Only a few things can transcend the histories and circumstances of the hardened inmates at San Quentin prison. Music is one of them.


 

Sebastopol guitarist and youth advocate Buzzy Martin will read from his book and talk about his experiences at Copperfield's Books in Sebstopol, Thursday evening, September 16 at 7 pm.

Of all the international hot spots where disaster assistance workers were needed last summer, Kyrgyzstan didn’t get a lot of attention. But that’s where one local volunteer spent most of July, working on rebuilding after a regime change and a spate of internal ethnic conflict.

 

What’s an underemployed business consultant to do during a prolonged economic downturn? How about providing pro bono services to local non-profits.

The Minerva Project is aptly named, but that was partly accidental, as George Moskoff (right) explains.

When working with smaller non-profits, says Lomesh Shah, their size sometimes poses additional challenges.

Jack London's cottage and ranch buildings have been preserved at the state park that bears his name in Glen Ellen. But there is another part of his historic holding that is languishing in need of repair and restoration

Cracks in the dam, such as the one in the center of this photograph, are continuing to widen as the muti-layered process of getting the pre-requisites and approvals for remediation work drags on. Five years into it, Elisa Stancil, a neighbor and volunteer event coordinator at the park, says progress is slowly being made.

London erected the dam and created the rain-fed lake in 1913, using it for both recreation (as seen here) and for his farm.  Restoring the 98-year old dam is estimated to cost $1.3 million, but Stancil says that, too, has been delayed by the glacial permitting process.

The photos below show the lake's water diverter, seen as it appeared while under construction in 1913, and as it looks today. They're taken from the picture gallery on the website of the Jack London Lake Alliance.