The West Ranch Beacon – News & Commentary for the Santa Clarita Valley

The Board of Directors of the Santa Clarita Valley Committee on Aging (COA) has announced the selection of Rachelle Dardeau, M.S., M.S.W. as Executive Director, effective September 6, 2011.  Ms. Dardeau is a 15 year resident of the Santa Clarita Valley who has over 25 years’ experience developing and administering programs that benefit seniors.  The non-profit COA operates the Senior Center and provides a broad range of services valley wide. (more…)

(From Science Daily) High levels of chocolate consumption might be associated with a one third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease, suggests a study published online in the British Medical Journal. The findings confirm results of existing studies that generally agree on a potential beneficial link between chocolate consumption and heart health. However, the authors stress that further studies are needed to test whether chocolate actually causes this reduction or if it can be explained by some other unmeasured (confounding) factor. (more…)

Since posting the commentary “Is SCOPE a real organization?” there has been much commenting on the piece mainly from Phil Hof who is affiliated with SCOPE. After my inquiry into when the next SCOPE meeting was to be held and being told that it would be at the end of August, there was no such meeting scheduled. Deciding to write about that and to ask questions the commentary clearly ruffled some feathers. (more…)

“Here we come. Walkin’ down the street. Get the funniest looks, from- everyone we meet.”- Lyrics from the song, “Hey Hey, We’re The Monkees”; A banana bunch of years back, a young Las Vegas man was sentenced to 3.5 years in a Shreveport, LA court, for stealing a monkey and trading it for marijuana and crack cocaine. The obvious metaphorical conundrum is the fellow was trying to get the monkey off his back while trying to get the monkey on his back. (more…)

(From the AP) The fire danger level in the Angeles National Forest will be raised from high to very high. The U.S. Forest Service says the change will take effect Thursday to remind the public that fire-risk conditions are rising with hotter weather and drier vegetation. Despite the change, the agency says there will be no new campfire restrictions. Open wood and charcoal fires will be permitted in developed campgrounds and picnic areas. (more…)

(From the latimes.com) Intensifying its push for an NFL stadium in downtown L.A., entertainment conglomerate Anschutz Entertainment Group launched an unusually direct and public attack on one of the most prominent critics of the proposal. (more…)

(From the latimes.com) With an uptick in June, home prices in major U.S. cities have recorded three consecutive months of gains. But the glimmer of improvement is almost certainly seasonal in nature, real estate experts said, and prices could begin to fall again when the slower sales season begins. (more…)

This Wednesday, August 31, 2011, will mark ten years since Deputy Hagop “Jake” Kuredjian paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving and protecting the residents of the Santa Clarita Valley. Jake was shot and killed in the line of duty while assisting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during the service of a search warrant on Friday, August 31, 2001, in Stevenson Ranch. He was 40 years old. (more…)

(From Science Daily) Losing weight without a grumbling stomach or expensive liquid diet can be as simple as eating a lighter lunch, finds a new Cornell University study to be published in the October issue of the journal Appetite. Participants who ate portion-controlled lunches did not compensate by eating more calories later in the day, leading researchers to believe the human body does not possess the mechanisms necessary to notice a small drop in energy intake. (more…)

Surely the greatest honor I have received since the publication of my new book, “Dangerous Learning: The New Schooling in California” has been the five-star review of the book for Amazon Books by Edward Mooney Jr., a CTA California Teacher of the Year teaching in the Antelope Valley Union High School District. He is more engrained than I as a published author, having published two books in his planned “Stone Man” trilogy, “The Pearls of the Stone Man” and “The Journey of the Stone Man.” (more…)

(From the nytimes.com) The White House has issued detailed guidelines to government officials on how to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, with instructions to honor the memory of those who died on American soil but also to recall that Al Qaeda and other extremist groups have since carried out attacks elsewhere in the world, from Mumbai to Manila. (more…)

The City of Santa Clarita is launching an awareness campaign titled “Heroin Kills, The High is a Lie” in an effort to educate parents, teens, and the community at large about heroin use in Santa Clarita. The campaign kicks off with the City’s first Heroin Symposium on Tuesday, August 30, 2011, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Santa Clarita Activities Center. (more…)

Last week Joe Messina published a piece titled Politics in the SCV is like an ongoing episode of “The Soprano’s” on his blog Right On SCV. The commentary generated some heat with the local Republican powerbrokers and The Beacon is running a short interview with Joe and a reprint of his commentary below. Here’s what Joe had to say: WRB: Joe why would you publish an article like this? JM: Because I know most people in the valley don’t understand politics. A lot of them want the nonsense in Washington to stop. But they forget that it starts in their backyard. (more…)

(From Science Daily) Watching a funny movie or sitcom that produces laughter has a positive effect on vascular function and is opposite to that observed after watching a movie that causes mental stress according to research conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. (more…)

Is the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE) a real organization working for the benefit of the entire Santa Clarita Valley? I really don’t know the answer to that question because I can’t seem to get a straight answer from that organization. This has made me quite inquisitive and wanting to start looking into that question and others! (more…)