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1. 

   VALERIE SCHULTZ: One ignorant act sparks movement on campus

   By Valerie Schultz

   Thursday, May 16 2013 04:17 PM

   Anne Duran, a CSUB associate professor of psychology, arrived at her office one day in 2010 to find an anonymously posted biblical quote that seemed to advocate putting gay people to death.

   Her first instinct was to ignore it, (I imagine after the pre-first instinctive urge to pack up and move far away), but then she decided to respond with another quote: "Judge not, lest ye be judged," she wrote on the original page, and reposted it on her door.

   When she returned the next day, she was heartened to find additional, positive postings from her fellow professors, such as "The Jesus I know loves everyone," and "Say No to Bigotry." As word spread around campus, a student Duran did not know came to her office and asked, "What are you going...

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2. VALERIE SCHULTZ: No china could be finer than our plastic memory plates

   When my husband and I were engaged, so long ago in the last millenium that it hardly seems real, we went to a department store that no longer exists to register for wedding gifts. This was at my mother's suggestion, and I'm afraid we did...

3. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Words feed us, but power lies in when we turn them into good deeds

   Sometimes a biblical passage makes me stop and read it over again, either because it is meaningful, or applicable, or challenging, or comforting, or confusing or just sounds bizarre. The bizarre factor struck me recently in the following...

4. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Along for the ride, and so much more

   The virtues of carpooling are many, but until my involuntary transfer from Tehachapi to Wasco last fall, I had not done much of it. I am a typical American in that I like to have my own car and thus control my own transportation destiny....

5. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Even sea lions gotta dance sometimes

   Not that I would need an excuse to visit Santa Cruz, now that my daughter and daughter-in-law have moved to that delightful community, but there is another reason. I'd love to go there and meet Ronan, the dancing sea lion. Ronan has made...

6. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Proud of being bad at math? Doesn't add up

   April is Mathematics Awareness Month, or MAM. Some of us are painfully aware of math this month -- we may be suffering from an acute case of MAM -- as it's time to pay the taxman. But once we stop the bleeding, let's consider the relevance...

7. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Documenting our lives visually has changed the way we live them

   It's early morning, and I'm waiting to catch my vanpool to go to work. I'm watching a woman in the parking lot, who is using her phone to take a picture of a stray cat. She holds the phone casually in the direction of the cat, and then goes...
9. 

   VALERIE SCHULTZ: Lonely chair a metaphor for faith during Easter

   A discarded chair has given me the thought that every ordinary day has Easter potential, that Easter can be a welcoming embrace after a long and wearying day. We commuters have been treated to an unusual sight on the drive from Tehachapi to...

10. VALERIE SCHULTZ: NICU gives early babies fighting chance

    My newest little nephew really is little, because he decided to make his entrance into the world six weeks early, a Pisces instead of an Aries. My sister's water broke unexpectedly, and two days later, my nephew was born after only 34 weeks...

11. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Spring is a frame of mind

    "Life is 10% what you make it  and 90% how you take it." -- Irving Berlin Spring is the lovely pastel reward for living through the cold gray winter. It is the time of growth and birth and new life, of renewal and hope. It is also an...

12. VALERIE SCHULTZ: A mission to Mars? We're your couple

    So about this Mars mission, Mr. Dennis Tito: look no further. My husband and I are ready to help you out by enlisting for that long trip to Mars. No fooling: We're perfect for it! You want credentials? My husband and I are children of the...

13. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Cutting isn't just somebody else's problem

    This may be a girl you love: She seems troubled, but you chalk it up to adolescent mood swings, to the wild course of hormones in her rapidly maturing system. She spends a lot of time alone and has lost her little-girl, sunny disposition....

14. VALERIE SCHULTZ: Being on either side of the mentoring equation is fulfilling

    The Greek poet Homer gave us the mythological character of Mentor, who was the teacher and adviser to Odysseus' son Telemachus. Mentor, an old friend of Odysseus, was entrusted with the care of his son while Odysseus was away. Of course,...