According to some in the business, Minnesota's nursing home system is in financial trouble in large part because people seem to think that no matter what their net worth, when it comes time for long-term…
Posts published in “Essays”
Cypress boughs dangle over the still, mocha-muddy waters of an Oklahoma swamp as a gaggle of drawling Southern country boys walks waist deep through the sleepy current. The men, shirtless and tanned, feel their way…
The enrollment of some indoor marijuana growers in low income energy assistance programs is being targeted by a state bill and county supervisors are supporting it. Senate Bill 1207 is being considered by state lawmakers…
Richard Brautigan once observed that “It’s really something to have fame put its feathery crowbar under your rock and then upward to the light to release you, along with seven grubs and a sow bug.”…
When my father died five years ago, my siblings and I did not hold a memorial service in his honor. We were each of us so wounded by our father’s incessant criticism and disapproval of…
Some years back, when I was doing location rewrites on a movie, I was cornered on the set by an anguished limo driver. We were in a Spanish-speaking nation, and my command of that loving…
On April 20 there’s a memorial for Christopher Hitchens at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. There’s a PEN tribute, also in Manhattan, on April 30. Here’s my own little envoi. The regular Diary, tumbrils and…
Given the choice, I'd prefer the real Stalinism over the hippie version prevalent on the Northcoast, no better example of which was Monday night's (April 2nd) Women's Voices talk program on KZYX, itself, along with…
This has been a bad year for grand restaurants in the three- to four-star range and the clang of their closing doors raises the question — is the whole gastro-frenzy that stirred into life in…