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Posts published in “Essays”

California’s Last Indian War

Book Review of ‘Hell With The Fire Out: A History of the Modoc War,’ by Arthur Quinn, Faber and Faber, 200pp, 1997. California’s last and perhaps most well known Indian war was fought in Modoc…

Dr. Jill Biden’s Diary

October 3, 2023 Oh Dear Diary: Whatever shall I do? If he doesn’t stop humming “Row Row Row Your Boat” I’m going to double the Thorazine starting in 10 minutes. (I can do that because…

The Ones Between

Lately, the ones between have been on my mind. Those folks not the originator in a certain discipline, but who made contributions to it and in turn inspired the next generation to make even greater…

To Gotham With Dexter Gordon

To drive out of the city of Ithaca in Upstate New York in October you need music. The hills are just beginning to show the golds, reds and rusts of autumn. The sumptuous melancholy of…

Before America’s Terrorists Became Heroes

King George III sat moodily at his breakfast in Kew Castle while awaiting his prime minister, Lord Frederick North. On this morning the king had little appetite for his favorite morning dishes heaped atop the…

Summer’s Gone. Hope You’re Happy

All of you who’ve been complaining about the heat and the hot weather and the sweat and the high temperatures and how hard it is to fall asleep when temperatures are not even in the…

When China Was Communist (Part 2)

By the summer of 1980 the China of Mao Zedong's Communist Party was the result of 30 years of applied radical ideology. Every aspect of life had been relentlessly re-thought and restructured to conform to…

Montana Sojourn

Travel broadens one’s horizons (it also shrinks one’s wallet, but that is a discussion for another day). During the pandemic years, my travel was limited to car trips. However, broad acceptance of the Covid vaccine…

What To Do With The Old Piano?

The National Association of Piano Dealers reported 364,545 sales of new instruments in the United States in 1909. That was four times the number of automobiles manufactured in the country that same year. This output…

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