Honoring Black History

-
0
Honoring Black History

Across Sonoma County are plans to celebrate Black History Month, an annual tradition that dates back almost 100 years. American historian Carter G. Woodson first established Black History Week in February 1926, choosing February to honor the birth month of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

This year’s events will continue to expand awareness of Black History and celebrate the contributions of the Black community.

There are ample opportunities to participate throughout Sonoma County, with highlighted events presented by such local institutions as the Petaluma Historic Museum, the Sonoma County Libraries, Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) and Sonoma State University (SSU), which will feature a lecture by Ericka Huggins—human rights activist, poet, educator, Black Panther leader and former political prisoner.

At SSU, the month kicks off with an opening ceremony and Gospel Extravaganza with Emmy-winning Terrance Kelly and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, along with the Lighthouse Singers of Marin, directed by Rev. Ulis Redic Jr.

A special highlight of the month’s activities at SSU is the chance to learn from Huggins, who will speak about her extraordinary life. Among her many accomplishments, Huggins is the longest-running female leader in the Black Panther party and has a long career of bringing meditation and spiritual practice into activism. “A Conversation with Ericka Huggins: Social Justice Activism and Civic Engagement” is presented by the SSU Office of the President, the Black Student Union, the Center for Community Engagement, Student Involvement and the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights.

At SRJC, Jamaican-American writer, geographer and poet Teju Adisa-Farrar will give an inspirational lecture titled “Black Futures.” Her focus includes urban culture, environmental justice and climate justice through a diasporic lens of art and activism.

Opening night of the Black History Month program at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum features the Eighth Annual Jazz Concert, with the doRiaN Mode. The vintage jazz concert is a main fundraiser for the program’s month of events, keeping the rest of the functions free to the public. Other special events include a lecture on Black suffragists by Dr. Kim D. Hester Williams, a presentation about African-Americans and the vote, choir performances and a Gospel hour at local churches.

The organizer of the program at the Petaluma Historic Library & Museum and president of Petaluma Blacks for Community Development (PBCD), Faith Ross, says, “It is important to let everyone know that we have a rich past that has brought a lot of positive influences into America, we want others to know the truth and see how proud we are of our achievements.”

Ross, who co-founded the Petaluma nonprofit over 40 years ago and serves as vice-chair on the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights, does most of the research for the annual museum exhibit and program, bringing little-known elements of Black history to light.

“If all you see or hear about are negative things you see on television, then you don’t have a complete story,” she explains.

Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights Chair D’Mitra Smith agrees.

“Black History is important because it’s American history,” Smith writes. “Black people continue to exemplify excellence in every sector of American life, so our history is every day for me. The chapter that’s missing here is honest discussion about the historical racism of Sonoma County, its alignment with the confederacy and Black Resistance to all of it.”

Schools have been part of Black History Month since its inception. From the beginning in 1926, Woodson reached out to schools with programs encouraging the study of African-American history. Smith also strongly supports schools expanding their curriculums.

“We are in great need of proactive, accurate curriculum in schools, Black teachers and above all, more black women in positions of leadership,” Smith says. “As the great Shirley Chisholm said, ‘If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.'”

Ross adds, “Many times books tell a story the way an author wants you to know it, but unless you read, do research, look at old records, you may not get the complete picture.”

Sonoma County Libraries also have a rich program of musical and theatrical presentations. Onye Onyemaechi explores the beauty and soul of the drum in African village life. Legacy Showcases presents

The Spirit of Us, a blend of West African and European music that remembers the legacy of the involuntarily enslaved. Legacy will also offer a theatrical piece called Meet Miz. Lucretia Borgia, Ma’am, where the character talks to the audience about her life as a slave.

All the events planned will be informative and entertaining. For an interactive experience, join the Team for Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity (TIDE) for a workshop led by Tarah Fleming called Dismantling Whiteness Within. TIDE and its workshops work to make schools more inclusive and equitable for the diversity of community members. TIDE workshops use story and empathy.

The TIDE workshop page says, “Participants will focus on building language and understanding around power and privilege, internalized oppression, allied behavior and learn to practice strong dialog principles to better serve our beloved communities in highly respectful and empathetic ways.” The workshop is free for teachers, with a sliding scale beginning at $10 for tickets.

Ross emphasizes, “Just as we as black people need to understand and know the people around us, our community needs to know us. Black history, like any other history of people that live in our community, is important to know. We get a better understanding of the culture and traditions of the people around us.”

Ericka Huggins

Ericka Huggins joined the Black Panther party in 1968, at the age of 18. In 1969, she and her husband John Huggins had a baby daughter, but three weeks after the birth of their child, her husband was shot and killed. Four months after that authorities arrested her, along with Bobby Seale, on conspiracy charges that they dropped two years later.

While in prison for two years, she taught herself to meditate in order to survive the devastating separation from her daughter so soon after her husband’s death. Her spiritual practice not only helped her, but is something she brought back to share with the activist community and others.

