Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

Great Moments In Public Deliberation

Date: March 15, 2011. Location: Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Meeting, Ukiah. Subject: The Mendocino County Museum’s declining budget. * * * Board Chair Kendall…

In The Midst Of Fukushima

Americans read the increasingly panic-stricken reports of deepening catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, speed to the pharmacy to look for iodine and ask, “It’s happened there;…

Is College Worth It?

While president of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson asked a group of alumni a provocative question: Would Abraham Lincoln have been a better president if he…

My Encounter With Augustus Owsley Stanley

In 1967, there was a concert in Pittsburgh, with the Grateful Dead, the Velvet Underground, the Fugs and me, playing the part of a stand-up…

Lurching Right at PBS & NPR

The tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio…

Sports Notes

In one of the early Sports Notes columns, we boldly predicted that Roger Federer would become the greatest player in the history of the tennis.…

Spy Rock Memories, Part 4

As soon as you give something a name, it begins to die, says an old Chinese proverb, and its corollary might be that as soon…

Bosco: The Curse That Keeps On Giving

In the more than a third of a century since Douglas H. Bosco first carved himself out as a fixture of the California North Coast's…

How I Met The KZYX News Department

KZYX is advertising for a news director. Paul Hanson has resigned. I hope Hanson's departure wasn't inspired by an odd few hours two weeks ago…

Eddie’s Hot Deals

Amenities turn into luxuries as you suffer a class fall. Buying fresh-cut flowers and newly published books requires more “discretionary” income than you have. You…

-