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Posts published in “Essays”

Covid Confidential

Really, I had no idea. We’re all ambitious in my family, but hardly any of my cousins have become as famous as me. Visiting every country in the world. Hosted by presidents, princes, prime ministers.…

The Shrum Murder Mystery (Part 2)

Previously, we examined the murder of A.J. Shrum in his Round Valley field one evening in July, 1878. The authorities decided the deed was committed by eighteen-year-old Jesse Anthony so that his older brother, James,…

Journal of the Plague Year (#8)

Berkeley, CA 5/11/2020 – Lacking, as we all are, anything like responsible, responsive, informed sources about the COVID – 19 Pandemic, we cluster, knowingly or not, around a few people who seem worth listening to.…

Culinary Chaos in History

“Drunken Woodsmen Wreck Cookhouse-Raise Hades at Little Valley Camp.” That’s what a headline in the Mendocino Beacon reported in the November 23, 1918 issue. This is the story about cooks and their customers.  North of…

Defending the Mutineers

A soldier being court-martialed is entitled to an Army defender plus “counsel of choice.” Fourteen of the 27 Presidio stockade prisoners who had been read the mutiny article during their sit-down in the Presidio stockade…

The Stealthy Suicide of the Self-Styled Left

Three things have bothered me about this panic-demic from the beginning: One was the realization that the reaction to the novel coronavirus was far greater than its actual impact in sickness and death, which, so…

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