Brilliant Thoughts On Education

by Ashleigh Brilliant

There was a time in my life – not lately – when I used to enjoy re-visiting places where I had previously lived. There were quite a few of them – towns, neighborhoods, even countries, going back to my childhood. Nowadays, when people in general are much more mobile, it’s not unusual for your family to be moved and transplanted several times while you are growing up. But as a child, when this happened, I had no choice but to go with them, even if that meant leaving behind all my friends, and practically everything else that was familiar.

For me, probably the biggest change came right at the beginning of my teenage years. It was just after the end of World War II. Having left England before its beginning, when I was five years old, and then spent the entire war years on this side of the Atlantic – two years in Canada, and the next five in the U.S. – I had become thoroughly Americanized, although England (which I could hardly remember) was still supposed to be my “Home.” But changing countries in 1946 (because my father’s job took us back) meant going from what, even in wartime, had been a land of plenty, to a land of shortages and “austerity.” England, though never invaded, had suffered severely in the war, including bombing raids, of which the scars, such as ruined buildings, or empty spaces where they used to be, were visible for years afterwards.

Another enduring vestige of the war was the system of rationing, which persisted for most of a decade. I well remember how, when the rationing of candy was finally lifted, there was such a rush to buy “sweets” that rationing actually had to be re-imposed.

Meanwhile, I spent my entire teenage years, and on, up to the age of 21, going through the equivalent of High School and College in the British education system. At first, it was hard to readjust, and I was teased about being a “little Yank.” In order to communicate, I had to acquire something of an English accent, at least to the extent of pronouncing words like “can’t” and “dance” the English way, with a broad “a.”

Nevertheless, we had “come home,” and our house was still there – but alas! we couldn’t live in it again, because, being empty, it had been “requisitioned” for a bombed-out family, who were still legally in possession. We had to buy another house in a strange new district.

But my sister and I could never forget the country we had left behind, and, as soon as we were able to, we both “emigrated” back to the U.S.

Over the years since then, having acquired strong new roots in California, I returned occasionally on visits, seeing again my old school and college, and some of the family and friends who still remembered me, and whom I still remembered.

It was the same in Washington, D.C. –not the famous parts, but my old neighborhood – where the building in which we’d had an apartment for five years of my childhood was still there, seeming, at least from the outside, unchanged. Other spots evoked both happy and sad memories, such as the house converted to a synagogue where I had attended Hebrew School, but been unable to have my Bar Mitzvah, because we left a few months before my thirteenth birthday.

But, apart from my own experience, history and literature are full of famous returns. One that comes immediately to mind is that of Homer’s Ulysses, coming back from the Trojan War, after twenty years of wandering, to his home island of Ithaca, where his wife, Penelope, is besieged by suitors (everyone, of course, assuming, by this time, that he is dead) and, touchingly, not recognized by anyone but his dog.

Much more recently, we have Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind, returning to her family’s home plantation of Tara, after the enemy army has swept through, to find her mother dead, her father demented, and all the slaves freed and gone, except for her faithful old housemaid, Mammy.

It does seem to take wartime and postwar situations to create the most experiences of returning home – as indeed it was in my own case. And, although I came back, to live most of my life in America, something in me is still English. And I will always feel a very personal resonance, when I hear the expression, “You can’t go home again.”

by Stella Haffner

Most high schools in California require around 60 hours of community service in order to graduate. What does it mean when a student does 40 times that amount?

Eighteen-year-old Annika Wagner is a 2023 graduate of Dos Pueblos High School. During her junior high and high school years, she completed more than 2,000 hours of community service, for which she received the Merci Award (most hours volunteered) from the Santa Barbara Chapter of the National Charity League in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

When asked what has motivated her to stay so involved, Annika cites her family: “I guess I just really like just being active in my community. When I was young, my mom was really instrumental in taking me to places and getting me involved,” says Annika. “I have been a part of Girl Scouts since I was six, I got my Gold Award last year, which was also a really awesome project to work on, and my brothers were both Boy Scouts, so I would say it’s a pretty big part of my family.”

