A taste of home-kitchen-based business

When Caron Ory's father was diagnosed with diabetes and struggled to stop eating sugar, the trained dietitian told him not to worry.

"I'll create something for you," she promised.

Through two years of research, trial-and-error recipes and taste tests, Ory came up with Eco-BeeCo, a natural sugar alternative with a tad of freeze-dried honey that passed her requirements nutritionally and her father's gustatory muster.

But when Ory wanted to share her product outside of family and friends, she ran into a hurdle.

To sell the product she'd developed in her home kitchen, California law required her to contract with a commercial kitchen to produce it.

Instead of building a small market and gradually making the transition to large-scale distribution, Ory had to invest $35,000 to blend 6,000 pounds of Eco-BeeCo without ever having sold a pouch of it.

"I spent thousands, and it was a big, big, big risk," she said. "I didn't even know my product was a big seller, and here I am blending 6,000 pounds."

But that hurdle recently disappeared.

Last fall, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1616, a law allowing Californians to make and sell certain non-hazardous foods out of their kitchens. Foods that don't include cream or meat, such as bread, fruit, baked goods, jarred goods and dry mixes — like Eco-BeeCo — could all bypass commercial production and be sold straight out of a home kitchen, according to the law.

When Ory learned that the relaxed requirements would start Jan. 1, she looked for a way she could help others get their products off the ground without making the upfront investment she had.

"Everybody has a signature recipe that they make and people rave about," Ory said.

So, on March 2, Ory, a Fountain Valley resident, will teach a class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa about AB 1616 and the business of starting a cottage industry out of a home kitchen.

She'll outline the new law and guide students through the basic business side of things, including product assessment, pricing and packaging.

After the class, students will still have to apply for a permit and take a basic food-handling course to get state approval. Ory hopes she can be a mentor to her students as they go through that process.

"With the state of California, it's kind of like a moving target right now because it's a new law," she said.

Eco-BeeCo survived the gantlet of commercial production. It's now available at Whole Foods locations in Southern California and other grocers across the country.

"My dream for all of these people is they can do what I did," Ory said. "I just don't want them to do it with the risk I took on."

jeremiah.dobruck@latimes.com

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Inauguration brings moment of festive unity to capital

WASHINGTON — Beyonce had belted her last note and President Obama, newly sworn in for a second term, had grabbed his last hand and given his last hug. But as he walked off the inauguration platform and through an archway to the Capitol, the president turned again to face the people who came to see him.

"I want to take a look one more time," Obama said, stopping his Secret Service detail. He smiled, eyes fixed in the distance. "I'm not going to see this again."

What Obama saw was a throng of Americans filling their capital on Monday. They were waving their country's flag, cheering their president, honoring their history and celebrating their government, adding a sheen of celebratory unity to a capital more accustomed to political division.

Hazel Carter from Springfield, Ohio, who is 90 and who attended Obama's first swearing-in, had vowed not to miss this one: "I prayed, 'God, just let me keep breathing until the inauguration.'"

Charlie and Zan Thompson, in their 60s, flew in from Phoenix, despite Charlie's bad knee. Zan pushed her husband in a wheelchair for 45 minutes to the National Mall. She could persevere, she said, just as the president had in his first term.

And Patrecia McClein, 39, was there even though she and her husband Shawn, 37, went to bed Sunday night in Rochester, N.Y., with no plans to be in Washington.

"The Lord woke us up at 1 a.m. and told us to come," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people filled Washington's streets, far less than the estimated 1.8 million who attended Obama's first inauguration. The differences from 2009 were notable. The traditional lineup of events — the swearing-in outside the Capitol's West Front, parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and night of balls — was all less complicated without the crush of humanity drawn to the first inauguration of the first African American president.

There were other shifts in mood: expectations lowered after years of partisan gridlock, hopes tempered by disappointment. And toes warmed by noticeably higher temperatures.

Still, the attendees said they felt the weight of history.