She became editor of The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service in 1971 and in 1974 released a book of poetry called Insights and Poems, coauthored with Huey Newton.

Huggins was the director of the Oakland Community School, founded by the Black Panther Party, for over 10 years and was the first woman and the first black person appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. In 1981 she returned to California’s prisons, this time to teach yoga and meditation to incarcerated youth and adults.

She is currently a facilitator of World Trust, an organization that uses films to document the impact of systems of racial inequity. She says on her website, “These films are tools to foster conversation about race, and all structural inequities. These conversations are powerful to personal and global transformation.”

Her life experiences give her a unique perspective to mentor other activists and community members to do the work and continue to promote social change using spiritual practices to sustain them.

Featured Events

Thursday, Jan. 30: Kick off to Black History Month & Lobo Fest

Under the direction of the Emmy-winning Terrance Kelly, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir brings together over 55 singers who embody a community of diverse races, cultures and faiths. 8pm. Weill Hall, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park.

Friday, Jan. 31: Jazz Concert Celebrating Black History MonthThe concert features local vintage jazz & blues group the doRiaN Mode. Last year’s concert sold out, so reserve tickets early. 6:30pm. Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, Petaluma.

Saturday, Feb. 1: Black History Month: The Spirit of Us

Legacy Showcases performs slave songs sung by local women from various churches and displays a pop-up exhibit on The Underground Railroad. 11am. Sonoma Valley Regional Library, Sonoma.

Monday, Feb. 3: Black History Month Opening Ceremony at SSUBlack-identified organizations launch the month with motivational speakers, impactful performances and other offerings. 6pm.

Student Center Ballroom A, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park.

Wednesday, Feb. 5:

Black Futures: On Mermaids, Resilient Interventions & Environmental Catharsis

Adisa-Farrar leads a workshop. Noon. Our House Intercultural Center, Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma.

Thursday, Feb. 6: African Village Celebration with Onye OnyemaechiThe master drummer leads a program of music to explore the beauty and soul of the drum in African village life. For ages 3 and up. 10:30am.

Guerneville Regional Library, Guerneville.

Sunday, Feb. 9: Black Suffragists D. Hester Williams reveals the often underwritten history of African-American women’s involvement in the suffrage movement 100 years ago. 1pm. Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, Petaluma.

Tuesday, Feb. 11: When They See Us

Film screening event presents Ava DuVernay’s miniseries drama on the Exonerated Five (formerly Central Park Five). 5:30pm. Student Center Ballroom D, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park.

Tuesday, Feb. 25: A Conversation with Ericka Huggins: Social Justice Activism & Civic Engagement See Sidebar, this page. 6pm.

Student Center Ballroom A, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park.

For more events, go to:

sonomalibrary.org/black-history-month-2020

sonoma.edu/calendar

events.santarosa.edu

petalumamuseum.com/events

Strange Beats

-
0
Strange Beats

There’s a new sound coming from the hills of West Sonoma County, courtesy of jazz-fusion quartet Sakoyana, who’ve set their sights on creating largely instrumental and always unexpected compositions that forgo guitars for horns and often wander with joyful improvisation at their live shows.

Currently comprised of bassist Stanton White, drummer Daniel Bowman, clarinet-player Sequoia Nacmanie and tenor-saxophone and keyboard-player Josh Glum, the group shares musical loves that range from classical to hip-hop, as well as everyday inspirations like gardening and meditation.

The band is now finalizing the mixing on their debut full-length album, Indefinite Island, and touring the North Bay with a schedule of over two dozen shows for the next few months, when they’ll travel from Healdsburg to Point Reyes Station, hitting popular clubs and venues everywhere in between.

“Since the group formed, it’s been just drums, bass and horns,” White says. “We all are total music nerds. Sequoia is a classical musician and an incredible music teacher, Josh is a jazz musician by schooling, I am also a jazz musician by education and Danny is totally self-taught, and at this point probably practices more than any of us and plays in something like five bands.”

White and Bowman have musical collaborations going back several years, and after meeting and jamming with Nacmanie and Glum, the four discovered they shared kindred musical interests and quickly bonded in 2018.

“That’s when the four of us really settled as a quartet and the original music started coming,” White says. “We were able to write and arrange for this group of people as opposed to just jamming or playing covers.”

Those original compositions will be heard when Indefinite Island drops in the next few months. Classifying themselves as “avant-funk,” Sakoyana is anything but traditional in their approach to blending their musical styles, crafting tunes that even White admits can get weird during their live performance improvisational tangents.

“We’re all influenced by such a diverse group of artists, musicians and different disciplines,” he says. “Because of that we wanted to write what we felt like playing. Yes, sometimes we’ll certainly surprise people, but I think the most fun is when we surprise ourselves.”

