KEN McCALIP

For many years I have been aware of the extreme dangers on the narrow two-lane Highway 166 between Santa Maria and Bakersfield. It was good to see the Cuyama Valley speaking up in unison requesting help with this roadway. Because we own a small ranch in the Cuyama Valley, I frequently use this roadway. Back […]

In every local community in America it is apparent that the lies and misdeeds of Washington’s La-La Land impact our nation’s standing and tarnish our country’s reputation and place each and every community’s safety in peril! Now is the time for us all to act locally as one to protect those principles that our Founding […]

Well, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Scott Pruitt finally made the announcement, but will local Mike Stoker, a former Santa Barbara County supervisor, live to regret his recent appointment as Region 9 EPA administrator and his association with President Donald Trump’s EPA? Most competent people run the opposite direction from any appointments to the Trump […]

It’s time for all of us baby boomers as well as all Americans to take a look back to our time in high school and grammar school and visualize the classrooms in America that gave us a secure beginning and a basis for our future with loving and dedicated teachers. For the vast majority of […]

Donald Trump’s ill-conceived bravado concerning America’s farming and industrial interest, when turned into policy, is leading America in the opposite direction of success. It’s easy to be loud and boisterous and against everything on the campaign trail, but when turned into real-life action, it is against America’s best financial interest. Slowly, ever so slowly, he […]

The time of our walking and talking zombie security threat is now upon America, but will our country last until the 2018 midterm elections? We have a mentally unstable leader who is acting as if he were back in the schoolyard dealing with a playmate. His latest tweet with the North Korean president is one […]

We all in America need to put gun violence in perspective. Most Americans do not realize that we have nearly twice as many guns at 88.8 per 100 citizens as any other nation. Researchers have correlated guns with higher homicide rates in the United States. After the horrific shootings at the Route 91 Harvest Country […]

It was with much reflection that I read of the retirement of Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools Bill Cirone. His retirement has made me reflect on our many years of service as the two of us started off in the county during a similar time frame. I had just started working in a small […]

With approval ratings for the first 100 days at times as low as 38 to 40 percent, lower than any other new president’s ratings, President Donald Trump has managed to be the main topic around the large majority of American dinner tables as we all discuss ways to rid ourselves of this real danger to […]

The new OASIS community center proposed for Old Town Orcutt will add to the long history of the area and needs our generous support. In early 1868, Absolom Stubblefield, fresh from the California gold fields, made his way down the treacherous Cuesta Grade with his family, Indian guides, horses, and 160 head of cattle. Stubblefield […]

In the turmoil surrounding President Trump I am sure you have lost count of all the off-the-cuff executive orders flying off his desk and lips. We all love the fast, action-packed Western movies where the villains and pursuers shoot off the hip without a second thought in split-second drama, but this is not a movie […]

Today people have zeroed in on many of the causes of growing violence in our American society, such as unrestricted access to military-grade weapons, mental illness, and terrorism.  No one, however, has mentioned our obsession with around-the-clock opinion-news babble. This obsession seems to correspond to the growing violence in our country and around the world. So-called news […]