Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

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 to a quarter million acres within Mendocino County. Its corporate…

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, proclaimed by President Obama and observed throughout the country on…

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 New Zealand. Completely isolated for eons of time, New Zealand…

The Oscars, 2011

Pull back the bedroom curtains, Friday, February 25, 7am. Pouring, howling, blowing rain. Due to leave for Los Angeles at 9am. It’s Oscar time, again, The yearly journey. Pull back the covers. I don’t want…

The Myth Of The ‘Knowledge Economy’

“In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a first-class education,” President Obama famously declared in his 2010 State of the Union Address, just as millions of high schoolers across the nation were…

Tin Cup Politics & Park Closures

On Tuesday, March 20, I was given a lesson in just how broken the people’s business is in Sacramento. Along with 180 other participants to the 10th Annual “Park Advocacy Day,” I was there to…

-