Archive By Section - Editorial
Hardy bugs are eating up the mess
The disaster in the Gulf has been plenty grim. I don't envy paymaster Kenneth Feinberg who has now taken over BP's $20 billion compensation fund. Feinberg is no stranger to trying to compensate those who have lost much, including the families affected by Sept. 11, 2001, and a somewhat lower-profile project to compensate victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech.
Get this cat a job
Here's good news: After years of reading and reviewing business books, I have finally found one volume that is 100 percent guaranteed to improve your life. It's not about moving your cheese or swimming with sharks. It doesn't teach you how to read your boss's mind or provide the seven steps guaranteed to fog the mind of a hiring manager. In fact, this book has absolutely no redeeming features at all, except it does ...
The return of the red ribbon
There are a lot of health problems in the world today. A flu pandemic swept the world last year, prompting the cancellation of some public events and temporarily closed schools. Whooping cough is making a comeback. And your morning eggs could be peppered with salmonella. Despite the plethora of things to worry about, I fear that one fatal disease is in bad need of an awareness jumpstart. Approximately 56,000 people become ...
Leaving home
For the past two weeks, I've been traveling across the country interviewing law students who have applied for jobs at my law firm. I talk to young people from New York who want to be in California, and to young people from California who want to be in New York. Some days, it seems like the only constant is that (almost) no one wants to be where they're from - and where their family is.
The science of learning
It was the summer after my sixth grade year and I was looking forward to spending three months lounging by the community pool with my friends. But my mom had other plans.
What is a city manager?
Recent media scrutiny of city managers - or, more specifically, their compensation - has reached a fever pitch in California and across the country. The city management and governmental compensation abuses uncovered last month in the small Los Angeles suburb of Bell are deplorable and warrant a full investigation. Such trespasses are rare in a profession known for transparency and populated by ...
Change in the wind for council
In two months and two and a half weeks, the face of the Turlock City Council may drastically change.
Real tax increases, real consequences
Taxpayers don't look at taxes the way the people who spend the tax money do. Take the battle over the extension of the "Bush tax cuts." Americans to Washington: They were tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. If Washington allows all or parts of the "Bush tax cuts" to expire at the end of the year, the result won't be to not cut taxes, as Beltway lingo ...
Why voters should tell Sacramento to bag it
There are two kinds of people in California politics: those who want Sacramento to ban plastic grocery bags and those who just want state pols to pass a budget.The budget is after all - what? - only 39 days late.AB1998 would ban the distribution of single-use plastic bags in 2012. Shoppers ...
For whom the Bell tolls
I would like to offer the City of Bell my gratitude for proving that newspapers are still needed in this day and age.
Grizzled veterans of America's math wars
I am a veteran of the math wars. I was there in 1995 when the shiny new California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) test told graders to award a higher score to a student who incorrectly answered a math problem about planting trees - but wrote an enthusiastic essay - than to a student who got the answer right, but with no essay.<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New ...
Wanted: Community leaders
Walt Whitman once said, "A great city is that which has the greatest men and women." Fortunately, Turlock has had the support of great men, women and most importantly leaders who have guided and shaped the city from a railroad stop into a city of almost 70,000 citizens.Since its incorporation in 1908, 20 men have held the position of ...
Carlin’s legacy
I wonder if comedian George Carlin knew in 1975 what he was doing.
Keeping it simple
At every level, we humans have a natural drive to understand the world around us. We try to understand people and the economy (with little success), and we try to understand the natural world around us (with more and more success over time).
A new wave of activism
Prior to 2007, protests in Turlock were a rare occurrence.
Articles by Section - Editorial
Dorner's last day
My friends from out of town want to know what I thought of President Obama's State of the Union address. The answer is simple. I live in Los Angeles. I didn't see or hear the State of the Union address. I was watching the Christopher Dorner manhunt. In the days since Dorner became the most feared name in Los Angeles, my adopted city has gone through an emotional roller coaster: horror at the ...
