Not sure if it was Machiavelli or Michael Corleone who originated the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” but it’s been on my mind. The concept came in handy in – of all places – public school! When I was working as a high school principal, I needed to have my ear […]
Bruce Robinson: Ella’s story
(This article was originally published in the Contra Costa Times on Dec. 4, 1999) It has been 36 years since Dr. Martin Luther King captured the hearts and minds of America with his “I have a dream” speech. Judging by the angry response to the passage of Proposition 209 in California not long ago, it […]
Matt Talbot: Reflections on two long wars
This coming Sunday will be the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is hard to believe that 15 years have come and gone since that terrible morning in September of 2001. I awoke that morning to a world that seemed unmoored from any reference point of understanding, any prior experience in my life. The […]
Matt Talbot: The task before the Republican Party
Given the chaos consuming the Republican Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s nomination this year, I think future historians will write about the 2016 presidential election as the year the Republican Party’s internal contradictions finally came to the surface and consumed the party from the inside, leaving it an all-but-empty shell. The Republican Party […]
Bruce Robinson: It takes a village to make lives matter
It should have surprised no one when, on Aug. 19, Donald Trump announced his outreach to African-American voters. He did it by tapping into the same “village” spirit that made America great in the first place. First, he reminded African-Americans they have been consistently and deliberately ignored by the Democratic Party for more than 50 […]
Matt Talbot: Life, death and middle age
“The word nostalgia is learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of nóstos, meaning ‘homecoming,’ a Homeric word, and álgos, meaning ‘pain, ache’” –Wikipedia Nostalgia is the besetting fault of middle age, and I am not immune to infection by its sweet melancholy. I sometimes find myself driving by my old middle school in the […]
Notes from 30,000 feet: A break from politics and going to the movies
If there is one thing I think we all can agree on this political season it is this: November can’t come soon enough. With that in mind, I took a break from work and politics before flying home this past week and managed to watch an old movie favorite; “Casablanca,” which contains one of the […]
Grant Cooke: Benicia’s future is with Patterson, Young and the new economy
If Valero’s crude-by-rail, or CBR, project goes through, it will do irreparable damage to Benicia. If the three councilmembers—Mark Hughes, Christina Strawbridge and Alan Schwartzman— continue their support for the project, they will do an extraordinary disservice to the city. I respect those who work on behalf of local government; however, in this case, the […]
Dennis Lund: For once, Gov. Brown made right call on Manson follower
It’s hard to believe it has been almost 50 years since the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969. Unfortunately we are reminded of these murders on too regular of a basis. They were again in the news recently when Gov. Jerry Brown overruled the parole board’s recommendation to release Leslie Van Houten, one of many Manson […]
Matt Talbot: A look back at Archie Bunker and ‘The Greatest Generation’
In the early 1970s, the most popular show on television was “All in the Family,” a sitcom produced by legendary writer and producer Norman Lear. The show traced the ups and downs of the Bunker family, and was a groundbreaking show for its day. While sitcoms in the 1960s – shows like “Gilligan’s Island,” “Bewitched” […]