A Personal Report: Coastal Cleanup Day

September 18, 2018

At a time when our 24 hour news cycle broadcasts little joy, the enthusiasm of the volunteers who came to do nothing but pick up other people’s trash and garbage, shed a certain kind of light to blot out all the negative headlines of the day. At our locale, most volunteers were locals— some partnered with a friend or family, and some represented local groups. Visitors from Livermore and San Jose, (both cities about 200 miles north of San Simeon) also joined in the effort to keep our wastes from slipping into the Pacific Ocean.

Put Eutierra to Work for the Planet

September 9, 2018

And our planet’s modifier is in trouble. It’s a Neptune 911 crisis. What can we do to combat our ocean’s struggle with marine debris, hypoxia and acidification? The answers are found in university labs, recognized in world organizations, and ignored by feckless politicians and leaders.

She Volunteers for Community Fitness and Health

August 10, 2018

After Grau busted through the glass ceiling at the LA Times, rising from classified sales to outside sales and then into management, she left the weight of her career behind in retirement. Not one to atrophy in retirement, Grau embraced weight training. And it shows. This 76-year-old woman is fit and has those kind of arms that flatter sleeveless shirts.

Zinke, Leave National Monuments Alone!

July 27, 2018

Politics aside, my concern over the rollback of national monument designations is the potential (and likely) loss of history, environment and open space — open space that does not include the scars of mining, logging, and drilling.

Out of the Kitchen and on to a Bike Trail

July 24, 2018

Children between the ages of 8 and 14 spend an average of just over four hours on screen media, according to the 2017 The Common Sense Census. While their technology skills likely out perform mine, they are also at risk for obesity, lack of sleep and reduced performance in school. Which is one of the precise reasons why a few Central Coast cyclists have a dream — get more Central Coast youth involved with cycling and trained to compete in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) — a program that offers interscholastic mountain biking programs for student-athletes across the United States.

5 Ways to Pull Out of Life’s Riptides

July 15, 2018

We can’t stop a rip current. But we can heed the warnings, and we should learn how to get ourselves out of a rip current if we are sucked into one. And so it goes with our personal efforts at finding peace. A sudden world event can pull our peace away. Once caught in the current, we may become another casualty.

When We Reach the Y in the Road

July 12, 2018

Do the kings and prince’s of Saudi Arabia spend time with the aborigines of Australia? Do the captains of industry in the western world hang with the indigenous of the American continents? Do the Russian oligarchs hang with the Aleuts and Inuits of the Arctic regions? And so on. Probably not.

Wealth and power can put heroin addiction to shame.

Wealth and power can correct social and planetary imbalances, or tip the balance to unsustainable levels.

More Ways to Stop Everyday Bigotry

June 18, 2018

A few years back, a man of Filipino heritage, a licensed pharmacist, purchased a local drug store. An elderly woman, clearly of Caucasian heritage, approached this pharmacist with a rant about how she was sick and tired of “all you Chinamen taking our jobs.”