I recently refilled a prescription for a beta-blocker I’ve been taking daily for twenty-some odd years. The electrical system of my heart becomes unstable every once in a while, and Atenolol settles it down to a nice normal rhythm. Atenolol was first produced by pharmaceutical... Continue
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There is more to report this week on our sister city Aswan, Egypt. I have received endearing emails and texts from friends with simple messages. Yasser writes on Facebook “I miss you” with a frowning yellow face. Ahmed writes “how u family,” and Ismail sent... Continue
Today is the day so many have been waiting for. The thrill of dressing up, applying makeup, transforming oneself into something else altogether, is upon us. As I discussed last week, Halloween has a deeply-rooted and rather ancient history, however, ghosts are not limited to... Continue
No, this is not the first line of a Henny Youngman joke (if you don’t know who he was, Google him, the King of the one-liners), it’s an honest question. You see my wife is descended on both sides of her family from Puritans, one... Continue
Apervasive belief within Sonoma’s tourist serving businesses is that we must constantly compete for the attention of tourists. The recently formed Tourism Improvement District (TID) is spending $450,000/yr. on advertising of all sorts to “brand” Sonoma; placards on BART trains, billboards, radio spots, newspaper and... Continue
A cosmic self-referential paradox, our reckoning of time can be used to prove that it’s an illusion. Is this testament to our enduring capacity for self delusion or an example of humanity’s uncanny knack for cracking the underlying code of existence, or both? What allows all... Continue
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has a vision to make Sonoma County the healthiest county in California by 2020. To help make this goal a reality, the county Department of Human Services is managing the implementation of Sonoma County Upstream Investments, an initiative that... Continue
Spanish colonial efforts in the Americas necessitated doctrine addressing the relationship between the Spanish and indigenous populations. The welfare of the conquered Natives was addressed by the Laws of Burgos in 1512. Important to indigenous peoples, the laws attempted to regulate and dictate the interactions... Continue
We speak about Sonoma’s “sense of place” as if such an idea is obvious, that character and the meaning of “small town” are self-evident. The idea of “Sonoma,” if it occurs to one at all, necessarily resides in the imagination as an abstract totality, while... Continue
Understanding the prehistory of any region includes addressing three primary goals. The first goal involves developing a chronology, the second is to reconstruct past lifeways, and the third is an attempt to explain culture change. In other words, how old is it, how did they... Continue