Public Citizen

Larry Barnett lives in Sonoma where he was elected to three terms on the City Council and served twice as Mayor. A thirty-five-year resident, he currently serves on Sonoma's Planning Commission, where he recently was Chair for two years. Until her passing, he was married to his wife Norma for 50 years, has two daughters and three grandchildren.

Living in a doctrinal world

Our cultural narratives, and every culture has them, contain doctrines of belief. These doctrines vary, just as the original languages of separated cultures vary, including vocabulary, word meanings, idioms, and implications. As each of us is born into a culture, so too are we indoctrinated,... Continue

Rolling with it

This year’s been a roller coaster ride. We were waiting nervously at the top of it, then whooshing down the wheel, gasping for breath, we landed. Sort of. Cancelled travel, pandemic panic, unpacking evacuation bags, wondering if the fire season is really over, or if... Continue

Moving forward, looking back

History is a living thing; the way we think about today may not be the same way people think about it in the future. We’re only human, after all, and the decisions we make are sometimes good, sometimes not so good, and sometimes terrible. None... Continue

The United States of suspended animation

The most prominent feature of this unsettling interregnum following the election is the lack of closure. We did not get the release of dread or the angst of defeat. The Constitutional machinery was not designed for this kind of malicious bad-faith stress test. The Fox/Breitbart/Rush... Continue

After life

I understand why people invented god. Life is full of surprises, many of them terrible. Searching for answers about why we suffer is mostly a fool’s errand. Shit happens. Yet despite the challenging uncertainties of living, the world’s religions, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or... Continue

It’s almost this year again

This preliminary election report is being assembled late on November 3 before all final results are in, but by the time you are reading it Election 2020 will finally be over. That’s just per the calendar, of course. Because as of November 3 there is... Continue

Semi-woke

Back in the days of Tim Leary, Bucky Fuller, Abbie Hoffman, and Jefferson Airplane, conversations veered into talk about consciousness, raised and otherwise. In the mind-expanding 60s and 70s it seemed as if humanity had finally woken up, had come to understand the precariousness and... Continue

What could possibly be next?

The year that lasted forever is finally coming to an end. We hope for better days soon. Election jitters, along with pandemic pandemonium, mutes our usual social festivities and song. Winter darkness descends with daylight savings, ominous winds swaying half the town’s timber and next,... Continue

With Nellie, the wrath was silent

Chapter 8: Backstory, my maternal grandparents -- Dec 26, 1894 • Fruita, Colorado ~ In a ceremony in her parents’ home, 21-year-old Nellie Chamberlin married Charles Henry Chatfield, a ranching man of 24. Nellie was a no-nonsense Catholic girl and exceedingly religious, but she also had a mind of... Continue

Call them by their names

I like to sit on my porch, on these beautiful fall days, and watch the ravens cavort in the crepe myrtle trees. People walk by, kids on bikes, a mom pulling a baby in one of those cute little bicycle carriages. The sky is almost... Continue

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