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Posts published in “Essays”

Superspreader Bowl

A month and a day after the storming of the Capitol came the national rites of healing. These were enacted not in an atmosphere of penitential sacrifice and prayer, but through elaborate choreographies of unbridled…

‘They’re Lucky They Didn’t Get Hurt’

When longtime Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle accepted my invitation for an interview, I assumed he merely wanted an opportunity to soften his image, spew some PC platitudes, and question the ratios I had derived…

Ukiah Defiant

I was hunting down some morning coffee at daughter Emily’s place in Santa Rosa and I opened a kitchen cupboard, pulled out a big white cup with big black letters that said: BITCH, PLEASE. I’M…

The Ten Mile Killer

The Roaring Twenties had just begun to roar, you couldn't buy a drink in Ukiah but you could in Point Arena, brothels catering to the transient men of the booming logging industry were the social…

Isolatoes: From Natty Bumppo to the Proud Boys

They were nearly all Isolatoes, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were!…

Music To Chill By

Here in Upstate New York nearly two feet of snow blanket the ground. Old Timers reminiscence over Zoom cocktails about the real winters of their youths. When temperatures plunged below zero in the wee hours…

The War On Privacy

My colleague Glenn Greenwald hit the nail on the head this weekend when he wrote about “tattletale journalism,” in which media reporters for the largest companies spend their time attacking speech, instead of defending it.…

A Trip Around the Lake

Living 45 years on the coast, but having business or family needs that take me into the Central Valley, I’ve driven Highway 20 along the north shore of Clear Lake more times than I can…

Bigfoot and the Dentist (Part 2)

John Fleming Wheeler served the town of Mendocino as dentist for less than a year and a half in 1878-1879. His name lives on because of his central role in the most notorious crime in…

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