Promoting educational opportunity for all is good economic policy, says Stanford  Professor Martin Carnoy, while perpetuating inequality is bad for business.

From an economic perspective, there are clear benefits for greater educational attainment, but in California, Carnoy says, policies to encourage that are lagging,

 Learning to read is a critical first step on the educational ladder, so Carnoy suggests emphasizing that key skill is more important in the long term than promoting bi-lingualism.

Dr. Carnoy has written more than 30 books on economic issues, racial inequality and education policy. He will give a free public lecture on April 1 at 7 pm in the Person Theater  at Sonoma State on the topic, “Educational Equity and Social Justice as Smart Economic Policy. Dr. Carnoy also blogs regularly for the Huffington Post. Read his blog here.

As NPR’s Chief European Correspondent Sylvia Poggioli has covered momentous events there over the past 25 years. She has also observed some broad changes in the way journalism is conducted.

Even though there are fewer other foreign reporters working alongside her in Europe, Poggoili says the sharp cutbacks that have swept through American newspapers are just beginning to be felt among their European counterparts.

Somewhat ironically, Poggoili (seen at left with KRCB News Director Bruce Robinson outside the studio where this interview was recorded)  is practicing western-style First Amendment journalism in a nation where very little of that still exists. Most of the new media there. She notes, is either controlled by or subservient to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

California’s far north coast is home to a nationwide campaign for a constitutional amendment to revoke the concept of “corporate personhood,” as recently extended by the US Supreme Court.

More information about the proposed constitutional amendment can be found at the website for Move to Amend. Humbolt County Attorney David Cobb predicts that this issue that will generate a grassroots political movement that will gain momentum as it sweeps across the country over the next 1-3 years.

Drafting a constitutional amendment to address this issue is a complex and delicate matter, so Cobb says that, too, is being worked out in a transparent and inclusive process.

Murray Hill, a public relations firm in Silver Spring, Maryland, has seized on the Citizens United ruling to become the first "corporate person" to run for public office. Here's "his" somewhat satirical campaign ad.

By way of contrast, Ira Glasser, head of the American Civil Liberties Union offers a dissenting view  on the Supreme Court decision.

The town of Occidental has changed a good deal since Doris Murphy first moved there more than half a century ago, something she herself has had a hand in doing. It’s reason enough for a community-wide party tonight to celebrate here 100^th birthday.

When Joe Murphy first brought Doris from San Francisco to Occidental, he showed her the 18 acres of redwood-sheathed ridgetop he had purchased nearby.  For more than two years thereafter, Doris recalls, their weekends were spent traveling to the remote property and constructing the solid green and white house with its large stone fireplace, where  she has lived fulltime since about 1960.

Doris was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but hitch-hiked south to San Francisco after graduating from Reed College in 1938. There she met Joe Murphy, the influential leader of the Hod Carriers Local 38 union, and a high-profile organizer for the International Workers of the World. But Doris insists that meeting Joe did not inspire her to change her politics.

This picture of Doris and Joe Murphy adorns the cover of Love and Labor, the lively autobiography she published just a few years ago, at the age of 96. Her lifetime of  energetic participation in the town of Occidental will be celebrated in the new Occidental Center for the Arts on Thursday March 11, starting at 6 pm.