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Posts published by “Jonah Raskin”

My Outsider and Insider Experience

When I arrived by bus, with just one suitcase, in Sonoma County at the end of 1975, I felt like an outsider, though my parents had settled there in 1970 and were homesteading near the…

Pipe Dream or American Dream?

The Emerald Cup roared into Santa Rosa and crawled out with a hangover on the next-to-the last weekend in December. Two days of partying takes a toll on a body, especially if the body isn’t…

Street Fighting Man

I know your eyes are glued to the circus in D.C. and the slaughter that’s taking place in Afghanistan and half-a-dozen other places in a world that’s on fire. I’m paying close attention, too. I’m…

Powerless: Ain’t Got No ‘Lectricity

When I heard that PG&E was going to turn off power in my part of the world my first response was denial. I thought that if I told myself that, it was no biggie. After…

A Lost Poet’s Voice Revived

If he's still alive, Lew Welch would have celebrated his 93rd birthday Aug. 16, 2019. A Reed College graduate and one of the half dozen or so poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael…

Mendo Marijuana Grower

“I’ve been lucky,” the tall, thin, energetic pot farmer tells me on a hot day in September. “I grew my first crop at 17 and now 30 years later I’m still growing it. At 22,…

A Whale of a Time on the California Coast

“Save the Whales!” Who hasn’t heard the cry that’s now timelier than ever before? It’s not only the commercial hunting of whales that’s to blame for the decline of the species, though there’s still much…

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