Opinion

As I sat on the shore watching my old friend and my daughter cavorting on paddleboards in the early morning sun, the North Sea an unusually flat blue millpond of joy, I could not help the envy rising inside and it was not a...

You imagine it’s a rite of passage, your children eventually getting married. Once they leave home and start building a life with someone, there is an inevitability to it, if they are that way inclined. After our family trip to Montana, my daughter flashed...

Happy June! At Monterey County Free Libraries (MCFL), we are really excited because it’s time for the Summer Reading Club. Summer is the best time of year at the library since we have so many fun programs and prizes. When you sign up for the...

In rural America, hospitals are more than healthcare providers — they are pillars of their communities. They deliver essential medical services, create jobs and support the overall wellbeing of thousands of residents who might otherwise face insurmountable barriers to care. As the CEO of Mee...

For decades in the Salinas Valley, the short-handle hoe, known as “El Cortito,” was used for weeding and thinning rows of crops that kept farmworkers stooped over for long hours each day. Workers were only able to stand and stretch when they reached the...

The headline reads simply “Funny Papers June 18 2025.” Below the headline there is a blank page where on the left margin, expecting to go to work, the cursor waits, and waits, and waits. A quick glance at the clock on the wall lets...

It is a little after 4 a.m. Monday morning and I don’t have a column written for the noon deadline. In fact, I have only the words you are now reading on paper and no more in my head to follow with. So, I...

At the end of this month, Saturday, May 31, at 11 a.m. on the northeast corner of Broadway and North Vanderhurst, city officials will have a ribbon cutting marking the opening of the newest addition to downtown. The King City Downtown Plaza and Visitor...

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.” I don’t recall whose words those are, if I...

The first part of today’s Funny Papers Again column is an off-handed comment on the present politically charged situation, so if you are as fed up with anything even slightly political, just skip to below the three asterisks and read on. In last week’s column,...