Columns

Our Hispanic horizon

Bamboozled, hoodwinked and screwed. We, the voters of California, are being set up for a monumental miscarriage of democracy when we go to vote in the Nov. 8 General Election. It’s challenging enough that  the ballot contains 17 statewide propositions, the longest ballot in state history. But the real problem lies in the obscure text and the felonious pro and con arguments attached to each question.

The Russian River flowed for millions and millions of years, eons before the earliest of Pomo people established fishing villages here 10,000 years ago and called the river Ashokawna.

It’s “back to school” time again and that means shopping trips for new school clothes, buying new notebooks, pens and erasers for the backpack and complaining about how early the first class bell is scheduled to ring.

It’s “back to school” time again and that means shopping trips for new school clothes, buying new notebooks, pens and erasers for the backpack and complaining about how early the first class bell is scheduled to ring.

All sorts of barnyard proverbs and euphemisms could be used to explain the current taxpayers’ dilemma. Not to beat a dead horse, but we’ve repeatedly warned about too many tax increases and bond measures on the next ballot. We don’t want to sound like Chicken Little and claim that the sky is falling, but decades of runaway pension costs are finally coming home to roost. Somebody left the barn door open and all that is left in our taxpayers’ barnyard is a pile of cow pies and horse biscuits.

Put that phone down

The spread of special events in our wine country has been getting harsh criticisms lately as the Board of Supervisors works to more tightly define and regulate these weekend and seasonal celebrations and marketing affairs.

Out of the cannabis closet

Probably every issue of this newspaper ever published has contained at least one story or item about a death. That’s because when we share our lives and community together, we also share our passings.