Oikos school shootings

Oakland had to deal with a crazy school shooting in the beginning of April, when a former student went off at the small Christian-based Oikos University and killed six students and one employee.  The week was crazy, here are photos from one of the days I spent there.  They range from students walking in prayer past the school, to police searching the water for the weapon used in the shooting, to a vigil.  

 

Santorum visits

Remember him?  Back when he was still in the race (ok it was only a little over a month ago) Santorum made it out to my neck of the woods.  Kind of.  I learned many things, the most important being that it is possible to talk your way past a secret service agent.  Or six.  

 

Ballet class

There's this new effort in SF to get kids who are in shelters into community programs to participate, and one of those is a ballet class at the Harvey Milk Center.  So I got to hang with two sisters, Zhyeema and Zakiyyah, who are living in a shelter, during their first class. 

Lunar New Year

A few from the Lunar New Year parade...

 

Portraits

There have been a lot of portraits, lots of them news portraits...and since I'm trying to catch up, I'm just going to post a few of them all together in one mass portrait happiness.  (Hopefully).  

 This first one is from a story about Lisa Augustine, who raised money for the Susan G. Komen foundation over the years after surviving breast cancer.  She pulled support from the foundation after they pulled money from Planned Parenthood (remember when that happened?  Then they reversed it...) I think the paper ran the third image.  

 

 

This was from a story on a conference for people with hoarding and cluttering issues.  Lee Shuer of Easthampton, Mass., says he used to be a collector but the hobby turned into a hoarding compulsion.  He began working on the problem in 2005 and says now it's still a challenge, but one he has under control.  "When you wake up in the morning and open your eyes and you're actually happy to see the environment you live in, it's totally worth it," he said.  

And these from a story on veteran's disability paperwork, by the NYT, about how long it takes for them to get benefits.  

"It's been a constant heartache," said Mike Grabski, 32, an Army veteran who has been waiting since December of 2009 for his disability paperwork to go through.  "The money would be nice but it's not about the money.  It's about the care.  I've got issues that need attending to," he said.  Grabski, who lives in Napa, is unemployed and suffers from PTSD.  He spends much of his time at the beach in Pacifica while waiting to hear back.