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Has the recession bottomed out in Sonoma County yet? Economist Steve Cochrane says the answer is....almost.
Housing prices have fallen by as much as 30%, a bursting bubble that has had repercussions throughout the economy. But Steve Cochrane of Moody's Economy.com points out that not all of them are negative.
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While the California Legislature continues to wrangle over its response to the state's budget deficit, Steve Cochrane (right, in an old picture) says the federal stimulus programs are helping soften the situation a little. But he warns that help will only go so far.
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China and its trading partners are the brightest spot in the global economy, says Cochrane, and California's location on the opposite side of the Pacific Rim should eventually benefit from that.
Read Cochrane's full report here.
The marches and demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s are a part of American history now, but for singer Mavis Staples, they were a transformative part of her life.
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This video clip, which accompanies Mavis Staples singing "Eye on the Prize," is a compilation of sobering, even shocking news footage from the civil rights marches of the early 1960s. The audio is from the We'll Never Turn Back CD.
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Mavis talks about the CD and the history behind it in this clip, which includes footage from the recoding sessions along with an informal interview session.
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Chance and changes played a vital part in the history of the Staples singers, the Chicago-based gospel group that became known as the "first family of song."
Recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981, this concert video features Mavis and the family performing "Touch a Hand, Make a Friend," a hit for the Staples Singers in 1973. Pops Staples is out front on guitar at the far left side of the stage, as we see it, but it is clearly Mavis who is driving the band through the extended "testifying" section at the end.
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Pops Staples is more prominently featured in this clip from the 1972 Wattstax concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum, a performance of the Staples' second biggest hit, "Respect Yourself."
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For last minute ticket information for the 14th annual Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival, at which Mavis will perform June 29th, go here.
The near-absolute protection of all forms of speech by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (see full text, at left) is a rarity, not even shared by Great Britain, whose Magna Carta served as a model and inspiration for our Founding Fathers. Peter Scheer, Executive Director of the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael, notes that other long-established western Democracies in Europe set tighter limits.
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The risk inherent in attempting to legislate against hate speech, says Peter Scheer (right), lies in how it is defined, and who is doing the defining.
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Even in thoroughly modern and democratic nations, attempts to limit hate speech have proven problematic. Scheer details a specific recent instance in Canada.
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Fungi are the oldest living things on land, and among their estimated two million varieties, they may hold many yet-to-be-discovered medicinal uses and other benefits.
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Paul Stamets, founder and president of Fungi Perfecti , has written six books on mushroom cultivation including Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and The Mushroom Cultivator. In this audio lip, he offers a short history of fungi:
As a dedicated mycologist for more than 30 years, Stamets has discovered or identified four new species of mushroom. Here, he talks about how it feels to make such a discovery.
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Among the many fungal processes that hold great promise for addressing human needs, Stamets points to one that could herald important changes in ethanol production.
The continuing rise in cancer rates in America is proof that conventional treatment methods are ineffective, contends an advocate for alternative health methodologies who says both approaches should be integrated to achieve the best results.
Burton Goldberg (right) has been studying alternative medical treatments and publishing books about them for 33 of his 82 years. It was a change of professional direction, he explains, that was prompted by the illness of a friend's daughter.
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Since he's been working in this area, Goldberg says, the alternative treatments he has publicized have gained much wider acceptance among the American populace.
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Burton Goldberg is hosting a public workshop on dealing with cancer (This illustration is an electron microscopic photograph of a single breast cancer cell) and integrative medicine at the Steele Lane Community Center, 415 Steele Lane in Santa Rosa from 1-4 pm on Saturday, June 20. In addition to presenting a film and lecture on these new therapies, Goldberg will be joined by two additional speakers, Dr. James Forsythe, a Reno oncologist and Dr. Filberto Munoz from the Instituto Medico Biologico in San Diego and Tijuana. Information at (707) 322-3822 or