Sakoyana plays on Friday, Jan. 31, at Coyote Sonoma (44F Mill St., Healdsburg. 8pm. 707.385.9133) and Saturday, Feb. 1, at the Big Easy (128 American Alley, Petaluma. 8pm. 707.776.7163). sakoyana.com.

Tax Dodgers

-
0
Tax Dodgers

On Friday, Jan. 10, more than 130 million Americans became able to file their tax returns without paying an accountant, using a tax preparation service or buying tax software.

For the first time, taxpayers may now submit online in a straightforward way that doesn’t trick them into paying $40 or more to establish a “freemium” account.

Taxpayers with incomes of $69,000 or less—in other words, most Americans—may now conveniently opt out of paying to file their returns, following changes the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced in December. No longer bowing to pressure from the tax-prep software industry, the IRS can open its own online free-filing portal, which it had agreed not to do in 2002 amid pressure from companies that didn’t want the competition. Countries such as Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom already offer direct online submission portals.

The free service could have become standard practice a couple of decades ago, but an entire industry grew up around the federal government’s inability to provide a tax-filing system that is comprehensible to the average American. Instead of fixing its system, the IRS teamed up with a consortium of online tax providers who, rather than making the services widely available to Americans of modest means, charged billions of dollars for services that many taxpayers could have gotten for free, had they known where to find them.

The industry giants had ample incentive to drag their feet. Experiencing double-digit growth in 2000, H&R Block’s U.S. tax offices brought in $1.4 billion in fees that year through its 10,000 offices, filing a quarter of all prepared U.S. tax returns.

Silicon Valley’s answer to the brick-and-mortar tax chain, Mountain View’s Intuit Corp., boasted in its 2000 annual report of 18 percent annual growth and nearly 5 million users for its boxed and shrink-wrapped software product, TurboTax.

The up-and-comer, however, was its online product, which had 1.4 million users, geometric revenue growth and an 80 percent market share in the exploding new sector.

Enter the feds.

In 2001, the Office of Management and Budget under newly elected President George W. Bush recommended 24 e-government initiatives, one of which would allow U.S. taxpayers to file their taxes, for free, online. This, of course, freaked out Intuit’s bean counters. The software maker had just managed to pull down a 30 percent profit as it crossed the $1 billion annual sales threshold.

Intuit responded by more than quadrupling its reported lobbying expenses, from $120,000 in 1999 to $500,000 in 2001, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In 2002, the IRS entered into an agreement with a consortium of commercial electronic tax filing services to provide Free File services to the lowest 70 percent of income earners.

During its two decades, the program languished as the paid services flourished. Less than 3 million used the service when more than 100 million taxpayers were eligible. While the paid commercial providers advertised and improved their offerings, Free File faded into obscurity, failing to make its services accessible to the elderly and to non-English speakers.

As the program withered under increasing criticism, the industry association continued its aggressive defense. When UC Davis professor Dennis J. Ventry authored an op-ed titled “Free File Providers Scam Taxpayers; Congress Shouldn’t Be Fooled,” Free File Inc. retaliated by making a public-records request to his employer for his emails.

The turnabout, a boon to many Americans who never should have had to pay for filing their taxes to begin with, is a victory for public-interest journalism. The nonprofit investigative news site ProPublica sued the government to release documents that showed how the tax-prep software titans worked for years to dissuade the government from enabling free filing. Intuit went so far as to rouse up “grassroots support” by enlisting religious leaders, small-town mayors and civil rights activists to pen op-eds opposing government efforts that would make it easier to
file taxes.

Intuit’s TurboTax plan for 2014–2015 included “new ally recruitment” of groups like the Teamsters and IBEW, along with “increased African American and Latino outreach” and leveraging trade groups to support beneficial legislation, according to a document obtained by ProPublica.

In May 2019, two U.S. senators called for inquiry in a rare example of bipartisanship. “Recent news articles have alleged deceptive advertising practices and practices involving search-engine manipulation by some of the private-sector participants in this program,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) wrote. In that same month, Los Angeles City Attorney Mark Feuer filed a lawsuit against H&R Block and Intuit in federal court, alleging that the two dominant players intentionally misled low-income taxpayers into paying for tax-filing services that they were supposed to provide at no cost.

ProPublica estimates that “U.S. taxpayers eligible for Free File are spending about $1 billion a year in unnecessary filing fees.” The necessity equation may not hold true in Silicon Valley, however, where incomes are nearly double the national median and more taxpayers are likely to have investments and freelance or business income, which make self-filing through a stripped-down system impractical.

“There are a lot of people who can file pretty simply and probably don’t even need TurboTax,” San Jose–based accounting firm Petrinovich Pugh & Company Principal Edward Davis says. “For others, TurboTax can guide you through the deductions. The new tax laws are pretty complicated, though. For people who have anything going on that needs any interpretation, you probably need to engage some professional help.”

