Archive By Section - Columnists
Marsha McLean: Live from City Hall
One of the comments I often hear from people who visit Santa Clarita for the first time is how beautiful our city looks.
Daryl Cagle: That First Amendment can be soooooo annoying
I syndicate the cartoons of Rick McKee, the brilliant, conservative cartoonist from The Augusta Chronicle, to newspapers around the world.
Tim Myers: Competition is the spice of local life
Our youngest son, a senior at Valencia High School, ain't happy. At least his Twitter feed indicates a certain upset with the sports staff of The Signal. What upset our 6-foot, 2-inch-tall co-captain of the powerful Valencia varsity tennis team, who recently decided to attend the University of Nevada? During the tennis off season, he counts himself a member of Viking Nation, the student athletic rooting section for Valencia High School, along with a trunkful ...
Danny Tyree: Voluntary retirement: Can you take a hint?
With an editorial titled "Pope Sets Example For Other Aging Leaders," USA Today tried laying a major guilt trip on the nation's authority figures.
Rick Jensen: Gun law didn’t stop shooting in Delaware
Welcome to Delaware, reader. While "our own" Joe Biden was promoting government control of your gun accessories in the nearby major media market of Philadelphia, network, local and national press reporters wheeled into "DelaWhere?" to document the horrible carnage of a most violently dysfunctional custody and child support battle.
Dick Polman: Christie’s girth is a truly weighty issue
Chris Christie got laughs on the Letterman show last week when he showed up with a doughnut. I get what he was trying to do. People keep goofing on his girth, and a former White House doctor had just told CNN that if Christie were elected president, "I'm worried about this man dying in office." So he figures that the best way to defuse the issue is to make light of his weight. But this ...
Joe Gandelman: Horsing around with Europe’s beef supply
Beef contaminated with horsemeat has sparked a multi-nation controversy in Europe. It's no secret that the French have long been galloping gourmets. Gobbling horsemeat there dates back to the country's 18th century revolution, when rich folks' horses began to fill food supply gaps. Today horsemeat is still found in many stores there. The French's appetite for it has declined. But partygoers in the United Kingdom would be utterly sickened if they discovered they ate horse ...
Gary Horton: Woeful waste water fees are water torture
Over at the Santa Clarita Economic Development Corporation last week, things got rightfully hot and bothered over ... storm water run-off.
Richard Hood: Want to be a world changer? Be a man
The greatest need the world has is for you to be a man. This is not an easy thing to learn and must be taught. You must put away childish attitudes and learn to do the right thing. You must choose who will be your teacher, your mentor, your counselor, your friend, your father figure. Let others follow the crowd, sports heroes and music idols. They have nothing to say and nothing to offer. ...
Tom Purcell: It's all Nixon's fault
It's Nixon's fault. I speak of the financial woes of the U.S. Postal Service and the news last week that its hopes to cut Saturday mail delivery to save a few billion dollars a year. As it goes, President Nixon, tired of strikes by then-government postal workers, signed the Postal Reorganization Act into law in 1971. It established the Postal Service as a quasi-private organization required to pay its own bills with revenue it earns ...
Charlie Vignola: You built that, but not alone
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republicans got a lot of mileage from President Obama's famously - and deliberately - misquoted line, "You didn't build that."
Diana West: Another attempt to silence critics of Islam
I may be the only American who has seen both the "panic room" where Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard fled in 2010 as a Somali Muslim man hacked at the door with an ax, and the apartment house where recently Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, 70, was almost killed by an "Arab"- or "Pakistani"-looking man posing as a postman.
Steve Lunetta: Severe left turn right about now
"Dumb moderates and Republicans never saw it coming. I fooled 'em. Fooled them all! I even hoodwinked liberals along the way. Lincoln was wrong - you can fool all of the people all of the time!"
David Hegg: Why the rule of law?
