Blogs


An Appreciation: Jim Eubank’s Woodpile at San Marcos Creek

“So out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day/I paused and said,/I will turn back from here./No, I will go on farther/and we shall see.” — Robert Frost, “The Wood Pile” That’s how I feel this day walking past the bowling alley in the 2002 way back machine. Seeing what I can see on a hot day by a certain San Marcos landmark. The…


Ate a purple M&M, woke up in bed with Tucker Carlson

Let me start off by saying that the real purpose of the GOP’s performative nonsense is to distract people from what they’re really up to, namely advocating for the wealthy and expressing disdain for whomever they’ve deemed to be the “other” at the moment. Yes, we shouldn’t stand for the “anti-woke” nonsense currently in vogue, but keeping your eyes on the prize (winning elections) should…


‘Married at First Sight?’ If you must, reality TV show shoots at the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe this week.

Lights, camera, weirdness. “Married at First Sight,” the Lifetime Channel reality TV show matching total strangers in unholy matrimony upon first meeting, shoots its brand of unreal magic through Feb. 5 at the ultra-exclusive Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. Check it out. If they’ll let you. They threw me off the set for having the audacity to walk up the Inn’s primrose path, lingering for…


Where are the twin oaks of Twin Oaks?

Organic growing guru Scott Murray, a Vista resident, had a searing question — the kind of question that cuts to the core of a certain sense of community. Driving around Twin Oaks, he said, “Where are the twin oaks of Twin Oaks?” I’ve driven around Twin Oaks a lot. But it never occurred to me that the area at the northeast corner of San Marcos…


Ray Bong, S. Creamcheese, ‘Competitive Non-Drinking’

About a dozen years ago, my friend Suzy Creamcheese and I discovered the most brutal sporting concept known to the human race, we call it “Competitive Non-Drinking”.  At that time, I smugly informed him that I had made a great achievement– I had gone for two weeks, 14 whole days, without taking a drink of alcohol.  He nonchalantly replied that it had been 20 days…


Ebenezer Scrooge just needs better PR

Ebenezer Scrooge could have used a better PR agent; the poor, dear misunderstood gentleman. Scrooge’s problem was bad publicity, the cynical media. However, I admire the poor sap, and not just because he is so darn cute. You’ve heard all the stories. Scrooge was the guy who (allegedly) messed with good old Bob Cratchit’s Christmas. And don’t even start on Tiny Tim. Bah, humbug. People…


Why quit Twitter when you can stick around for a train wreck

I have no intention of quitting Twitter, the social media site that I’ve dutifully scrolled through nearly every day since I joined in 2009. I intend to stick around and watch this train wreck happen. The sight of Elon Musk getting his comeuppance will be at least as entertaining as the dozen or so accounts the algorithm masters in Twitterland have decided to send my…


Desalination will be key to California’s water future. It needs to improve first

Once improved, desalination could be a better drought solution for California than water reuse or more sustainable groundwater management. If the climate crisis is coming, the water crisis is already here. As rice fields were fallowed in California, Lake Mead water levels almost sunk so lowthat Hoover Dam could no longer generate power, and life-threatening toxic dust blew off the dried-up Salton Sea. Thirty percent…


More nuclear power is no solution to climate crisis

If you live in Orange or San Diego County, hopefully you’re aware that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been turned into a nuclear waste dump for the foreseeable future. If you live on planet earth, you’re wise to be tracking domestic and foreign moves to increase reliance on nuclear energy. The United States ushered in the atomic age in 1945 by dropping a…