According to Free File spokeswoman Vickie Hull, the Free File consortium has 10 member companies and is a 501c4 nonprofit trade association that partners with the IRS. According to its most recent publicly available Form 990 disclosure statement, it collected $482,000 in dues.

Free File Executive Director Tim Hugo, a Virginia state legislator and lobbyist who is paid $185,000 a year to represent the member companies, did not return a call by press time. Hoang Tran of the 1040now.net, one of Free File’s three directors, says, “we all pay dues.” However, when asked how much those dues amount to, he replies: “I don’t know. I am unable to provide that information.”

Ron Leder, who runs longtime Free File member ezTaxReturn.com, says the consortium has done “an excellent job” at providing free tax returns to “the underserved.”

“Not all taxpayers trust the IRS,” he points out. “They think that there’s a conflict of interest between people that file taxes and the people they pay taxes to. We think we do a better job of it than the government does.”

The commercial sector clearly made sure its paid offerings outperformed pages with information about the no-cost options. Critics of Free File say the online provider manipulated code to ensure its revenue-producing pages outranked ones with information about unpaid options in web searches. ProPublica reported in April 2019 that TurboTax used “deceptive design and misleading advertising to trick lower-income Americans into paying to file their taxes, even though they are eligible to do it for free.”

Intuit specifically took the time to add code to its website, in a robots.txt file or HTML tag, telling search engines like Google not to include its Free File web pages in search results, according to ProPublica. The code read “noindex, nofollow,” and Intuit changed it within days of ProPublica’s investigation
so that tax filers could finally
use search engines to find the web page.

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi then said in an internal company video that making the Free File product harder to find was actually “misinterpreted.” The move was intended to help taxpayers be “more fully informed about their options” so they “could choose what they felt was best for them,” Goodarzi said in the video.

Yet again, ProPublica unearthed the documentation of this corporate spin.

Military filers landed in their own special maze of TurboTax, where a military web page directed “many users to paid products even when they are eligible to get the same service for no cost using the Free File edition,” several military members told ProPublica. It seemed to work out for Intuit’s bottom line: They reported ‘double-digit growth’ six months later from the military and digital-native customer segments.

By 2018, taxpayers were filing only 1.6 percent of the more than 154 million tax returns using Free File software, according to IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson. Use of the free program steadily declined between 2013 and 2017 as it lost more than 700,00 users, IRS data showed—despite robust growth in the online filing sector. The IRS was so uncommitted to the program, it stopped undertaking satisfaction surveys and failed to advertise the free services.

In the new agreement with Free File, signed Dec. 30, members agreed not to “exclude their Free File Landing page from an organic internet search” and “will ensure a link on their sites is available to return taxpayers to the IRS Free File website at the earliest feasible point in the preparation process if they do not qualify for the Member’s Free File offer.” The members must also provide quarterly reports to the IRS on free-filing activity.

Intuit, meanwhile, is still subject to lawsuits and investigations into its practices, including suits brought by taxpayers in federal court in California.

Silicon Valley, which prides itself on disruptive innovation, has been increasingly unmasked for anticompetitive practices, corner-cutting and a tin ear for social equity. The Free File saga is the latest chapter in the unfolding story of the technology revolution’s unfulfilled promises.

Cinematic ‘Stache

-
0
Cinematic ‘Stache

During production on the artsploitation flick Pill Head, I ran to the local deli to pick up sandwiches because, this being a nano-budget indie, it was sandwiches for dinner personally delivered by yours truly, the director.

Fresh from the set, I must have entered the deli aisle with an added flourish—after all, I was in the midst of directing a feature film. The young man behind the counter eyed me as if he recognized me or at least recognized something about me. After a beat he innocently asked, “You’re someone important, right?”

Despite being the sandwich-boy auteur, I relished the moment. How could I not be someone important? I had a bag of sandwiches, a waxed mustache and a scarf billowing off the shoulder of my black blazer.

Then he asked, “Are you a magician?”

From a certain angle—like, from behind a deli case hovering with hands outstretched over the bologna and pimento loaves—yes, I look like a fricking magician. It’s the mustache. And the invisible horn section that toots “Ta-da!” whenever I gesture.

I didn’t resent this. In fact, I found it affirming. Like many kids in my generation, I had a magic kit as a kid—a wand, rings that linked, a cheap top hat, etc., and as Francis Ford Coppola once said, “I think cinema, movies and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made films were magicians.” Presto. As the caterpillar is to the butterfly, so then is the magician to the moviemaker.

So, yes, I’m a magical, mustachioed butterfly. Judge me at your peril.

To Coppola’s point, Georges Méliès is the obvious early 20th-century example of a magician-turned-filmmaker. Every one of his innovations, from substitution splices and multiple exposures to time-lapse photography and hand-tinting frames is a forerunner of a subsequent special effect.

