The poinsettia is the most widely tested consumer plant on the market today, proving the myth about the popular holiday plant to be false:

• Scientific research from The Ohio State University has proved the poinsettia to be non-toxic. All parts of the plant were tested, including the leaves and sap.
• According to POISINDEX, the national information center for poison control centers, a child would have to ingest 500-600 leaves in order to exceed the experimental doses that found no toxicity.
• A study by Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University found that out of 22,793 reported poinsettia exposures there was essentially no toxicity significance of any kind. The study used national data collected by the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
• Click here to read "Festive medical myths" British Medical Journal). 
• Click here to read "Scientists Shed Light On Festive Medical Myths" posted on NPR. Click here for a PDF. 

Berkeley Public Library

Press Release

Contact: Michele McKenzie -- phone: 510-981-6240                                                      

Berkeley Public Library presents a free two-part film discussion series called "Our Stories, Our Voices" exploring the wartime experience of Japanese Americans in California during World War II. Each session will include a film screening followed by discussion and Q&A moderated by a range of special guests, including local filmmaker Ken Kokka, noted cultural historian Donna Graves, Academy and Emmy award winning director John Korty, and author of the memoir Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. Local members of the Bay Area Japanese American community of all generations are especially encouraged to attend and share their stories. This will be a unique opportunity to learn more about this troubling chapter of American history, when the United States government authorized the relocation and incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast - through their stories, told in their own voices.

All sessions in the film discussion series will take place in the Community Meeting Room on the third floor of the Central Library, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck, downtown Berkeley.

The first part of the series takes place on Sunday, January 13th at 2 p.m. with a screening of the short documentary Blossoms and Thorns: A Community Uprooted followed by a panel discussion with local community members moderated by filmmaker Ken Kokka and cultural historian Donna Graves. Stemming from a community effort and sponsored by the Contra Costa Japanese American Citizens League, Blossoms and Thorns is a powerful new documentary film about the World War II experiences of Japanese American flower growers in Richmond, California. Panel participants include Raymond Fujii and Kaz Iwahashi, whose families owned flower nurseries in Berkeley prior to World War II, and Wilton Lee, whose family cared for a San Pablo Avenue florist shop owned by the Nabeta family during the war.

The second part of the series takes place on Monday, January 14th at 5 p.m. with a screening of the 1976 made for television film, Farewell to Manzanar, followed by conversation and Q&A with the film's director, John Korty and author Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. Created in 1976, Farewell to Manzanar was the first commercial film written, performed, photographed and scored by Japanese Americans about the World War II internment camp experience. The screenplay for Farewell to Manzanar was adapted from Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's compelling memoir about the Japanese-American internment experience, as seen through eyes of a young girl. Rarely seen for 35 years, the Japanese American National Museum recently released this historical film for the first time on DVD to a new generation of viewers.

Ken Kokka is a Berkeley native and graduate of the MFA Directing Program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Kokka has written and directed several short films, including The Chessmen, a dramatic narrative about the plight of Japanese-Americans returning to their former neighborhoods following their internment during World War II.

Donna Graves is a public arts and cultural planner, historian and writer based in Berkeley. Graves is the project director and lead historian of Preserving California's Japantowns, a statewide historic survey of pre-WWII Japanese American communities. She also served as project director for the Rosie the Riveter Memorial: Honoring American Women's Labor During WWII in Richmond, California.

Trailblazing director of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, John Korty has consistently chosen projects focused on themes of social justice throughout his four decade career in film and television. Korty co-wrote the screenplay for Farewell to Manzanar with Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and John D. Houston, earning a Humanitas Prize, honoring film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's memoir Farewell to Manzanar gave voice not only to the Wakatsuki family, but to the thousands of Japanese Americans who silently endured similar experiences. In the more than two decades since its publishing, Farewell to Manzanar, has become a modern classic and an invaluable contribution to the annals of American history. In 2012 Farewell to Manzanar was selected by Cal Humanities' California Reads, a statewide reading and discussion program developed collaboratively with the California Center for the Book with support from the California State Library.

While a month ago the notion of a five-year Farm Bill seeing congressional action in 2012 was considered a long shot, the fact both the Senate-passed bill and the House ag committee-approved bill carry significant program savings -- $23 billion in the Senate; $35 billion in the House - means some hybrid version of a Farm Bill will be part of any fiscal cliff deal. Whether what eventually winds up in a deficit reduction/tax rate package is a straight extension of 2008 programs, a new five-year Farm Bill or a combination of extension and new program initiatives is still being negotiated, with the direct payment title and the title carrying food stamp benefits as the biggest hurdles that must be overcome. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) told a Washington, DC, audience this week she will not accept a straight extension of 2008 programs as that leaves 37 current programs unfunded while continuing direct payments to producers. Rep. Frank Lucas (R, OK), chair of the House Agriculture Committee, told the same audience he can work with an extension as it would provide producers operational certainty, allow USDA to prepare for new programs and cuts in old operations, and give he and Stabenow the opportunity to hammer out a 2013 five-year Farm Bill come early spring. Neither of the ag panel chairs, however, gave any clue to what the eventual farm program component of the fiscal cliff deal might look like.  

More evidence the Farm Bill is going to be part of the fiscal cliff package is the flurry of meetings among the four top ag leaders in the House and Senate over the last two weeks. Already press reports indicate some major shifts in position, particularly from Senate leaders. This week Stabenow said she's willing to entertain deeper cuts to federal food stamp programs than her chamber's bill now contains, if that's what it takes to get a five-year package included in the fiscal cliff deal. At the same time, Senate ag panel ranking member Sen. Pat Roberts (R, KS) says he's now willing to talk about revising his chamber's Farm Bill commodity program title to include some form of marketing loan and deficiency payment scheme - a move that would mitigate southern producer opposition to the Senate's risk/crop insurance approach - again, again if that's what it takes to get a 2012 package done. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in delivering the President's plan to Capitol Hill, said several times last week farm program payment cuts will be part of a deal to get to the "down payment" all sides have agreed will be part of getting a fiscal cliff solution to Obama for his signature.

