SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I WORKED IN PHONE-BASED TECH SUPPORT/CUSTOMER SERVICE for a company that made, among other things, custom-printed books that some people used as mementos for weddings. Every once in a while I’d get a call from a newly married woman who was having a … well, “fit” doesn’t capture the flavor of the […]
Jerome Page: On wealth and poverty: Part one
TODAY I PROPOSE TO ENTER THAT MUDDLED MATTER of the division of wealth in this glorious land of ours. I also note the differences in perceptions of the realities involved by political party. Lots of quoted words and a bushel of data illuminating some startling glimpses of our economy, particularly the state of our rich […]
Open letter to Benicia: Stop crude by rail
IN RESPONSE TO JIM LESSENGER’S OPED OF JULY 4, “Open letter to the City Council: Support CBR,” I write today urging Benicia to deny the proposed Valero Refinery Crude-by-Rail Project until all safety measures listed below are in place. I have been carefully following the proposed Benicia project, reading articles from a wide variety of […]
Crewmember Report: Benicia, California, Spaceship Earth: What’s not said
AFTER LIVING IN MARIN FOR MANY YEARS and after 20 years on the payrolls of Northwestern Bell, the U.S. Air Force and Pacific Telephone, I finally saved enough downpayment money to consider buying a home. It was the late 1980s and while I loved Marin, I couldn’t afford the price of an average Marin home. […]
Matt Talbot: Work to be done
IN JUNE, ACCORDING TO THE U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, payroll employment increased by 288,000, and the unemployment rate decreased to 6.1 percent, the lowest during Obama’s presidency. (When he took office during the bursting of the real estate bubble, it was 7.6 percent and rising fast.) The June report was encouraging, for a number […]
Why give Valero city money for a new boiler?
IT’S IMPORTANT FOR US, AS CITIZENS, to be aware of what our city staff and City Council members are doing, as they are the rule makers for our town. After attending the June 17 Council meeting, I became concerned with how the annual grant proposals introduced by the Community Sustainability Commission were addressed by this […]
Think, Dream, Play: The devil and Hobby Lobby
EFFECTIVE THIS WEEK, A FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION has line-item veto rights to federal law. Isn’t that convenient? Because it is owned and operated by a Christian family, Hobby Lobby can now choose not to comply with any portion of the law that offends their sensibilities. Thank you, United States Supreme Court.
Open letter to the City Council: Support CBR
TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT: Ladies and gentlemen, This letter is written in support of the proposed Valero Refinery crude by rail (CBR) project. I have a unique perspective on the issue, for two reasons: • I am a board-certified occupational and environmental medicine physician. Having researched, […]
Matt Talbot: More perfect
My Country ‘tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing AMERICA IS A COMPELLING PLACE TO BEHOLD, in both the literal and more figurative uses of that word “behold.” Sometimes I love America as a child loves a father. This kind of love is the very etymology of the term “patriotism,” from […]
Jerome Page: Bulletins from an exciting new battlefield
BEFORE LAUNCHING INTO ANOTHER VERSION OF MY VIEW of the social and political and environmental realities of our day, of this day and time, I am forced to hold up — to question just what I am about. Are we faced with the crisis of a climate that becomes increasingly responsive to the manifold insults […]