As a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor, I have always been proud to be a Jew. I have no desire for that pride to diminish. However, a unique opportunity has been lost forever. The inhuman barbarism that Hamas released on Israel on Oct. 7 provided an ideal chance to show the world that Jewish values of life […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Dig beyond ‘alternative facts’
In the Nov. 16 issue of the Sun letters section, John Texeira makes some salient points about how the national debt and the costs of inflation are impacting us all (“Bidenomics led to inflation, increased costs for consumers”). Unfortunately, he misread some of the factors leading to these problems. The national debt is indeed an […]
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Disapproval and disarray
Cuesta College Superintendent and President Jill Stearns has been singing the praises of the 1,300-housing-unit Dana Reserve project in Nipomo, touting the space it’s allocating to a new South County campus for the college, and advocating for all the “affordable” housing it’s going to bring to the area. She’s toured the public meeting circuit, speaking […]
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An interfaith inquiry into war, peace, and history
Editor’s note: This commentary originally ran in our sister paper, New Times, on Nov. 2, and we updated the number of casualties on both sides with data from the Associated Press. The tragic spasm of war in Israel and Palestine shocks the senses. Hamas militants launched their vicious attack into Israel on Oct. 7, killing […]
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The hardest thing
Math might be the subject that confuses all of us at times. I know I’m confused by the numbers that Santa Barbara County Planning Commissioner Laura Bridley proffered during a recent meeting. During the Nov. 8 meeting, she was the sole commissioner to vote against the new cycle of the Housing Element—a state requirement to […]
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All-electric trash trucks will cost much more than the current versions
Get ready folks, your trash bills will be growing soon. That doesn’t mean that the service would get any better than it already is, it just means that the cost to your local solid waste utility is going to go up significantly because the state of California will begin requiring the acquisition of fully electric […]
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Bidenomics led to inflation, increased costs for consumers
I wonder if people realize what has brought about increased costs to every facet of our lives? It is called “Bidenomics,” the increased spending and the nonstop printing of money by the federal government is the primary cause of the “out of control” inflation America is experiencing and will continue to experience until spending is […]
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Painful disdain
Santa Maria Planning Commissioner Robert Dickerson has such spite for the state Legislature’s attempts to facilitate housing development that he refused to vote on the city’s attempts to comply with accessory dwelling unit requirements that went into effect 10 months ago. “I cannot express any more than I have many, many times in the past […]
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Giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and leaving God out of it
Decades ago, I earned a Ph.D. in political science. Today I’m ready to toss my diploma into the trash. “Political” and “science” are two words that should no longer be connected. They form an oxymoron, at least in their application to contemporary American governmental processes. U.S. politics are becoming ever more irrational. Americans in […]
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‘No profound thinkers should be censored!’
Censorship in our schools and elsewhere must not be tolerated. Those who question authority are often censored. The most profound thinkers have traditionally been censored. Schools should not be a place for indoctrination by either the right or left, depending on who’s in power. Traditionally, classics like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher […]
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Pipeline pickle
Who’s happy that ExxonMobil pulled the plug on plans to replace its aging oil pipelines? I can tell you who! The Environmental Defense Center (EDC), for one, and lots of other nonprofit organizations dedicated to Get Oil Out. Exxon, aka Pacific Pipeline, no longer has plans to put brand new oil pipelines in where lines […]
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The climate keeps changing no matter how many billions of dollars we spend on stopping it
Changing “climate change” that’s been around for the last 4 billion years is a tough job, but in California, which has only been around for 173 years, our politicians think they have the answer. There have been many misfires along the road to saving the Earth. First it was to stop drilling for oil and […]
