The oldest surviving brick mansion in Sonoma County has had its seismic stabilization work completed, and is ready for public visitors again.

The Hood mansion was built in 1858, by William Hood for his wife, Eliza. Below is a similar view of the home as it looks today, along with an interior photo of the dining room, which was "updated" with some colorful wallpaper for a fundraising event back in the 1970s.

The public is invited to join in celebrating the hood House’s 150^th birthday on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008. The party will include presentations from 10-11 am, and an open house with grounds tours from 11 am to 1 pm. Cake and lemonade will be served. The Hood House is located at 7501 Sonoma Highway.
There's a map to Hood House location here .

International free trade agreements are an expansion of domestic US policies that have been in place for over a century, but critic Jane Anne Morris says they were never a good idea.

Below, Morris explains how the issues generating protests against NAFT and the WTO now are much the same as they were 125 years ago when free trade was first imposed within the United States.

In Gaveling Down the Rabble, author/activist Jane Anne Morrow explores a century and a half of efforts by corporations and the courts to undermine local democracy in the United States by using a "free trade" model. It was that very nineteenth-century model that was later adopted globally by corporations to subvert local attempts at protecting the environment and citizen and worker health.

Jane Anne Morris is a corporate anthropologist with a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas. Her 1994 book was based on her work on energy issues in Texas during the 1980s. She has been active in anti-war, women's and environmental struggles since the 1970s.

Many of the biggest protest demonstrations of the past decade, such as thos one in Costa Rica, have been in opposition to "Free Trade" policies promulgated by major corporations, many of them US-based.

The driving of the Golden Spike, uniting the first trqnscontinental railroad (below), was a pivotal moment in the history of the American west.

The North Bay Report with co-authors Jane Neilson and Howard Wilshire continues here:

The American West at Risk summarizes the dominant human-generated environmental challenges in the 11 contiguous arid western United States - America's legendary, even mythical, frontier. When discovered by European explorers and later settlers, the west boasted rich soils, bountiful fisheries, immense, dense forests, sparkling streams, untapped ore deposits, and oil bonanzas. It now faces depletion of many of these resources, and potentially serious threats to its few "renewable" resources. (more)

To read more about the book and its authors, click here.

For information about an upcoming book discussion with two of the authors at Four-Eyed Frog Books in Gualala, click here.