This commingled magician-filmmaker DNA persists through the 1900s and reappears, like an atavism, in other magicians-turned-filmmakers. Among them is Woody Allen, who was also a magician in his youth and frequently depicts magicians in his work (Stardust Memories, Oedipus Wrecks, etc.). Though at present writing, Allen is a culturally-fraught premise, a film like Shadows and Fog offers a poignant depiction of the magician’s relationship to illusion, and by proxy, cinema.

At the film’s end, when Allen’s nebbish character belatedly accepts an invitation to join the circus as a magician’s assistant, someone off-screen says, “Everybody loves his illusions.” And the magician, magisterially played by Kenneth Mars, replies “Love them? They need them—like they need the air.”

And we do. Even when we’re making them. And especially when getting sandwiches.

Editor Daedalus Howell is the writer-director of “Pill Head” playing now on Amazon Prime.

Oh My Dog!

-
0

I ‌love dogs. I grew up with big dogs and learned how to behave around them, familiar and unknown. As a young adult I adopted a puppy and did my best, but her bad tendencies got worse and by the end, she was a menace to anything on wheels. It was sobering to be a dog person and fail outright at dog training.

Years later, my wife and I adopted and raised two mostly well-behaved mutts. What changed? Before this time around, I studied dog training and we put those lessons to use, consistently and naturally.

I see you out on trails and sidewalks, at parks, making the same intuitive mistakes I used to make. I feel your frustration, and want to share a few tips that helped me.

Approaching dogs/bicycles/triggers. Shorten the leash and get between your dog and the approaching trigger, so your dog sees your idea of an appropriate reaction. Stay calm. If your dog growls or barks, do a firm “No” and keep calm. If they pull or lunge, put your dog in a sit until the trigger passes.

Repeating commands. Kids and dogs both learn to respond only when they must. If you let them get used to sitting on the fifth “Sit”, they will ignore you the first four times forever. After the first command, use other sounds, gestures, or gentle force to get them into a sit; then praise them and get on with life.

Praise and corrections. Too often, people “punish” their dogs with baby talk. When tone and words contradict, your dog hears tone and assumes their bad behavior was good. More helpfully, praise or reward your dog with treats when they do well. In both cases, make it quick and get on with life; both are momentary and have nothing to do with your love towards that dog.

The dog park. Not all dogs like the chaos of a dog park. If they do not want to go in, stay out. If they do, take them off leash; leashed dogs in a dog park often become aggressive.

Happy tails, Bohemian readers!

Iain Burnett lives in Forestville. We welcome your contribution. To have your topical essay of 350 words considered for publication, write
op*****@******an.com.

Pandemic

-
0

Fifty million Chinese locked down! Fifteen countries affected! Three confirmed cases in the U.S.! These dramatic headlines announce one more pandemic caused by our abuse of animals.

Indeed, 61 percent of the 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans originate with animals. These so-called zoonetic diseases, claiming millions of human lives, include Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, West Nile flu, bird flu, swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola, HIV, SARS and yellow fever. The pandemic “Spanish” flu of 1918 may have killed as many as 50 million people worldwide.

Western factory farms and Asian street markets are virtual breeding grounds for infectious diseases. Sick, crowded, highly stressed animals in close contact with raw flesh, feces and urine provide ideal incubation media for viruses. As these microbes reach humans, they mutate to defeat the new host’s immune system, then propagate on contact.

Each of us can help end these deadly pandemics by replacing animal products in our diet with vegetables, fruits and whole grains. These foods don’t carry flu viruses, or government warning labels, are touted by every major health advocacy organization and were the recommended fare in the Garden of Eden. The internet offers ample recipes and transition hints.

—Larry Rogawitz

Santa Rosa

Preserve Live Theater

Some time ago, a roster of prominent performers (DeNiro, Streep, Dench, Hopkins, etc.) commented on the critical importance of live theatrical performances.

Collectively, they agreed that live performances, warts and all, are better than movies. In movies, “action” is tailored, redone, adjusted to be made “perfect” to an audience of persons (lighting, grips, best boys, etc.) who get paid to be there and support movie-making.

In live theatre, line flubs are part of the show, as are lighting errors, missed queues and audience members answering cell phones. Billy Dee Williams contributed a recollection when he portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King. An audience member was slouching, with his feet up on the chair in front of him. By the end of the performance, he was sitting upright watching intently.

Anything other than live theatre is a rehearsed piece played to a small, anonymous audience.

—Gary Sciford

Santa Rosa

Thankful for
Stories

Terrific review (“Stories To Tell,” Arts & Ideas, Jan. 22) of a book that’s both fun to read, as Susan is always fun to read, and instructive for older women about how we make lighter the inevitable darkness. Thanks so much.

—Barbara Baer

San Francisco

Write to us at le*****@******an.com.

