Editorial

Wear Purple in Support

Raise the age

Some time ago a column entitled “Religion challenges left and right” by E. J. Dionne, Jr. appeared in the Press Democrat. “Whenever I write sympathetically about religion,” he noted, “I get bombarded with tweets and notes from readers who normally agree with me but cannot abide by the idea that religious belief should be seen as intellectually serious.” Having made that caveat he goes on to treat religion seriously in a summary of a study produced by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution. Dionne himself took part in the research for the study. The study divides citizens into four groups: 28 percent religious conservatives, 38 percent religious moderates, 19 percent religious progressives, and 15 percent nonreligious. These groups are correlated to political attitudes and party affiliations.  Not surprisingly, most religious conservatives are politically conservative and gravitate to the Republican Party, and most religious progressives and nonreligious are politically liberal and gravitate to the Democratic party.  Also not surprisingly, religious moderates are in between and just as they are religiously moderate they tend to be moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats in fairly equal numbers. 

Editor: We wish to publicly recognize and congratulate HUSD

Dangerous patch

Our California drought is a tangle of mathematics problems. And, so far, it doesn’t look like the numbers are adding up. Facing our worst drought in 120 years, we know the severe lack of rain will require a lot of subtraction and sacrifice. This math test is no longer optional. Last week, Gov. Brown made it mandatory and we all have to save a minimum of 25 percent over previous rates of water usage.