When the legislature passed the Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960, it envisioned a seamless, three-level system that would provide high-quality and low-cost instruction benefiting both those seeking careers and society as a whole.

With the June primary behind us, here comes the Nov. 3 general election campaign and, already, it is a busy little local bee.

Maybe we should all take a deep breath and try to relax. As one of the few parts of this great nation that could become so easily exercised, the Bay Area, or at least some of its more readily upset precincts, has been in the grip of an ongoing spasm of outrage.

A few years ago, I really started feeling the impact of data breaches in the repeated calls from numbers I didn't recognize and dozens of texts in Mandarin every day. Each new wave of calls typically started within days of a major data breach in the news.

If they don’t remember you by name, hopefully they remember you by heart. Dementia is a disease affecting more than 6 million Americans in the United States. It is a decline in cognitive function leading to decreased independence, memory loss and behavioral changes.

Is there a pathway for California to create a universal healthcare system, one with benefits paid through a “unified financing system” that merges federal and state funds with costs now borne by employers and — probably — a new layer of taxation?

Just this morning I read an article about how, since the pandemic, the construction of new apartments has significantly slowed. So much so, in fact, that there are predictions of higher rents to come since, believe it or not, demand continues to outstrip supply.

Advanced Placement tests. Finals. Graduation parties. Prom. Apply for college housing. Sign yearbooks. Graduation practice. Senior picnic. Senior prank. Senior awards ceremony. 

Groucho Marx once said: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

No one saw this fashion flash coming 35 years ago when Tom Brady was just beginning his athletic exploits at Serra High School. A celebrity-laced display of fab finery wasn’t on his agile teen mind back in the early 1990s.

A few months after his inauguration as governor in 1999, Gray Davis uttered a few words that rattled the Capitol.

Last Thursday evening, I joined a sold-out room of local businesses, elected officials and community members at the College of San Mateo to celebrate the winners of the Best of San Mateo Area Awards, voted on by 34,000 of their neighbors.

Around 37 years ago, during our church’s “Adult Study” time, I helped lead a discussion about “Gay Pride.”

I enjoy reading the opinion columns written by local students and published in the weekend edition of The Daily Journal. Having been a high-schooler once myself (although not a student journalist) and having helped shepherd two children through Redwood City’s public schools, I can relate to …

I couldn’t help but miss the fact when I was younger, I was in the most need of nurture and care. However, as I got older — slowly catching new, darker nuances of life — I was often reminded of how my mother is still a daughter. 

It’s that time of the year, the county fair! I won’t tell you how to get there, but I can tell you what to do and how to do it once you are there.

San Mateo County used to pride itself on being the first in the state to report election results.

It’s LGBTQ+Pride Month. Let’s party. Communities across the state, including many on the Peninsula, are celebrating non-straight lifestyle alternatives with marches, galas, films, fund-raisers and a variety of other upbeat events in June.

I’ve been a curator of online community spaces for nearly a decade now, which means I spend more time than most people staring at the system of what gets seen and what doesn’t. I watch which posts gain traction and which ones disappear into nothing, and, historically, the inflammatory one or…

It was the evening of Feb. 24, one week into a digital marketing fellowship. I logged onto Zoom, viewing over 100 unfamiliar faces, with leaders exemplifying “motivation presentations” that we would all eventually do in our smaller cohorts.

My wife and I recently returned from a two-week trip to southern England, where we toured a number of gardens and their associated historic homes. We were part of a small (16-person) group on high-end tour organized through Colonial Williamsburg that took us to London and to a number of esta…

I've recently been musing about how sometimes the world meets me "exactly where I need it" — the train stops so the doors align with where I'm standing, the walk sign comes on as soon as I approach.

There is this idea that the real world and educational environments are somehow separate, and that those graduating from school need advice from those who operate in this “other” mysterious world that is somehow more challenging and mystical than the world in which they currently reside.

For all the fear and loathing generated by the ‘jungle” primary, and the prospect of two Republicans running for governor in November, the all-in, all-told June 2 election went out like a lamb.

Summer is almost upon us. Recent expert predictions strongly suggest that this year’s June-August period will not be conducive to full-time or part-time work for young people.