The Good Fight

-
0
The Good Fight

Sonoma County marijuana-activist, Sarah Shrader, enjoys quality time with family and friends, though there’s no clear dividing line between her political calling and her personal life. Passionate about the cannabis cause, she’s an inspiration to activists all over the North Bay.

Born, reared and educated in San Francisco, Shrader joined the San Francisco chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) a decade ago. That act changed her life. ASA is the largest U.S. organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and citizens who want safe, legal paths to cannabis for health, well-being and lab research.

The organization has 100,000 active members in all 50 states. It was recently reborn, Shrader tells me, when it moved headquarters from Oakland to Washington, D.C., and shifted away from “tie-dyed hippie pleas to scientific appeals for legalization.”

After Shrader landed in Sonoma County, she turned the local ASA chapter into a thriving force that now has an extensive network of supporters and an impressive record of educating politicians and citizens.

I’ve seen Shrader in action—she’s fearless when face-to-face with county supervisors such as Shirlee Zane.

At her monthly free workshops at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa, no one impeaches her facts. She’s also unapologetic about her own use of cannabis to deal with fibromyalgia, a painful disorder she developed after an automobile accident.

“I asked my doctor to prescribe cannabis,” Shrader says. “He said, ‘No,’ but he was willing to give me uppers and downers.”

If Shrader’s auto accident traumatized her, she suffered more trauma after the bust, by DEA agents, of longtime KPFA journalist Jose Gutierrez, the father of her two children. Law-enforcement agents beat Gutierrez during a peaceful protest to prevent the closure of Oaksterdam University, where Shrader is on the faculty.

“Jose’s arrest was streamed live,” she says. “From that experience and others, I saw that ‘The War on Drugs’ was really a war on people.”

After Gutierrez’s arrest, Shrader suffered from PTSD and paranoia. She drove her children to Mendocino, out of harm’s way, though her anxiety level up-ticked when DEA agents descended on her home on Mother’s Day that year.

“We have much to do in 2020,” she says. “Like protect workers fired for using cannabis and also help people addicted to opioids. Ninety-one people die from opioids every day. Cannabis can be a tool to combat their disorder.”

Jonah Raskin is the author of ‘Dark Day, Dark Night: A Marijuana Murder Mystery.’

When in Rome

-
0
When in Rome

The specter of World War I rears its ugly head once again on a North Bay stage with the Sonoma Arts Live presentation of Enchanted April. Matthew Barber’s adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1922 novel runs through Feb. 9.

Lotty Wilton (Katie Kelley) dreams of escaping a grey and dreary post-war England and a loveless marriage to parsimonious attorney Mellersh Wilton (Matthew Witthaus). She happens upon an advertisement offering an Italian riviera castle for rent for the month of April. She soon enlists fellow ladies club member Rose Arnott (Lyndsey Sivalingam), who has marriage issues of her own, to join her on her holiday. Seeking to further reduce their expenses, they advertise for two additional travel companions. They receive replies from Lady Caroline Bramble (Julianne Bradbury), a vivacious socialite, and Mrs. Graves (Sheila Lichirie), whose name gives you an indication of her personality.

These four disparate characters soon arrive at San Salvatore (inexplicably and annoyingly pronounced repeatedly as San Sal-va-TOR-e) and though they comedically clash at first, are soon sharing their troubles. A feisty Italian servant (Laura Davies), the arrival of the randy castle proprietor (Giovanni Amador), and Mssrs. Wilton and Arnott (J. T. Harper) serve to compound those troubles.

Fear not, as the transformative powers of wisteria and sunshine shall resolve all their troubles, reinvigorate their existing relationships and assist in the sprouting of a new one.

Barber’s script is a combination of magical realism, comedy of manners and farce that half-works. The first act takes over 50 minutes to cover what the 1991 film did in about 20 and the needlessly mannered set changes makes it feel longer. It did not help that an ever-present and oversized projection of rain often overwhelmed an understandably dreary and minimalist Carl Jordan–designed set.

Conversely, the unveiling of the castle set at the top of the second act led to a round of applause from the opening-night audience.

As did the performances from the Larry Williams–directed cast, who do pretty well with what are now stock characters. There are dialect issues, though, and Kelley’s vocal choice for Lotty often comes off as grating. Sivalingam and Licherie, amusingly haughty in character, provide laughs, while Bradbury supplies the heart. The men are appropriately caddish before their own transformations.

If you can get through the drabness of the first act, there are rewards to be found by joining the ladies of Enchanted April on their holiday.

Rating (out of 5):★★★½

‘Enchanted April’ runs through Feb. 10 at Andrews Hall in the Sonoma Community Center, 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma. Thur–Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. $25–$42. 866.710.8942. sonomaartslive.org.

Future Ex

-
0
Future Ex

Way back in 2001, years before I wrote Swirl, I reported on my experience at the democratic drink-fest that was the 10th annual Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) tasting. “How was this possible without a fake ID?” one might ask. And I’m flattered you did.

