Nearly two years ago, America elected its first African-American president. Observers by the score commented on the significance of a biracial president, and wondered whether it finally signaled that race relations had improved in America.

So have the intervening months proved anything about prejudice? Do minorities now feel that all things are possible in America? Do whites feel free of their own prejudices?

The decision of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) to support the registration of the pesticide methyl iodide is irresponsible because its proposed mitigations will not avert potentially devastating health and environmental impacts.

The proposed registration is misplaced in light of compelling evidence presented by the external scientific peer review committee commissioned by DPR. Once methyl iodide is approved, there will be no turning back from its dangerous and potentially lethal effects.  Workers and families in rural regions deserve protection from this highly volatile and toxic pesticide. The only means to protect public health and the environment is to prohibit the use of methyl iodide in California.

At the time of this writing, all eyes here are on Capitol Hill, where Elena Kagan is sitting through her third day of hearings, and congressional negotiators are hard at work in the aftermath of the death of Robert Byrd, the 92-year-old Democratic senator from West Virginia.

People around town are parsing Kagan's words. An entire cohort of folks are counting up votes to see if financial reform is dead or alive as a result of the passing of Sen. Byrd. Passions rise and fall, as if it's a World Series or a World Cup match.

Washington is a company town—and the company is the government that runs our entire country and dominates the world stage.

or I Can’t Believe I Watched the Whole Thing
The June 8 election has come and gone, and now, with the exhale of relief as the primaries fade, comes the gasping inhale of sheer exhilaration as the California general election looms. From now until Nov. 2  it’s campaign free-for-all season. Some of you are pretty excited about this; some of you dread it like a root canal. Still others are making that confused golden retriever face right now, muttering “election?” Being a fan of overworked clichés, I’d like to say I’m as political as the next guy, but here in Santa Cruz that can be a dangerous statement. Some of the next guys are much more informed, embroiled and passionate than I; some of the next guys don’t believe in voting. 

Something is missing in our public debate. Something big. It's the difference between politics and governance. From Washington to Sacramento to Santa Cruz, people are debating the issues, but it's unfortunate that the issues they care about really don't get at the reality of how government runs day to day.

Opinion, as discussed and argued about on television, can be exciting. Olbermann can get in his licks. O'Reilly can be outraged. CNN can invite people in from both sides of the political divide to holler at each other. And we're not much better here in Santa Cruz. Just take a look at the recent State Senate election where neither Democrat John Laird nor Republican Sam Blakeslee bothered with commercials discussing their own records. They just trashed each other.

“I don't want Johnny Depp in my lap." These are eight little words that no one who knows me would ever expect me to utter. I was as shocked as anybody when I heard them cross my own lips at a recent Memorial Day party. Art Boy naturally assumed the most logical explanation: my brain had been taken over by aliens.

Several years ago, I was having lunch with U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, who mentioned between bites that he would soon meet with a class of students from Mount Madonna School during one of their periodic visits to Capitol Hill.

Farr must have seen me stifle a yawn, because he seemed to read my mind: “No. You don’t get it. What they do at Mount Madonna School is something different. It’s something that is known around the Capitol as the best program in the nation.”

A few months ago, I wrote a column about the written word, and wondered whether sentiments like “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” have forever transformed into texts like “U R gr8.”

The basic “harrumph!” quality of that column drastically missed the mark, somehow suggesting that the beauty of the written word was being replaced by something short and horrid, that the future of writing depended on the literary value of a teen’s text or a mini-blogger’s 140 words.

As I sit writing this, somewhere in the space between Memorial Day weekend and Santa Cruz Pride, I’m reflecting on what a strange trip the last few weeks has been in the fight to repeal the law known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). We’ve made a significant leap forward but still have much to do. Here’s a bit about what’s happened, and what to watch for over the next weeks and months.