The Canary

The Employment Development Department (EDD) is a disaster. Applying for unemployment benefits is confusing and slow. People who should qualify are being told that they don’t. You can’t fix something if you filled out the online forms wrong or the site crashes while you’re using it. You can’t call the office because nobody picks up.  […]

It’s hard to tell what the actual situation is at the Lompoc federal prison, other than it’s not good.  After promising inmates increased phone minutes to stave off concerns about the loss of other rights, “officials” (we have no idea if they’re local, national, or somethings else) decided to cut off inmate phone access altogether […]

If you get sick, you get sick guys. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, according to 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam, who is raring to get that Santa Barbara County economy up an moving again.  You hear that, Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso? Adam is ready for Do-Reynoso to get her crap together on a […]

Well the COVID-19 count in the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary is up to more than 90 as of April 14—and lord knows it’s probably higher now. As as far as we know, 67 of those are inmates.  It kind of makes you wonder what they are doing over there. Because we do know what they aren’t […]

Stay-in-cage orders have me on a lockdown. I’m just swinging instead of singing, staring longingly out the rain-battered windows, looking for a sign of light and thinking about throwing my phone into the weather.  I need a pick-me-up. A giant wall of fat, wiggly worms that I can eat my way through before flying out […]

Is there a communication breakdown or is it just me?  Maybe I live in a little bubble—surrounded by COVID-19 press conferences, press releases, case numbers, articles, businesses adjusting, and on and on—but it seems like there are people who haven’t received the message.  Like, at all.  To help get the word out to those who […]

I’m feeling a little mopey these days, a little less flamboyantly yellow and a little more decidedly gray, similar the cloudy skies that seem to be following this whole COVID-19 pandemic around on the Central Coast.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about all the rain. We don’t need to be all drought-weary on top […]

There was once a small summer village and a racetrack at Ocean Park. Railroad employees lived near the Surf Station, and many locals learned how to water ski in the estuary of the Santa Ynez River. All of those improvements are long gone because the military acquired the beach and 150 square miles of ranchland […]

 I don’t know much about below-ground critters, I’m more of a winged creature expert, but it seems to me that Groundhog Day wasn’t Feb. 2. It was Feb. 18, during a Lompoc City Council meeting where elected officials had to grapple once again with homeless encampments in the Santa Ynez Riverbed.  It wasn’t so long […]

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”  I had to rack my bird brain for where I’d heard that before. I know it wasn’t from my eagle-eyed copyediting professors back in the day. My one philosophy class?  Oh yeah. It was Voltaire. Other philosophers have expanded on the concept, saying absolute perfection is pretty much impossible, […]

The race for the state Assembly’s 37th District seat is ready for you to judge—as are all the other races for that matter.  As for Monique Limón, she’s bailing and running for state Senate, because Hannah-Beth Jackson termed out—although if Limón wins, I wouldn’t expect any major changes. You know, kind of like when Salud […]