In 1998, novelist and journalist Jane Futcher and her partner, midwife Erin Carney, joined a Year to Live group in Marin. The impact was profound: based upon the writings of Stephen Levine, the meetings, during…
Posts published in “Essays”
First, an apology: At the end of a heated exchange with California State Parks Foundation President, Elizabeth Goldstein, I said under my breath, “I’ll get you.” I should have realized that the phone connection was…
The SF Giants defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 in the Divisional 5 game series last week. Interestingly, the Giants lost the first two games at home and then won all three games on the road.…
Trim, white-haired Tom Hayden gave a talk at the NORML conference in Los Angeles last week. NORML is the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws. It was founded in 1970 by Keith Stroup, who…
The first white people to settle this place alongside the Albion River were treated with kindness by the Pomo who periodically camped on a portion of what came to be called the Macdonald Ranch. Those…
In 1950 the journal Mind featured a curious proposal for determining if a computer could think. Submitted by code-breaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing, the idea was that an examiner would pose questions to a…
“You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.” — John Ciardi My last few trips to the village of Mendocino have coincided with the lunchtime release of the…
I never attended Kindergarten. I’ve had the audacity, over the years and decades, to claim that fact as the underlying reason for every life failure (or life lesson gone awry) that I’ve ever experienced since…
So if you're wondering where I went, I will just be honest and tell you I have a new project for school that is taking up a bit of my blogging juice. You can find…