A Tale of Two Churches

On November 19, 2023 I attended a church service held by the Sonoma Collective Church in the theater at Sonoma Valley High School. I am not a religious person, though I had a Catholic upbringing. My mother was a devout Catholic and never missed mass. ... Continue

Is LPG tanker storage SMART?

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, propylene, butylene, isobutane, and n-butane. LPG is used in heating appliances, cooking equipment, and vehicles. 2 years ago over 100 railroad tanker cars filled with LPG were... Continue

The Heart of The Sun

The other day I saw a post by Sarah Ford in Facebook, the words Sonoma VAL ley Sun inside a red heart. It was a fitting tribute to Val Robichaud our publisher at the Sun. Seeing it made my heart break once again and made... Continue

When enough is never enough

If your economy requires people to consume things they don’t need or even want, and to do more of it each year than the year before, just to keep the whole edifice from collapsing, then you need a different economy. So wrote Jason Hickel. My... Continue

Sonoma Valley homeless – action and reaction

These are the words of Annie Falandes, the founder of Homeless Action Sonoma (H.A.S.) from her December newsletter. “People ask me, why spend so much money? Someday I will have time to pull up the statistics, but as I have known from other studies, what we... Continue

Sonoma Council re-opens door for hotel developer fee waiver

So what exactly happened at the Sonoma City Council meeting of December 6, to hear Kenwood Investment’s appeal to not pay the required housing impact fees for its downtown hotel project? A lot of complicated talk happened, resulting in city staff going off to work... Continue

A good help nevertheless

At the age of 27 I left Minneapolis for L.A. in my big blue Chevy pickup truck. The road ahead and the possibilities seemed endless. I thought my life would go on and on, forever, no thoughts of death, no thoughts of the end of... Continue

One cost of hate speech

Words, can they hurt us? Can certain words create fear, make us angry, sad or depressed? Read these words. How do you feel? What do you think? These words are from a recent email to a Sonoma County Supervisor: “Fat old lady… Be careful what... Continue

Why is it so hard to say ‘I don’t know’

My husband Dave and I were putting up posters for a Wake Up Sonoma protest at the Springs Post Office building and the Lanning Structures site a couple of weeks ago. A man came up to us, looked at the poster and said, “You are... Continue

Hate speech comes home

Growing up in Minnesota I didn’t look like other kids. My Sicilian mother put a bowl on my head, cutting around it to create my signature curly-fro cut. Each summer I would spend every minute outdoors, achieving an amazing tan. That combined with slanted eyes... Continue

Personal/Political