By Leigh Cavalier, Founder, Sonoma Schools Alliance The flag is still flying. That is worth saying plainly, because one man already tried to take it down once. In January, Board President David Bell, acting alone, ordered the Progress Pride flag removed from Sonoma Valley High... Continue
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We were warned. No less than James Baldwin, the brilliant black writer, observed the heinous conduct of white America towards people of color, was horrified, and said as much: “moral monsters.” This was in 1979, and if anything, things have gotten worse. Yes, America elected... Continue
Sonoma Valley Sun Sports Editor Months before the globe’s most popular sport, now playing on its grand stage in the World Cup, I was singing the major soccer blues when the Azzurri, Italy’s national team, failed to qualify for the third straight time. I’m a... Continue
Gave Truth To The Night? You know the story. The bully in the playground has always existed. Through history we slayed dragons, lions, other humans, and everything else in sight. America began with stolen land, people and animals broken by force. Don’t think twice, it’s... Continue
While celebrating our country’s 250th anniversary, let’s remember that most of our forebears were immigrants who brought different ideas and goals, and sometimes traditional foods and festivals, from their countries of origin. Many of them also brought hopes of taking advantage of new opportunities to... Continue
And What Are The Odds? OK, pay attention, kids: 2026 minus 1776 equals 250. Yes, the 250th anniversary of the United States – July 4, 2026 – is here, and it will never come again. For all those years it’s been a wild ride through... Continue
Everything changes; it’s the one thing that never does. I remember when America celebrated its 200th birthday fifty years ago. It seemed like such a big deal, and yet here we are half a century later once again making a big deal about the Declaration... Continue
I consider myself a born iconoclast. From as early as I can remember I learned not to trust what I was told by those ostensibly in the know. I chalk it all up to having been put in a boarding school at the age of... Continue
In the late 1960s, as a junior reporter in Washington, D.C., I had the great good fortune of living in an apartment, at the intersection of 23rd and G Streets Northwest, about a 15-minute walk from the Lincoln Memorial and the now infamous reflecting pool... Continue
During Europe’s medieval period guilds dominated the working environment; apprentices learned their trade at the feet of a master craftsman. From shoemakers to bakers to blacksmiths, a trade was not simply a livelihood, but provided a valuable, stable and reliable place within society. The rise... Continue