Theoretically, if you take into account some of Einstein''s more esoteric theorems (parallel universes and all that), the tale of Zorro has already been filmed several thousand times over. Or maybe it just seems that way.

In 1971, when a group of citizens formed a pilot program in Northern California and M-2 began matching prisoners with visitors, there were 23,000 inmates in state prisons, according to M-2 statistics. Now, the California Department of Corrections (CDC) cites 158,000. Men and women from every…

There are two very different prisons in Soledad--one minimum security, one maximum; one old, one new--but they share the challenge presented to all prisons these days: trying to accommodate more inmates than their designs anticipated.

This year''s second annual Carmel Performing Arts Festival, set for Oct. 2-18, is a leaner, more carefully pruned version of last year''s first-time endeavor.