Patty Pierose (II)

Part II of an interview with Patty Pierose, who tells us about one of those moments in class when you say to yourself, "Aha!":

"Holy Cow Moments...the one that leaps to mind happened in Todd Shallat’s class. I was researching the Oakland fire in the early 90’s, and I was stunned to find out that Proposition 13 came into play. A cap on taxing of the especially valuable homes in the foothills left fire services woefully underfunded. Then the wealthy homeowners turned on the city for not protecting them. So, in the aftermath, a great number of changes came into play; insurance prices rose, which meant everyone had to pay for the wealthy to have left their cities in disastrous shape. Also, the 1989 earthquake had an enormous impact on homes in lower income areas, but no one rushed to help them out (of course). Jill Gill is fond of pointing out that the sin of greed is mentioned more times in the Bible than any other one. I mean the thing is, I would not have picked the topic as near and dear to me, but I ended up teaching myself so much about a relatively recent event…"