I’ve mentioned before that I drive for one of the car sharing services to help make ends meet while I work on a book about my experiences growing up in Richmond. A few days ago I had a passenger who told me about her niece, who had turned 6 years old a couple months ago. […]
Cannabis: History and politics
Historic medical and cultural journals credit the ancient Chinese with first recognizing the medicinal applications of the cannabis plant. Emperor Fu Hsi (circa 2900 B.C.) indicated that cannabis possessed the qualities of yin and yang, and was a very popular medicine. Around 1450 B.C., a recipe for “holy anointing oil” is recorded in the Old […]
Matt Talbot: The absurdity of despair
“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” –Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City” Have you noticed how green the hills across the water are? I take Mom to lunch on Wednesdays, and afterward this week we took a drive around the Bay Area, and everywhere we went the hills were […]
Cannabis: Myth and medicine
By Stan Golovich Special to the Herald I believe that cannabis can be regulated, taxed, and used responsibly by adults (21), just like alcohol, and that Proposition 215 patients in Benicia should have local safe access. Last November, 9,559 Benicia voters– 63 percent– said “Yes” to Proposition 64, also known as the Adult Use of […]
Matt Talbot: Matt’s ideal world
Rather than spend words in this week’s column decrying the latest mismanagement by the clown show currently being run out of the big house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in our nation’s capital, I thought I’d actually talk about what America would look like, were Americans irresponsible enough to elect me president, and assuming I had […]
Dennis Lund: Freely admitting to being completely flummoxed by recent events
The word ‘flummoxed’ is one I have never used to describe reactions to any past events. But what we have seen post-election, more specifically since the inauguration, have indeed made that word appropriate. Many aspects of the events of the past 90 days are bewildering indeed. Reflecting on some of the high (or low notes), […]
Bruce Robinson: The DeVos flap– insight or oversight?
On the same day President Trump picked Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) head, Randi Weingarten, condemned Mrs. DeVos as “the most ideological, anti-public-education nominee put forward since President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education.” Right away, National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia added her ire to […]
Matt Talbot: What is the right size of a government?
In Catholic social teaching, there is an organizing principle called “subsidiarity.” Subsidiarity means that societal needs ought to be addressed as close to the problem as possible. For example, if there is a pothole in the street outside your house, you wouldn’t call your Senator to complain about it. You would notify the Benicia Public […]
Christina Strawbridge: Benicia is a great tourist destination
The city of Benicia’s investment of $65,000 a year for its contract with Wolf Communications has been questioned because the city cannot definitively show a direct link between either the number of tourists who visit Benicia nor the dollars spent by those visitors. It is not realistic to base one’s opinion on the absence of […]
Matt Talbot: Some thoughts on a massacre, 4 years later
One refrain heard from the NRA after every mass shooting incident by a lone deranged gunman is that it is “too soon” to have a political discussion about guns and gun control – that to have that discussion is to “politicize a tragedy.” Well, it has been a little over four years since Adam Lanza […]