Opinion

Protesters chanted, marched and even took over buildings at University of California campuses last week. And, no, these weren't "tea party" protests against "Obamacare."

Terrorism trial, University of California system, contractors

When there is no good solution to a problem, a president has three options. One is to avoid the problem. The second is to pick the least bad of the available options. The third is to mix and match among the proposed solutions and minimize the long-term damage any decision will cause.

Volunteers hand out food baskets at the Broderick Christian Center on Sixth Street in West Sacramento every Wednesday. This past week, the boxes contained bread, peanut butter, canned corn, spinach, meat, spaghetti, and mac and cheese – enough in each box for nine meals for each family member.

President Barack Obama said in a speech three weeks ago that the status quo in American schools "has held back our children, it has held back our economy, and it has held back our country long enough." It is time, he said "to stop just talking about education reform and start actually doing it."

Some of the most important news in our community isn't what happened yesterday, it's what's happening today and what might happen tomorrow.

If we end up publishing the same columnists, week after week, we are not being very creative. Readers' preferences should be respected. But sometimes their horizons should be broadened.

Success in any long-running campaign breeds complacency; first euphoria, then relief, later forgetfulness. Whether the campaign for universal suffrage or the crusade to curb childhood disease through immunizations, success leads to historical amnesia.

You can call it "strong mayor" or "governance reform." Whatever you call it, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's proposal for revamping the power of his office would be the biggest change in governance in the city's history. In any city, it's a good thing to periodically ask fundamental questions and re-examine old ways of doing things.

Since his campaign for mayor, Kevin Johnson has championed reforms to strengthen the office of mayor: "I have a vision for what I think the city can become, but if I can't allocate some resources toward making that vision happen, then it never will." His plea runs counter to the aims of Progressive reformers who, in the 1920s, reduced the power of elected mayors in favor of a city manager form of government. Their model still predominates in California.

With Mayor Kevin Johnson's strong-mayor proposal headed for the ballot and a Charter Review Committee examining potential changes to city government, now is the perfect time to consider whether Sacramento's method of electing local officials serves the best interests of its citizens.

The Bee's Marcos Breton wrote a column ("Admit DUI problem, Sacramento"; Oct. 28) about what he perceives as a drinking and driving epidemic in Sacramento. While I think he may be on to something, another part of his column struck me.

Water treatment, CalPERS, arena location

Sarah Palin is running for president. At least, that is the conclusion that leaps from the pages of her mawkish and mendacious blockbuster book. "Going Rogue: An American Life" is an extended justification of her performance in the 2008 election and an attempt to claim her crown as queen of the tea partiers.

It's simply not true that America is ambivalent about everything when it comes to the Obama health plan.

Is the support of the pharmaceutical industry needed for Congress to pass health care reform? Or is the price of that support too high for the people the reform package is trying to help?

When he visited The Bee’s editorial board this week, Rob Feckner, president of the California Public Employees Retirement System Board, didn’t deliver many surprises.

Pit bull rescues, Delta, Fort Hood shooting, Capitol Corridor commute

My 14-year-old has discovered the Who, courtesy of the television show “CSI.” From her iTunes playlist comes the question written by Roger Daltrey and put to music by Pete Townshend way back in 1978.

It’s amazing to go back and read what people were saying about Timothy Geithner in the spring. Many people said he looked terrified as the Treasury secretary, like Bambi in the headlights. The New Republic ran an essay called “The Geithner Disaster.” Portfolio magazine ran a brutal, zeitgeist-capturing profile that concluded by comparing Geithner to Robert Redford’s hollow-man character in “The Candidate.”

Earlier this week, the inspector-general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a.k.a. the bank bailout fund, released his report on the 2008 rescue of the insurer American International Group.

It was hardly a secret that the spending plan the California Legislature passed in July did not end the state's fiscal catastrophe. It wasn't until Wednesday, however, that the state got a clear sense of how large that catastrophe has become.

Today, you can see squadrons of them soaring, single file, just above the waves along the beaches and cliffs at Point Reyes National Seashore or alongside a ferry boat in San Francisco Bay. They're thriving now in the surf zone across the state.

Homelessness, water, salmon, teachers, Bible, terrorism, ports

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District recently received federal money to develop one of the most advanced electricity grids in the nation. The new equipment will use wireless digital technology to better serve customers.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to bring the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and four other accused terrorists to New York for trial can't seriously believe the city will have trouble handling the expected "Trial of the Century" hoopla. The critics can't really think a judge is going to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed an open microphone to spew his jihadist views, or fear that a jury – sitting just blocks from ground zero – will let a mass murder suspect off on some technicality.

For late 19th century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 – not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department has disbanded its Problem Oriented Policing unit. The unit is gone, along with 122 deputies who were laid off in the last year amid the county's downturn in tax revenue.

A number of Placer County charities were stunned and honored when they discovered that Virgil Harrigan had left them roughly $5 million when he died in January at the age of 91.

The three systems of public higher education in California have served their citizens and the state admirably for decades. Making higher education accessible while continuing to lead in teaching, learning and research has allowed California to maintain a highly educated populace and grow jobs as fast as its population exploded.