Johnny Cash and Prince might not have had a great deal in common musically, but there is a link. Her name is Sylvia Massy , who worked in the production of songs for both artists. She spent years working her craft in Los Angeles, before moving to first Weed and later Ashland. She still keeps a hand in the recording studio, guiding bands and helping train a new generation of engineers and producers.

Tight budgets are forcing state universities on both sides of the line to raise tuition. At this point, the only question for Oregon students is how MUCH tuition will rise. At Southern Oregon University , the president says the range is 8-12 percent. Humboldt State University students recently walked out of class to protest the planned tuition hike there.

Let the sun shine! Sunshine Week celebrates the public's right to know the business of government... and observes the uneven delivery of the goods by various governments. The messes and mistakes of government transparency are celebrated (tongue-in-cheek) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Foilies." Entities from the president to the sheriff of Milwaukee County ended up on the list this year.

Why does a crowd yelling "surprise" at a birthday party delight one person but make another grumpy? They're just wired that way, we like to say. And we could very well be wrong. Psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has a different theory: that emotions do not come from specific areas in the brain in all people, but from all over the brain, depending on an individual's experiences and thinking. Barrett lays out the theory in How Emotions Are Made , just now hitting bookstores.

"Two heads are better than one" seems like a mismatched phrase with "fake news," but there's a common thread. And that is the working of the human brain. We tend to think better in groups than as individuals. And that may explain why left to our own devices, we believe in conspiracy theories or lying reporters. Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach are the co-authors of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone .

Maybe your phone rings in the evening, and you don't recognize the number in caller ID. So you pick up, only to hear some robo-call voice warning you that there could be a problem with your health or your safety or your money. If you're over the age of 50, that could be why you get such calls. A profusion of scams targets seniors, and Indra Nicholas from Home Instead Senior Care in the Rogue Valley has heard of most of them.

Education is seen as the pathway to a better life in America. But the pathway is neither straight nor wide for the estimated two million young people who were brought to America illegally as children. A study that tracked 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles found significant obstacles. Robert Gonzales tells the story in his book Lives in Limbo .

Oregon and California already draw the ire of hardline anti-immigration groups. Oregon is a sanctuary state, and California is considering that status. Within the states, local communities are also looking at sanctuary status, meaning local police would not enforce federal immigration laws. Ashland is already a sanctuary city; Arcata's city council will likely take a vote in April.

The battle over school standards and funding tends to skip over an important point: the schools are not solely responsible for student success or failure. Kids bring family and community "baggage" to school with them, and are often lacking some of the basic tools to just pay attention in class. The University of Oregon hosts a panel discussion on "What Kids Bring to School," tonight (March 14) at the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.

You can get all kinds of college degrees studying religion. But until a few years ago, there was no secular studies program by that name anywhere in the United States. Pitzer College in Southern California started the first such program, with Phil Zuckerman as its head. The program "neither applauds nor condemns" secularism, but the program's presence cheers secular segments of society.