Despite only writing a handful of columns for the month of January of 2009 and having about half of those cut by management when he was brought back to The Signal, John Boston was named Best Humor Columnist in North America by The National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 2009. He has been a weekly columnist for The West Ranch Beacon since July 2009 to the delight of his many fans.

This brings the total number of national writing awards for John Boston to an impressive 119 and counting. You can read John’s weekly column, “The Boston Report”, every Wednesday right here on The West Ranch Beacon, the Santa Clarita Valley’s most accurate, timely, and free online local news source!

(From the nytimes.com)

Each month, Facebook says, more than 30 billion photographs, links to Web sites and news articles are shared through the site, and its members spend roughly 700 billion minutes there.

“This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 26-year-old chief executive, said in a company blog post.

Facebook’s dizzying rise has not been without stumbles. Most recently, the company was the focus of intense scrutiny over changes to its site that encouraged members to make more information about themselves accessible to anyone on the Internet.

A recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed that user satisfaction with Facebook stood at 64 on a 100-point scale, which placed it in the bottom 5 percent of the companies covered in the index.

Read more here: Facebook Tops 500 Million Users

Joe Messina remembers growing up and hearing “Kids are so resilient”. He believes that was wrong and that we are reaping the benefits of giving in to that thought process. 

Divorces are still on the rise. Single parent families are occurring at an alarming rate. Children from single parent homes often have MANY more issues adjusting and getting along than those coming from a “Traditional Family Unit”. Now we are going to introduce gay and lesbian marriages into the mix? Are we in for even more trouble; maybe?

Guest Donald Goodman, LCSW works with Gay and Lesbian couples who either have or adopt children. He will be discussing the challenges these couples and children face.

Check out the show, see what the experts say. Go to the web site for more information.   www.TheRealSide.com  During the show make sure your voice is heard. Send me an email at joe@TheRealSide.com or hop on the web site and join the chat window.

“Tweet” me at www.twitter.com/TheRealSideSCV.com. To be on the air call 298-KHTS (5487)

(From the latimes.com)

According to the security company, users who click the link included in a friend’s anti-Coca-Cola message are brought to a page that’s supposed to show a video. Instead, an error message is displayed, telling the users that they need to “like” and share the video content several more times before they can view the clip. Upon doing so, they’re brought to a survey that asks for personal information.

Read more here: ‘Never gonna drink Coca-Cola again’ scam hits Facebook users 

But nonetheless it was a wonderful time on the upper mid-coast area of Maine. Fortunately I was north of the big heat wave that hit Boston and New York most of last week. I experienced near perfect weather; upper 70’s low 80’s clear blue skies and a light onshore breeze. It couldn’t have been more perfect as far as I was concerned.

As I always do when I’m up in Maine, I reflected on this past year and thought about the year ahead including the growth of The Beacon. This on-line publication; blog; website, whatever you want to call it has and continues to exceed my expectations. It is now widely read and has had an important impact locally on many issues. It has been ripped off, quoted, angers, shocks, informs, exposes and is buzzed about regularly which is what it should do!

We were thrilled that not only have all of our advertisers renewed their ads but we have picked up some new ones that will be popping up in the next couple of weeks or so. That, in and of itself, is a testament to the fact that these businesses want to be where the readers are daily. Although, the focus has never been on getting advertising, rather it has been on building the readership with great columnists, provocative articles and exposé that you won’t find elsewhere in the Santa Clarita Valley.

I’d like to think of The Beacon as kind of a writers co-op in the sense that much of the ad revenue is shared amongst our regular columnists; Eve Bushman, Chris Sharp, and John Boston. Unlike some old media outlets that don’t pay their local columnists a nickel; I’m can happily and confidently say that The Beacon writers are some of the best paid community columnists in the Santa Clarita Valley.

And rightfully so! In my book you can’t call yourself a writer or an artist or anything unless you get paid for that skill, craft or performance. L.A. is full of “screenwriters” that have never sold a script and “actors” who have never been paid to perform. Just go to virtually any restaurant and see for yourself. There are an awful lot of wannabe’s out there!!

That said; I not only thought about this site but also about the many challenges facing our valley including the ever present local developement; the hospital; the scammers around SCV that are pulling some dishonest crap and seemingly getting away with it; and of course the future governance questions for the unincorporated communities.

There is no shortage of local topics to write about and certainly you will get the whole story here; not some watered down skewed version or worse yet no coverage as we have all seen in the local old media outlet. There will be some controversial pieces coming up in the next few including the destruction of some endangered species, unmitigated greed, and of course some great bits of history, food & wine, and thoughtful commentaries from all of our contributors.

It’s great to be back, refreshed and rebooted!  

Dave Bossert- Commentary

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.

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(From the nytimes.com)

Facebook, the social network service that started in a Harvard dorm room just six years ago, is growing at a dizzying rate around the globe, surging to nearly 500 million users, from 200 million users just 15 months ago.

It is pulling even with Orkut in India, where only a year ago, Orkut was more than twice as large as Facebook. In the last year, Facebook has grown eightfold, to eight million users, in Brazil, where Orkut has 28 million.

In country after country, Facebook is cementing itself as the leader and often displacing other social networks, much as it outflanked MySpace in the United States. In Britain, for example, Facebook made the formerly popular Bebo all but irrelevant, forcing AOL to sell the site at a huge loss two years after it bought it for $850 million. In Germany, Facebook surpassed StudiVZ, which until February was the dominant social network there.  

