Recently I found myself going through my nightly ritual that inevitably ends in scrolling down my news feed either on Instagram, Facebook or Tumblr before falling asleep.

There are certain people in the world that can completely change one’s understanding of it. For many students, faculty and alumni, Erv Peterson was exactly that person. Peterson has been teaching environmental studies at Sonoma State University since 1990 and involved with the school since 1987.

Conflict over manners and etiquette is an almost universal experience that most have along generational divides. The dialogue of these discussions frequently reveals a few theories about the integrity of manners amongst the millennial generation. 

Media, Social Media in particular, is transforming the world. It literally has the power to start revolutions, and did just that throughout the Middle East during the Arab Spring of 2011. Never before has information and the exchange of ideas been so accessible for such a wide range of people across the world regardless of nationality, religion or socio-economic status.

Sonoma County is set to experience the same influx of business and new residents experienced in other parts of the Bay Area over the last few years. Rents have risen more than 30 percent in the last three years, according to the Press Democrat, and this trend will only increase with the construction of the Sonoma-Marin Area Transit railway, or SMART.

Americans throw away nearly half of the food consumed, which is a disturbing example of how society is being built upon excess and waste.

College students today face extraordinary pressures from their academic curriculum, interpersonal relationships and ultimately deciding on a degree or career choice that will shape their future for a lifetime.

There is a serious oversight of one subject in United State’s public education system. The basis and history of the world’s main religions are simply absent, or not given enough attention to, in all levels of the public school system.

There is an ugly truth hiding behind the way many young college age people talk to and behave around each other. Microaggressions are an insidious force that creeps into our everyday thoughts, speech and actions. They may seem harmless, but they represent a real threat to the moral integrity of our society.