Public Citizen

Larry Barnett lives in Sonoma where he was elected to three terms on the City Council and served twice as Mayor. A thirty-five-year resident, he currently serves on Sonoma's Planning Commission, where he recently was Chair for two years. Until her passing, he was married to his wife Norma for 50 years, has two daughters and three grandchildren.

Hit and myth

Our human experience is fundamentally emotional, and emotions are fundamentally confusing. The stuff of imagination and subconscious life, emotions are primordial, which means not subject to the whims of logic or reason. From the standpoint of brain development, logic and reason are newcomers on the... Continue

One hundred and fifteen degrees

In 1972 I lived in the foothills of St. Helena in the Napa Valley. It was a modest little house with a swimming pool built in the 1950s by the man who created Meadowood, now a world-famous luxury resort; he and his family lived there... Continue

Why it’s so hard to relax

The earliest Greek myths recount the emergence of the cosmos through a violent act of separation. The unity of all things was broken when at the urging of his mother, Gaea, her son Kronos forever divided his parents by cutting off the generative organs of... Continue

Sustainable growth

Talk about an embarrassment of riches. We read in the paper that many employers hereabouts have more jobs than they can fill. Businesses from car washes and tasting rooms to wineries and bordellos seem to have “Now Hiring” signs in the window. Thus the question... Continue

The search for autonomy

Our experience of the continuity of self, the sense of personal autonomy with which we awaken each day, is very persuasive. "I" is a persistent experience, persistent enough that each of us can treat it as real and thereby treat others as real, too. Indeed,... Continue

Addressing needs of Sonoma Valley seniors

Last month, the Sonoma Valley Fund released its groundbreaking report describing Sonoma Valley's nonprofit sector and the charitable dollars that fuel it, called “Hidden in Plain Sight: Sonoma Valley and the Charitable Sector that Serves Us.” One finding in particular really caught my attention: Despite... Continue

Summer in The Springs

The Springs is on the minds of many as we witness the new iteration of this community that has undergone huge changes in the past two years. The punch list for Phase II of Highway 12 is nearly complete. People are talking, debating, innovating, and... Continue

‘Tis better to have it than not…

Money isn’t my issue this time around, not that it’s always been abundant. I’ve saved it, spent it, lost it, found it, stolen it (I was seven), borrowed, gambled, lent, collected, stashed, donated, and shared it. I’ve frittered it away and hoarded it close. I’ve... Continue

When life throws you a curve

At our human scale it's easy believe in straight lines. High School geometry made things worse; Euclid's imaginary geometric forms served to reinforce our illusion that Point A, Point B and Point C can be connected by a straight lines, like when we point a... Continue

Disfavoring moral complexity

One of the dilemmas of modern times is effectively coming to grips with morality. The word itself is derived from Latin, meaning "proper behavior" but has become loaded with other connotations, religious and social. Our humanitarian, modern sensibilities incline us to disfavor moral entanglements in... Continue

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