Joe Gillespie remembers a time when kids around here just naturally gravitated to the outdoor splendor of Del Norte.

Whether it was swimming on a shoreline, venturing into the redwoods or playing a pickup softball game, “it didn’t take much to want to be outside.”

There weren’t the stultifying distractions of today’s technology, the lure of home video games and all manner of hand-held electronic gadgets. “We had two TV channels here when I was a kid,” he recalls.

Okay, so we’re not as healthy as we should be.

Del Norte County got some unwanted attention around California when it finished last among 56 counties in a study of “health outcomes” that measured quality and length of life.

We finished much higher in some other categories, including 25th for access to health care and the quality of that care. That bodes well for the future.

The California Building Standards Commission plans to adopt a new green building code effective Jan. 1, 2011. Being personally interested in building codes that directly impact my profession, I prudently perused the residential portion.

While most of us enjoy the local greenery, clean air and ocean, the proposed “green” code will do little to improve our environment, and much to drive low-income people from the area who would otherwise buy locally. A simple exercise will demonstrate why this is likely to happen.

I am commenting in regard to Triplicate Editor Richard Wiens’ Feb. 3 column titled “Remember when news was news?”

A person can indeed find an abundance of information at their fingertips with the advent of the Internet age. Apparently newspapers are reluctant to change and adapt to meet the demands of this new age. The Internet has been an undeniable medium for the exchange of ideas for nearly two decades now.

No doubt by now you’ve heard the governor say that his new budget protects education.

The governor proposes to cut K-12 education funding by another $400 per pupil, for a total of $2.5 billion, so his claim that the budget protects education is either a lie or he doesn’t know the facts around his own proposal.

The cold hard facts are that the proposed budget would reduce the revenue limit funding, the general propose support for schools, by $1.5 billion (see page 60 of the Governor’s Budget Summary.) When you factor in the cuts to child development programs, cuts to county offices of education, cuts from the K-3 Class Size Reduction program, and others, it adds up to serious cuts.

Sometimes, all you have to do is log on to the Internet for instant inspiration.

A “home page” always pops up first, and most varieties are designed to give you a quick survey of current information — news, sports, entertainment, a weather forecast, etc. Mine happens to be at charter.net, where the top headline is usually something like, “Jay Leno says he hasn’t spoken to Conan O’Brien.”

Like I said, instant inspiration, in this case to ponder the question: Where is America headed when it comes to getting its news?

A new California Supreme Court ruling brings needed clarity to state cannabis laws and vindicates the former Del Norte County medical marijuana guidelines.

Like the state guidelines, a county ordinance can now provide patients with a legal safe harbor of qualified immunity from arrest and prosecution, but it cannot be used in court as a limit on what a patient or collective can legally cultivate or possess.

The landmark ruling also affirmed that California’s state medical marijuana laws are constitutional, including the right to form patient collectives that grow and sell medical marijuana to their members.