Signing to Impeach

Volunteers from the Sonoma County Resolution to Impeach Coalition are busily collecting signatures on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Plans are to gather 4,000 or more signatures of registered Santa Rosa voters before giving it to the Santa Rosa City Council in September. "Our goal is to present it to every city council in Sonoma County," says coalition member Alice Chan. A copy of the resolution and more details are online at www.pdsonoma.org/impeach. Sebastopol has already approved an impeachment resolution. The coalition is currently focusing on Santa Rosa and Cotati, and will move on to other municipalities. "We're surprised at how easy it is to get these signatures," Chan notes.

Minutemen in Marin?

In the wake of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps in San Rafael and Novato, an anti-illegal-immigration group wants to start a Marin County chapter. Several dozen members of the Golden Gate Minutemen and their Marin supporters met at the American Legion Post 313 in Larkspur on Saturday, July 28. A web posting announcing the event promised "snacks and a movie." The national Minutemen Project has been patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border and privately building its own fence to keep illegal immigrants out of this country. Minutemen members call themselves citizen patriots and say they're doing a job the federal government can't or won't do; opponents call them vigilantes and neo-Nazis. Outside Larkspur's American Legion Hall, about a dozen people peacefully protested the organizational meeting, saying Marin doesn't need the Minutemen.

Lights, Camera, Wine . . .

An independent film crew of about 65 people is in wine country this month, committed to creating the movie Bottle Shock, directed by Randall Miller and produced by Marc and Brenda Lhormer of the Sonoma Valley Film Festival. Bottle Shock is set in 1976, at the blind tasting that shook up the wine world when California vintages beat their French counterparts. "It's a fictitious story based on actual events," explains Brenda. The movie centers around Napa Valley's Jim and Bo Barrett, the self-proclaimed "hicks from the sticks" who made the winning Chardonnay. The film crew is on a tight 30-day shooting schedule with locations at Napa Valley's Chateau Montelena winery, downtown Calistoga, Buena Vista and Kunde wineries in the Sonoma Valley, and the Sonoma Plaza. "It's a very intense effort," says Brenda Lhormer.

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