Returning after a long hike. Grizzly Bear Lake hike. 14.5 miles and 4700 feet. Rated among the top five hikes in Canada.
It is located in Tombstone Park in the Arctic Circle with blazing midnight Sun.
Now for the photos.
Dawson is a town of 2000. It looks like a 1800s gold rush town, with unpaved streets and potholes. We are staying at “the historic Eldorado” with “antique” furniture.
When we came back last night, the restaurant was closed, so I enjoyed a glass of milk for dinner .
Long enough for a nation to reinvent itself again and again.
What has been a forever … a constant… is the story of possibility.
America’s belief that a person’s future should not be determined by where they were born, what resources they inherited, or the circumstances they faced along the way. It is the enduring idea that the American Dream should be within reach for everyone.
Few institutions embody that ideal more fully than community colleges.
Community colleges are a uniquely American invention. They were created on a simple premise:
Higher education should not be reserved for a select few. It should be readily available to all who seek to learn, grow, and contribute.
As we navigate an era shaped by artificial intelligence, climate challenges, economic transformation, and rapid social change, community colleges continue to stand at the intersection of opportunity and hope. Yes, we prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow, and perhaps more importantly, we also help them develop the judgment, resilience, and civic responsibility needed to strengthen the communities they call home.
America’s 250th is an invitation to recommit ourselves to the values that have always moved our nation forward: opportunity, service, innovation, and the belief that every person has something to contribute.
Across California’s 116 community colleges, I see those values alive every day.
I see them in the student veteran walking into a classroom after military service.
I see them in the working parent taking evening classes after a full day of work.
I see them in the first-generation college student who dares to imagine a future different from the one they inherited.
I see them in the California Community College faculty member, the classified professional and the administrator who refuses to give up on a single student.
I see them in communities that continue to believe that education remains one of the most powerful forces for individual opportunity and collective progress.
If the first 250 years of the American story were about expanding the boundaries of freedom and opportunity, then let the next 250 years be about ensuring that opportunity reaches every community, every family, and every learner.
The American experiment remains unfinished, renewed by each generation through learning, innovation, and service. Every day, across California Community Colleges, in classrooms, laboratories, apprenticeships, libraries, learning centers, and online, millions of students are writing the next chapter of that story.
As we celebrate 250 years, may we have the wisdom to learn from the past, the courage to meet the challenges of the present, and the imagination to build a future worthy of those who come after us.
That is the work before us.
That is the promise of education.
That is the mission of the California Community Colleges.
Our time is now.
Join the California Community Colleges in marking America’s 250th Anniversary and celebrating the students, graduates, and communities building California and the nation at https://www.cccco.edu/America250 –
My TGIF’s lazy morning was challenged by Fareed Zakaria’s article about liberalism that invites the revolution to move to the center. It got me thinking. Here are some of my nomadic thoughts.
In Adrian Wooldridge’s new book, “The Revolutionary Center,” a brilliant intellectual history of liberalism from the Enlightenment to the present, Wooldridge reminds us that liberalism was once the most radical force in politics. It attacked inherited privilege, monopoly power, censorship, aristocracy, clerical authority, and closed guilds. It was not the ideology of the establishment. It was the battering ram against the establishment
Socialist democrats, a political gadfly, are putting an emphatic stamp on the Democratic Party. Its ascendancy is under scrutiny and anxiety-provoking among most centrists and moderates.
The philosophical core of classical liberalism since the Enlightenment has encompassed individual liberty, limited government, private property, religious tolerance, social pluralism, accountability, free markets, reason, progress, and the rule of law.
Since the 1990s, the laissez-faire approach and the erosion of the essence of liberalism as originally conceived have manifested in corporate consolidations, legacy admissions, meritocratic “aristocracy”, homelessness, obesity, and NIMBYism, among other salient symptoms.
The failure is most glaring at the K-12 level, where union, political, school board, and foundation interests prevail at the expense of the next generation.
The Centrist approach to address this problem, perhaps harshly labeled Paternal Liberalism, is an attempt at reform that seeks to elevate the little guy to a level playing field and connect it with accountability.
The Leftist approach seeks transformation and not reform. The left seeks a system-based redistribution, identity-based politics, and outcome-based liberalism, if it can still use the liberalism label.
At present, the discourse is animated, loud, and contentious. Hopefully, it remains civil. Stay tuned.
My introduction to you happened in the late 1990s.
I arrived in Los Angeles, a foreign graduate student, trying to understand America through textbooks and LA’s RTD routes.
And then I met you.
An institution built on virtues I could not quite comprehend.
Infinite hope. Untiring patience. Radical non-judgment. You met people where they were.
Not where they should have been. Not where someone thought they ought to be. But where they were.
You were born long before I met you in the Central Valley, where community colleges first took root in California soil. Practical. Accessible. Close to home. Built for possibility.
And then you spread.
From the Central Valley – Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced you reached into the Inland Empire – Riverside, San Bernardino out to the eastern edge of our state – the Coachella Valley, Palm Desert, Indio up the North State – Chico, Redding across the Bay – Oakland, Hayward, San José down the Central Coast – Monterey, San Luis Obispo into Los Angeles – every corner, every neighborhood in LA and all the way to the borderlands – San Diego, Imperial Valley.
