We've written about creating affordable housing regularly for the past three years. We've made concrete suggestions about raising revenues, proposed new policies to stimulate housing, and offered a variety of solutions, all to no avail. At this point we've had to conclude that the leadership... Continue

America's founders were highly literate and books held an important place in their lives. On a yearly, per capita basis, people read far more books in the 18th Century than today. This was not simply a matter of fewer distractions and forms of entertainment; enlightenment... Continue

The abundance of American wealth has fostered a wasteful society. Our throwaway culture and mindset has now spread globally; in a mere few hundred years, the human race has been transformed into Homo garbagicus, our waste and refuse spread from pole to pole. On the... Continue

The poor Springs. Borrowing a famous dictum about Mexico – “so far from God, so close to the United States”– we might say of this large unincorporated area where over 60 percent of the Valley resides, “so far from Santa Rosa, so close to Sonoma.”... Continue

This editorial in favor of extending the hospital parcel tax originally ran in February, but the argument, and our support, remain strong for the June 6 special election.  Our local Sonoma Valley Hospital continues to need financial support from the public. This support comes in... Continue

Perhaps it's a false dichotomy, this notion of Sonoma Valley as either Heaven or Hell, but Americans, after all, gravitate towards dichotomies: winners and losers, good and evil, villains and heroes, beauty and ugliness. Here in Sonoma Valley, however, the dichotomy is real, as clearly... Continue

All of us, without exception, had or have a mother. The miracle of birth is the miracle of motherhood, and we humans have been wrestling with that mystery for as long was we've had self-awareness. The archeological evidence of our obsession with fertility, birth and... Continue

One of the common refrains we hear around town is that "things are changing." Some say this with enthusiasm, while others sound mournful and discouraged. What some call "progress" others call "failure." What's missed by both sides of this argument is their agreement; things are... Continue