Since our founding, the United States of America has been committed to the "rule of law." This term, while familiar, is often not understood. We believe in it, but most of us don't really know what it means.
Cokie and Steven Roberts: The debate over immigration reform
The gathering debate over immigration reform is really about two different groups. One is the 11 million immigrants who are here illegally. The other was described by President Obama as "the folks who try to come here legally but have a hard time doing so."
Articles by Section - Columnists
David Hegg: Of progress and purpose
There is no debate that time marches on. The sun rises, shines, and sets, and then does it all over again, day after day. And each day we encounter the unknown components of a whole new 24-hour set of life experience.
The Village Idiot: Why I hate my Facebook friends
When I first signed up for Facebook, I was thrilled to get back in touch with old friends, distant relatives, high school classmates and old co-workers. I'd check in to find out that they had new children, new spouses, new lives, new hobbies, new kitchens, new news.
Gary Horton" Why can't California be more like Texas?
I just returned from a three-day business trip to Austin, Texas. This was my third visit to Austin in 18 months. Each time, my visit has focused on business opportunities stemming from Austin's robust population growth.
Jonathan Kraut: Domestic violence advocates needed
My firm was contacted last year to support a domestic case involving a young woman and her year-old baby. She needed help keeping legal custody of her child. The baby's father, a volunteer counselor with a drug rehab program, had claimed the mother of his child was unfit and a drug user.
Tom Purcell: Speech to the best graduating class ever
Students, faculty, family members and friends, it is my great honor to deliver your commencement speech today.
Jason Stanford: What Rick Perry can learn from California
The faux pas bordered on sedition. The Texas Association of Dairymen sent blocks of mild cheddar to state senate offices "in appreciation for your hard work this legislative session on behalf of the people of Texas." Legislative offices often get free-and perfectly legal-swag from special interests. The problem arose when someone read the label. The company that made the cheese was based in California.
Cliff Schecter: The United States really needs to grow up already
This country needs an enema. I paraphrase, of course, from Jack Nicholson's take on Gotham City in his turn at The Joker.
Maria Gutzeit: Cycling is not all about Lance
Recently, people asked me with sincerity in their eyes if I am reconsidering my involvement in cycling because of the Lance Armstrong scandal. My response: Pftttt.
Byron York: Winning Hispanic vote not enough for GOP
After six months of mulling over November's election results, many Republicans remain convinced that the party's only path to future victory is to improve the GOP's appeal to Hispanic voters.
Michael Berger: Bill helps colleges meet student needs
Higher education is undergoing significant changes such as we've never seen before. And while we're charging forward to integrate technology in the classroom, offer online learning, and enhance the academic support available to students outside of the classroom, we find ourselves being held back by a relic of the past.
David Hegg: We need a society of heroes
The past months have been a constant barrage of stories about tragedy. Horror in Newtown, bombs in Boston, flooding in the Midwest, fires in SoCal … all bringing loss of life, loss of property, and loss of our sense of wellbeing. But in every case there were also stories of exceptional devotion to duty, to courage, and to an essential ingredient in healthy society: sacrificial service.
Tim Myers: A battle in a war already lost
On May 2, 2013, I took the day off from work to watch the Foothill League tennis tournament. (Results of this tournament posted elsewhere in the pages of this newspaper. Just sayin'!)
Peter Funt: The wider our options the more narrow our interests
I've never heard a hotel guest argue that he should pay less if he declines to swim in the pool. And I've yet to encounter a coffee drinker who believes a latte would be cheaper if shops quit providing wi-fi to customers who don't use it.
Marsha McLean: Live from City Hall
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Santa Clarita will be on center stage with an international audience. We are thrilled to have been selected as a host city for the 2013 Amgen Tour of California with both a Start and Finish stage.
Rick Jensen: Do we still need Dept. of Education?
When executives of corporations are caught aiding and abetting criminal behavior of their employees, the executives are prosecuted and the businesses are destroyed.
