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.

Tearing the ties that bind

What's to be done when those we love and care about become the potential agents of our own demise? This pandemic presents us with an entirely foreign situation in America, where we have been largely spared the horror and pathos of war and the intimate... Continue

The winter market

What's fresh, and a delicious recipe for sauteed escarole Winter, if we can call it that in the amazing Sonoma Valley, does slow down the growing season, or at least a bit. Soil temperatures are a defining factor in what grows in a given season,... Continue

Coronavirus and your taxes

California is under the Shelter in Place mandate and it’s a little freaky out there. All these crazy changes to our way of life, our way of shopping (do you have enough toilet paper yet?), to our economy. Temporary, we expect. We hope. Of course... Continue

Another huge challenge for the Sonoma Valley

During one month, the Board of Supervisors made three different declarations of emergency – Napa earthquake, 2018 floods, and drought – all at the same time. At this point, I’m yearning for the simplicity of that time. Since then, we experienced two massive fires and... Continue

America’s not ready

Super Tuesday appears to have provided the likely answer to the question of who will be the Democratic Party’s candidate for President this November, and it ain’t Bernie Sanders. Despite his win in California, the combined votes for Biden and Bloomberg in this state outweighs... Continue

Bernie vs. Biden – the race is on

In politics, timing is everything. After a close win in Iowa, and a clear win in New Hampshire, the Bernie Sanders campaign had seized the narrative with a decisive win in Nevada. With the first three dominoes down, the campaign was shooting for a Super... Continue

The growth paradox

Life on planet earth is a complex, adaptive system programmed for growth. Thus despite periodic major extinctions over its long history, earth continues to be populated by millions of species of plants and animals which have variously adapted to a wide range of habitats and... Continue

Sweeney’s Penny Candy

1950s San Francisco... On Haight and Belvedere, tightly wedged between my father’s dime store and the Superba Market, was Sweeney’s candy shop. The Sweeneys were a sweet white-haired couple who lived in the flat above their Haight Street store. Actually, now that I think about it,... Continue

Don’t answer the door

Readers are doubtless relieved that the door finally hit 2019 in the behind and they won’t hear anymore about Threats to Democracy the nation resolved last year: the Mueller Investigation, Impeachment, Ukraine, War with Iran, opioid deaths, border walls, mass shootings, families in cages, fascists,... Continue

The problem of evil

As I see it, evil is the willful infliction of pain and suffering on others. It's been with us for a very long time, and will continue to plague humanity into the future. Although people have wrestled with the problem of evil in various ways... Continue

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