"I always wanted to come to something like this, going back to Martin Luther King," said James Sutton, 63, a taxi driver who made the 12-hour drive from Chicago. He said he didn't expect to see another African American president. "Not in my lifetime. I just wanted to be able to say I was there."

Obama's inauguration coincided with the federal holiday celebrating King, who delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the other end of the mall in 1963. Monday's ceremony in many ways directly honored the civil rights struggle that made Obama's presidency possible.

The event began with an invocation from Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Evers-Williams paid homage to the leaders "who allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes to today's expression of a more perfect union."

As he took the oath, Obama placed his hand on two Bibles — one owned by King, the other used by Abraham Lincoln when he was sworn in on March 4, 1861. After Monday's ceremony, at the request of the King family, the president and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. inscribed the King family Bible.

Obama's inaugural address opened with an immediate acknowledgment of the history that had brought him to that moment. "Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free," Obama said. "We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together."

His speech was seasoned with calls for togetherness, and his schedule included opportunities to practice it — at least for a day. Per tradition, Obama invited congressional leaders to coffee at the White House, including his chief political adversary: House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

The president also attended a traditional luncheon with lawmakers, where Boehner suggested the meal was an opportunity to "renew the old appeal to better angels."

Although Obama's speech offered a liberal vision, for the most part the day was light on partisanship, heavy on pomp. From the luncheon, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama crept down Pennsylvania Avenue in the president's hulking limousine known as "the beast."

The two stepped out to stroll and wave at a crowd that greeted them with shrieks and an eclectic mix of signs.

"There has never been anything false about hope," one read.

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Obama's inaugural speech gives hope to gay marriage supporters

WASHINGTON — By equating the gay rights struggle with those of African Americans and women, President Obama in his inaugural address set a standard that boosted gay activists' hopes that he soon would make a bold legal move to support a constitutional right to gay marriage.

Obama's words themselves were a landmark — the first time gay rights had ever been advocated in the high-profile speech. But the president, speaking just feet from Supreme Court justices who will take up the issue of gay marriage this spring, went far beyond a simple mention. He equated gay rights with the country's iconic civil rights movements.

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall," he said, linking the beginning of the women's suffrage movement, the battle for black rights in the South and the gay protest against police harassment in New York as equal steps in the nation's march toward equality.

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law," he continued, "for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

The passage "was definitely one of those moments that took your breath away," said Adam DeRosa, president of the Lesbian and Gay Band Assn., whose 215 members later marched past the president in the inaugural parade. "We understand the historical significance of it. What political significance it has remains to be seen."

Obama, who only last spring hesitated to declare his public support for gay marriage, soon will have to decide whether his administration will take the potentially huge step of arguing before the Supreme Court that gay marriage is an equal right under the Constitution.

The court will soon review two cases, one of them involving California's Proposition 8, the ballot measure that limited marriage to unions between a man and a woman. Gay rights lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to declare the ballot measure unconstitutional, potentially striking down the laws of 41 states.

To several legal scholars, Obama's equating of Selma and Stonewall strongly implied he is prepared to side with gay rights activists. But doing so would mark a sudden departure from the caution with which he has typically approached most issues.

Asked whether the speech was intended to send a signal about the Supreme Court case, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said, "It's a legitimate question, but for today, we're letting the president's speech stand on its own."

Theodore Olson, the former George W. Bush administration solicitor general and lawyer for the gay couples challenging Proposition 8, said the president sounded ready to back a constitutional right to gay marriage.

"I was very gratified to hear the president state in clear and unambiguous language that our gay and lesbian citizens must be treated equally under the law," Olson said, "and that their loving relationships must be treated equally as well. That can only mean one thing: equality under the Constitution."

Evan Wolfson, president and founder of New York-based Freedom to Marry, noted in an interview that Obama's speech "was an inaugural address, not a legal brief, and we will see over the next several weeks exactly what positions the Justice Department takes."

"I am confident the president knows that the Constitution requires equality in the freedom to marry," he added.

The excitement that Obama's remarks spurred among advocates of gay marriage was matched by dismay among its opponents. Byron Babione, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is co-counsel in the Proposition 8 case now before the Supreme Court, said it was "deeply dishonest to equate the civil rights movement to today's homosexual activism."

