Guest View

Have you ever noticed that making plans for air travel and hotels can be more complicated than launching a space craft? People run small countries with less restrictions and red tape than I've found when making travel arrangements this summer. I mean, there oughta be a law.

Editor's Note: Amy M. Stein, the Anti Defamation League for the Peninsula and Silicon Valley's assistant director, wrote this guest column in response to Morgan Hill Times editorial board member John Quick's column July 11 column entitled, "Understanding Terror's True Human Cost Could Bring Peace."

A Palestinian citizen heard recently on a National Public Radio

There is a fair amount of hand wringing in the newspaper

Attention, parents: Have you noticed extra family members underfoot recently? An increase of cookie crumbs on the carpet? Privacy in the bathroom cut to an average 7.5 seconds per visit? 

Graduation is now in the air for high schools and colleges. What fun! But, what's next? I urge all of you, graduates, to "Keep on achieving."

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed in that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more than that."

Although it's a bit faded now, there's an old picture that I like to look at on Father's Day. In it, a blond 5-year-old girl stands in a pale red coat, too short in the sleeves, her brown, scuffed cowboy boots planted wide apart on the sunny surface of a bridge. She's holding a fish. Still on the line, the fish is small, but the little girl's grin is so wide that a wad of bubblegum escapes from one side. The image calls to mind memories much more vivid than the photograph … 

The days left of high school can now be counted on one hand. It's hard to believe that the journey that started 13 years ago will finally come to an end as the Live Oak High School Class of 2006 finally graduates.

"Don't drink, blah." Don't drink and drive, blah, blah, responsible, blah. No, blah, blah, drugs, blah, blah, blah …" By now, this must be what my teens hear when I talk about substance abuse, as I've talked to them about it since I thought they were old enough to understand, which is, for my daughter, since she was 4 when she asked me if she would die early. Jumping on the opportunity, I said "Don't drink alcohol and do drugs, choose friends who stay away from drinking and drugging, and you should live a long time," I told her.