Columns

Summertime is here and the living is what? Is it “easy” or “lazy?” We can’t quite remember the lyrics to the Gershwin song.

The other day, I learned heaps from Jamie Evans, a lively cannabis educator and an innovative cannabis cook, who will speak at the third annual Wine & Weed Symposium in August. (wine-weed.com/nc/) Evans isn’t just cooped up in a kitchen or at one of the many cannabis events she produces. She gets out and about and into fields.

Summer is upon us. We have completed our spring cleanup around the yard, made sure no standing water is present on our properties attracting mosquitos and set up our outdoor furniture. Summer also marks an important time of the year for water conservation. By using water wisely in the summer, it helps preserve our healthy watershed for the remainder of the year. Even though we received a lot of rainfall this winter, it is important to minimize water waste throughout our community.

Our nation was founded upon the argument that no government can be fair and just unless the people who are being governed remain forever devoted to liberty and virtue. Our Founding Fathers argued long and hard about this predicament. They neither trusted themselves to be infallible, nor did they put their faith in the rule of a pure democracy or a monarch. What they did instead was, they compromised. They authored a constitution designed to preserve the rights of individuals and protect against the tyranny of the majority. They inserted many levels of “checks and balances” and they structured a government with clear separations of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. They awarded every man the right to vote, but only for a representative and not a direct vote in the new congress.

It’s a cool, foggy morning and weeds are loving the fact that an extra cup of coffee will give them more time to climb.

This summer, Sonoma County Library is bringing several high-profile speakers to libraries around the county, each notable for their own creative contributions. This includes Nigel Poor, visual artist, creator, producer and host of the podcast Ear Hustle; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eliza Griswold; computer scientist, composer, visual artist and author Jaron Lanier; acclaimed book critic and author Maureen Corrigan; and Firoozeh Dumas, bestselling author of the humorous book “Funny in Farsi.” These events occur all around the county at different times in June and July; a full list of upcoming speakers may be found at sclib.us/dss2019.

I  have been writing newspaper columns since the 1980s and I always try to alternate a serious one with a lighter one.

This is not Suicide Awareness Week

Be careful what you wish for was a phrase my mother whipped out on appropriate occasions. As the temperatures soar into the 90s to bring in June, I remember a scant few weeks it ago, when it was pouring and I was visualizing a...

Have you wondered how to get better access to the Russian River, what the future of arts is in our community, or when Badger Park will get bathrooms? This summer, the city of Healdsburg will launch two planning processes to move forward several Healdsburg City Council goals that address river access, connectivity, arts and culture and park planning.