Opinion

A California Beacon

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Wednesday, February 1, 2012

I am pleased to announce the “birth” of a new Beacon this month. Not exactly a sibling of our Washington, Baltimore and Howard County editions. More of a cousin perhaps. I am referring to the new Coachella Valley Beacon — serving residents 50 and over in Palm Springs, Palm Desert and other cities

Anonymously yours

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Monday, April 15, 2013

The scariest thing about sitting down to write a column, especially in the Internet age, is that you risk putting your ignorance on display to the entire world, forever.It used to be if you made an error or there was an “editing mistake,” you might get a comment or two, perhaps a letter. You could then issue a retraction or correction (“sorry I misspoke”) and pretty much figure that had taken care of it.

Appreciation time

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Friday, October 26, 2012

It’s definitely feeling like fall around here. And with Thanksgiving not far away, autumn always feels like a good time to think about appreciation. I have a number of things to be thankful for this fall, not the least of which is our staff here at the Beacon. And apparently I’m not the only one who thinks they are doing a wonderful job.

Back from Branson

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Tuesday, November 16, 2010

There are a number of observations I could share with you about my recent trip to the “Live Music Capital of the World” (a.k.a. Branson, Missouri) for a national newspaper convention.

Burn, baby, burn?

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Perhaps you saw (or heard) this news short a few weeks ago: Firefighters responding to an alarm in a rural area of Tennessee’s Obion County stood back and allowed a mobile home to burn to the ground because its owner hadn’t paid an annual $75 fee for fire protection services. But when the fire threatened a neighboring mobile home whose owner had paid the fee, they finally put out the fire.

Coming to our census

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Friday, August 5, 2011

I’ve long been on record as objecting to the use of terms like Age Wave, Senior Tsunami and the like to describe the demographic changes occurring across America (and, indeed, the world).

Driven by technology

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Friday, March 15, 2013

Your broke your glasses (or your foot)? You had surgery recently? Your car’s in the shop?Getting from here to there — to the doctor’s office, to the grocery store, to a concert, to the hospital — can become a problem for all of us at one time or another.The solution? Call a cab. Call a friend. Take the bus. We can usually work around it for awhile.

Going live

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Thursday, October 28, 2010

Our website — this website — went "live" a few hours ago. After more than a year of planning, months of designing and deciding, and weeks of tinkering, we are now out and about in the world of cyberspace. Before last night, I had not given much thought to the concept of "going live" as applied to websites. But I get it now.

Make your vote count

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Friday, October 1, 2010

As I write this, we are just weeks away from this year’s potentially momentous elections. For some time now, candi­dates for county and statewide positions, and their support­ers, have been knocking on doors in my neighborhood, sometimes stopping by more than once, to discuss their po­sitions, invite discussion and ask for votes.

Moving the folks (Part I)

Submitted by Stuart Rosenthal on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

My parents, whom long-time readers have “met” before in this column, have once again graciously provided me with an occasion for some musings. You see, they’ve recently moved into an assisted living facility. While I have edited articles about such moves many times over the years, this is my first opportunity to experience one myself, and therein lie a few tales.