Slavery Persists, a Park Partnership Succeeds and Tobias Swallows a Sword
While Trump tumult captures the nation’s (and the world’s) attention, one of the most persistent, intractable and shameful conditions known to humanity persists almost unabated. By far more media attention has been focused on Donald Trump’s wall then on the fate of human slaves who remain entrapped on both sides of that embattled border.
Human slavery has been estimated to ensnare somewhere between 20 million and 45 million people globally—the majority women and children. Either of those figures dwarfs the widely accepted estimate of the African slave trade up to 1866, which totaled roughly 12 million.
It is not a problem that comes readily to mind in the bucolic and culturally cloistered confines of the Sonoma Valley. But it is statistically unlikely that there are not illegally indentured people working among us. We just can’t see them. Which is why we gave exceptional space to stories about human slavery with local roots. Lisa Kristine is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose images of ancient cultures in distant places grace a gallery on the Sonoma Plaza and who shifted her focus in 2009 to reveal the ugly truth so often hiding in plain sight. Lisa’s visits to places of human bondage have yielded stunning images that now fuel efforts to put an end to slavery.
In a very different domain, Sonoma interior designer Heather Wolf travels widely through the textile trade to produce the couture sheets and towels and luxury fabrics she custom-tailors for her clients. Wolf is painfully, but consciously, aware of the degree to which slavery infests the production of textiles—from field, to loom, to vats of dye, to sewing rooms. Her efforts to avoid metaphorical blood on her sheets are both laudatory and frustrating. Cleaning textiles from the taint of bondage is a hard scrub.
Elsewhere in this issue we celebrate the fifth anniversary of a remarkable partnership that rescued an iconic park from closing and breathed new life into its once under-appreciated presence.
We also salute five years of Broadway Under the Stars with a peek behind the curtain at Transcendence Theatre Company.
And we explore the future of Sonoma Valley through some revealing new metrics; we rock out in the studio with treasure musician David Aguilar; we watch Tobias Weinberger swallow a sword; check out the new season of Stompers baseball; and preview the events on the Sonoma Raceway events calendar.
There’s too much more to mention, but we think you’ll find enough to stretch your mind at least a little and perhaps tickle your fancy.
Enjoy,
David Bolling, Editor & Publisher
Tobias Weinberger’s Traveling Spectacular
Magic, mystery, music in a ’51 Chevy truck. Story David Bolling Tobias Weinberger is 6-feet-2, and the distance from his lips to the pit of his stomach is approximately 24 inches. At least that’s the length of the blade he inserts through his open mouth, down his throat, past his…
Bringing London Back to Life
After five years, a unique public-private partnership is a model for success Story David Bolling Photos Steven Krause Jack London is still dead, although some insist his ghost can be seen wandering around the Wolf House, or standing pensively in a copse of towering redwood trees nearby. The park that…
Bound by Gold
Story David Bolling Photos Lisa Kristine Her luminous brown eyes and the golden halo of hair that frames her face give Lisa Kristine an almost angelic presence. It isn’t the face of a woman you would expect to encounter 200 feet down an illegal mine shaft in Ghana, mingling with…
Future Economy
The Bad News: Uber and Avis and Japan will be as dead as Kodak. The Good News: Robots won’t take your job and health care will be cheaper. Story Joe Aaron I like to call myself an “economic futurist,” to which you may well ask, “What the heck is an…
The Memorable Music of David Aguilar
Sonoma Treasure Artist releases new CD. Story Jonah Raskin Photos Steven Krause Spend a lazy afternoon with David Aguilar over tea and muffins in a local café and you might feel you’re in the presence of a real-live celebrity. Everyone, young and old, seems to know him and revere him.…