October 18, 2025
Welcome to Flypaper--a blog of observations.
Here's what you can expect in the coming months: a mix of reflections on culture and politics—both local and elsewhere—and reporter's-notebook style pieces derived from larger projects I'm reporting for the newspaper.
You might call it an institution — a haven of freedom and liberty in that bourgeois airy-fairyland known as Mendocino Village. Or maybe you call it the place to take a leak after a long…
The rumors aren't pretty. Like pornography, they're crass. As with any small town police investigation, they can be all-consuming. But after all the sightings and psychic readings, after the cadaver dog searches and the dozens…
The Placer County Sheriff's department has been tight-lipped about the death of Michael Glen Peacock — the man who testified against the former chairman of the Mendocino County Republican Party, Kenny Rogers in Rogers’ recent…
The past few years haven't been kind to Mexico's image. The unceasing hum of violence and corruption—of beach and border town shootouts, of high profile kidnappings and murders and bribes—would have been enough to squelch…
To Whom It May Concern: Here’s the first thing you need to know: I’m a lot like you when it comes to driving in Mendocino County. I, too, drive often between the coast and Ukiah,…
The village of Westport is the last outpost before Mendocino County's northern coast disappears into a roadless swath of rugged shoreline and redwood-carpeted hills. It is spread across roughly one mile by one-half mile of coast, and has one store, two gas pumps and 47 registered voters. Retirees are Westport's dominant demographic, and 15 miles of coiling coastal highway separate it from the closest town.
Dusty Miller and Matt Graves had just eaten dinner on the evening of July 10, 2008, when everything went wrong. Miller and Graves were on one of their first dates at a mutual friend’s house…