Dubroff: Honoring Kenji, a photographer with a big heart
In the post-pandemic era, it’s been hard to imagine a Business Times event without the presence of Kenji, a skillful photographer who quietly pursued his craft and made our picture pages come to life. Event photography doesn’t pay as well as commercial work, but it’s a once-a-month gig that puts food on the table. The Read More →
Guest commentary: The quiet cost of low expectations – and the courage it will take to rebuild
By Martha Salas After reading The Atlantic’s “America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy,” I couldn’t help thinking — some of us saw this coming years ago. We said that lowering standards was not compassion but surrender. The collapse didn’t begin with COVID or smartphones; it began when adults decided that feelings mattered more than fundamentals. For Read More →
Guest commentary: How the Central Coast can ride the AI holiday wave
By Starr Hall The holidays used to run on intuition. Store owners would stock up based on gut feeling, handwrite notes to loyal customers, and pray that the weather, the locals, and the tourists cooperated. In Santa Barbara, that intuition was practically an art form. You could walk down State Street or through the Funk Read More →
Our view: Opposition to offshore drilling unites environmental groups
Just a few months ago, the environmental movement was on its back foot. Aggressive action by the Trump Administration to walk away from renewables and EVs, and open public lands to all sorts of development, was met with a muted reaction. Affordable housing advocates were feuding with climate activists over no-growth policies and the outrageous Read More →