But Annika’s achievements aren’t limited to volunteering. In addition to her community service, Annika has maintained a stellar academic record, earning a 4.85 GPA including 34 college credits through AP exams, Santa Barbara City College dual enrollment courses, and summer classes at University of Southern California. Annika is an all-star student, but she is especially driven in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects.

Annika was excited to attend Dos Pueblos because of the school’s Engineering Academy. But her interest in science started long before then. At 14 years old, Annika received a grant from NASA to start an astronomy club for her Girl Scouts chapter. As part of the award, Annika was invited to Washington, D.C., to tour the NASA facilities and talk to the operatives on the Cassini Mission.

“We spent a week learning from Professor Lou Mayo and got to see all the operation desks like in the movies. It was really fun to see. They taught us so much about the work they do at NASA,” she says.

Annika has continued with her passion for science through her volunteer work at Cottage Hospital. She says this, like all her experiences, has played a big role in informing what she wants to do for a career.

“I have been considering going into the medical field because you see a lot there and being at Cottage has been pretty meaningful – just the aspects of humanity you see. And I really enjoy that.”

The newest feather in Annika’s cap is a $2,500 scholarship from the P.E.O., a national women’s philanthropic educational organization. Annika was awarded this scholarship for her excellence in leadership, academics, extracurricular activities, and community service.

“It was really nice – a big honor. I know they choose from a big pool of very talented young women, so it was just really nice to have my achievements awarded with that. It felt really special.” mental health services in both jails from 11 pm to 7 am (not just the current daytime services) and for all medical staff contracted to work in the jails to have had 40 hours of advanced mental health crisis response training. Additionally, they recommended that the County Sheriff’s Office and all city police departments should provide the 40-hour mental health crisis response training to all patrol co-response teams and custody staff (this is normally provided in law enforcement academies, but many deputies hired before 2023 have not had the training).

Annika will be using this money to start her college journey this fall. She will attend the University of California, Los Angeles as a pre-psychology major and says she is excited for the independence of this next chapter in her life.

The report called for all cities in the County to provide funding for advanced mental health crisis response training for patrol officers and supervisory personnel (at least 40 hours instruction and eight hours of annual refresher training). Remember, these are recommendations, so it remains to be seen whether they will be implemented.

The jury’s final recommendation calls on the County and the Sheriff-Coroner’s Office to request an independent review of JT’s death from the California Attorney General. Each of the deaths in the jails were investigated by the sheriff-coroner rather than calling in an outside/independent coroner. Some counties have a coroner’s office that is not under the sheriff. We should, but do not, so there is inherent bias and a conflict of interest. We will be watching for required responses to the jury’s reports by the sheriff and the District Attorney (in August) and by the Board of Supervisors (in September).

Final reports of the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury are available at: www.sbcgj.org

The New Yorker. Nonetheless, he continued, the death of the Eagle was an occasion to mourn rather than celebrate, for there was always a chance it would become a good paper someday.

Losing the Santa Barbara News-Press is even sadder because the paper has a rich history. In the wake of a declaration of bankruptcy by publisher Wendy McCaw, media historians remembered that the paper had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962 when publisher Thomas Storke took home the honor for his editorials about the John Birch Society.

Storke’s commentary was backed up by first-rate reporting about how the Birch Society was undermining the civic life of Santa Barbara. The News-Press was then a family affair with Storke’s father running the editorial page and his son the daily operations.

Under the Storkes, the News-Press was also involved in mundane controversies. A co-worker of mine at the San Jose Mercury knew the family and said Thomas Storke was inordinately proud of keeping parking meters out of the city. Storke reportedly called them the “work of the devil.”

Local newspapers often become editorially involved in such civic controversies, as I know from experience. Before having the good fortune to work 28 years for The Washington Post, I spent most of two decades at weeklies and a twice-a-week newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area and at dailies in Merced and San Jose.

Routine work was punctuated by edifying moments. At the Merced Sun-Star I discovered that a county supervisor was circumventing the law requiring construction and repairs on public buildings above a certain amount to be put to bid. The supervisor had work broken down into multiple “cost-plus” repairs that did not require bidding and funneled the contracts to a relative who owned an electrical business. Other supervisors turned a blind eye to what was happening.