The big news in North San Diego County this past month is there is now little North County news to read. What once was U-T San Diego’s daily North County section, meager as it was, is now a couple of pages in the back of the Metro section and a small separate section on Sundays. All of which are filled by just a handful of reporters who are trying to cover eight cities and several hundred square miles.

For the past several months I’ve been trying out Microsoft’s Surface Pro, a tablet and computer in one that runs a new version of the Windows operating system, plus all Windows applications.

Well, it appears to be happening — interest rates are increasing and bonds prices are falling. But fallout from the climbing interest rate has also been felt by holders of REITs.

I’m sure most of you have observed that the news media daily provide a steady torrent of bad news: tornadoes in the Great Plains, wildfires in Colorado, floods in the Northeast and Great Lakes region, suicide bombings in the cradle of civilization, mass demonstrations in Istanbul, ethnic wars in sub-Saharan Africa, vanishing species in the oceans and on land, vanishing glaciers everywhere, nuclear weapon proliferation in unstable nations and home invasions in suburbia.

Rarely since the civil rights era have state officials been as close to openly defying federal authority as Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature are today.

On occasion, something amazing takes place, changing minds, altering our sense of balance, and leading those undertaking a revolution into a fruitful state of mind. The Sustainable Brands conference, this year entitled “SB13: From Revolution to Renaissance,” is just such an event. (SustainableBrands.com)

Welcome to Opposite World again. As the U.S. Senate gears up for the Gang of Eight illegal alien amnesty bill debate, President Obama goaded Capitol Hill to pass what he called "smarter enforcement, a pathway to earned citizenship and improvements to the legal system" of immigration. Bullcrap. The White House has already bulldozed a traffic-jammed superhighway for immigration law-breakers by executive fiat.

Most people reading this have never tweeted. (You included?) On the off-chance that you have tweeted, my guess is you have fewer than 5,000 Twitter followers — maybe fewer than 500.

An unscientific effort by a news organization to see what political issues interest students on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, revealed that many of them didn’t know the name of the current vice president. A similarly large number of students admitted they hadn’t heard of Benghazi.

Every year, each member of the California State Senate recognizes an outstanding business in his or her district as Small Business of the Year. This year, I had the distinct honor to name AAA Imaging in Lemon Grove as Small Business of the Year in my district.