Time to restore a rusting practice
It's commonplace to be familiar with those particularly disgruntled folks who breathe a sigh of relief at the end of each Valentine's Day. However, if there is one typical feature of Valentine's Day that we should take care to continue, it is writing meaningful cards and letters. I still hold memories of myself enjoying how fresh ink scratched the paper as I wrote all my birthday party thank-you notes nearly seven years ago, ...
Patterson dodges anti-Walmart forces
Patterson has done what Ceres has not, so far: Opened a Walmart Supercenter. It appears the project, which opened last month, dodged the bullet of the anti-Walmart forces. On the other hand, the proposed and approved Ceres Walmart Supercenter is balled up in legal proceedings that could take years. What gives? Why was Ceres targeted by paid Walmart assassin Brett Jolley (the attorney who makes a living by fighting Walmarts up and down California) ...
Famous villain back in the news
My father taught me the line when I was a child: "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!"
Perhaps EPA will invade Mexico next
The Environmental Perfection Agency is finally having its wings clipped.
Do as I say, not as I do
There's a lot that Al Gore says that makes sense. Ditto for Warren Buffet. But the next time they lecture us you may want to see if their words match their actions. Gore has a long history of "do as I say" and "not as I do." It goes back as far as his speech as vice president, lecturing us on the immorality of buying and driving big SUVs and ...
Making the case for Big Brother
If I was a politician, I might be labeled a flip-flopper because I have recently reversed my previous opinion on a local governance issue. The matter in question: red light traffic cameras. Four years ago, the City of Turlock was considering installing red light enforcement cameras at two Turlock intersections. I was personally against the idea of traffic cameras and was happy when the City ultimately decided against their installation. I have since ...
Brown's legacy: Saving the state from splurge spending
Jerry Brown's legacy awaits. And so does the future of California.
Uncle Sam is tough with dopers but not with those who steal billions
I confess. I could care less that Lance Armstrong blood doped. I could care even less whether Barry Bonds and half of baseball uses steroids. They are playing games that happen to be big business. Yes, they either did or may have cheated. But why is this is a national crime? Should the FBI and the Department of Justice be spending inordinate amount of resources going after them? Yes, they broke the law. ...
Theft by any other name...
Information on the Internet should be free. It was the mantra of Aaron Swartz. Odds are you didn't know of him until this week. The 26-year-old man described as a crusader for social justice/cyber activist committed suicide. It was in the wake of federal prosecution for his crime of using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer network to download 5 million academic journal articles from a database that charges for access. Swartz ...
Gone, but not forgotten
It is common knowledge that teachers play a key role in the development of their students' minds and outlook on the world around them. But this oftentimes cliché about the importance of educators never really hits home until a beloved teacher is suddenly gone. My senior year high school English teacher passed away on Saturday. Although it's been over 20 years since I sat in his classroom, the thought that he would no ...
The promise and the pontificators
My eyes filled with tears as I listened to the parents of the victims of the shooting in Newtown, Conn., speak out, many for the first time. They gathered to announce the founding of a nonprofit group, Sandy Hook Promise. Their purpose was to engage in the public dialogue about what they called "gun responsibility." They want something positive to come from their children's deaths. They did not endorse a specific proposal. They ...
A vital need
A few weeks ago I lost the use of my toilet and learned firsthand just how much I missed it when it wasn't there.
Scouts linger in the Victorian Age
There is little argument that gay teens have been in Scouting since the movement started a century ago.
Don’t let technology taint your attitude
As we plow through this new year head on and heartened, it is a given that we will encounter technology in its newest and most thrilling forms. However, the ever-increasing reliance on digital devices poses some thorny questions about what technology could be doing to our attitudes. The proof is in the pudding as the primary purpose of most digital devices today is to cater to our ease and to gratify information needs ...
Sections:
- NEWS |
- SPORTS |
- OPINION |
- ARTS/LEISURE |
- LIVING IN 209 |
- HOME SCENE |
- SPECIAL SECTIONS |
- CELEBRATIONS |
- MOVIES |
- OBITS |
- REGIONAL NEWS
Services:
Submit News:
Online:
Contents of this site are © Copyright 2011 The Turlock Journal, CA. All rights reserved.