The number being kicked around by the White House and congressional negotiators is $32-35 billion in cuts from direct payment, crop insurance and conservation programs, with some of the savings used to fund disaster relief programs. Unresolved and likely to be decided directly by House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) and President Obama is how much to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - the old food stamp component of the Farm Bill - with the Senate currently willing to lop off about $4.5 billion, but the House seeking a much more ambitious $16 billion in cuts, primarily through elimination of states' ability to set their own benefit eligibility criteria. The SNAP portion of the Farm Bill's $1-trillion price tag over 10 years is roughly 80%. The President's broad proposal does not include entitlement program changes so there's no White House number for food stamp reductions.

Speaker John A. P�rez  

(D-Los Angeles) announced his  

Assembly leadership team and appointed committee chairs  

for the 2013-14 Regular Session.

California Legislature Welcomes  

Largest Freshman Class Since 1966

Monday the California legislature swore in 120 members, 39 of which were new members. This is the largest freshman class since 1966. Democrats will control both legislative houses by a supermajority for the first time since 1883. The party holds 29 of 40 seats in the Senate, 55 of 80 in the Assembly.   

The Legislature will mark two other milestones:

• Term limits for the incoming class will be 12 years in either house, not a maximum of six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate.
• Nearly half the Assembly's seats - 38 of 80 - will be filled by freshmen. The modern high, 39, was recorded in 1934.

The Senate is replacing nine of its 40 members, but only one freshman, Richard Roth of Riverside County, never has been a legislator. Steinberg, P�rez and Brown have urged restraint in using the supermajority, or tilting too far left, but analysts say it will be hard to hold that line when wish lists pour in from powerful Democratic interest groups that helped pass the Proposition 30 tax hike.  The dwindling number of Republicans places a spotlight on about 20 moderate Democrats in the Legislature - 11 of them freshmen - who could block tax hikes or other measures they deem obstacles to economic growth.   

Speaker Announces Assembly Leadership and Committee Chairs  

The Speaker has made the following leadership and committee appointments for the 2013-14 Regular Session:

Speaker pro Tempore  - Hon. Nora Campos

Assistant Speaker pro Tempore -  Hon. Kevin Mullin

Majority Floor Leader - Hon. Toni Atkins

Assistant Majority Floor Leader - Hon. Anthony Rendon

Majority Whip -  Hon. Chris R. Holden

Democratic Whip -  Hon. Jimmy Gomez

Democratic Whip - Hon. V. Manuel P�rez

Democratic Caucus Chair -  Hon. Philip Y. Ting

Rules Committee Chair - Hon. Nancy Skinner

The House went home early this week, while the Senate dealt with minor legislation - the media called this "bad optics" - but the direct negotiations with the White House on a fiscal cliff solution continued among the small group of chamber leaders who must sell any solution to their party conferences. And while both sides of the negotiations continued to play to crowd - loud voices and posturing for voters and the media - reports indicate quiet progress is being made to create a framework to avoid tax increases and economic turmoil come January 1, 2013. The sticking point appears to be how much of a "down payment" will be made on deficit reduction now, and from where that revenue will come. President Obama continues to demand a significant dollar figure, with most of the money coming from increased taxes on high-income earners; the GOP wants a lower number, generating revenue by tweaking the federal tax code and "reforming" some entitlement program spending.
 
However, both sides agree the heavy lifting gets done next year. Reports indicate both sides have embraced an approach similar to deficit reduction action taken in 2010-2011 that led to the Budget Control Act, the law that carries the January 1, 2013, mandatory sequestration requirements of the fiscal cliff scenario. This includes the down payment, along with 2013 deadlines on deficit reduction through tax reform, government spending cuts and reduced appropriations moving forward. House and Senate authorizing committees would receive deadlines for making recommendations on how to reinvent, cut or eliminate program spending in areas under their control. As to tax rates, the GOP continues to say no increases, though some members are willing to talk "compromise" on that position. If Republicans accept increased taxes on any earner segment, there are two ways to get there: First, rather than a jump from the current 35% top federal tax rate to a full 39.6% as Obama wants, the GOP might accept an increase to 37%. And rather than hit the top 2% of wage earners - anyone making $200,000 a year, $250,000 per couple - Republicans may accept putting any tax rate increase on the top 1%, or those making roughly $700,000 or more a year.

The President's proposal would cut $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade, raising $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues by hiking tax rates on the top 2% of U.S. wage earners, along with increases in capital gains and dividend income taxes, $600 billion in new taxes and a return to 2009 estate tax rates. This plan would raise $584 billion by capping tax deductions at 28%, and limiting itemized deductions for top earners. The plan also includes new authority to the President to raise the nation's debt limit without congressional approval, while delaying Budget Control Act automatic spending cuts for a year, new 2013 spending of $50 billion on infrastructure, cutting $400 billion from health care spending, extending the Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM) "patch," and extending some business tax breaks while broadening unemployment compensation, and a possible extension of the current payroll tax deduction. The GOP plan targets $1.4 trillion in savings over 10 years, with about $800 billion coming from federal government spending cuts and $600 billion coming from new revenues achieved by eliminating tax breaks and loopholes and no change in Bush era tax rates. The GOP plan includes $600 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings, and a reduction in cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security. The President's plan is silent on entitlement rewrites, but it's known government spending cuts would include $300 billion from mandatory federal programs, including farm program payments.