The holidays are a peak travel time for the airlines, so knowing your rights as a passenger can help ensure a more satisfactory travel experience.

Former realtor Kate Hanni is the founder and president of the Napa-based Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights. Her Organization maintains a tool-free telephone number for travelers to report standings and other problems, which she says are promptly verified and compiled into a national database.

Flyersrights Hotline: 877-FLYERS6 (877-359-3776)

The Coalition has also prepared a  Stranded Flyer's Survival Guide with a combination of practical and somewhat tongue-in-cheek items to use if you should happen to wind up on a grounded plane.

The New York state legislature was the first in the country to adopt a flyers bill of rights in August, 2007. But the measure was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled it interferred with federal regulatory authority over the airlines.

Northern California representative Mike Thompson has been a leader in the effort to win Congressional passage of a nationwide airline Passengers Bill of Rights. You can read the draft bill here.

Mixed news on the health care front:  stem cell research is spurring advances in what's being called regenerative medicine, but California's budget crisis threatens the ability of community clinics to provide many basic services.

Dr. David Greenberg, Vice President of Special Research Projects for the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato.

In addition to embryonic stem cells, Dr. Greenberg says current research is also studying adult stem cells.

Beatrice Bostick, Executive Director of Clinic Ole in  Napa County warns that reducing health care coverage through Medi-Cal will inevitably result in greater demands for hospital emergency rooms, with no funds available for that care.

stem cells

Cornelius Bracy, a formerly homeless  soccer player from Sonoma County, will be  part of the American team at the Homeless World Cup that takes place in Australia next month. The Homeless World Cup began in 2003 as a "catalyst for lasting change through the development of street soccer worldwide in a way that creates maximum social impact for the players involved--the socially excluded, homeless people and people living in poverty."

Julius Ujeh, a soccer coach from Nigeria, began a Street Soccer league for homeless young adults in Sonoma County. The program, originally started in Australia, has given young adults a purpose that teaches discipline and self-motivation. 

Street soccer is a mini-version of the traditional game of soccer, which can be played on any hard, flat rectangular surface, roughly the size of a tennis court. The new "traveling field" (shown below) gives the U.S. team an attractive, safe surface on which to play, and a sense of identity for the players.

Four players compete on each side (one of them is a goalie) and games last for 14 minutes each. While games are short, they are very fast-paced. The name of the event was coined in 2003 during the first Homeless World Cup.

Three generations later, a poisonous chemical used by American armed forces in Viet Nam is still wreaking havoc on the native population.

The effects of the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange in Viet Name are rippling down through the generations of the population there, Merle Ratner says, and so far there is no end in sight.

      To educate the community on the impact of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, the 4th annual Justice for Vietnam Agent Orange Victims will stop in Santa Rosa at the Glaser Center (see map)  on October 29^th 7  pm.   Tran Thi Hoan (right) and Dang Hong Nhut (below), both victims of Agent Orange, will be speaking at the event. To see a map of the Glaser Center location, click here .               

From the Sacramento River delta to the wilds of California's national parks, Michael Muir is helping urban wheelchair users maintain contact with the great outdoors.

Michael Muir is the Director of Access Adventure,  whose mission is "to provide outdoor recreation, environmental education and open space access to underserved youth and people with disabilities, using innovative wheelchair accessible horse-drawn carriages."

Access Adventure will be joining other organizations at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds on October 24^th for the Disability Services and Legal Center Tech Expo. For more info about this event, click here.

There are many equestrian programs for people with disabilities, but Muir says Access Adventure is different, and can complement hippotherapy activites.