"Civil rights marchers were met with batons, fire hoses, tear gas and nooses. So-called pride parades are met with Fortune 500 corporate sponsorship," he said. "African Americans were systematically dehumanized, while homosexual activists are lionized by every powerful cultural institution and center of wealth in America."

For most of his political career, Obama has supported gay rights but said he opposed same-sex marriage. In May, the president announced that he had "evolved" on the issue and that he now personally supported gay marriage. But he also said the matter should be decided on a state-by-state basis.

Public opinion on the matter has shifted starkly in recent years. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted Dec. 6-9 found that 51% favored or strongly favored gay marriage, with 40% opposed. In 2004, the same poll found 30% in favor and 61% against.

"The country has shifted," said Dawn Moretz, 45, an elementary school teacher in Marshville, N.C., who was walking with a friend on the edge of the inaugural parade route Monday. Gay rights is "still a hot-button issue, but it's not as hush-hush as it used to be," she said.

The inaugural ceremonies reflected that shift. In addition to the lesbian and gay band that marched in the parade, officials chose a gay poet, Richard Blanco, to read at the celebration.

Such symbolism, however, would pale in comparison with a Supreme Court declaration. The justices have agreed to hear the two gay marriage cases in late March. Both pose questions about equal rights for same-sex couples.

In one case from New York, the justices will decide whether legally married gay couples are entitled to equal benefits under federal law. Obama's lawyers have joined with gay rights advocates in the case.

The other case stems from Proposition 8. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8 in 2010, ruling that it violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. An appeals court affirmed the decision, and the Supreme Court decided in December to take the case.

So far, the Obama administration has not weighed in on the question. And because it is a state case, the Justice Department could stand aside and not take part. The administration has until late February to decide whether to file a brief in the case. Lawyers close to the administration say the final decision will be made at the White House, not the Justice Department.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

david.savage@latimes.com

Jessica Garrison in Los Angeles and Brian Bennett in Washington contributed to this report.

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Brief ceremony begins Obama's second term

WASHINGTON — In a swift and simple ceremony at the White House, President Obama was sworn in for a second term Sunday and embarked on another four years leading a nation hobbled by a weak economy and gripped by political division.

With his family at his side and his hand on his wife's family Bible, the 44th president began the new term on an understated note, repeating the oath of office in a private ceremony the day before a more lavish, public reenactment.

The intimate event was an adherence to tradition prompted by a quirk of the calendar. Under the Constitution, a president's term ends at noon Jan. 20. When that date falls on a Sunday, presidents have shifted the public ceremony a day and opted for a swearing-in at the White House.

Obama stood in the Blue Room, an elegant oval parlor, next to First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Sasha and Malia. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered the 35-word oath more smoothly than he did four years ago when he flubbed the phrasing. Other relatives watched but remained out of view of the television cameras. The entire event took about a minute.

"I did it," the president said as he hugged his family afterward.

"Good job, Dad," 11-year-old Sasha said. "You didn't mess up."

The event bore little resemblance to the full display of traditional pageantry planned for Monday. Although a pared-down version of Obama's first inauguration four years ago, the public swearing-in still is expected to draw about 800,000 people to the National Mall to watch the poetry, music and oratory outside the U.S. Capitol.

The ceremony will take place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and will include several nods to this president's place in history as the first African American to hold the office. Obama plans to place his hand on two Bibles, one owned by the slain civil rights leader and another used by Abraham Lincoln at his swearing-in on March 4, 1861.

In his address, the president will call for a shared search for areas of compromise.

"He is going to talk about the fact that our political system doesn't require us to resolve all of our disputes or settle all of our differences," senior Obama political advisor David Plouffe said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "But it does impel us to act where there should be, and is, common ground."

The final hours of Obama's first term were filled with quiet moments and personal reflection.

The president began his day at Arlington National Cemetery, where he and Vice President Joe Biden, fresh from his own swearing-in, laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns under a clear-blue winter sky.

