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WHAT: Prop. 10, California’s First Five Campaign to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Children Up to Age 5
WHO: Starring Rob Reiner, with Guest Appearances by Tipper Gore, C. Everett Koop, and Former State Assemblyman Mike Roos.
High Five
Kristine Breese
Best way to pretend the ’60s never ended: Burning
Man
The anarchistic/sensualist/-
art/tribal festival
held in the Nevada desert actually started
on Baker Beach, San Francisco, attended by just 20 people. In 2006, the mock city hosted almost 40,000 peoplemore than the population of Liechtenstein.
IMPACT: In the 1990s, writer/director/actor Reiner took up early-years children’s health as an issue along with well-placed allies such as Koop, the former surgeon general, and Gore, wife of the then-vice president. Roos, a former state assemblyman, approached Reiner after hearing the actor speak at the National Governors Association in 1997, and they jointly introduced Prop. 10. First Five spawned myriad health and welfare programs throughout California, most focused on preparing kids
to enter kindergarten "school ready." Although a compendium of other "first five" initiatives does not exist, a quick Google search nets several million citations, including programs at NYU, Yale, Boston Public Library, and the Benevolent
Society in Australia.
AP Photo/Rene Macura
EUREKA MOMENT: The Los Angeles
Times reported that Reiner, son of Hollywood luminary Carl Reiner, first became interested
in child development when his psychologist sister Annie suggested he explore in therapy issues from his own formative years. There he grew increasingly curious about the childhood factors that shape the adult—and the couch gave birth to a cause.
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