The crows are back. They arrived on time as usual, just when the black walnuts started dropping from the tree growing in front of the yellow bungalow across the street. First I hear them, croaking and clucking from atop a metal light post, wooden telephone... Continue
Columnist
Hilary Campbell is a New Yorker magazine cartoonist and author who just happens to have been raised right here in Sonoma. Continue
Winter inclines us toward withdrawal. Though we need each other more than ever, the desire to hide lures us. Life’s strange and wobbly, which fits with the dark time of year descending on us. Still, community also sustains us. In his new book, “In the... Continue
By John Staley Sobriety is a pain in the ass – inconvenient in other words. When I decided to quit drinking ten years ago, I just wanted a break from the hangovers. I told myself I just needed a week to clear my head and... Continue
It’s a bit oxymoronic, “growing thinner.” We think of growth when something gets bigger, not smaller, but that’s what’s happening to me. I’m growing thinner. At 77 years old, I now weigh what I did as a Junior in High School, and then I considered... Continue
America is in a state of cognitive dissonance. Not familiar with the term? It’s a state of inconsistent attitudes related to behavioral decisions. Still not making sense? How about when you are living one way but thinking you are living another. In my classroom I'm... Continue
Savvy sav’e, adjective. Well informed and perceptive; shrewd. Knowledgeable or proficient. I read a letter to the editor in the newspaper the other day. The writer regretted voting for Donald Trump. Yet she defended voting for him by stating that she thought he was a... Continue
Fighting Communism and the First Amendment I have a painful confession. Donald Trump and I are buddies. He tells me so repeatedly. In fact he says he loves me. Really LOVES me. (I should explain that in some of my communications with Donald I have... Continue
Become a Brain Surgeon or Drink Less Wine? It’s not too early to point out that this year will be over any minute now, and it’s time to start putting together that list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2026. What?? Now? Yes, because the final... Continue
Here’s an odd contemplation: it was not my wife of fifty years who died last May, it was me. Perhaps a ghost of my consciousness has continued to spin out an experience of my reality, my Samsara, even though my body is now long gone.... Continue