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I have worked with non-profits for almost 25 years now, but after a recent United Way effort to develop some new goals for meeting basic needs in this county, I've become a little enamored of the front-line emergency services agencies that I never really paid much attention (or respect) to before. These are the ones that were started by a group of people who wanted to meet a basic need – (most often food). Their service is born from heeding a call to live the gospels, to serve their neighbors in need and their sense of what's right.

"Public commissions, boards, councils and other legislative bodies of local government agencies exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. The people do not yield their sovereignty to the bodies that serve them. The people insist on remaining informed to retain control over the legislative bodies they have created."

Global warming. Regional response. Individual action. 

Good heavens ... this is getting out of hand. Seriously. I thought I could just ignore the proposed bill by Assemblywoman Sally (Motto: "I have no kids and therefore know more than you do about raising them") Lieber of Mountain View. But Ms. Lieber, mother of a politically correct cat or something, has become a media darling recently as she touts her plan to let government further intervene in our day-to-day lives – specifically by making it illegal for a parent (or other caregiver) to issue a swat on the bottom of an errant child under the age of four.

Talk to anyone in Morgan Hill about our police department and the conversation usually focuses in on the need for more police officers. Even when new positions are created and funded, finding people to fill them is a greater challenge. If you are a student thinking about a career, think about one in law enforcement.

If you are a reasonably observant person, you've no doubt noticed that most plastic containers have a number surrounded by a set of chasing arrows. Here's your weekly eco-quiz, don't worry ... it's multiple choice, which gives you a chance to gauge your eco-knowledge:

When the syndicated newspaper columnist Art Buchwald died in mid-January, America lost the insights of a man who always looked at the world through the prism of irony.

As a nasty virus made its presence unpleasantly and unmistakably known late last Monday night, I tossed and turned in bed, too miserable to sleep and irritated by a high-pitched, wobbly electrical whine. Although I had noticed it the last few nights, I'd successfully ignored the sound. This night, the whine grated my very last nerve. However, also on this night, on one of my many trips to the bathroom, I discovered the source of the bothersome noise – the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner on its charger – and silenced it.

It is a fact that two words still strike terror in my heart: Valentine's Day. This is not because I don't believe in love and hearts and all. It's just that every Feb. 14 I suffer unfortunate flashbacks to my grade-school days, which, truth be told, occurred lots of decades ago.

Some months ago, a friend and colleague called. Her good friend moved out of the country and she was missing someone to go out and play with. So, she asked if I would like to take a Gavilan community education class with her? How about African Caribbean drumming? I have a bad habit of doing things just because certain people ask me to. Just on the basis of my relationship with and trust in someone, I sometimes find myself in the strangest places or doing things I never thought I would have, especially when I myself am in a rut of doing the same old same old.