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Posts published by “Jeff Costello”

The Grand Tour

Tourists in California are missing a great opportunity. Where else can you travel north-south on either of two major highways and be so close to so many prisons - pardon me, correctional facilities - some in plain sight. And not just any prisons. Famous prisons, notorious prisons, prisons immortalized in song.

Labor Day 2012

John Stephens on the rich person's view of the poor: “They just can't understand what a terrible burden it is to have money.” I’m a semi-regular at a restaurant/cafe in Sausalito. It’s convenient, the food’s…

The Crackpot Files

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,…

Pete Seeger’s Contributions

Pete Seeger may well be the very essence of the earnest, self-serious folk singer. He seems to have built the mold. After a half-century of harassment by everyone from the local KKK in the small Hudson River Valley town where he lives to the House Un-American Activities Commission in the 50s, to J. Edgar Hoover himself, you could say Seeger has a right to be serious.

Memo To White Liberals

We no longer see or hear the terms Jewess or Negress, which are insulting in that people are put on a level with animals (tigress, lioness). The suffix in general is old news. (Plus, no…

Pony

In my youth, many if not most budding musicians had to fight their way through a lot of opposition, such as parents or other authority figures urging them to stop this nonsense and get a…

The End Of Authority

The “Question Authority” bumper sticker is obsolete. Authority has been thoroughly questioned — and failed the interview. The evidence of its failure is global, as vainglorious national leaders everywhere fall, issuing denials all the way…

Moral & Immoral Illness

When I was diagnosed with throat cancer, I read up on alternative treatments, of which there are many. Somehow I had a strong intuitive sense that eating grapes or drinking tons of carrot juice was…

Brave New World/1984 — The Sequel

In the drugstore today I noticed a new (to me at least) product. I had to look twice, but the second look con-firmed what it was: A home test kit for marijuana. 99.9% effective. Now…

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