Editorial

Today in Healdsburg, too many locals can no longer afford a place to live. The promise of the American Dream remains elusive for all but the few, in a system that seems rigged toward the top.

It felt a little, I don’t know, discomfiting reading about the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s recent coverage of its change of ownership. It was like stumbling into someone’s private party that I wasn’t invited to and wondering “What am I doing here?”

Summer time and the living is easy. Especially in our cozy, friendly small towns we call home and where we welcome streams of visitors, seeking respite, fun and some genuine modern Americana.

Newspapers and journalists have many jobs. Gathering the news, covering public meetings, publicizing community events, helping to find lost dogs and defending  the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment are just some of them.

A lot of public interest has been expressed regarding the new building on the corner of North and Center Streets. Questions related to parking requirements, changes to the Development Agreement (“DA”) and the impact the changes of the building’s tenants have on the DA have been recent topics of conversation in our community. We have prepared this information in an effort to inform residents of the changes to this project.

It’s hard for me to imagine what it is like to be a young black man and to be the object of suspicion, fear and harassment for being myself, for being young and black. Our president says he knows what it’s like and that Trayvon Martin, the black teenager killed by a white neighborhood watch volunteer could have been him when he was a teenager. The boys assailant, George Zimmerman, was tried and acquitted and as far as I’m concerned, that is legally the end of the matter. But I can’t help wondering what it was like for Trayvon Martin, what it was like for Barack Obama, and what it was and is like for millions of young black men.

A not-so-funny thing is happening on the way to California’s

Memorial Day and Veterans Day can often seem interchangeable. Both days are marked by solemn reflection on the service of military members. The main difference in my life has been usually that I got Memorial Day off, but never Veterans Day.  

Ceremonies are being held across America this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War to “thank and honor” veterans and to allow for public reflections on a time and war that seems very distant from the country we live in today.

In 1985 there were over 350,000 cases of paralytic polio in the world. These were basically all in third world countries, as polio had been eradicated, due to immunization, in the United States and Europe and Asia in the 1970s. For the young people who do not know what polio can do, as it is no longer a threat here, it is a virus that can cause permanent paralysis of major muscle groups, including respiratory muscles leading to death.