It wasn’t quite four in the morning when my wife and I were abruptly awakened by the doorbell. Thoughts raced through my mind. Who was it? The police, immigration, or a relative with bad news? Cautiously we peered out the window and saw it was... Continue
Columnist
My wife and I moved to Sonoma in April of 1990 after purchasing a six-room bed and breakfast inn on West Spain Street. It was later in that year, in November, when we first encountered what we used to call "the slow season." By December,... Continue
We moved to Sonoma because it seemed safe and quaint. But this fire rocked our boat. It’s been a week of fear and shock. Contrasts like people skidding their cars around corners and cutting people off in anger and stealing, to kind people waiting patiently... Continue
The color of Mars, the color of blood, the color of sunlight through a sky filled with smoke, red on the Cal Fire map means the land is burning. Buddhist paintings depicting wrathful deities often show the figures surrounded by red flames. Though deities like... Continue
It is a common occurrence for a community member to approach me with questions and concern about the future of Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC). I get it entirely -- SDC is special. The bucolic setting and iconic status of SDC is a common thread that... Continue
I’m hard-wired for formal prayer. I find myself reciting the Our Father when an earthquake hits, and oftentimes at night as I go to sleep. “How weird,” I think, stopping in the middle, but then a Hail Mary (a woman about whom I hold equally wobbly beliefs), arises... Continue
For all the attempts to cast humanity in the brightest way possible -- religious positivism, new-age soul-making, liberal visions of the evolution of virtue, and fairy-tales with happy endings -- the dark side keeps casting a shadow across history. Is this simply, as some believe,... Continue
Scientists have long known about black holes, those deep-space phenomena whose gravitational attraction is so powerful that not even light escapes their relentless pull. Scientists in the local observatory down at Steiners have seen black holes so massive that even consciousness disappears. Lately they’ve been... Continue
Documenting our lives through photographs went mainstream with the introduction of Kodak's "Brownie" camera, introduced in 1900 at the price of $1; the "snapshot" was born, and with it arrived a new sense of self. Prior to that, memories of travel to distant places were... Continue
This month's column was prompted by Katie Byrnes' article, 'Why the 1960s matter' in the Aug 21st edition of the Sonoma Sun column. It was a rather melancholy column that captured a mood that is in the air now. "It was an inspirational, luminous and... Continue