Opinion

by Peter Weinberger A few weeks ago, Digital First Media, who jointly operates Inland Valley Daily Bulletin owner MediaNews Group and the Journal Register Company, announced the Journal Register filed for bankruptcy the second time in 3 years. They own a number of small-to-medium daily newspapers throughout the country, and have a partnership with the […]

by Sarah Torribio This past weekend, I took my son Alex, 3 1/2, to the Los Angeles County Fair. Accompanied by my parents, who took me to the fair each year when I was a kid, I had an acute sense of the cyclical nature of life. On the one hand, I could easily have […]

by Ginger Elliott It started as a gravel road called Mesa Avenue. In 1911, Mesa became Foothill Boulevard and was paved.  Its first speed limit of 10 miles per hour was also posted in that year. That led to Claremont achieving a somewhat less than desirable reputation. The Los Angeles Examiner in 1911 reported that […]

by John Pixley She was having lunch with her not long ago in San Francisco. The friend worked in the same field for another company in the city, and my sister and her have made it a point in the last few years to meet every 3 or 4 months for lunch. The friend, who […]

Claremont landed on another “best of” list earlier this summer. This time, we were named 15th on Huffington Post’s “College Towns: Consider These 16 Communities For Retirement.” Second-to-last isn’t like winning gold, but it’s noteworthy nonetheless. The Huffington Post credits Professor Andrew Carle, director of the program in assisted living/senior housing administration at George Mason […]

by Jan Wheatcroft As I write and talk, I throw words around interchangeably, such as travel, journey, trip, vacation and holiday without thinking about the subtle meanings and impressions that they can have on the reader and listener. For me, travel is about the unfamiliar and undiscovered. Vacation is more about simplification and renewal. A […]

By Peter Weinberger After hearing negative news from the newspaper industry for years now, I’m starting to believe that newsprint might just be around for a while. I say this not because Warren Buffet invests in media companies, but for a truly surprise announcement from the new owner of the Orange County Register. In my […]

by Suzanne H. Christian Like the tortoise beating the hare, the US stock market has been slowly and steadily inching its way up over the past few weeks. Since touching an intraday low on June 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 index have all rallied more than 10 percent, […]

by Debbie Carini As I set out to write this column, I tried to save it in my computer but the system warned me that I already had a document called Home Alone. It was a column I had written in April 2011, about being on my own, without my family, for a week.  Well, […]

by Freeman Allen It’s no wonder control of our water supply is a big issue in Claremont these days. Water rates have doubled in the past 5 years for the typical user—and in the last 4 years for heavier users. Water is going to become even more expensive in coming years, and rates will further […]

Golden State Water’s deceptions Dear Editor: Mayor Larry Schroeder’s Viewpoint regarding the continual stream of lies and misrepresentations from Golden State Water (GSW) was right on the money. What is so puzzling is the continual reinforcement of this habitual dishonesty and deceit by the Public Utilities Commission? As Mr. Schroeder points out, the PUC’s awarding […]

by Mellissa Martinez Although the Olympics are officially over, I’m still pondering one very important aspect of the games: language. While the question on most minds was, “Who will win?” The question on mine was, “What languages are they speaking?” It’s estimated that there are just under 7000 languages in the world and I can’t […]

by Bob Gerecke Vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan exemplifies the right wing of today’s Republican Party: reward the rich, penalize the poor, let everyone else fend for themselves.  Dog eat dog. Ryan’s views are revealed in the budget he proposed last March.  It would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over the next decade.  The biggest […]

by John Pixley Hello! It was a church group. I don’t know why people were shocked—shocked!—about what happened when, in a new addition to the city’s Fourth of July Celebration, the choir from the Pomona First Baptist Church presented a concert of patriotic music in front of the Claremont Depot at the beginning of July. […]

by Jan Wheatcroft London has weather. I often stood at my window or on the street and just watched the weather enter, move and change from one extreme to the other.  Living here in southern California, I am used to “what you see is what you get” for the day. In London, the changes happen […]

Political culture Dear Editor,     Thank you for the Almanac. It is a timely and refreshing antidote to the negative letters that have appeared in the Courier lately.     It is clear that Michael Valentine and Joe Farrell dislike the political culture of Claremont, and they take it very personally. Of course, it is unpleasant […]