The funniest thing about presidential inaugural ceremonies is that anyone takes them seriously at all. This latest edition reached new heights—and depths—of comic excellence. To his credit, Barack Obama had a hard time keeping it…
Posts published in “Essays”
You know the feeling you get when you casually flip on a light switch—the manner in which all of us nearly always do it, nonchalantly brushing it with the back of the hand or the…
I sat in my dad’s house, empty except for a chair and the phone. It had taken me weeks to sort it out, clear it out, give a lot away, ship books, letters, photos, and…
Trip Gabriel, the New York Times reporter, found many Trump signs in the front yards of loyal union members who had been Democrats. Don’t waste your time worrying about Russian hacks or FBI sabotage or…
Historians doing research are always coming up with interesting tidbits that deserve sharing, like a file full of gruesome accidents reported to the local newspaper. I must say, Mendocino Coast residents in days gone by…
Every year, for more than two decades, the Elk River in Humboldt County has risen out of its banks following rainstorms of even moderate intensity, vomiting torrents of mud and gravel across dozens of properties…
It’s all but final now. Last efforts to force Roselle’s City Council to produce a detailed environmental impact statement have failed. The woods across the street are history. Surveyors have appeared in recent weeks as…