From there, the president and first lady, infrequent churchgoers, made a visit to a historically black church, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal, the oldest A.M.E. church in the nation's capital. Obama, who almost never discusses his own place in history, sat in the pews where 119 years ago congregants listened to one of Frederick Douglass' last calls for racial equality.

"Put away your race prejudice. Banish the idea that one class must rule over another," the abolitionist and former slave said in the 1894 speech titled "The Lessons of the Hour."

On Sunday, Obama listened to a reading from Exodus — the final passages detailing the flight of Moses and the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. In his sermon, the Rev. Ronald E. Braxton urged the president to overcome obstacles and continue "forward," echoing Obama's reelection slogan.

Obama's legislative agenda faces plenty of obstacles, most notably a Republican-led House of Representatives that for two years has tried to block his attempts to raise taxes on the wealthy and to use government spending to create jobs. Obama's second-term priorities — an overhaul of the immigration system and new gun control measures — face tenacious opposition.

Biden took his oath of office early Sunday in an event that appeared lively compared with the president's austere one — a contrast that may reflect their personalities and political futures.

The vice president, who may be a candidate for the top job in 2016, gathered about 120 friends, family members and Democratic power players to his official residence at the Naval Observatory. The event included political strategists, labor leaders and party officials. Many came early for a Catholic Mass and stayed afterward for breakfast.

"It's an honor, it's an honor," Biden told Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor immediately after she administered the oath, the fourth female jurist — and first Latina — to perform that duty for a president or vice president.

At the White House, Obama's swearing-in was apolitical, personal and cautious.

On his guest list were just a dozen relatives, including his half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and brother in-law, Craig Robinson.

Roberts and Obama proceeded carefully through the oath, the third time the duo have gone through it. At Obama's first inaugural in 2009, they mangled the wording, prompting White House lawyers to summon the chief justice to the White House for a do-over.

This time, with Roberts reading the oath from a piece of paper, it went off without a hitch.

The Obamas and Bidens ended the day at a gala reception for supporters. A far looser Obama than the one who took the oath hinted at the ideas he hopes will define his second term. "When we put our shoulders to the wheel of history, it moves," he said. "It moves forward."

Noting that he had another speech to give Monday, he said, "I'm going to be pretty brief, because there are a limited amount of good lines and you don't want to use them all up tonight."

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

christi.parsons@latimes.com

Michael A. Memoli and Paul West in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Mendocino County spars with feds over conflicting marijuana laws

Mendocino County is fighting efforts by federal prosecutors to get records on medical marijuana growers who signed up for a program intended to sanction their businesses under state law.

The county's resistance creates a rare legal clash between local and federal authorities over conflicting marijuana laws. The U.S. Justice Department has been targeting growers and purveyors of medical cannabis, and threatening local or state officials who try to regulate the trade, saying all marijuana use is illegal under federal law.

Last March, Mendocino County officials bowed to such threats and stopped issuing permits to grow up to 99 plants. Now county attorneys are urging a federal judge in San Francisco to quash a federal subpoena issued in October demanding a wide range of information about the cultivation program, including applications of growers seeking permits.

Two marijuana advocacy groups seeking clearer laws in California filed briefs arguing that compliance with the subpoena would reveal confidential medical information and bank records and "undermine the county's considered and thoughtful attempts to regulate marijuana pursuant to state law."

"The message this sends to people across the state trying to comply in good faith with medical marijuana regulations is that they should operate below ground," said Adam Wolf, a San Francisco attorney representing the two groups, the Emerald Growers Assn. and Americans for Safe Access. "That's the last thing the government should do."

A spokesman for Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, declined to comment on the case. The subpoena does not make clear what or who is being investigated. A hearing is set for Jan. 29.

Mendocino County instituted County Code 9.31 in 2010 to try to control a surge of marijuana cultivation. Robberies jumped as newcomers flooded in. And with no regulation, many growers illegally graded, logged and diverted creeks to produce huge, multimillion-dollar crops.

