Airbnb has ignited a firestorm of opinion pro-and-con regarding its facilitation of rentals of residential property for commercial purposes, even when that property is zoned for residential use only. The overnight or short-term rental of virtually anything is a commercial activity; money changes hands and... Continue

"Climate's capacity to inflict misery rises steeply when imperial arrogance and ideology hinder a society's adjustments to extreme weather." Eugene Linden - The Winds of Change Four years into persistent drought, California is now being told an El Niño is forming in the Pacific, and... Continue

It seems as if human beings are on the brink of knowing everything. Ours is the history of accumulated knowledge, beginning with fire and now extending to exoplanets circling suns many thousands of light-years distant. We've jumped from one understanding to the next, each built... Continue

The State Water Resources Board has told the City of Sonoma to cut its use by 28%; the Valley of the Moon water District by 24%. Given the current drought, these target cutbacks make sense; there's only so much water and it must be conserved.... Continue

I was sitting around talking with two friends when one of them asked me this question. He was talking about the ridiculously low minimum wage, cost of housing, unavailability of rentals, wealth inequality, biased tax code, dissolving social safety net, billions spent on our war... Continue

The current crisis in Greece, the role of Germany in imposing austerity programs, and endless ongoing conflict in the middle east reveals how deeply the western world suffers from a case of mass-obsessive-compulsive disorder. Generation after generation these regions have been the focus of attention... Continue

We no longer sacrifice human beings in ritual killings for the sake of a good harvest, though given their effects on human health we could view the use of agricultural poisons and pesticides from that perspective. Capital punishment in America, however, which objectively is unnecessary... Continue

My granddaughter, aged seven, and I were watching an animated movie about a curious fairy who is told by her Fairy Master not tamper with Pixie Dust. She does, of course, and an accident caused by one of her experiments wreaks havoc with the Fairy... Continue

Part of being human is being categorical. This means putting ourselves and things into endless categories, assigning names and establishing hierarchies. Our penchant for fragmenting the nameless whole into named parts and then using these named parts to construct a newly-named whole is deceptively seductive... Continue