The City of Sonoma has always had oligarchs, powerful people of great wealth and the inclination to use it. First among these was General Mariano Vallejo, the Mexican General who owned much of Northern California, including the town of Sonoma. He laid out the city,... Continue

America was founded from within a state of paranoia, the persecution experience of the Puritans and other Christian sects in England. Coming to the shores of North America was envisioned by them as their refuge from paranoia, but instead of escaping it, they brought it... Continue

Along with Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents", Carl Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" formed the foundation for the new field of human psychology at the beginning of the 20th Century. All at once, the human mind itself was revealed to be... Continue

The hallmarks of civilization are order and bureaucracy, the institutionalization of humanity into concrete rule-bound systems, balanced budgets, statistics, financial analysis, and the businesslike conversion of human beings into calculable units. The governing rationale of civilization is an obsession with the future, looking ahead and wanting... Continue

Your dreams are sending you information, and it's all about you. Your mother might appear in dreams, but it's not really her, it's your imaginary her, or rather, the mother-archetype your mother represents. And you are in your dreams too, of course, watching, feeling, reacting... Continue

What we call communication - the words and symbols we employ both orally and in written form - strikes me as too primitive to be trusted. Our connections with each other one-on-one or in small groups can include physical contact, but once we get beyond... Continue

Sonoma Valley's close proximity to eight-million people is a physical reality. That our valley happens to be exceptionally beautiful, contains historic and charming villages, and offers some of the finest agricultural land and growing conditions in the world is also true. Yet, combine these factors... Continue

The Trump administration's dissing of opponents reminds me of comments made by Richard Nixon's Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, who criticizing the opposition, condemned the "effete corps of impudent snobs." Agnew, forced to resign due to evidence of bribery and corruption, did not write those words; speech-writer... Continue

Authoritarian regimes use threats of force, coercion and intimidation to cow the populace and force it into submission to that regime's imperatives. Enlisting the aid of those who wield weapons - military and police forces with the power to arrest and incarcerate - regimes bent... Continue