Columns

Many of us of a certain age remember learning how to spell “encyclopedia” from Jiminy Cricket. This small Walt Disney character advised us that if we were full of curiosity and wanted to know the answers, we should get the … (sing it with me now … ) E-n-c-y-c-l-o-p-e-d-i-a.

Sitting outside with friends last night overlooking the Russian River, my thoughts turned to George Gershwin and Ella Fitzgerald. I began to hum, “Summertime, And the livin’ is easy, Fish are jumpin, And the cotton is high…”

I am a newspaper reader. I like holding the paper and scanning the pages. I look at headlines, photos, graphics, study the ad design. I like being able to jump from topic to topic, read a crime story, read a sports story, read my horoscope, in no particular order. I like newsprint. I like how it feels and I like kicking the paper with my knee to bend back the pages.  But newspapers in print are all scaling back in size, pages and distribution. Everyone is moving to a digital format. Young people already do all their news reading on a computer or smart phone. It’s us older fogies that need to adjust.

Rebuttal to Mr. Mortensen

Bring him back

It’s a little early to write one of those “How I spent my summer” essays but there’s nothing wrong with getting a head start on a writing assignment. Besides, the choices and experiences for the short months between school years — for youth, teachers and all others — have multiplied and morphed since the lazier days of summer lifeguards, pumping gas or washing cars.

District 2 Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) was on hand at the July 20 meeting of the Windsor Democratic Club to discuss his 2017 legislative activities. He outlined highlights of the recently passed $183 billion budget with expanded support for K-12 education and additional funding for pre-schools. Wood reported that gas taxes have been increased to pay for repairs to our highways, the condition of which is costing motorists approximately $700 per year in repair costs to their individual vehicles. He touched on other legislation in which he is engaged, including Assembly Bill 1433, which proposes using funds from the recently passed Cap and Trade Extension for carbon sequestration through better management of our forests and natural and working lands.

We all know that healthcare and health insurance costs are wildly unaffordable. What happens when one of our own, who has some means but is not “poor enough” to be given charitable care, has to find a way to survive a cancer diagnosis? Can our community itself devise a way to help this person and others in the future?

Prep time for school

Rebutting Slayter