Across the Sierra foothills. Along Highway 99. Down the 5 and the 101.
Into farmworker towns. Into port cities. Into rural mountain communities. Into urban corridors. Where opportunity needed a doorway you became that doorway.
You evolved.
You empowered people. You improved constantly You innovated for students. You added programs. Added pathways. Added chances.
And over three decades, I have watched you love Californians by taking action in real tangible ways.
I have seen the foster youth who carried everything they owned in a backpack walk across a commencement stage because someone at a community college refused to give up on them.
I have seen the formerly incarcerated Californian who found purpose through education, completed a certificate, earned a degree, and now gives back to their community.
I have seen the veteran, resilient, carrying both visible and invisible weight, find a Veterans Resource Center and a faculty member who said, “You belong here.”
I have seen the student with a disability navigate hallways that were once barriers and find accommodations, allies, and a future not defined by limitation but by capacity.
You do not ask for perfection. You ask for effort. You do not require pedigree. You require courage.
Over two million students a year.
Two million stories of trying again. Starting over. Leveling up.
You are accessible. You are practical. You are relentless in your belief that Californians deserve more.
On this Valentine’s Day, I say it plainly:
I love you, California Community Colleges, – for your open doors. – for your stubborn optimism. – for believing in people before they believe in themselves.
You are California at its best.
And after three decades of watching you in motion … through reform, recession, innovation, and renewal,
I am convinced of this:
If there is an institution built on hope in America,
It is you!
With gratitude, admiration, and love Your chancellor, sonya
The end of September and the beginning of October present possibilities of Nature’s miracles in the Colorado Rockies. As the temperature looks winter-wards, the green on the Aspens deepens, presenting a dazzling spectacle of colors. From a greenish yellow to deep crimson, a plethora of colors erupt into a visual delight for the mesmerized eyes. Season’s first snow lends added contrast to rich colors. The colorful flora in the lap of towering, freshly snow-covered mountains wows the casual to the committed.
I happened to avail myself of Nature’s blessings this time around, an annual ritual in this part of the world. Aspen, Snowmass, and Vail are small towns with worldwide fame. It’s easy to see why.
Nature speaks for them. It finds eloquence in colors, in towering height of fifty-eight 14ers, and lung-cleansing air. The magic seeps deep in the soul.
A single day may befit a year.
Early morning freeze, midday heat on a taxing hike, late afternoon thunderstorm with “tropical” rain shower, followed by a sudden break in clouds, only to be substituted by late evening snowflakes. It’s a cycle we experienced more than once during our week-long escape to the Rockies.
The long hikes at demanding inclines and challenging altitudes confer long periods of absolute silence. The sense of awe finds a companion in introspection. Problems seem to find solutions.
Plagued by divisiveness, an unsettled mind yearns for an answer in nature. It strives to seek a resolution.
The changing colors tell a captivating story.
Photosynthesis is the foundational miracle of nature that harnesses water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to produce life-sustaining oxygen and energy. Trees have evolved to do it effortlessly and flawlessly with 100% efficiency—no wasted effort. No toxic residues. As Fall temperatures plummet, days get shorter, photosynthesis splutters, and leaves blush. No more worthy of photosynthesis, leaves fall and fertilize the next bloom. They fall in style and breathtaking splendor.
Hate should be deciduous, love perennial, the falling leaves seem to say.
Hate should blush with shame and fall, like fall leaves, to be reborn as love. That’s a cycle of life the Fall seems to inspire.
Imagine spellbinding colors of a Fall leaf drifting elegantly towards the ground, having fulfilled its obligations to support photosynthesis and now committing to raising the next generation. That’s how nature renews its vows. Life intuitively sustains itself.
Hate is counterintuitive to humanity. Love is the necessary glue.
The falling leaves helped me shed some of my prejudices. It was a refreshing and necessary interlude.
As the Earth completes its 25th orbit of the millennium, we pause to reflect on the journey behind us and look with zeal toward the path ahead.
In a time-honored tradition, a reinforced spirit will disavow the spirits again in favor of the gym and likely succumb to the inevitable, waiting for the circle to square again a year later. The Earth is closest to the Sun this time of year (perihelion), but the Northern Hemisphere is facing away from the Sun, so, as usual, we have winter in our part of the world.
We hope 2025 was a year of fulfillment for you, and we wish 2026 holds even greater promise.
We pray that 2026 exceeds your expectations in health, happiness, and prosperity.
Here is a piece on how we recognize military training in our colleges.
Army 1st Sgt. Joey Mora returned from four overseas deployments with hopes to advance into the next chapter of his life by graduating from college. It was a fight. Juggling classes and full-time policing, he watched his dream stall for over 10 years. Then, he arrived at Norco College, located 50 miles east of Los Angeles, in the Riverside Community College District. Staff helped him translate his Joint Services Transcript, the official document that details his military training and experience. He received 30 college credits, enabling him to complete an AA degree in one year, get promoted, and transfer to a four-year university for his BA and MS.
Mora’s success shouldn’t be the exception. It should be the norm.
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