Opinion

October is a funny old month. Some days are hot as summer, yet with stilled winds in the afternoons and an icy bite to the early mornings and evenings. November can be more of the same, yet the time of year is marked by...

I was reading about the origins of Christmas and the various ways the day is celebrated around the world. It is a day with a history that originally involved more than a few countries and belief systems. What we know today as Christmas has...

Letters to the Editor | Published Sept. 19, 2018

Funny how the mind works. Today I was blankly sitting in front of my laptop with no idea what to write about, tuned to KCBX, the local NPR radio station, when a report from Chicago mentioned the famous circular downtown roadway known as the...

With the changing of the times and the lessening of the daylight, I must annually go on self-watch alert. There is something about darkness during the daytime that makes me, well, dark. I can get the gloomies very easily when the clocks fall back...

To the Editor: Recently, I was reading the extensive Wikipedia Art Deco history website. In it, I was pleasantly surprised to see a photo of King City’s Stanton Auditorium featured as one of only four examples of “Late Deco” architecture. Like so many things, you can...

To the Editor: Today I read about an upcoming ceremony for veterans who served in Vietnam. Unlike other military members in previous wars, they were not given a hero’s welcome upon their return. Now, 50 years after their homecoming, the Vietnam War Commemoration is honoring veterans with...

It’s 3:17 a.m. early Wednesday morning, nine hours before deadline for this column and I haven’t 1,000 cohesive words anywhere in my head: not a scintilla of theme. This is not often the case when offering this column on a weekly basis (or is...

When I was a young man — oh, about 12 — I wondered why we even had to go to school. I got along with all my classmates and even liked my teacher, but on a day when the sun was out and the...

Believing nursing to be her divine purpose, a young British woman set out to reform healthcare in the 1800s — influencing the quality of care we take for granted in modern times. Florence Nightingale changed nursing forever during the Crimean War in 1854, leading a...