Some local growers wanted to "reintegrate into the county and not feel like outlaws," said county Supervisor John McCowen. Those who registered with the sheriff had to install security fencing and cameras, pay permitting fees up to $6,450 a year and undergo inspections four times a year. Every plant was given a zip-tie with a sheriff's serial number on it.

Eighteen growers signed up the first year. Medical marijuana advocates hailed the zip-tie program as the first to create a clear, legal means for growers to supply the medical market.

George Unsworth, 60, was among those who participated. He loves to show photos from the day deputies first came to inspect his pot. "To be in a garden with them in a Mendocino forest, and not be in handcuffs facedown in the dirt, but to be shaking hands, it was beautiful," he said. "I take my hat off to Mendocino County."

The U.S. attorney was quick to show its disapproval. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided the farm of the first person to register, Joy Greenfield. Still, 91 growers signed up the next year.

Agents then targeted Matt Cohen, the grower most vocal in advocating for the program and getting it set up.

Despite the raids, county officials planned to continue the program. It had paid for itself — generating an estimated $600,000 — over two years and allowed the sheriff to focus on growers causing more problems.

"The program drew a clear line between those who were doing everything to be compliant with local and state laws and people who were outlaws," McCowen said. "The marijuana industry was completely out of control, and the permit program was an effort to bring order out of chaos, and it was working."

But county officials stopped the permitting and inspections in March after the U.S. attorney threatened them with legal action. The federal subpoena landed in October, demanding records of inspections, applications, internal county emails, notes, memos and bank account numbers.

McCowen said he can't understand why prosecutors are focusing on the county's registered growers. "When you've eliminated all those outlaw, trespass growers, then come talk to us about our legally compliant 99-plant growers."

Lawyers for the county and the marijuana groups argue that the subpoena should be quashed because it seeks privileged information and would gut attempts to regulate medical marijuana. They say similar attempts by the federal government to undermine state and local marijuana laws were rejected in court.

Kristin Nevedal, chairwoman of the Emerald Growers Assn., said her members are very concerned about the subpoena. "All these folks who got involved in the zip-tie program really felt they were doing the right thing following state law."

Unsworth, who signed up for the program the first year, said he knew the demands by federal authorities were coming. An Air Force veteran with multiple sclerosis, he didn't care. He said he wanted to put his face on the medical marijuana movement and hopes the case goes to the Supreme Court.

"Until we change the federal law, we're breaking the law. Period. We're lawbreakers."

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

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Clara Jane Nixon dies at 93; sister-in-law of President Nixon

Her famous brother-in-law had not yet been elected president. But he already had been vice president, as well as a U.S. senator and a congressman from California, and Clara Jane Nixon wanted to preserve some of his family history.

So, beginning in 1967, the Newport Beach housewife set out to track down and collect the furniture, books and other belongings that had filled the modest boyhood home of Richard M. Nixon. She hoped that one day the artifacts might be displayed in a museum.

With the help of other family members, the wife of F. Donald Nixon, a brother of the future president, found and preserved hundreds of items from his childhood home in Yorba Linda, including the piano on which he took lessons, the table where his family ate its meals and the china and crystal his parents received as wedding gifts.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

She found the high chair he used as a toddler, the bed on which he was born and the quilt, dating from 1875, that had been used to cover it. The furnishings and other belongings of the Nixon family are displayed in the 900-square-foot farmhouse, a museum near the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.

"Clara Jane was just essential to all those artifacts being saved," her brother-in-law Ed Nixon said in a phone interview Sunday. "We're very thankful she was there all these years and for everything she did to preserve the family history."

Clara Jane Nixon died Thursday at a convalescent facility in Irvine where she was receiving care after a recent fall at the home where she had moved after her husband's death in 1987, family members said. She was 93.

She was born Clara Jane Lemke on Nov. 16, 1919, in Westmoreland, a community in Imperial County where her parents were homesteading. She weighed in at less than five pounds, according to the scale — normally used for weighing chickens — that her father employed for the task, her daughter LawreneAnfinson said in a phone interview.

