Columns

Quaint as our rural countryside may seem, the history of Sonoma County agriculture is that of constant and dynamic change.

Did we all just wake up this morning in a brave new world that some are calling the “post-truth era?” The Oxford Dictionary says this is so. It has named “post-truth” as the new word of the year. It defines it as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

It’s Christmastime in California. You can tell by all the potted poinsettias popping up around grocery store doors. The holiday’s standard bloomer is actually a tropical plant that originated in Mexico and Guatemala. It was intro­duced to the United States by diplomat Joel Roberts Poinsett, appointed in 1825 as the first U.S. Envoy to Mexico. In addition to being a diplomat, Poinsett was also a physician and an

Credo for life

December: How sweet it is!

The solution to the county’s pension problem is simple, it’s just not easy to implement. Implementation will require political courage, a commodity often in short supply. The fact there is a serious problem with the county’s pension cost was acknowledged by the Board of Supervisors in 2011. The recent report by the Independent Citizen Advisory Committee on Pension Matters further documented that the problem is far from being solved five years after reforms had begun. More importantly, as a result of the committee’s work, we now fully understand why pension costs are so high, and we know a way to fix that problem.