Opinion

"It's tough to write a Thanksgiving column when the nation's economy is going so badly and so many of my fellow citizens are hurting. The problem for me is that I don't have the outlook of the politicians, they make their bones by being overly optimistic. I like to believe that I'm a realist, which also makes me a pessimist."  That was the opening of my Thanksgiving message for 2010, and nothing much has changed since. If anything, they have gotten worse.

Every politician wants to rebuild the Hoover Dam – at least metaphorically. At one time the national frustration phrase was, "If we can put a man on the moon why can't we...?" Now the moon is "old cheese" and we're invoking the Hoover Dam, but could we even build it today?

Reader upset about Gavilan board president's response

By Laura Perry

A county employee showed inconceivable neglect by failing to file in-home support services claims for state reimbursements totaling nearly $400,000, but the error points to a larger management problem and a need for officials to establish a more reliable system of checks and balances to ensure another serious misstep doesn't happen again.

The alleged sexual abuse of minors and cover-ups at Penn State, other instances involving the Catholic Church and cases where school administrators concealed educator misconduct in exchange for resignations all form an alarming pattern that must be addressed. The incidents involve two phases and trusted institutions. The first phase is an allegation or suspicion of abuse; the second phase is a failure to report - or attempt to hide – the incident by persons of authority and responsibility. The abuse is more egregious on the criminal scale, but on the scale of moral responsibility, the failure to report the events to law enforcement or social services is as disturbing and even more bewildering.

A majority of Hollister council members were out of touch with the community's priorities when they approved a completely irrational set of new traffic impact fees that stand to send an anti-business message to prospective developers.