My aunt Carmen died of Covid. I miss her.

By Loretta Susan Carr -- “Hello, Susan? It’s Carmen. Call me back.” That message is saved on my answering machine, and when I can bear to hear her voice again, I will push “play” and get ready to cry. Carmen was my dear aunt, my... Continue

Easy steps to get organized for taxes

Do you postpone, then grit your teeth, and steel yourself before diving into preparing data for your tax return? Don’t feel alone. I think about 90 percent of the population feels this way. Below are listed some steps to make this less challenging and more... Continue

Benches not fences

It’s been a long, nail-biting challenge. What have we learned from the pandemic, the fires, and the elections? That we need each other. Even if we say we’re introverted or we’re okay at home all the time, we know, in our bones, we are revived... Continue

Invasion of the hippocampus snatchers

In the midst of America’s “red scare” of the 1950s, Hollywood responded with films like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the horror flick that generated the meme of “pod people.” In the film, a psychiatrist is visited by a growing number of people who... Continue

Biden administration off to a good start

The events of the past week have reassured me that the Biden team learned from the experience of the Obama Administration. They realize that they have 18 months to deliver or be shellacked in the 2022 midterms. They share an updated Davos version of the... Continue

Frustration – and good news – as the County begins vaccinating

I am hearing from hundreds of people about the issues with the vaccine rollout, and trust me, I am frustrated too. The good news is that 11% of the county’s population of 411,096 residents aged 16+ have received at least one dose of vaccine; 3%... Continue

Serves the drunken old fool right

Chapter 11: My grandfather Sep 30, 1915 • Red Bluff Daily News, Los Molinos, California: WOMAN ALL ALONE GIVES BIRTH, CHILD TAKES CARE OF IT When a baby girl was born last night to Mrs. C.H. Chatfield of this place, the woman, unaided except by some of her small... Continue

The banality of banality

In describing Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi officer who dutifully accounted for the genocide of nearly uncountable victims of Hitler’s Nazi terror and extermination, author Hannah Arendt famously coined the phrase “the banality of evil”. In Arendt’s evaluation, Eichmann was not an enthusiastic Nazi true believer,... Continue

A love letter to Sonoma

This has been a hard year of constant whiplashes, isolation, grueling, gripping stories of struggle, catastrophe, conflict, chaos, creativity, and gratitude. The news is churning. Living in lockdown, I had love on my mind before more violence hit America. I was fumbling with humble fingers... Continue

Reconciliation requires repentance

Just when I thought I’d pretty much seen it all, the storming of the Capitol proved that, even as a jaded and politically black-pilled political junkie, I am still capable of being shocked and enraged. My personal practice is to not have breaking news alerts... Continue

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