Read more here: Facebook Makes Headway around the World

The history of questionable behavior by swim team activists dates back to our 1994 earthquake when our main pool was heavily damaged and had to be reconstructed.  The pool was originally built with standard coping… the type you would find at most pools.  The Summit HOA Board members at the time decided it was prudent to spend extra homeowner HOA dollars far beyond earthquake insurance coverage to construct a cantilever deck, wave less pool strictly designed for competitive swimming.  This major project included relocating our children’s wading pool and the gazebo, which was completely unnecessary had the pool simply been replaced to its original configuration.  This massive and very costly project was accomplished without benefit of a homeowner vote and capital improvement rules were disregarded to accommodate their mission to construct a competitive swimming pool for their swim team.  This action, which decimated our HOA accounts, brought tremendous angst into our community and several board member recalls were implemented. 

As you can see, this current swim team flair up is not a new Summit HOA controversy.  We’ve had other controversies too, notably the willingness of board members to go after a homeowner for installing a majestic “Bronze Horse” statue in their magnificent front lawn.  Tens of thousands of HOA dollars in legal fees were wasted fighting that homeowner and in the end, our HOA was again broke and the bronze horse was moved a mere 10 feet.  Things got so bad that we couldn’t even pay our bills.  By the time I became a first time board member in January 2009, it was obvious that maintaining our facilities had been the furthest thing from anyone’s mind for at least 15 years.  Our recreation center shade structures were riddled with dry rot to the point that serious safety hazards existed.  Had an earthquake occurred with people there, serious injuries could have easily resulted.  During demolition, a number of posts literally fell right over from dry rot.  Our tennis courts were also shabby and run down. 
 
By the way; the home with the majestic “Bronze Horse” mentioned above actually graced the front page and was featured in Santa Clarita’s magazine, “Inside SCV”, in its April 2009 edition.  Don’t you find our HOA’s selective policy enforcement interesting?  Does “The Bronze Seals” era lie in our immediate future?                              

Be advised that “NO DIVING” signs have always been posted at our pools since the beginning of this fine community and despite those signs and our no diving policy, diving has always been the practice of the Seals, even into the 3½ foot shallow end of our pool.  To read Randle’s Signal article you would automatically believe there has never been any diving.  He would also have you believe the swim team always had been properly insured and now the Stratfords are outrageously demanding a $20M insurance policy; I find this incredulous. 

As a former Summit HOA Vice President I can tell you that when I personally contacted our insurance carriers last March I was informed that our $15M umbrella policy did not apply to swim team activities.  And when I pursued details of a $3M liability policy, I was told that if they knew swim team activity was happening they would NOT renew our policy when it expired May 2010.  As of today, I do not know if adequate swim team insurance coverage has been obtained or not, however based on my findings last March I would suggest caution. 

Entitlements beget dissension.  This defines the Seal’s (a so-called separate entity) $1.00 annual contract to use our facilities.  All other homeowners have to rent the clubhouse, but the Seals have always had free usage on predetermined dates during prime months of the year.  If you are a paying homeowner who wishes to rent/conduct a summer wedding reception or baby shower at our clubhouse, you will likely be superseded by the Seals.  This represents a loss of revenue to the HOA.

To reiterate, I resigned from the Summit HOA last month for reasons previously reported and I did not choose to go public with this swim team controversy.  Going public to attack others is a pattern we’ve seen here before.  Those extremists who made this a public issue have done nothing more than diminish the image of our Valencia Summit community – how does this attract new homeowners and enhance property values?  I have been forced to respond publicly here because my name and reputation is under siege.  It is common knowledge by those who have lived in the Summit for any length of time that when you question swim team activities, you will be promptly demonized and personally attacked.  

I believe Signal reporter Jonathon Randles was used unwittingly to support radical elements here.  In my opinion, Tim Myers, a non Summit resident, is a willing participant and is being used to continue the frantic behavior of swim team extremists. 

I also firmly believe that while both boards were attempting good faith negotiations to resolve differences, radical elements disrupted that process and forced the Summit Board to violate a written agreement it had with the Stratford Board.  This led to a complete breakdown in communications and it seems, I fear, a legal course cannot be avoided at this point. 

In deference to Holly Thompson’s view (Seals Manager) that certain people want the Seals to go away, I do not believe Summit homeowners are striving to eliminate them.  Rather, I believe there should be appropriate insurance coverage and equity in their use of our facilities.  Having previously discussed the favoritism aspect of the Seals activities with swim team officials, I believe there is much common ground here and compromises could be reached if cooler heads prevailed.

William L. Reynolds- Commentary
Valencia Summit Homeowner since 1986

William L. Reynolds is a community volunteer who has served on the Summit HOA board. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.

(From Science Daily)

“We found every additional hour of TV exposure among toddlers corresponded to a future decrease in classroom engagement and success at math, increased victimization by classmates, have a more sedentary lifestyle, higher consumption of junk food and, ultimately, higher body mass index,” says lead author Dr. Linda S. Pagani, a psychosocial professor at the Université de Montréal and researcher at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center.

The goal of the study was to determine the impact of TV exposure at age 2 on future academic success, lifestyle choices and general well being among children. “Between the ages of two and four, even incremental exposure to television delayed development,” says Dr. Pagani.

Read more here: Toddlers and TV: Early Exposure Has Negative and Long-Term Impact