Columnists

You know that indefinable allure you feel toward something you don’t have? But you want? Sure, we’ve all salivated over that certain “je ne sais quoi” epitomized by expensive homes and automobiles or luxury trips to exotic lands. I get that. But really. An old teacup and saucer? Perhaps I should explain.

It’s beginning to look like California will get bullet trains after all, but it won’t be quite as grandiose a system as what the state’s High Speed Rail Authority at first wanted or what voters approved in the 2008 Proposition 1A.

I’ve complained for years about the scourge of ballot-box budgeting – that’s when voters approve propositions that earmark government revenue for specific purposes, circumventing the normal budget process involving the state legislature.

Mitt Romney has recently taken every opportunity to blame the President for the high price of gasoline; for a man with so many vehicles that he is building an car elevator in one of his four houses to store them more efficiently I am sure this is a source of great stress on his personal finances. Since there is no sign that gas prices will be plummeting any time soon we can expect this accusation to continue throughout the campaign.

In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant was president of a country still recovering from a horrendous Civil War, and Chicago suffered a Great Fire that left 90,000 people homeless. Meanwhile, in Gilroy, St. Mary School opened its doors to provide for the children of South Santa Clara County a high-quality education grounded in Catholic values.

‘Of Mice and Men’

As the world marks the centennial of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, my own thoughts recall an ordinary object – a toothbrush salvaged from the debris field surrounding the rusting hull of the great oceanliner that found its final resting place two miles below the Atlantic’s surface.

Despite persistent delusions that it retains plenty of influence, the California Republican Party is in increasing danger of descending into third place among party registration choices of California voters.