Editorial

He went by a single name, “Spence,” and was equally singular in his focus on community and a very large circle of friends in his adopted hometown of Healdsburg. His full name was Donald Lamarion Spence and he died Dec. 13 after a long fight against lung cancer. He was 56. A large portion of his circle of friends held a candlelight memorial in the city’s Plaza last Friday, Dec. 14.

What is freedom? Is everyone entitled to his or her own definition of freedom or do all of us have to agree on a single definition to have a functioning society? Why does the question about freedom seem so relevant now?

The word “smitten” has several meanings, ranging from being hit with a heavy blow to caught in a trance of obsession or becoming love-struck. Here, we are using smitten as a synonym for enraptured or enchanted, like a teenager who casts a first sight on the new girl in class and immediately starts talking in nonsensical rhymes.

When I first came to Healdsburg District Hospital in July of 2017, I saw a raised vegetable garden bed outside of the café that desperately needed love. Initially, I considered replacing some of the wood boards but the fixer-upper in me knew the whole structure needed to be rebuilt. It was overgrown with mint, a very prolific and stubborn herb, and low on soil.

TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ for 2018 is a group of imprisoned and slain journalists. The selection honors journalists as “guardians of the truth.” Besides being slain and jailed, journalists everywhere now face toughening challenges to investigate, report and defend the truth. This is true in oppressive non-democratic countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and it is true right here where economic factors are eliminating journalist’s jobs and where our president calls journalists “enemies of the people.”