Opinion
Residents of our Pilgrim Place residential community recently brought a hate incident to the attention of our diversity, equity, inclusion, and recruitment advisory group. This group is composed of Pilgrim Place residents and staff to advise staff and administration on the issues of diversity and inclusion.
Douglas Lyons and I disagree [“SCOTUS misses the point of the Second Amendment,” May 5, and “The Second Amendment is clear, obvious, and directly stated,” May 12] about what the Second Amendment means because we disagree about the function of its first clause: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, …” I call those words a “preamble” because they are crucial to understanding the Second while Lyons thinks they are minor “prefatory” verbiage.
Tough decisions are part of any management job. Believe me, I’ve been there. But as a leader of a company, or a city, it’s not an option to throw your hands up and decline to participate because you feel somebody slighted you in some way.
For almost three months now I’ve been doing something every morning I’ve only told a few people about, and they all had the same response, that I’m crazy: showering in super cold water. Not tepid water. Not lukewarm water. Cold, cold water.
Our founders considered the Second Amendment an expression of one of our numerous natural rights which safeguard us from illegitimate government intrusions, meaning this right comes from God, not from man, that it existed prior to the drafting of our Constitution, continues to exist after its drafting, and was included in our Constitution in order to eliminate any doubt or ambiguity.
Gratitude is not just a “feeling,” but is the constant attitude of thankfulness and appreciation of life. Though there is so much to be grateful for, gratitude may not always come naturally to us. Sometimes we need to adjust our outlook on the situation we’re in.
What Scalia (and the Court) does, having noted that there is a preamble in the Second Amendment, is to toss it out as irrelevant to what the Court should hold about the Second. As a result, he takes “the right of the people …” to be the only clause that the Court, in understanding, interpreting, this provision of the Constitution, must pay attention to.
by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com When I took this job last July I made a shortlist of priorities. The first entry was to convince Jan Wheatcroft to return to the fold. In an email with the subject line of “I miss you!” I described the Jan-sized hole in the Courier and urged her to consider a return. […]
by Donald Gould In the 1946 film classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” community banker George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) is besieged by depositors demanding their money after the despised Mr. Potter spurs a run on the bank for his own gain. George says to the anxious crowd, “No, but you … you … you’re […]
I’ve always been a curious student. Raised a Christian, I used to clearly separate my religious beliefs with academic pursuits. I would spend Friday mornings absorbing a lecture on how European colonizers used religion to subjugate and oppress indigenous peoples across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, learning how white Christianity became a weapon for racial segregation and white savior complex. At night, I would attend youth group meetings at my local church, falling back into the warm, loving God that I know so well, not the textbook version who brought so much suffering.
Everytown For Gun Safety reported 636 mass shootings in the United States in 2022, which followed 686 in 2021, a grim record.
The Gun Violence Archive reports that as of Wednesday morning there have been 165 mass shootings over the first 109 days of 2023, exceeding the pace of 2022.
Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
This is who we are.
Biodiversity (plants, animals, fungi, and microbes) is too often an underappreciated component of many sustainable policies. If we are striving to become a regional leader on sustainable issues, as Claremont’s sustainability plan suggests, we must create holistic sustainability approaches which incorporate biodiversity, carbon storage, and other ecosystem services into how we manage our urban forest.
This disconnect between protecting biodiversity and how we manage our urban forest is most evident in spring. If you have driven around Claremont lately, it is almost impossible not to have witnessed the extensive amount of tree trimming being conducted. The timing of this trimming could not be worse for the birds with which we share this city.
This column, however, focuses on the Salinas Californian, a 152-year-old newspaper/website with a long history of watchdog journalism. At one time the Californian had a staff of 120, including 35 writers and photographers. That editorial number in 2023 is now zero. The Californian’s lone reporter quit in December and has not been replaced. Print circulation has dropped from 11,000 to 2,500.
The Californian is owned by the largest newspaper publisher in the country, Gannett, which has continued to focus on cost cutting to stay alive. When that doesn’t work — which it hasn’t at the Californian — there are not many choices other than to stop publishing or sell at a bargain price. Think about this scenario: how can any media company keep readers when there are no reporters or editors to publish news? One day the Californian published five paid obituaries as their news coverage.
Cancer in the colon or rectum, collectively referred to as colorectal cancer, is the third most common type of cancer for both men and women. It is expected to account for over 52,000 deaths in the US in 2023, according to the American Cancer Society. Rates of this cancer increase with age and are higher among Black and Native American people.
I recently went to a talk at Scripps College by DJ Kurs, the director, currently, of Deaf West Theater in Los Angeles. Deaf West is a small but increasingly mighty theater that produces plays featuring deaf and hearing actors, some of which, like “Spring Awakening” and “Big River,” have ended up on Broadway.
I was encouraged to see the Claremont City Council reaffirmed its commitment to fight hate on Valentine’s Day, a day that commemorates a saint that was bold enough to take a stand for the sake of love and freedom.