The cost of providing a safety net for at-risk youth is $5,000 per year; the cost of housing a San Quentin inmate is $60,000 per year. Which would you prefer?
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What's your reaction when you see a young person begging for money, living in a park or under a freeway? Do you think, "Why don't you just get a job? In and Out Burgers pays $11.00 an hour. I'm not buying your beer." I admit to my own uneasiness and temptation to judge, and I also wonder what has happened to this young person that made them drop out? Who crushed their spirit?

In 2003, M. Wald and T. Martinez conducted the Stanford University study "Connected by 25: Improving the Life Chances of the Country's Most Vulnerable 14-24 year olds." In that mouthful of study, they concluded that, "In our society, almost all youth require support until they have connected successfully with the labor force, which generally does not occur until the mid-twenties." Stanford also found that high school dropouts, those in the juvenile justice system and incarcerated youth are unlikely to reach age 25 without becoming homeless.

"Crime procedurals, like 'CSI' or 'Law & Order,' indexed highest among all genres of programming, retaining 95% of their viewers through all commercial breaks during the hour." (In other words, the audience stays glued to the tube through bathroom breaks.)

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"Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead…This attack on scientific freedom was so egregious that it prompted a congressional investigation."
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Dr. Mani Bhaumik, co-inventor of the technology that lead to Lasik surgery, experienced a spiritual rebirth born of 'an absence of want, a compulsive consumption - a queasy feeling of being overfed and undernourished at the same time.'
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Mani Bhaumik, PhD, has written a memoir called "Code Name God: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Man of Science." In 218 pages, he has also presented social commentary set in recent history and present day; a juxtaposition of world religions; a lay-person's science textbook; and a case for healing the cosmic wound by re-uniting science and spirituality.

Bhaumik was born in Bengal, India in the midst of the struggle for Indian independence. He was delivered onto the mud floor as the sun set, but according to the caste system of the time, only one from the "untouchables," the lowest rung of the social order, could cut the umbilical cord. Help did not come until dawn. What some would consider a sacred honor, their culture considered a lowly task. Such, Mani says, "is the foolishness of the social and religious barriers we erect against one another."

Bhaumik survived colonial oppression, epidemic, famine and cyclone to earn a PhD in physics from Indian Institute of Technology and a Sloane Foundation fellowship for postdoctoral work at UCLA. He has earned international recognition and a monetary fortune as co-inventor of the laser technology that made LASIK eye surgery possible. Bhaumik was once profiled on the "Lives of the Rich and Famous."

Thousands of times a year, a single cell extraction from an embryo is performed to screen for genetic diseases. As of January 2008, the cell could be allowed to divide and the copy used for research without harm to the embryo.

Current federal funding is prohibited for experiments that injure or destroy human embryonic stem cells and is limited to cells extracted before President Bush's declaration of August 9, 2001. Meanwhile, four hundred thousand embryos are sitting in clinics waiting to be implanted in the mother's womb or to be discarded – a practice of which no one has raised a disapproving eyebrow.

However, rapid advances in stem cell extraction methodology are quickly laying ethical issues to rest. As of January, 2008, stem cell research has laid a golden egg. Thousands of times a year a single cell is taken from an embryo to screen for genetic diseases. Advanced Cell Technology now has the capability to allow the cell to divide in a laboratory dish and use the copy for stem cells.