She grew up in Placentia, where her parents, Lawrence and Mae Lemke, were citrus farmers. After graduating from Fullerton High School, she attended Sawyer Business College in Westwood and later worked as a secretary at a law firm.

In 1940, when she was 20, she was introduced to F. Donald Nixon, who was her third cousin on her mother's side. They dated for just three weeks before he asked for her hand, and they were married on Aug. 9, 1942. They had three children: daughter Lawrene, who was named for her grandfather Lawrence, and sons Donald and Richard.

Their son Richard Calvert Nixon died in 2002. In addition to her daughter and her son Donald, Clara Nixon's survivors include six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

In later years, after President Nixon resigned in disgrace on Aug. 9, 1974, his youngest brother was often asked about the significance of the date.

"Whenever anyone asked me, I would say, 'Well, it was Don's and Clara Jane's 32nd anniversary,'" Ed Nixon said.

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

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Huell Howser relished role of storyteller

Public television star Huell Howser, who died this month of prostate cancer, did not talk openly about his illness because "he never wanted the story to be about him," his assistant said.

The host of the TV series "California's Gold," which focused on unique and commonplace locales around the state, died Jan. 7 at his home in Palm Springs.

"He was dedicated to doing his job even when he was sick," said Ryan Morris, his assistant of seven years.

Howser had ambitious plans last year for the show that he ended up having to cancel, Morris said. One of those stories would have been on the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, which was booked and canceled several times over the summer because of his illness.

"That was one of the most difficult moments for Huell emotionally," Morris said Thursday. "Huell always wanted to do that story."

Morris said that although Howser never spoke to him specifically about the cancer, he would sometimes have long conversations about mortality and getting older.

After he became sick and was limited to covering stories closer to home, Morris said, Howser picked up a new habit of sweeping the sidewalks of Selma Avenue around his Hollywood office with a straw broom. He used his head shot as a dustpan.

"Huell always had to stay busy," Morris said. "He had a hard time sitting down. By brooming up and down the sidewalk, it was his way of giving back."

By the end of October last year, Howser's declining health kept him from coming into the Hollywood office, and he had become increasingly concerned about his legacy, Morris said.

By the end of November, Howser announced his retirement.

He donated his massive found-art collection, which included pieces of engines and a piece of the old Hollywood sign, to Chapman University in Orange. In addition, he collected memorabilia from his shows over the years.

The school will unveil the Huell Howser's "California's Gold" collection, which includes archives of his shows, during an open house event Feb. 8, said Mary Platt, a university spokeswoman.

The subjects of his shows are expected to attend. Howser also endowed an annual scholarship named after the show.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

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Stan Musial dies at 92; Cardinals' Hall of Fame hitter

To generations of baseball fans, he was simply "Stan the Man."

Stan Musial, a legendary slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals who came to embody one of the sport's most successful franchises, died Saturday. He was 92.

Musial, who had Alzheimer's disease, died at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue, the Cardinals announced.

During his 22 seasons, all with the Cardinals, Musial won seven National League batting titles and three most valuable player awards. A career .331 hitter, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969, becoming only the fourth player chosen in his first year of eligibility.

"Stan Musial was the greatest player in Cardinals history and one of the best players in the history of baseball," William DeWitt Jr., the Cardinals' chairman, said Saturday in a statement.

Musial's nickname was inspired by Brooklyn Dodger fans who marveled at his mastery of the Dodgers at Ebbets Field and complained, "Here comes the man again."

Don Newcombe, a star pitcher for the Dodgers, told Sports Illustrated in 2010: "I could have rolled the ball up there against Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out."

Stanley Frank Musial was born Nov. 21, 1920, in Donora, Pa., to Lukasz and Mary Lancos Musial, the fifth of their six children.

In high school, Musial was a two-sport star. He could have played college basketball on scholarship but signed with the Cardinals as a pitcher in 1938.