Here’s an excerpt from my 2002 report, for readers who don’t have the yellowed newspaper-clipping pinned to their wine cabinet: “The crowd outside, still in thrall to the grape, created a scene somewhere between a wedding reception and a soccer riot. I joined others streaming away across the grassy park, feeling a light-headed tinge of pride that Zinfandel, despite its newfound chic, appeared to still be the quaff of choice of the hoi polloi.”

Heady stuff indeed. Back then, Zin was on the up and up, the all-American varietal that was winning hearts and minds with pluck, grit and value. The upcoming ZAP tasting is, by comparison to that double-pier, Fort Mason wine-riot, much smaller. And more expensive. What happened?

“It has transformed rather dramatically,” says Robert Larsen, media point man for the ZAP event.

Now, it’s a three-day slate of fancy dinners, an auction, a seminar and a smaller tasting that still features more than 80 wineries. In: restaurant food pairings. Not-yet-out: the traditional mountain of baguettes. Out: Ravenswood, the one-time Zinfandel-revival leader that’s in limbo after a string of buyouts. Still-in-the-game: Ravenswood-founder Joel Peterson, who leads an educational tasting of single-vineyard Zins.

ZAP’s new focus is on raising both their ticket prices and the price they pay growers to farm Zinfandel—so they don’t rip out this heritage California grape for economic reasons.

“People aren’t willing to pay what it costs to farm Zinfandel,” Kenwood Vineyards–winemaker Zeke Neeley recently told me. “When they have Zinfandel, they love it. But at the same time, they’re only willing to love it at $18.”

For over $18, I loved the olallieberry-fruited, but dry-and-serious, Kenwood Vineyards 2017 Jack London Sonoma Valley Zinfandel ($35). For under $18, 2016 Oliver’s Own Reserve Sonoma County Zinfandel ($10.99) beats a much bigger supermarket brand—2015 Kendall-Jackson Zin ($12.98)—in pretty, typical Zinfandel raspberry aromatics and a more juicy, finer finish. Full disclosure: Oliver’s is an advertiser in the Bohemian. Also: I was maybe a little over 21 at that ZAP tasting.

ZAP Zinfandel Experience, Thursday–Saturday, Jan. 30 to Feb. 1. Grand Tasting, Saturday, Feb. 1 at Pier 27, San Francisco. 11am to 5pm. Members, $75; General Admission $90; more wine, more food, more time, $185. 530.274.4900. zinfandelexperience.com.

New Views

-
0
New Views

There is much to see in Napa Valley this week, as two very different-looking art shows open to the public.

In Yountville, internationally known celebrity Lucy Liu exhibits a wide display of art at the Napa Valley Museum. Opening on Saturday, Feb. 1, “Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others” presents the actress and social-justice advocate in a new light, and marks the first art exhibit in the U.S. for Liu, who will appear at the Napa Valley Museum for the upcoming fundraising luncheon, Phenomenal Women, on Feb. 25.

“We wanted to showcase women who were doing something extraordinary,” says Napa Valley Museum Executive Director Laura Rafaty. “I found out she had just done her first art exhibit at the National Museum of Singapore. We invited her to be the keynote speaker at the luncheon, but as those discussions evolved we asked if she would be willing to have us post the first museum exhibit of her work in the United States.”

Liu’s art includes erotic Japanese “shunga” woodblocks and paintings, embroidered works, found-object sculptures and silkscreens featuring bold designs and even bolder subject matter.

“Some of it is kind of provocative, honestly,” Rafaty says. “Lucy’s work is very intimate, in some ways shockingly so. It’s emotional, it wants you to challenge cultural and gender stereotypes and I think people are going to find it thrilling to see.”

Up the road in Calistoga, Napa Valley–native Kate Solari Baker opens a new exhibit, “Keeping Accounts,” at Sofie Contemporary Arts on Friday, Jan. 31. Generations of inspiration lie behind Baker’s latest works, which mark a new artistic direction into mixed-media collage in which she incorporates her mother’s handwriting into colorful overhead landscapes.

“My family bought a property in Napa Valley in 1948,” Baker says.

That property was the historic Larkmead Cellars winery and vineyard, and while Baker’s father worked in San Francisco, her mother ran the co-op property, and in doing so kept meticulous handwritten ledgers and accounts that Baker discovered after her mother’s death in 1992.

“It was a part of Napa Valley history in my mind; the people who worked there, their hours and their time,” Baker says. “It represented to me a different time in Napa Valley, when it was mostly farmers.”

Baker uses those ledger papers as a source for her art, creating large maps of the Larkmead property and other Napa Valley locales superimposed over the ledgers.

Working from her art studio in Sausalito’s Industrial Center Building (ICB), where she’s been since the late ’70s, Baker was best known in Marin and throughout the North Bay for her nature-inspired pastels and figurative paintings before taking a turn toward collage.

