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Posts published in “Essays”

People I Knew

The late Max Crawford’s last novel was called, “Wamba.” According to the flier announcing it … “After years away, Roy Alan Richardson has come home to western Texas to grapple with the demons that haunt…

Library, Sacred Cow Of Ukiah

If any inattentive adult has any lingering doubt about the value of Ukiah’s library, some fog-clearing clarity is on its way. Our library, subsidized by everyone, gets additional largesse from dim-witted feel-good patsies who keep…

Ostriches

“Is this that political-type paper,” a tentative female voice asked when I picked up the phone. I suppose, I answered, forever not knowing what might come next. “Oh. Hi! I am Zaya. I saw an…

Why We Have A Public Library In Covelo

If one looked at a map of California and Northeastern Mendocino County a person would see a lot of National Forest; the Snow Mountain, Thatcher Creek and Yolla Bolly Wilderness Areas; the Round Valley Indian…

United States Becoming A Failed State?

Is the United States becoming a failed state? The performance of our elected officials now, in the MAGA era, certainly seems to indicate that it is; while the world is filled with urgent business that…

John Muir, The Untold Story

Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness. By Robert Aquinas McNally. University of Nebraska Press; May 1, 2024 “Only to the white man was nature a…

Goodbye To All That [December 1999]

Somewhere around mid-November the Y2K whimpering died down out of sheer exhaustion. Humboldt County [where Cockburn lived at the time of this writing] is calm. A couple of weeks ago I asked the amiable Jim,…

Big Tech Accelerates Isolationism

By producing such extremes of wealth, big tech is returning us to a kind of feudalism, with a few powerful figures accountable to no one. Here’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who — after…

The Little Things That Count [1950]

San Francisco. Sentimental expatriates say, “You can leave it—but it never leaves you.” It has three approaches by land, only one of which is free. It is full of fleas that bite only tourists and…

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