Opinion

It Takes a TEP Village

Topanga Elementary Charter School (TECS) recently received a $2,214,351 in LAUSD funding for a project to install approximately 84,000 square feet of new paving including the playground areas, ADA compliance work and…

Guarding Your Privacy

For the live-your-life-in-public generation the value of privacy is superseded by the value of being connected. But what might you want to hide? What might you want to keep private? Why?  …

When Trees Dance

It is Friday, February 17, and I am driving north on the S-curves. My boots are covered with wet sand from standing on the breakwater at Porto Marina. I’ve discovered that if…

Lessons from Seuss

This weekend, March 24-26, Seussical the Musical will be performed by more than 80 children from Topanga Elementary Charter School’s Theater Arts Program. “Think left and think right and think low and…

Letters – March 10, 2017

Dear Editors: Thank you for sending the first two issues of the Messenger Mountain News. I let Katie open the envelope and she was so pleased and impressed with your new paper.…

Words Count

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty confuses Alice when he says, in a rather scornful tone “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…

Dreaming of “The Ash Grove”

The ash grove, how graceful, how plainly ’tis speaking The harp through it playing has language for me. When over its branches the sunlight is breaking, A host of kind faces is…

A Forest of Women

I take another woman out of the box, remove her clear plastic bubble wrap, and place her on my dining table next to her stoneware sisters. Two recline in front, resembling wet,…

Letters – February 9, 2017

Bravissima!   Kathryn and I just finished reading the inaugural issue of the Messenger Mountain News. Congratulations to you and Flavia!  Bravissima!  Well done!    We were deeply moved by your introductory letter.  Your…