“It’s very personal and it’s fun,” Baker says, of her collage. “This is a part of my mother’s history and I’m following in her footsteps and thinking about her part in Napa Valley.”

Honoring Black History

Across Sonoma County are plans to celebrate Black History Month, an annual tradition that dates back almost 100 years. American historian Carter G. Woodson first established Black History Week in February 1926, choosing February to honor the birth month of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. This year's events will continue to expand awareness of Black History and...
Read more

Strange Beats

There's a new sound coming from the hills of West Sonoma County, courtesy of jazz-fusion quartet Sakoyana, who've set their sights on creating largely instrumental and always unexpected compositions that forgo guitars for horns and often wander with joyful improvisation at their live shows. Currently comprised of bassist Stanton White, drummer Daniel Bowman, clarinet-player Sequoia Nacmanie and tenor-saxophone and keyboard-player...
Read more

Tax Dodgers

On Friday, Jan. 10, more than 130 million Americans became able to file their tax returns without paying an accountant, using a tax preparation service or buying tax software. For the first time, taxpayers may now submit online in a straightforward way that doesn't trick them into paying $40 or more to establish a "freemium" account. Taxpayers with incomes of $69,000...
Read more

Cinematic ‘Stache

During production on the artsploitation flick Pill Head, I ran to the local deli to pick up sandwiches because, this being a nano-budget indie, it was sandwiches for dinner personally delivered by yours truly, the director. Fresh from the set, I must have entered the deli aisle with an added flourish—after all, I was in...
Read more

Oh My Dog!

I ‌love dogs. I grew up with big dogs and learned how to behave around them, familiar and unknown. As a young adult I adopted a puppy and did my best, but her bad tendencies got worse and by the end, she was a menace to anything on wheels. It was sobering to be a dog person and fail...
Read more

Pandemic

Fifty million Chinese locked down! Fifteen countries affected! Three confirmed cases in the U.S.! These dramatic headlines announce one more pandemic caused by our abuse of animals. Indeed, 61 percent of the 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans originate with animals. These so-called zoonetic diseases, claiming millions of human lives, include Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, West Nile flu, bird...
Read more

The Good Fight

Sonoma County marijuana-activist, Sarah Shrader, enjoys quality time with family and friends, though there's no clear dividing line between her political calling and her personal life. Passionate about the cannabis cause, she's an inspiration to activists all over the North Bay. Born, reared and educated in San Francisco, Shrader...
Read more

When in Rome

The specter of World War I rears its ugly head once again on a North Bay stage with the Sonoma Arts Live presentation of Enchanted April. Matthew Barber's adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel runs through Feb. 9. Lotty Wilton (Katie Kelley) dreams of escaping a grey and dreary post-war England and a loveless marriage to parsimonious attorney Mellersh...
Read more

Future Ex

Way back in 2001, years before I wrote Swirl, I reported on my experience at the democratic drink-fest that was the 10th annual Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) tasting. "How was this possible without a fake ID?" one might ask. And I'm flattered you did. Here's an excerpt from my 2002 report, for readers who don't have the yellowed newspaper-clipping...
Read more

New Views

There is much to see in Napa Valley this week, as two very different-looking art shows open to the public. In Yountville, internationally known celebrity Lucy Liu exhibits a wide display of art at the Napa Valley Museum. Opening on Saturday, Feb. 1, "Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others" presents the actress and social-justice advocate...
Read more
1...388389390...1,000Page 389 of 1,000
11,084FansLike
4,606FollowersFollow
6,928FollowersFollow
north bay bohemian newspaper sonoma napa county logo
CURRENT ISSUE & ARCHIVES
East Bay Express cover
East Bay Express cover
CURRENT ISSUE & ARCHIVES
Newsletters Subscribe Advertise About Us Contact Us Letter to the Editor Press Release Obituaries Writing an Obituary Archives Find a Paper Distribute Bohemian Vote for Best Of Plaques & Banners
win free stuff
Features Local News News
Arts Books & Literature Crush Culture Movies Music Spotlight Theater
Astrology Look Media Opinion Letters To The Editor Open Mic Press Pass Rolling Papers
Dining Restaurants Small Bites
Readers' Picks 2025 Arts & Culture Beer, Wine & Spirits Beauty, Health & Wellness Cannabis Everyday Services Family & Pets Home Improvement Recreation Restaurants Romance Shopping
All Upcoming Events Today's Events Submit an Event Promote Your Event
weeklys california local media group logo

FOLLOW US

Copyright © Weeklys All rights reserved.

Our Publications

ADVERTISING Advertise Legal Submit an Obituary Legal NoticesFictitious Business Name (FBN) StatementsDoing Business As (DBA) NoticesTrustee Sale Notices

COMPANY INFO Job Opportunities Journalism Awards Privacy Policy Terms of Service

Support Local Journalism