This morning's editorial board meeting included a lively discussion about the future of Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol, which is close to insolvency. Difference arose over whether Palm Drive could survive. A couple of us don't believe that anything can save the beleaguered hospital, which is losing half a million [...]

Anthony Morgan of Petaluma writes of the shooting death of Jeremiah Chass in Sebastopol, "I have nearly 35 years in law enforcement, and I have been placed in precarious situations a number of times. I know how suddenly a situation can change. Because of that knowledge, I cannot criticize the [...]

Some of our best friends are lawyers. (Full disclosure: Some of us are married to lawyers).Still, relative to nurses and teachers and physicians, it is difficult to argue that California suffers from a shortage of attorneys. For sure, Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters doesn't think so. In the column that [...]

Prep sports is not the usual fare at The Insider, but we make an exception today to honor a student-athlete.As the Cardinal Newman High School basketball team prepares to play for a state championship on Saturday, Michael Santos, an all-league performer, is blogging at pressdemocrat.com, and here's part of what [...]

On Monday, the nation marked the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a continuation of the usual dialogue. President Bush urged Americans to stay the course and asked Congress to continue funding for an increasingly unpopular war. Bush's critics, member of Congress and protestors around the country, scheduled [...]

It is difficult for us to judge whether a person gains status by migrating from politics to journalism. Both professions have their detractors. Still, it is worth mentioning that Brian Sobel, the former Petaluma City Council member, wrote a piece that was published Saturday in the Wall Street Journal. A [...]

The New York Times on Sunday provided a glimpse of what happens when an exclusive community will do almost anything to remain exclusive. In Santa Barbara, anyone who makes less than $177,000 a year could be eligible for the latest subsidized housing project. That is not a typo. $177,000. Sonoma [...]

A couple of years ago, the Sacramento Bee begin running a series of articles on the advantages of removing the O'Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. The Bee series pointed out that the decision to cover Hetch Hetchy was one of the greatest environmental travesties of [...]

If our mail is any indication, many Sonoma County residents believe that communities and nations should be doing more to prevent global warming. This may explain why local governments have resolved to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2015. The folks at the Climate Protection Campaign [...]

The California Education Code contains more than 6,000 pages, chockablock with state efforts to micro-manage neighborhood schools.Not long ago, for example, the state Legislature approved a provision that requires proof that schools maintain an adequate supply of toilet paper in restrooms. Lawmakers apparently believed local schools might forget without legislative [...]