Columns

America is an idea that is made up by many voices. The only way to limit the American ideal of democracy and a more perfect union is to discourage or deny even one of these voices. Seldom in America’s history has there been more topics or reasons to raise our voices, listen intently and engage in purposeful conversations. We find ourselves living in times of a global pandemic, whirling natural disasters, national political turmoil, racial awakening and economic uncertainty. Voices are cascading, clashing, clamoring and crescendoing everywhere.

We’re all familiar with the catastrophe of the October fires, and so far, we’ve responded in a way that showed the strength of our community.

District 2 Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) was on hand at the July 20 meeting of the Windsor Democratic Club to discuss his 2017 legislative activities. He outlined highlights of the recently passed $183 billion budget with expanded support for K-12 education and additional funding for pre-schools. Wood reported that gas taxes have been increased to pay for repairs to our highways, the condition of which is costing motorists approximately $700 per year in repair costs to their individual vehicles. He touched on other legislation in which he is engaged, including Assembly Bill 1433, which proposes using funds from the recently passed Cap and Trade Extension for carbon sequestration through better management of our forests and natural and working lands.

In a few weeks all of us will mark a full year of living in this COVID-19 time of a pandemic, sheltering in place and worrying about what terrible things like more wildfires, a positive virus test or loss of a job might happen next. What has this year of disease, tension, uncertainty and new daily living patterns done to us? Are we all becoming Zoombies?

In 2008, the folks behind SMART told us that if voters approved the quarter-percent 20 year sales tax they would build 71 miles of train and a 71-mile bike path and that annual operating costs would be $16.5 million per year. They also claimed SMART would alleviate traffic on 101 and help fight climate change. The problem is none of these promises ever materialized and now SMART is asking voters to approve an additional $2.4 billion on a 30-year tax extension nine years before the current tax expires. 

Mankind has had a very long association with masks, probably dating to the Stone Age some 200,000 years ago. Masks have been a part of ritual, religion and play. But through all those epochs of time, it’s been very rare that a civilization donned...

Madness and greed have sparked a spate of home invasions, violent crimes and robberies, some botched, that have taken place from Cloverdale and Santa Rosa to Sebastopol and Petaluma.

“Real Newspapers, Real News” is the theme of this year’s National Newspaper Week (Oct. 1-7.) Indeed, there’s always been lots of “real” at newspapers. Real stories, real journalism, real work, real deadlines, real honesty, real facts, real changes and now, real threats.

Last weekend, I went to the hair salon to get some highlights. The guy that colors my hair is fabulous, in his early 30s, really sweet. We were gabbing about life, how my teens are liking their new school and our gossip drifted to the topic of social media. He uses it for his business, a necessity we all know in order compete and thrive professionally. And then the conversation turned personal. We joked around about how old we are and feel when it comes to comparing the world now and the world 20 years ago. And then he asked me a very interesting question.