load01 10/21/2011

• Firefighters bring focus, skill and heart to the Seal Beach chaos - latimes.com

  When Scott Belshe stepped through the door of Salon Meritage last Wednesday afternoon, the world around him fell to pieces. He heard screaming. He heard voices. He smelled gunpowder, and he couldn't put anything together.
  
  A firefighter with Station 44 in Seal Beach, Belshe has seen the beginning and end of life. He's treated sickness, worked automobile accidents and fought house fires, but the violence and ruin that lay before him now was nothing he ever expected to see.

  tags: culture

• Credit card 'convenience fee' law has a big, fat loophole - latimes.com

  Hit you with a fee for using a credit card, that is.
  
  DAVID LAZARUS
  
  E-mail | Recent columns
  ALSO
  
  Using plastic to pay Anthem bill? Prepare to lose your coverage
  
  Title fees are hard to swallow when refinancing mortgage
  
  Reclaiming your life from identity thieves
  
  Every time I write about Anthem's proposed $15 "convenience fee" for people to pay their premiums with plastic, and how this would violate state law, I get bombarded with calls and emails from readers asking why some places get away with the practice.
  

  tags: economics

• Dropbox Will Simplify Your Life - NYTimes.com

  Every time I’m tempted to write about some tech product that’s been around awhile, I’m torn. On one hand, I’ll be blasted by the technogeeks for being late to the party. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem right to keep something great hidden under a barrel from the rest of the world.

  tags: technology

• Occupy the Classroom - NYTimes.com

  Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America’s central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
  
  Damon Winter/The New York Times
  Nicholas D. Kristof
  On the Ground
  Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
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  Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education.

  tags: culture

• Lebowski Ipsum: Filler text that ties the room together

  tags: humor

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