How to sign up for Medicare
So you’re turning 65. Congratulations! It’s time to start taking advantage of your Medicare benefits. And just how do you do that?
In support of local winegrape growers and sustainability
As president of Sonoma County Winegrowers and on behalf of Sonoma County winegrape growers and their families, I wanted to take the opportunity to share how the local farming community is working together to preserve our agriculture character, including correcting the misinformation that has appeared in some local newspapers recently.
For equal responsibilities
Growing up, my parents taught me about my responsibilities to my family, my school and my country. Taking responsibility was expected of me. Today, it appears the emphasis has shifted from people taking responsibility to demanding their rights. There is an extreme focus on rights –as individuals and as members of a democratic society. The public discourse is filled with discussions of rights – whose rights trump the others or are being infringed – but often there is silence about having responsibilities.
From source to tap: Where our drinking water comes from
When we get thirsty we turn on our taps and voilà, a nice refreshing glass of water appears before us. Having around-the-clock access to safe and reliable drinking water requires huge investments of time and money, but rarely do we consider the source or the value of water.
Not that rainy day
As a new year opens for us, we see lots of evidence about how two major events — our economy and the weather — keep avoiding our best predictions. We know they both run in cycles, but we can never get the timing just right.
Law: Revealed, natural and positive
Some time ago a column entitled “Religion challenges left and right” by E. J. Dionne, Jr. appeared in the Press Democrat. “Whenever I write sympathetically about religion,” he noted, “I get bombarded with tweets and notes from readers who normally agree with me but cannot abide by the idea that religious belief should be seen as intellectually serious.” Having made that caveat he goes on to treat religion seriously in a summary of a study produced by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution. Dionne himself took part in the research for the study. The study divides citizens into four groups: 28 percent religious conservatives, 38 percent religious moderates, 19 percent religious progressives, and 15 percent nonreligious. These groups are correlated to political attitudes and party affiliations. Not surprisingly, most religious conservatives are politically conservative and gravitate to the Republican Party, and most religious progressives and nonreligious are politically liberal and gravitate to the Democratic party. Also not surprisingly, religious moderates are in between and just as they are religiously moderate they tend to be moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats in fairly equal numbers.
Words to give by
This is Thanksgiving week and along with the turkey, cranberries and other fixings, usually comes another tradition — a Thanksgiving message written in this space for our local readers. The editorial always urges everyone to not only count their own blessings but to reach out to those who have unmet needs for food, shelter or personal security.