Opinion

May 14, 2013 — Last Monday the California Supreme Court ruled city and county governments could ban medical marijuana dispensaries despite the state law allowing citizens with medical marijuana recommendations from their doctors that they may use the drug for relief of their symptoms.

The state’s high court upheld trial court and appellate court decisions supporting the city of Riverside’s ban of medical marijuana dispensaries it believed were a nuisance.

But the case before the supreme court isn’t about medical marijuana per se — it’s about a local government’s ability to control land use through zoning laws. According to the state laws people may use medical marijuana if they receive a recommendation from the doctor. But the court ruled while the medical marijuana proposition allows patients to use the drug, cities and counties retain the right to make zoning decisions for their communities.

May 14, 2013 — I’ve never forgotten a television interview with the late Cleveland Indian’s Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller I saw years ago.

Never heard of Bob Feller? Well, he was so good, he made it to the big leagues in 1936 when he was still a 17-year-old high school student. Ted Williams called Feller “the fastest and best pitcher I ever saw during my career,” and Stan Musial said he was “probably the greatest pitcher of our era.” Feller threw the second fastest recorded pitch in baseball history at an amazing 107.6 miles-per-hour (a Nolan Ryan fastball was clocked years later at 108.1 mph).

May 7, 2013 — I’ve never shaved my head or looked like a ripe bowling ball — until now. Oh, back in the good old days of the 1950s my brother and I used to get pretty-close-to-shaved military style, high and tight, buzz cuts every couple of months. It was the style in those days, and if we could convince our dad to take us to a real barbershop and get a flattop, we were living. But we were mostly poor in those days, so we usually got an old, holey towel, a rickety stool in the middle of the kitchen floor and mom pushing the noisy, whirring shears.

As a guitarslinger wannabe at Fresno High School a few years later, I wanted my hair to be as long as I could grow it. Unfortunately, my alma mater was hair hostile. We students constantly struggled against a strict dress code that was lifted a year after we graduated. A boy’s hair was deemed too long if it touched his ears or his collar.

May 7, 2013 — Maybe it’s only the beginning of May, but a long and potentially devastating fire season may have already begun in the state of California.

At deadline last Thursday, firefighters in Southern California were battling a scary blaze they fear may burn all the way to the ocean. Hundreds of residents have been forced to evacuate their homes. Closer to home, two fires raged last week near Quincy and other fires burned in Tehama and Butte counties.