He was so wild in Williamson, W.Va., the lowest level of the Cardinals' minor league system, that his manager suggested he be released. But another player's injury gave him a chance to play outfield, and he saved his career by hitting .352. The next season in Daytona Beach, Fla., Musial hurt his left shoulder diving for a ball in center field, ending his pitching career.

"My arm never did get better," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2002. "I couldn't throw hard from then on. But it never bothered my hitting."

In 1941, he reached the majors despite starting the season on a lowly minor league team in Springfield, Mo. He hit .426 in 12 games late in the season for St. Louis, and the Cardinals finished second to the Dodgers. Musial had a remarkable season, hitting a combined .364 after jumping through the St. Louis minor league system. "Facing oblivion in the spring, he reached stardom," according to the 2001 book "Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man."

With Musial in the lineup beginning in 1942, the Cardinals reached the World Series in three consecutive seasons, winning in 1942 and 1944.

"The '42 Cardinal club was the best I was with. If the war hadn't come along, I feel we could have won maybe six or seven pennants in a row," St. Louis outfielder Terry Moore said in the 1994 book "Stan the Man Musial: Born to Be a Ballplayer."

In 1943, Musial won his first batting title and MVP award when the Cardinals lost the series to the New York Yankees.

Musial said he "memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve and slider. Then I'd pick up the speed and rotation of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it approached the plate."

Leo Durocher, who faced Musial as a player and manager, once said the only way to pitch him was "under the plate."

Musial's signature feature was a distinct batting stance that Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons once said made him look like "a kid peeking around the corner to see if the cops are coming." Former St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog had told Musial, "I tried to have your stance and I was in the minors for eight years."

After spending 1945 in the Navy, Musial again led the Cardinals to the World Series in 1946, when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Musial and Red Sox star Ted Williams struggled in the series, each hitting only .222. It was Musial's last World Series.

His best season may have been 1948, when he was named the league's most valuable player for the third time. Healthy after having appendicitis in 1947, Musial led the league in almost every offensive category, including his .376 batting average and 131 runs batted in. He just missed winning the triple crown with 39 home runs, one short of the league lead.

He hit five home runs during a doubleheader in 1954 and reached a career milestone in 1958 with his 3,000th hit.

Musial retired after the 1963 season and spent a year as the Cardinals' general manager. He remained a celebrity in St. Louis, running Stan Musial & Biggie's Restaurant, which he opened in 1949.

At baseball's 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis, Musial received a standing ovation when he was driven onto the field before the game. He handed a ball to President Obama, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

When Musial received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2011, Obama noted that "his brilliance could come in blinding bursts" and said he "remains to this day an icon, untarnished … a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate."

Musial's wife of 72 years, Lillian, died in May. He is survived by their son, Richard; daughters, Gerry Ashley, Janet Schwarze and Jean Edmonds; 11 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

"He had greatness and warmth and affection and appreciation," sportscaster Bob Costas, whose career started in St. Louis, told Scripps Howard News Service in 2003. "But there wasn't a specific thing for people to hang their hat on — other than those who really followed him and saw him play.... All he was was incredibly good for an incredibly long time and an unbelievably nice guy."

Thursby is a former Times staff writer.

news.obits@latimes.com

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L.A. teachers union members OK new evaluation method

A landmark agreement to use student test scores for the first time in evaluating Los Angeles Unified teachers was approved by union members Saturday.

United Teachers Los Angeles reported that 66% of 16,892 members who voted approved the agreement with the nation's second-largest school district. L.A. Unified now joins Chicago, New York and many other cities in using testing data as one measure of a teacher's effect on student academic progress. About half the union's 34,000 members voted.

In a victory for the union, however, the pact limits the use of a controversial method of analyzing a teacher's impact on student learning known as value-added. Instead, the two sides agreed to evaluate teachers with such data as raw state test scores, district assessments, high school exit exams and rates of attendance, graduation, suspensions and course completion.

The agreement will force the district to alter its new evaluation system, which was to use a teacher's individual value-added score along with a rigorous new observation process, student and parent feedback and an educator's contribution to the school community. Parts of the new performance reviews are currently being tested in the district's 1,300 schools.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher hailed the vote as an endorsement of union efforts to prevent the use of individual value-added scores in evaluations. Schoolwide value-added scores will be used, however.

