Columns

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.

Looking for a lost pet or a new four-legged friend? See the list of incoming strays and the slideshow (above) of cats and dogs available for adoption from the Sonoma Humane Society, Healdsburg Center.

Listening to a jazz band improvise recently, I thought of food.

We often lament the lack of civics and citizenship curriculums in today’s schools. We believe we should add lessons on the importance of voting, readings of the U.S. Constitution, lectures on the essential elements of a democracy and the rights and responsibilities of every American of all ages, races and gender. We can’t answer President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day call for unity without knowing these axioms.

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Last week, it was cheese. This week, it’s nuts. No, not crazy. Not nutty. Nuts—like almonds, like walnuts and pistachios.  Much was made of almonds’ water usage, requiring one gallon per nut. Whoa! That is a lot of water! A question might be: Compared to...

This Week in H’burg is a weekly column featuring photos and fun facts from local photographer Pierre Ratté. Each week we’ll feature a new photo from Ratté along with a fact about the subject matter of the photo.

Do black lives matter? Of course they do. But the more relevant question to those of you reading this and for everyone else who lives in Sonoma County is, “Do brown lives matter?” That’s because less than 2% of our county’s 500,000 population is...

Why do we keep hearing so much about ‘cancel culture’? First of all it’s not a real thing. You can’t cancel culture, especially someone else’s. But, just using the words can cause harm and hurt. It can be a form of bullying, angry mob mentality and destructive lack of tolerance.