This week, the Register published a note about the sighting of a mountain lion near Old Sonoma Road.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!” The sound of my husband’s deep-voiced yell of shock and surprise pulled me out of my reading reverie. And then he did it again, even longer and louder, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I jumped up from my dining room chair and headed to where my husband was standing in shock staring into the kids’ play area (what for most people is their den).

My son was so anxious to get into the preschool this morning that he skipped the front door and went to try to get into the playground gate. After I signed the kids in, I made my exit, but not before the requisite number of kisses and hugs. The kids knew that Momma was going to the tooth doctor.

Summer School

As the mother of a murdered child, and a member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, I am speaking out against the death penalty. The death penalty needs to be abolished but it is important to recognize that the death penalty is the manifestation of a deeply flawed system that needs to be radically changed. When a loved one is murdered, family members are forced to survive unspeakable grief and trauma and unbridled media exploitation, while enduring a judicial system that serves to compound the tragedy and perpetuate the endless cycle of violence. Sadly, the normal grief process and healing must be set aside while family members brace themselves against the long and painful process of bringing the offender to “justice.”

“History will judge our leaders by how well we respond to climate change,” former U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimball has stated. Apparently, one of the big outdoor bosses of the National Park Service feels the same way. Jon Jarvis, a 26-year veteran of the park service and the man who oversees all the national parks of California, Oregon, and Washington, is taking global warming seriously. In a day and age when many park service leaders are environmentally ignorant, Regional Director Jarvis is an anomaly.

Tickets are now available for the 16th annual Hands Across the Valley Benefit Aug. 29, 2009.

California’s cost of guarding, feeding, clothing, medicating and supposedly educating its nearly 170,000 prison inmates and supervising 110,000 parolees is about $10 billion a year. The prison system very easily is the fastest-growing segment of the deficit-ridden state budget over the past decade.

A man died of a gunshot wound on the streets of Calistoga early Monday morning, a rare occurrence in a close-knit small town. Our hearts go out to the family of Calistoga resident Luis Octavio Carrillo, whose lifeless body was left on the road near the Napa County Fairgrounds.

There was one big pothole on Highway 29 that I had driven over for years, I learned to look out for it every time I drove home, and there it would be. I could count on having to swerve around it. After a while I grew to like looking out for it, swerving on cue every time I went by.

Everyone has a person who influenced their lives above all others. Just about everyone I know can identify someone who has been instrumental in making them the person that they are -- from the grandpa who taught him how to ride a bike, to the elderly neighbor who taught her how to make really good brownies. We all have someone who has been a constant source of support, a good shoulder to cry on, and an endless supply of good advice.

What politically-themed issue makes you want to scream?

Fire out your thoughts here on your topic of the day that is not covered through a Register.com article or opinion item.