Culver City Observer -

By Neil Rubenstein

Observer Columnist

Beginning in 2016 students at California community colleges must maintain a 2.0 or C average to be eligible for a waiver to exempt them from paying tuition.

Now that we are in a super duper drought, can we return to an ancient garden practice? Try burying a narrow-neck unglazed pot up to the neck, place plants close by, fill the pot with water, cover the pot hole with a stone and the pot (called an olla) will seep water to the plants’ roots without losing a drop to evaporation. For best results, keep the pot full.

In the Sierra Madre Police Department evidence room there are over 600 items waiting for their owners to claim them. The police decided to post photos of the recovered loot online so that it will be easier and faster for the owners to recognize their missing property. This good idea works great for the police and the victims.

How many suffer from chronic sinus infections? Help is here. The answer is based on angioplasty. It’s balloon sinuplasty and takes 30 minutes in the doctor’s office to open the sinus cavity and restore natural drainage. You can return to work the next day.

A blood test that can predict with 90 % accuracy if a healthy person will develop Alzheimer’s disease within three years has been discovered by researchers at Georgetown University. To learn more go to http://www.georgetown.edu.

I don’t really know, but a friend told me about the third Wednesday of the month and the activities in downtown Culver City. I hope it’s true: drink and food specials, free samples and discounts from over 25 bars, restaurants and retail stores – another great idea from Steve Rose and the Chamber of Commerce. See downtownculvercity.com.

Free admission to the Museum of Ventura County, including galleries and special events, is on the first Sunday of each month: 100 E. Main St., Ventura. Phone: (805) 653-0323 or venturamuseum.org.

For those who need to know the voter registration and voter rights workshop for Californians with criminal convictions, log onto http://www.nanagyamfi.com. All Californians finished with parole, mandatory supervision or post-release community supervision can have their voting rights automatically restored when parole or supervision is done.

Maria AKA the wild gypsy lady read my tea leaves and saw interest rates by the end of 2014 should be 5% to 5.5% for a 30-year mortgage.

Need a job? Texas might be the place to go because their jobless rate by the end of the year could be about 5.3%.

The states of California and New York have entered into a formal partnership. If a taxpayer is due a refund in one state but owes a tax debt in the other, the refund will automatically be used to pay the state holding the debt.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is standing behind the findings of the initial autopsy of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson. Johnson was found upside down, rolled in a wrestling mat, in his high school gymnasium. Authorities in Macon suggest Kendrick, an Afro-American, dropped his shoe and went head first to try to retrieve it, dying accidentally. Oh, yes, what about hemorrhaging on the right side of Johnson’s head and the order from the courts for the police to release all surveillance video tapes? Just turns my stomach.

If you have trouble with justice in Macon, what about Fort Worth, Texas where a 16-year-old driving allegedly under the influence killed four pedestrians? The sentence: 10 years probation!!!

Oh, Maria, please look into my cabinet drawer labeled “lower our taxes” and bring me the folders on “pot shops.” Perhaps Mayor Sahli-Wells has read how much dough Colorado is raking in with its marijuana sales or how much bread the City of Los Angeles generates with newly passed Proposition D. Mayor, couldn’t we allow a store in the Hayden Tract? We could use the revenue for wages, medical and sewer run off costs, and give some money to the schools. If nothing else, what about letting the voters decide if they want pot shops?

Despite 75 years of federal marijuana prohibition, the Justice Department said on August 29, 2013 that states can let people use the drug, license people to grow it and even allow adults to stroll into stores and buy it – as long as the weed is kept away from kids, the black market and federal property.

Over a seven-year period the office manager embezzled $360,000 or $1,000 per week. No, I don’t know why the auditors didn’t catch her. She did plead guilty to 117 felony counts of forgery, 23 counts of computer access fraud and two counts of willfully failing to file tax returns. The sentence: four years in state prison and a million dollars in restitution taxes and fines. Her employer was the Anaheim Police Union. After she gets out, do you think she will be given a second chance?

For those who missed an article, all my commentaries can be found at http://www.culvercityobserver.com by placing Rubenstein in that website’s search box.