Mockery and disparagement are key steps in creating an enemy, and setting on a path toward war. But recognizing those early steps and questioning them can diminish hostilities before they escalate.

Sam KeenIf there is a way to get past the widespread drive to find and attack an enemy, suggests Sonoma writer Sam Keen, it lies in examining and questioning the logic and the reasons for that characterization, and seriously seeking to understand what might be motivating the other party in that incipient conflict.

In the mid-1980s, when Keen was writing Faces of the Enemy, Iran was the dominant "threat" to America in the Middle East, a role into which it is again being cast now. Keen will address that cyclical pattern in a presentation he's titled, "Iran:  The Making of An Enemy."

Keen will offer his talk at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 15 at 7:30 in the Sonoma Community Center.The event is sponsored by the Praxis Peace Institute.

The remodeled flagship Goodwill store on Stony Point Road in Santa RosaWith the economy still lagging, more shoppers are looking to thrift stores for bargains on everyday items. In Santa Rosa Goodwill Industries is expanding and diversifying to meet that need. In the process, reports Kylie Mendonca, they are redefining second-hand shopping.

Mark IhdeThe Goodwill outlet store on Yolanda Avenue is a hive of constant activity, one that begins even before the doors open each morning.

There are rules that govern the frenzy at "The Dig," explains Goodwill staff member Jesse Ramirez. But they are not always followed.

Bargain hunters comb the bins in the no-fills outlet storeAmong the regular shoppers is Brian Gallegos, who brings a shrewdly informed eye to his searches through the bins.

The richness and diversity of the biological world is reflected in the multitude of sounds created by the creatures that inhabit it. But as their numbers and variety diminish, the Earth's natural soundtrack is growing quieter and duller.

Bernie Krause has approached his decades of natural sound recording primarily as an archivist. Now he's pleased to see others finding new applications for employing these sorts of sounds.

It's hardly necessary to travel great distances to find compelling natural audio. Krause captured this morning birdsong chorus in the hills overlooking the Valley of the Moon.

Lincoln Meadow, north of Truckee (right), was the scene of the selective logging operation discussed in this report. It still looks like it did in this photograph from 1988, but now sounds very different, even many years after the timber harvest was completed.

In his most recent book, Bernie Krause traces of origins of music in the sounds of our natural environment Bernie Krause has spent his life capturing the sounds of the natural world. Now his archives are the only place where many of them can be found any more.

In addition to virtually inventing his field of live nature recordings, Bernie Krause has also coined the term he uses to describe the living sounds he captures—"biophony."

Over the past 40-odd years Krause has traveled to many remote places on the planet to record the sounds of their habitats, such as this African jungle soundscape.