Reporter
A native of Texas, Nicole C. Brambila is an award-winning journalist who has covered social issues — including poverty, healthcare reform, immigration and gay rights. She is a reporter for Reading Eagle in Reading, PA. Previously, she was an general assignment reporter for The Desert Sun.
<p>Nicole Brambila examines some of the factors — income, education, healthy food access and neighborhood safety, just to name a few — that contribute to life expectancy in the Coachella Valley.</p>
<p>So Mother Jones Editor Laura McClure put down the challenge: you don't have to like social media, just do it. Or something like that and flossing... OK, so, here I am again.. blogging.</p><p>At the opening Fellowship weekend in October I knew this was going to be a good experience. I didn't think USC and Michelle could top it, but they did. From a stop at an inner city clinic to the slum housing the poor are forced to live in we saw the inequity up close and personal.</p><p>And the fellows who are going through the Fellowship with me are just fantastic journalists, John included.</p>
<p>So, I'm already running into some challenging snags.</p> <p>A California transplant, I'm still learning about all the ramifications of Prop 13. Coming from Texas, where school district's still raise money the old fashion way, I mistakenly thought the poorest neighborhoods in the Coachella Valley would have the largest class sizes and the smallest per pupil spending.</p> <p>Boy was I wrong.</p>
<p>OK. So, here's a confession.</p><p>Blogging scares me.</p><p>It's not that I can't write down my thoughts. Or that I can't will myself to the computer. It's just that blogs are right and left and crazy with opinions. We all have readers out there lerking in the shadows desperate for a sliver of a bias -- which we all have, but are loathe to admit -- and I hate to give them any ammunition.</p><p>Or is that just my readers?</p><p>LOL.</p><p>Anyway, here's me... writing a blog.</p>