I have been an early voter for as long as I have been eligible to vote via mail. The ballot arrives, I sit down with it sometime that week, and it goes back out. The idea of holding on to it and treating it like a rook to be deployed at the optimal moment in a chess game makes me extremely a…

In my last column I talked about how books can act as mirrors reflecting a reader’s own identity, windows offering views into other lives and sliding glass doors allowing readers to enter new worlds.

As I wrap up my final year of high school, I’ve been reminiscing on my successes, my failures and the growth I’ve undergone. 

The 2026 campaign for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successor may be all but over after the votes from next week’s primary are counted, even with an election still needing to be staged in November.

Through Wednesday, the total number of ballots cast in the June 2 primary in San Mateo County had barely cracked the 10% mark. Statewide turnout is equally low.

There was no discernible reason for it. On a sunny midweek morning in Burlingame, two young men were hard at work tidying up a sidewalk and nearby foliage outside a building undergoing renovation.

In the spirit of writing about things that initially seem disconnected, my 12-year-old challenged me this week to write a column connecting potatoes and politics. He was pretty sure it was impossible, but I do love a good challenge. 

For many, having a stroke is unimaginable. Existing medical conditions and daily habits become normal, without recognizing potential harm to oneself. Every year, nearly 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke.

A recurring point of contention between my parents and me is the idea of cutting class. And not  for the reasons many high school parents are rightly quick to judge.

It appears the local race for San Mateo County assessor-clerk-recorder-elections chief is going to come down to a last-minute decision, at least, by local political insiders as the race between Assistant Assessor, etc., Jim Irizarry, and Supervisor David Canepa grows increasingly intense, an…

Richard Holober has become almost an institution. He has served on the San Mateo County Community College District Board of Trustees since 1997 during the Clinton administration, more than a full generation (and spanning the terms of five U.S. presidents) so far.

I was in my garden over the weekend when I found a monarch butterfly caterpillar on the milkweed I seeded last season, striped in white and black and yellow, all chubby and absolutely adorable, munching away. A future pollinator. Seeing one in real life felt like I had won the lottery.

As a bookseller, I’m always on the lookout for titles that feature the wonderful diversity of the types of people with whom we share the planet.

These days, my walks almost always involve some part of Maple Street. Redwood City’s Maple Street begins at El Camino Real and skirts the edge of downtown Redwood City before crossing Broadway, Veterans Boulevard and then Highway 101. Next, it hits a section of Redwood Creek, where it makes …

Next year, I will be finishing my high school journalism career as the editor-in-chief of the Burlingame High School newspaper, the Burlingame B. When I walked into the journalism class as a freshman, never in a million years would I have been able to predict how these past years in the jour…

Will giving away 400 free diapers to parents who give birth at participating California hospitals make a difference in the affordability crisis? No, but it will cost $20 million and be good for one news cycle.

The ink on last week’s column barely was dry (or the electronic impulse barely pulsed) before the comments — mild curiosity gusting to outrage — began showing up.

It has been instructive — but hardly surprising — to watch our assembled Big Media (and even the not-so-big) fret about the upcoming June primary election here in the Golden State.

My ballot arrived last Wednesday, it sat on the kitchen counter for two days. I dropped it at the corner post box on Friday, and a text came through Saturday afternoon confirming it had been received. Four days from envelope-in-mailbox to envelope-in-the-system, not bad — thanks USPS.

The best thing a parent can do is let their young athlete be benched (sometimes).

I’ve never been a boat person, although I’ve had numerous occasions to become one. When I was a teenager, my father taught me to sail on his tiny sailboat. Later in life, my folks purchased a place on Lake Tahoe, complete with the requisite motorboat; there I learned to manage that type of c…

My school hosted our annual Decision Day celebration May 1. It’s a tradition that high schools across the country celebrate for National College Decision Day, the official date by which seniors are supposed to enroll in the college they plan on attending.

As California’s voters receive their primary election ballots and began returning them in to be counted, the seven leading candidates for governor on Tuesday night engaged in an occasionally slashing, two-hour debate that reflected a race that’s too close to call.

What a mess.

When it comes to higher education, it is probably understandable that the media tend to focus on four-year institutions. They are more visible and command our attention in a variety of important ways.