See last week's piece for details from the dry summer of 1900 that led to jeweler, horse trader, and piano tuner J.E. King's killing of seventy-year-old farmer Samuel Church on the Sonoma-Marin border. King had…
Posts published in “Essays”
When I was a general assignment reporter just starting out in Charleston, West Virginia, in the mid-1970s, one of my first news directors advised me to steer clear of debating either abortion or capital punishment…
Rhonda Smith, soon to be retired Sonoma County Viticulture Specialist for the University of California Cooperative Extension, has seen unparalleled changes in the industry during her tenure. Starting in 1986 Rhonda assumed a position as…
Many years ago this summer, I was standing in the Shield's Cemetery at the graveside services for Mickey Bloyd. It wasn't necessary for me to think back to my high school years in Boonville --…
Streaming services have inundated the world’s quarantined population. The rising digital waters have distracted and anesthetized viewers, but also, at times, buoyed and instructed them. It is Netflix that has issued the defining entertainments of…
In this moment of shifting historical identities — the Fort Bragg City Council has taken up the question of whether to change the town's name on Monday — it might help to know what the…
Ukiah isn’t Detroit. Or Chicago, where two years ago the city spent more than $113 million on lawsuits involving police misconduct. But neither is Mendo an island, as shown by residents who, in spite of…