Tulare County yet again leads the globe in agricultural production. This is a wonderful achievement, attributable to all involved–and for his contribution, State Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R-22) has vowed to “continue the fight for farmers.” By whom he means not those who actually do any raking, but those who rake in the profits. A quick […]
Officials with Healthcare Conglomerate Associates and the Tulare Regional Medical Center were wrong in attempting to seek sanctions against a doctor for allegedly speaking to the Valley Voice, a Tulare County judge found this week. The case, Kumar, et al. v. Betre, was borne from a larger ongoing suit, Tulare County Regional Medical Staff v. […]
As I sit with what amounts to a sundowner in these parts–a cold beer–I can’t help but reflect on the five-night safari I endured last week standing guard in the husk that was our house. I’ve been on a real safari, and it was a much easier enterprise. Of course, we were cosseted and driven […]
Until 8 July of this year, I never gave large ag burns any serious thought. They were ubiquitous when we lived in Mexico, and they are commonplace here in the Valley. In the Bay Area, where I grew up, they were unheard of. I’ve only had one experience with a big ag burn, and I […]
It’s been something like 35 years now since I first read The Great Gatsby. At that remove it seemed as though Fitzgerald was somehow commiserating with–and possibly consoling–me from the year 1925. Apart from his masterful legerdemain with the English language, quite how he accomplished this still amazes me. As five movies and countless printings […]
Dear Joe– Of course I got your letter of February 18. Anne and the Mongol Horde, as you call them, all say hello. Love to Catherine and the Tribe. Paris is nice this time of year–you all should come visit. Sounds like you poked quite a hornets’ nest with that story of yours about the sitting […]
No fear pertained, but a loathing still is palpable–like the proverbial bad taste left in one’s mouth. More than a week after having attended, feeling the need to be…I don’t know, scraped off, say, remains. This is the take-away from April 27th’s Tulare Local Health Care District (TLHCD) board of directors meeting. TLHCD’s has been […]
Rich Text Editor, editor1, Press ALT 0 for help The warden now gives me 14 months. That is to say, at roughly this time next year our fifth–and last–child will be readying herself for graduation from high school. Which means that–having been in harness since 1987, accumulating 127 father-years to my 54 years of age–the […]
I’m fairly certain you know how this famous Shakespearean line ends; if not, Google it. I am–with no small irony–misappropriating it for my own purposes. I’d like to apologize for the fact that the delivery of our 17 March edition–Erin go bragh–was, for a few hours, postponed. It was my doing. I had been receiving […]
Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird— 1961’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction–died on February 19 in the same town in which she was born in 1926, Monroeville, Alabama. I have never read her novel. More properly, I was never assigned to–although I attended a truly great high school. If you Google “the […]