Letters To The Editor

 If increased taxes concern your readers, Etta Waterfield is the candidate for the 33rd Assembly District seat most skilled to fight for constituents in Sacramento. Her election would contribute fresh, non-political ideas and common sense at the capitol.  Her experience and knowledge as a former director of economic development and as a Santa Maria planning […]

Elections season is in full swing, and along with countless signs around town the commercials are now rolling in. A radio spot promoting Joyce Dudley for Santa Barbara County District Attorney made me chuckle and gave me insight into the best candidate for the job. The ad cites Ms. Dudley’s experience and the number of […]

No-tax groups are not against taxes, only those for services they don’t like: those that help others than themselves. I don’t like my taxes going for our troops being killed and maimed in useless, unwinnable wars. I don’t like supporting churches with my taxes. I don’t like supporting large airports I will never use, and […]

Several thousand years ago, the Greeks decided to institute an idea of one of their popular philosophers, Democritus. They finally concluded that even though the idea of government run by the people was a wonderful idea, the major weakness was that the people rapidly ran the government into bankruptcy by voting in every luxury they […]

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst man-caused disaster—ever. We never learn. The oil mess off Santa Barbara in 1969 woke us up locally—but not the rest of civilization. I had hoped we could control our technology, but apparently we can’t. Why do we call ourselves Homo sapiens—meaning “man wise”—when […]

Asking the question “why” can reveal truths and provide solutions. Wanting to go beyond assumptions and dubious assertions, I seemed to remember that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had something to do with the current illegal immigration problem. According to info on the web, here are a few interesting facts: In 1994, the […]

All this fuss about Sarah Palin’s speaking fees and demands raises an existential question: What is the point of CSU Stanislaus?

“Noisy hoards of fossil fueled machines that speed down a public beach … .” First, I believe it was the safety of the children: Off-road vehicles were endangering children who were at the beach. Next, it was the number of people killed at the Dunes, one or two per year—people needed to be stopped from […]

I have lived on the Central Coast for more than 30 years and heard the arguments for and against the ATV riders on the dunes. What prompts me to write now is the ridiculous notion that if we finally close the dunes to these outsiders (Fresno/Central Valley rats) our towns would turn into ghost towns […]

The death of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is greatly exaggerated. The national organization, leaders, and founders, after years of fighting the federal and state governments’ neglect of the illegal immigration problem, are in the process of retiring the national corporation and passed the ball to the regional, state, and local Minuteman Civil Defense Corps […]