I have to confess that I have been woefully ignorant about all the fury and debate surrounding the new Common Core standards. Maybe it’s because my son… Read more “Common Core debate hits my son’s East Bay high school”

Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the bleachers at Las Lomas High School, watching the Knights junior varsity team putting up a valiant struggle against the… Read more “Should high schools do away with football and other sports?”

I’ve been going to the dentist to get fillings and a couple crowns replaced. It’s work that I’ve needed to have done for a while, but put… Read more “The politics of white teeth and America’s income inequality”

With Navy reservist Aaron Alexis, we’re hearing yet another story about someone who was “hearing voices” and slipped into homicidal depression before opening fire in a public… Read more “The Navy Yard shooter, and when pleas for mental health care are discounted”

So, the Save the Pleasant Hill Dome campaign didn’t succeed in saving our wonderful Pleasant Hill Cinearts Dome movie theater. But the outcry and news we generated… Read more “Pleasant Hill to Discuss Preserving Historic and Cultural Resources”

Once again, tumult in the outside world will come home to Walnut Creek Saturday in the form of a rally to protest U.S. military intervention in Syria.… Read more “Walnut Creek: Central Contra Costa’s Protest Central”

Earlier this month, some startling numbers regarding suicide in the United States came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of suicides has been… Read more “Economic recovery? Not according to an alarming increase in suicides”

Critics of the effort to Save the Pleasant Hill Dome (shown here in photo by Nick Bever) enjoyed saying we were foolish trying to preserve this building,… Read more “The Dome Effect: Pleasant Hill to consider enacting commission to manage historical and cultural resources”

And some don’t … Sywest Development, for example … But here is the good news: last week, In-N-Out told the City of Pleasant Hill it was finally… Read more “When a bad development idea angers the public, some companies–In-N-Out–do the right thing …”

We can’t bring the CineArts Dome movie theater back.  But at the Pleasant Hill City Council meeting Monday night, the citizens of Pleasant Hill and surrounding communities… Read more “State law violations in Pleasant Hill Dome demolition? Among the many concerns emerging in the wake of SyWest’s destruction of Contra Costa landmark”