For Army "grunt" Bob Whitworth, the war in Viet Nam was 12 long months of danger, stress, fatigue and hardship. Yet he calls his new memoir of those months, "A Story of Hope."

Former infantryman Bob Whitworth titled his autobiographical account of his year on the ground in Viet Nam, Through My Eyes. But he also made a point of adding, in much smaller type, his key subtitle for the book: "A Story of Hope."


Bob Whitworth will be a featured speaker at the Veterans Day Observation in Sonoma Saturday morning. The series of weekend events, billed as the "Cost of Freedom Tribute" also features the traveling 3/5 scale model of the Viet Nam Memorial Wall from the Capitol Mall in Washington D.C. Seeing that, Whitworth says, is a powerful experience.

Widely used chemical pesticides that boost agricultural production and assist in landscape maintenance, may also have serious harmful impacts on developing children.

Emily Marquez, Ph.D.For obvious reasons, it's not possible to conduct studies on these questions with human subjects. But biologist Emily Marquez says the animal-based studies that have been done have a strong track record as accurate predictors of the effects the chemicals have on both children and adults.

 You can download the full report, A Generation in Jeopardy, How pesticides are undermining our children's health and intelligence, here.

The almost-final election results are in from yesterday's balloting,but the last word on some of the closest races may not be known for nearly another month.

 Among those candidates  most likely to go down to the wire in the final tabulations are Susan Gorin and John Sawyer, the rivals for the First Distrcit (Sonoma Valley) seat on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

In statewide balloting, Proposition 37, to require labeling of many foods with GMO ingredients, was voted down by a considerable margin. Perhaps surprisingly, Sonoma County voters were almost evenly split on the measure.

Incumbent Michael Allen outpolled opponent Marc Levine by fewer than 500 votes in the Sonoma County portion (roughly 1/3) of the 10th Assembly District, but Levine ran stronger in his home county of Marin, and scored an upset by a preliminary count of 1663 votes.

The full list of Sonoma County preliminary results can be found here.

Climate change is being felt even at the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada, where the remaining glaciers in California are melting away. So Tim Palmer set out to capture them on film,while it was still possible.

When nature photographer and writer Tim Palmer set out to document California's vanishing glaciers, he knew it would be a project combining rare physical beauty and demanding physical effort. Not only was he visiting a series of remote, high-altitiude locations, but in some cases, he made the trek more than once.

Snowpack and glaciers once covered most of the Sierra Nevadas, but only a few scattered pockets of ice remain today.Glaciers are both beautiful and remote, so exploring them has to be done with care. The biggest potential hazards, says Palmer, are the deep cracks or crevices that can open as the ice sheet slides down a mountainside.

Tim Palmer will talk about his glacier photography, show slides, and sign copies of his California Glaciers book in an event hosted by REI in Corte Madera on Wednesday evening, Nov. 7.