At long last, the Carlsbad desalination plant proposed by Poseidon Resources is poised to overcome needless delay. This week the California Coastal Commission will again consider whether to grant a permit crucial to the project. Approving the permit should not be hard for commissioners who value facts over the conjecture of their obstructionist staff.

The school board meeting was surreal, even for the Grossmont Union High School District, which has a reputation for the bizarre. First, a November bond issue to finish campus repairs and construct a 12th school was linked incomprehensibly to the board's voting for a ban on gay marriages.

Longtime Southern California residents know the eerie sense of unease that builds as Santa Ana winds pick up speed down mountain passes on hot October days. It's not just the way the dry, relentless winds put people on edge. It's the knowledge that they can fan the smallest sparks into potentially deadly wildfires.

In the 1970s, when the San Diego County Board of Supervisors washed its hands of providing fire and emergency medical services to the backcountry, many rural residents, including me, opposed the decision. We cautioned that if rural fire agencies weren't adequately funded, the region as a whole would pay the price in the form of Santa Ana-fueled wildfires raging into urban areas.

I've written about affirmative action for more than 20 years. That is, if you start the clock back in high school when I felt compelled to write a term paper on the topic after classmates with poorer grades than mine suggested that I wouldn't have been accepted by Ivy League universities “if (I) hadn't been Mexican.”