"We worked hard at the bargaining table to craft a system that intelligently uses student data in the evaluation of teachers," he said.

L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said he was gratified by what he called a larger-than-expected margin of victory.

"It's a sign that members really want us to begin moving forward with a more improved way around evaluations," he said.

Deasy said he planned to unveil details of how testing data will be incorporated into teacher evaluations in the next week. The guidelines will include recommendations for how much weight to give test scores; he has said in the past that it should count for about 30%.

The agreement was prompted by a court order last year by Los Angeles County Superior Judge James C. Chalfant, who ruled that L.A. Unified's failure to use student test scores to help measure a teacher's performance violated state law.

At least some of those who voted for the agreement did so reluctantly.

Cheryl Ortega, the union's director of bilingual education, said she remained troubled by the inclusion of an even limited use of the value-added method, which L.A. Unified calls Academic Growth Over Time. That method uses a complex statistical formula to attempt to isolate a teacher's effect on student performance by controlling for such factors as poverty and English language ability.

Ortega called the method "unreliable and unscientific," reflecting a common view among teachers unions and some educators and researchers. But she ultimately voted for the pact because she feared the courts could impose an even worse system on teachers, she said.

"Everything in my being wanted to vote no," Ortega said. "But it was the best deal that could be gotten."

Monica Ratliff, a fifth-grade teacher at San Pedro Elementary, has similar concerns about value-added and voted no. Ratliff, a Los Angeles school board candidate who was recently elected to the union's House of Representatives, said she frequently reviews raw test scores for concrete information about specific skills her students are struggling with, such as grammar or reading comprehension. But she said value-added scores were useless in telling her where to improve and that she feared the agreement would open the door to wider use of them.

Ratliff said she was also concerned about using schoolwide test scores to judge her individual performance.

"I didn't necessarily think what was negotiated was beneficial for an individual teacher," she said.

Fletcher said the union chose to delay the ratification vote until after winter break to give members more than a month to study, discuss and debate the proposed agreement.

"We felt the agreement was the best route to comply with the court order," he said. "But some members had principled disagreement, and we wanted to get that out too."

Across the country, school districts are changing the way they review teachers using test scores as one measure of their effectiveness. The Obama administration has promoted the system, setting up a competitive grant program that encouraged the move. Unions, however, have only reluctantly obliged; they mostly have opposed weighting evaluations heavily on test scores.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

UC freshman applicants for 2013 a record high

Freshman applications to University of California schools for the 2013 school year reached a record high of about 174,700, with Latinos making up the largest portion of applicants for the first time.

All nine undergraduate campuses saw an increase in freshman applicants from the previous year, with a systemwide increase of 10.7%, according to figures released by the UC system Friday. Latino students accounted for 32%.

The number of out-of-state and international freshman applicants surged, 15% and 34% respectively, while the number of California students who applied for admission as freshmen grew by a more modest 6.2%.

"This is the ninth year of record all-time highs," said Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC system. "In general, students are applying to more colleges, whether they're hedging their bets or what have you."

On average, California students applied to about four UC campuses.

UC Santa Cruz saw the largest increase with a 16.9% jump in freshman applicants, UC Merced followed closely with 16.6% and UC Berkeley saw the smallest increase at 9.7%.

UCLA got the highest overall number of applications with 99,559 freshman and transfer applicants.

The increase in applicants will make the UC admissions process even more competitive, said Michael Trevino, director of undergraduate admissions for the system.

"But we'll continue to have a place for outstanding California applicants," he said.

Out-of-state freshman applicants increased from 19,128 to 21,970, and international freshman applicants swelled from 13,873 to 18,659.

Latino applicants grew from 30.1% last year to 32.1%, making them the largest ethnic group among California freshman applicants. Asian Americans made up about 30.9% of freshman applicants, down from 32.2% the previous year. White students were 27.1% of freshman applicants and black students were 6%.

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

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