I frequently hear from residents of my district who are passionate about issues facing their community and want to know, how do I get involved? One of the best ways to be active in Sonoma County is to serve on one of the county Boards,... Continue
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Why don’t you pull up a chair, pour yourself a six-ounce glass of a robust red wine – maybe a Monte Rosso zinfandel or a Robert Kamen cabernet – and picture a perfectly-grilled, medium rare filet of grass-fed beef. Yum, right? Well, basically, that’s what... Continue
Emotions are contagious. If you’ve ever been to a theatre to watch a comedian perform his schtick and found yourself guffawing along with the rest of the crowd, you’ve experienced the power of psychological mirroring. People are social animals, and elements of our behavior -... Continue
Life appears purposeful and growth to be an imperative of life itself. Even a single-celled amoeba must grow large enough before it divides in two. Solar energy constantly bathes our planet, stimulating an over-abundance of growth and what often seems to us as great excess:... Continue
Start of summer of 1968, the war in Vietnam was raging. A smaller war was raging in our little green house. My father, World War II vet, notorious underachiever, with a bad temper and me, a drug addled 16-year-old hippie war protester, were at odds.... Continue
Around this time each year many of us start to get more than a little tired of hearing, "Get out and Vote!" What? AGAIN? Yes! Voting is the lifeblood of our nation! That, and of course, bribery. Fortunately, hereabouts we can register and vote by... Continue
As of September 16, the U.S. casualty toll from mass shootings in 2024 – defined as involving four or more victims – was sitting at 553 killed and 1,835 injured. Those totals, compiled by Wikipedia, don’t count the numbers of family members, friends, lovers, co-workers,... Continue
Without doubt, the state of Arizona features some of the most spectacular landscapes in America, mind-boggling sandstone canyons sculpted by millions of years of wind and water and vast moonscape-like deserts which challenge life entirely. My wife and I are currently traversing such areas, and... Continue
I never had any intention of becoming a writer, to externalize and expose myself on paper. But as life would have it, I had a meltdown in a course I was taking, and out of that emotional quagmire I wrote a short piece called, “Queen... Continue