With the holiday season descending upon us in earnest, there has been a spate of Bay Area examples of displeasure surrounding public education.

Every movement begins with a question that keeps someone up at night. For Frieda Edgette, that question arrived after 15 years of her own mental health recovery and a lifetime of learning how systems shape our sense of what is possible.

The news room was in shambles Nov. 26 after a 20-second clip exposed an ex-information technology vice president who said Campbell’s soup was for “poor people.”

Early this week my wife and I drove home from a large Thanksgiving family get-together in Palm Desert. Because we had time, we took the “scenic route” home rather than driving almost entirely up Interstate 5. Our route took us through Victorville, Mojave, Tehachapi and Bakersfield. Thanks to…

Anyone who has experienced children is familiar with constant mental breakdowns in the form of screaming, crying or dirty looks and silent treatment. Although I’m desensitized to most of these tantrums, last month at my gymnastics coaching job, I witnessed an episode that unexpectedly struck…

A couple weeks back I wrote about the similarities between President Trump and incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as it relates to populism. The basic idea is that there is growing discontent amongst the populace that government wasn’t or isn’t working for them. A libertarian point …

California’s public school system, which purports to educate nearly 6 million students ranging from 4-year-olds in transitional kindergarten to near-adults preparing to graduate from high school, is in a world of hurt.

What is said in the newsroom, stays in the newsroom, thank god, and I will divulge no confidences.

It’s understandable. Human nature is what it is. We are all flawed one way or another. But the temptations involved with big public bucks make our failings even more at risk.

“To know personally who you’re giving your money to is incredibly impactful.”

1979 Basic Training, soon after our flight, like all military members, was taught about the Uniform Code of Military Justice and our duty to obey lawful orders, and refuse unlawful ones, I was guarding the dorm door when an NCO appeared outside the little door window and ordered me to let him in.

The shadows grow longer and the days are shorter.

It’s been a rough year in San Mateo County. A number of our important public institutions are feeling stressed, their credibility shaken.

Childhood today is a strange mix of living by the scheduled hour, constant competition and involuntary participation in the marathon corporate battle for attention. At the same time, childhood has also become a largely seated experience. The average American child now spends more than seven …

We Californians know, or should know, that while living in this state has many positive aspects, we are paying through the nose for the experience.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (cue Andy Williams). We are all getting accustomed to the apparently beneficial time change, dressing in warm sweaters and relaxing by enjoying a nice hot cup of tea.

Early this week, the Redwood City Planning Commission expressed its support for a proposed amendment to the 1548 Maple St. project’s development agreement. That amendment — which must still be approved by the Redwood City Council — would both extend the amount of time the developer has to co…

Earlier this summer, sitting in a little Shake Shack booth, my longtime childhood friend and I reminisced about our decadelong friendship over a shared burger and fried pickles. At first, it was like any other conversation we’ve had about the past — laughing over our friend group’s imaginary…

Polar opposites politically can have more in common than one might think, and that just may be the case when it comes to Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani.

The most dangerous moment in the life of politicians is the honeymoon period — after you have won the election up to when you are sworn in. Everyone loves you. You are a winner, susceptible to believing all the wonderful, visionary things that were said about you and by you.

In the four months since the legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted a new state budget, revenues — primarily from personal income taxes — have outstripped expectations by several billion dollars.

Somehow, it seemed sadly appropriate. Robert Stirm passed away last week on Veterans Day. He was 92. Stirm grew up in San Mateo and was a graduate of San Mateo High School. He lived in Foster City for years and was a decorated U.S. Air Force officer.

“You give a kid a bike and you give them independence,” Tony Pereira told me as we hung out at his bike shop Bay Cycles (formerly Straight Wheel Cycling). After 30 years of building, fixing, racing and teaching everything from BMX to mountain bikes, Tony has watched that same truth repeat it…

We had just marched from one federal building in San Francisco to another, both where immigration cases were handled, singing “We are marching in the light of God (Allah, Hashem, Buddha and Love)” and Rabbi Amy Eilberg was speaking to the crowd of around 150 Bay Area faith leaders.

