Canary

I am so damned tired of breathing in all this smoke, blinking ash out of my eyes, and hearing the buzz of helicopters and water tankers all day and night. If it’s not enough that our county was one of the few in the state that’s still under severe drought, now two monster wildfires have […]

You smell that? No, I don’t think it’s a pack of skunks, it’s something else… could it be, Santa Barbara County’s new recreational marijuana regulations? The County Board of Supervisors’ Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Cannabis Operations in Santa Barbara County announced how the cannabis industry will roll out in Santa Barbara County […]

I might come off a little grumpy this week. I’m sorry about that, but I’ve got an excuse—my back hurts! You could call it an occupational hazard of sitting at a desk all day. I bet some Santa Maria Police Department officers are going to be dealing with some lower back pain come mid-July. They’ll […]

I don’t know about you, but when I think of people throwing shade, the last thing that comes to mind is “grand jury report.” These days, people mostly talk trash to each other in comments sections, on Twitter (you know who I’m talkin’ about), in text messages—anything but face to face. And now it seems […]

Wake up and smell the coffee everyone! As a journalist, I can’t wake up without smelling some coffee, but you know what I mean. I’m sure that 4th District County Supervisor Peter Adam and 5th District County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino want the other county supes to wake up and smell the budget deficit. We’re talking […]

Have I ever pissed you off? It’s entirely possible—I’m an opinionated little bird. But what is it about an opinion, just these words printed on paper that can excite anger, loathing, and even hate? Well, fluttering around newspapers most of my life, I have an extensive data set to pull from. The opinion page is […]

So, did you enjoy Memorial Day weekend? Did you hit the lake? Go camping? Or, like many locals, were you still stuck working on the holiday? The journalism business doesn’t really lend itself to three-day weekends. If you’re lucky enough to enjoy the time off at all, as soon as you get back to the […]

Hey everyone, pissed off yet? No? Well, some people haven’t stop being pissed off. Like the activists and organizations that spent weeks lining up for public comment to have their say at numerous Santa Maria City Council meetings regarding the new district map, only for the council to ultimately choose the map drawn up by […]

You can’t spell ideology without idiot. Well, OK, they’re not exactly the same, but you get the point. According to Merriam-Webster.com, ideology loosely means “a systematic body of concepts.” But that doesn’t tell the whole story. I’ve always taken ideology to mean a worldview that is impervious to contradiction or outside influence. Maybe that’s what […]

Oh geez, the budget problem just hit Lompoc like a ton of bricks. For the same reason that Santa Barbara County is in the hole—more expensive employee pensions—the Lompoc City Council is considering putting funding for outside agencies on the chopping block. That might leave the Lompoc Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Bureau, the Lompoc […]

What kind of a person are you? Did you giddily stay up until midnight to catch the latest Minuteman III launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, like a kid waiting for Santa Claus? Or did you sleep like a baby through the test launch of one of the world’s most technologically advanced weapons systems happening […]

Ugh, here it is again, that hellish thing we’ve all been dreading. No, I’m not talking about the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors’ budget hearings—I’m talking about allergy season! Am I the only one who feels like they’ve got their beak in a vice? It sure seems the supervisors are allergic to social and […]