Two things are remarkable about the last 35,000 years of human history: that things have remained so stable, and that so much has changed. If, as Pablo Picasso is said to have remarked, we have learned nothing, based on his assessment of the cave paintings of Lascaux, we have managed quite a lot by way [...]
by John Wester
Hippie met its ugly death In Buena Vista Park; Buried with the smack and meth With candles in the dark; Vietnam the only trip That had the people in its grip. * * * Organized by the Diggers, residents of Haight-Ashbury marched through the streets in early October, 1967, carrying a coffin to symbolize the [...]
Cypress boughs dangle over the still, mocha-muddy waters of an Oklahoma swamp as a gaggle of drawling Southern country boys walks waist deep through the sleepy current. The men, shirtless and tanned, feel their way with their feet, exploring for stumps or root tangles—and when a foot strikes a submerged structure, the man kneels, almost [...]
Garvanza: Okie slang for the chickpea Mexicans call a garbanzo. About all I remember about kindergarten — this probably happened during the first week — is getting into a “fight” with a custard-colored Okie kid named Paul Custer who also wore a Davy Crockett coonskin cap. Turned out the storage shed was filled with giant [...]
by Todd Walton
When my father died five years ago, my siblings and I did not hold a memorial service in his honor. We were each of us so wounded by our father’s incessant criticism and disapproval of us that his death unleashed our long suppressed anger toward him, and being so angry we could not see our [...]
by Todd Walton
Yesterday brought an email from a friend with the subject heading Data Plague, with a link to an article from the New York Times about Big Data, a hot topic in the world of computer science and technology.
Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane society. — Thomas (“Mental illness is a myth”) Szasz “…lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of [society].” — Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest * * * On Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, there is a museum displaying torture [...]
by John Eskow
What a pitiful spectacle. Ozzie Guillen, the hard-partying eccentric who manages the Florida Marlins, sits weeping in the harsh glare of TV lights, forced by his bosses to recant his praise for Fidel Castro. He’s already been punished with a five-game suspension, but the baseball thought-police won’t be placated until he does a literal “mea [...]
by Will Parrish
In the introduction to his 1965 book The Making of the English Working Class, English social historian E.P. Thompson described his motivation as being to rescue “from the enormous condescension of posterity” the “lower orders” of people in 18th and 19th century Britain who resisted the brutal emergence of industrial society. In this famous phrase, [...]
by Jim Gibbons
My first day at Willits High School (1984-1985) was very interesting in a weird sort of way. I had no literature classes, just 8th, 9th and 10th grade basic English, meaning they were all at about a 6th grade level, and not college bound. What the heck, I just spent a year teaching 6th grade, [...]
