Columns

Mankind has lived with fire almost forever. We couldn’t live without fire unless we switched to eating only raw food and figured out some other way to keep alive and warm during winter weather. Those illustrations of caveman life found in elementary school textbooks never looked that desirable or comfy. But, as we know all too well, there is good fire and there is really bad fire.

Good job on passing the tobacco ordinance

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 keep saying we are living in “unprecedented” times. Last week, it was 130 degrees in Death Valley and two hurricanes swirled toward the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, both being historical events. By the middle of the week there were 375 wildfires across California that burned 400,000 acres, a landmass the size of Rhode Island. Big Basin Redwoods, California’s oldest state park, was gutted by fire and Healdsburg’s Daniels School on Mill Creek that had survived 136 years of fire seasons was consumed by the Walbridge Fire.

Where do we go?

Thank you

It’s the job of all journalists to tell the truth. Some of us are better at this than others. And, sadly, there are many people today who claim to be journalists and are not. Worse, way too many people mistake people they see on TV or in their Facebook feed as real journalists. All of this is making the job of professional journalists tougher and tougher by the day. The way you can tell who is a real journalist and who isn’t can be found in the tools, methods and sources they use to uncover the news, check the facts and report with total fairness.

The highlights of Healdsburg

Endorsement sentiments

Sonoma County’s COVID-19 case data shows a climbing line upward, marking hundreds of new positive cases each week and a quadrupling of deaths in just the last month. All predictions are for this line to keep moving upward across the page to the right where it might meet up with a “second wave” of coronavirus infections just when flu season gets here in a few months.