In addition to the usual parents-plus-kids households, modern families can be cross-generational, or blended in other ways. However these households may be structured, the Sonoma Kinship Family Center exists to provide them with assistance and support.

Morrow adds that, whenever possible, the Kinship Center will extend their efforts to assist individuals who may not be part of the immediate family group, but are still concerned for the welfare of the children involved.

The Center is located at 411 King Street, near downtown Santa Rosa (see map below) and is open M-F, 9-5.  (707) 569-0877.  Their services are also available in Spanish.

With difficulty, Sonoma State has weathered a 17% budget reduction this semester. Now they’re waiting to see how much more they will have to cut in the months ahead.

Looking ahead to the next academic year, SSU CFO and Vice president for Administration and Finance, Laurence Furukawa-Schlereth (right) , offered a silver lining of sorts, telling the campus community assembled at the midday Town Hall meeting that he hoped to avoid any further job losses in 2010-11.

Former Dean of the school of Social Services at Sonoma State, Bob Karlsrud, questions the no layoffs pledge, because it does not cover the part-time lecturers who teach the majority of courses offered at the university. Because they are rehired each year, it’s not considered a job loss when a new contract is not offered for the next semester. Karlsrud contends the campus has added too many contractual administrative positions, at the expense of keeping teachers in classrooms.

Catherine Nelson, a political science professor who represents the Sonoma campus on the statewide CSU Academic Senate, believes the current fiscal crisis also represents an opportunity for the school to clarify and redefine its core vision of itself, something she says is not yet happening here or anywhere else. But she has an idea of what it could include.

The next Town Hall meeting at the university will focus on the troubled Sonoma State University Foundation on December 16^th.

A map such as this  is a way of organizing the world into distinctly defined nations. But the lines on a map can and often do differ from what is true in the physical and political world that map attempts to represent.

Many of the lines on international maps—especially the straight ones—were a creation of colonial convenience, explains Stanford geography professor Martin  Lewis, but have proved to have remarkable staying power.

Borders clearly define national borders on paper, says Martin Lewis, but the country in question may not actually control all that territory.

See the map of Somalia, below, for another example.

Lewis has distilled these ideas into a paper he's titled Misled By The Map, which you can read here:   

That's  also the title of the talk that professor  Lewis will present to the World Affairs Council of Sonoma County onThursday, Nov. 19 at 7:30 pm at Spring Lake Village in Santa Rosa. To see a full-length video presentation of Lewis speaking on "Misled by the Map," click here.

The map below shows the difficulty in representing a politically volatile area, such as Somalia, an area now "governed" by multiple regional entities, as shown in the color key.  Note the disclaimer at the bottom.

Global Student Embassy, a youth-led grassroots international relations program based in Sebastopol, has branched out this year, both to more schools in Sonoma County, and to a new community in Africa.

GSE was started by brothers Lucas (left) and Jasper Oshun  as an outgrowth of their own experiences visiting and working with other students in Peru and Argentina.  Lucas says the successful conclusion of Global Student Embassy’s first international student visitation in early 2009 helped inspire them to want to expand their horizons.

Even as they continue to reach out internationally, GSE is also working with local students to build community at home. Co-director Yasha Mokaram describes one way that is playing out through their participation at Windsor High School.

This community garden at the Village Park mobile home park in Sebastopol may be the most visible manifestation of what Global Student Embassy is doing, but  it is just one aspect of their efforts. Here, student volunteers from Sonoma County, Zurite Peru and Santa Fe Argenita celebrate their shared accomplishment. Y0u learn support the work of Global Student Embassy here.