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Posts published in “Essays”

Post-Cult Anti-Automaton

It sounds hokey, but it happened to me. Something I believed in with the depth of more core turned out to be something of a…

Two Cheers For ‘Obamacare’

There's an old sad joke in health policy circles: A bigshot policy wonk, who worked his life away trying to get a good universal health…

River Views

The Macdonald ranch, totaling about 180 acres, is surrounded on the east, south and west by Mendocino Redwood Company timberland. Mendocino Redwood Co. owns close…

Pete Seeger’s Contributions

Pete Seeger may well be the very essence of the earnest, self-serious folk singer. He seems to have built the mold. After a half-century of harassment by everyone from the local KKK in the small Hudson River Valley town where he lives to the House Un-American Activities Commission in the 50s, to J. Edgar Hoover himself, you could say Seeger has a right to be serious.

Caesar Chavez, A True American Hero

I hope we can all pause and reflect on the extraordinary life of a true American hero on Saturday (March 31). It's Cesar Chavez Day,…

A Depressing Lesson

It’s not only dangerous to have the headphones on or the earbuds in when on the bike; I want to hear what’s going on, whether it’s the blackbirds whistling in the chestnut trees or the metrobus bearing down on my back tire.

Stuff

The calendar says it is springtime, but the temperature and relentless rain say winter continues apace, this being the second year in a row that a very wet March will save Mendocino and Northern California from terrible drought.

An Exotic Ecology

As the swamp in front of my house in Minnesota springs back to life, I think back to the truly odd history of wildlife in…

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