, Kalpana Peddibhotla, told Patch.com that she is "fairly certain"that Chahal and her mother would have been deported without "thousands of supporters form around the country who have advocated on their behalf."

Li and Chahal didn't out themselves for a political cause, as so many of their peers did, but they did live very public, "normal"lives — not hiding their status, but not flaunting it either. Their stories illustrate that it doesn't even take an activist's bold and challenging mentality to attract the gaze of ICE. Just being a ambitious student who earns public recognition can, thanks to our backward system, get one in trouble.

The first generation of undocumented immigrants to grow up in the U.S., earn college degrees, enlist in the military, and pursue meaningful work despite incredible obstacles, is coming of age. Despite anti-immigration advocates' best efforts, they're not going away. And increasingly, they're not staying silent. Their public stories point towards a political truth: it's time that we figured out an immigration policy more sophisticated than randomly applied discretion and Facebook campaigns.

There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, and many of them are young, brave, and ready for a fight. Gaby Pacheco is one such fighter. An undocumented student involved in organizing for the DREAM Act, she recently published an op-ed on CNN.com in which she argued that President Barack Obama should use his executive power to stop deportations of youths eligible for the DREAM Act. She wrote that this act with precedent (President Bush used his discretionary powers to defer the deportation of undocumented immigrant spouses of military soldiers) would keep "families together until Congress is able to put its differences aside and acknowledge that we are part of the future of our great country."

It's a pathway to citizenship that these young immigrants need. As Greene said, "Jose would happily pay a fine, get to the back of the line, behind everyone who has been attempting to come into this country legally to simply know that he has a path forward. He has worked hard, he has paid taxes, and he wants to continue contributing to the country he loves."

Read another opinion on immigration from The Weekly Standard.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/29/137492580/the-nation-the-other-face-of-illegal-immigration

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