LOS ANGELES -- The powers behind "The West Wing" are making this campaign promise: Sunday's live debate between presidential candidates Arnold Vinick and Matt Santos will be far from politics -- or television -- as usual.

This weekend di Rosa Preserve opens "All in the Family IV," an annual exhibition and sale of artwork produced by members, volunteers and staff of the preserve. The exhibit, juried by Rene di Rosa and a panel of artists and curators, will run Saturday through Dec. 17 in the preserve's Gatehouse Gallery.

Opera Night

Out of the ordinary family entertainment comes to Napa when Comedy and Pet Theatre takes to the Napa Valley Opera House stage Nov. 10-12. Four performances will showcase the European-style comedy of Gregory Popovich and the extraordinary talents of his performing pets, which have been rescued from animal shelters.

There are those in the community who use their music to help others, and you can count among them Margie Cadelago, who is organizing a benefit for the orphans at a Carmelite mission in Uganda.

A strong new troupe of thespians emerged at Napa High last weekend to present a compelling version of "The Crucible," Arthur Miller's tale of witchcraft hysteria in New England.

If you lived in a small town, like Napa, 100 years ago, nothing short of a presidential whistle stop could match the thrill of a concert staged by a traveling band led by march king John Philip Sousa.

Twenty years ago, when Seymour Hersh spoke to a political writing class at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism, Hersh, the journalist who broke the story about the Mai Lai massacres in Vietnam, told aspiring journalists he thought the worst threat to journalism was coming from within -- what he saw as an unsettling trend for journalist to function as "stenographers" passing on to the public the information churned out by government.

Two blues performers will be showcasing their talents this Friday and Saturday night at DG's Nightclub in the Napa Mill.