Ever since the Village People released the song “Y.M.C.A.” one can hardly think about the “Y” without that song popping into one’s head. If you really consider the lyrics, the song is about staying at the Y, and I was interested to learn that you still can rent rooms cheaply at some YMCAs. H…

One of writing’s greatest strengths is its ability to use pain to foster compassion, to use this compassion to connect us all.

There is an adage that it’s time to sell a stock when a taxi driver is talking about it, and I suppose it’s the same with slang. That if a middle-aged newspaper editor is talking about a new phrase by a younger generation, it’s had its day.

Phew.

Bike lanes. Love ‘em or loathe ‘em. No matter how you care to parse these traffic options and their societal effects, they can be a blessing or a curse — or both. The latest controversies involving them have erupted in San Mateo and Menlo Park.

Every now and then, I’ll do sugar fasts for one month with the exception of natural sugar found in fruit or honey.

For years I’ve been striving to lower our energy usage. Although I’d mostly been focused on lowering the electric portion of our bill (we spent far more on electricity than on gas), changing from a gas furnace to a heat pump did significantly lower our annual gas use (while increasing our el…

I’ll admit I’m long overdue for my Youth Clipper Card — and with only a year of discounts left in me, I had never felt compelled to procure one, until a few weeks ago. 

The word whom has an interesting reputation, at least in my mind, and I was beginning to question its use.

It took four votes by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to oust Sheriff Christina Corpus; it will take three votes to appoint a successor. Maybe it is just me, but that seems off somehow.

Learning to read is the key to education. That’s not a new revelation. Reading is the foundation, the entry point for everything else. But English is not easy to master. It has its complex roots in a number of older languages — German, French, Latin and more.

Every October, we play with ghosts. We line our porches with skeletons, light candles inside pumpkins and let our kids dress up as things that belong to other worlds. But the truth is, most of the real ghosts we live with aren’t spooky at all — they are our ancestors and their stories, many …

As Gov. Gavin Newsom ramps up what appears to be a 2028 White House bid, a mainstay of his pitch during television interviews and social media appearances is California’s economy.

In my last column I shared the story of the trauma residents of an apartment building in Chicago endured when federal agents stormed them in the middle of the night, zip-tied everyone, including children, dragged them outside and arrested 37 people.

Redwood City’s Veterans Boulevard is finally having its day. I’ve lived in Redwood City for more than 35 years, and for most of that time it has primarily been a street to be crossed to get to Kohl’s (before that, Mervyn’s), Sports Basement (Toys R Us) or Highway 101. Other than the very occ…

Every day, the second floor of the Redwood City Public Library is filled with the turning of pages and quiet buzz of conversation as tutors and learners sit side by side.

To paraphrase on old saying, the chaos will continue until morale improves.

Let’s just call it an “auto-arachnid.” It’s a spider that lives in our car — not the actual interior, not the driving/passenger compartment. The creature inhabits the workings of the passenger-side adjustable mirror. We have yet to observe it up close. But we know it’s there because we find …

Every generation thinks they lived through the fastest period of change in history. But this time, transformation is hitting all industries at the same time, with accelerating velocity. The world our kids are growing up in is rewriting itself in real time and a decade from now, many of the j…

How do we live in a world of AI, have access to professional advice on YouTube, yet women are still confused about health issues affecting their day-to-day lives?

Recently I returned from a long weekend in San Diego, where my wife and I, along with my brother and sister-in-law, spent three full days working through two large mini-storage units full of items, big and small, that once belonged to my parents. It was a lot of work, but fun in a way. And i…

Somewhere along the way, we forgot what education was supposed to be about.

Recently enacted legislation now requires elementary schools to teach cursive at some point between first and sixth grades, which means that the diminishing skill will be revitalized for the next generation.

There are many reasons to run for office and, I suppose, vindication is as good as any.

Dumbing down standards has become a sorry epidemic throughout much of society. It’s not a new trend. It’s right there in plain sight.