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Posts published by “Jonah Raskin”

Starr Sutherland’s Unfinished Documentary About City Lights

It’s an overcast Friday in San Francisco and Starr Sutherland is eating French toast with lots of butter and maple syrup at Sea Breeze, his favorite local restaurant. He’s also talking about his favorite topic: movies,…

Falls City, Oregon

It’s a hot quiet weekday morning in Falls City, Oregon, which is more of a town than a city, at least by the standards of a northern Californian who has lived in Santa Rosa and…

Covid, Isolation & Loneliness

“Are you lonely tonight?” If you are a senior you probably are, according to Carla Perissinotto, a doctor and a professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. Perissinotto specializes in internal…

Affirmative Action & Me

In the late 1980s I felt guilty about using an old boys’ network to secure a teaching position at Sonoma State University (SSU), a branch of the California State University system. I even discussed my…

What’s Next For Native Americans? 

I. Unceded Ohlone Land If you’ve attended a recent public event at a library in San Francisco you’ve probably heard someone on stage tell the audience, “You are on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land.” Last year,…

A Jubilant Juneteenth In San Francisco, 2023

“It’s Juneteenth everybody,” Kevin Dublin, an African American poet, said to the downtown poetry enthusiasts at the upscale Kimpton Alton Hotel in San Francisco near Fisherman’s Wharf. Indeed, it was June 19th, time to celebrate…

Dan Ellsberg & The Bioneers

Daniel Ellsberg, who recently announced that he has pancreatic cancer and doesn’t have much longer to live, sent out an email in which he wrote, “It is long past time--but not too late!--for the world's…

In Exile from Sonoma

I recently spent three days in the town of Sonoma, visiting friends and revisiting familiar places like Oak Hill Farm that I wrote about in Field Days, my book about farms, farmers and field workers.…

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