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Posts published in “Essays”

Did John Adams Save The Day?

Before I Am Love, directed by Luca Gaudagnino and released into American movie theaters this summer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer John Adams had never written a soundtrack. In a way he still hasn’t, since…

Marriage’s Fiercest Defenders

It took a gay Republican judge with libertarian leanings to issue from the bench, in a US District courthouse in San Francisco, one of the warmest testimonials to the married state since Erasmus. Last Wednesday…

The Texting Drug

As more people discover how to send text messages on their ever-present cell phones, we have become a nation of hypnotized zombies who stare into our phones while we drive into telephone poles, walk into…

Getting Well

“Programming our intelligence with illusion and fan­tasy of there’s something wrong with us and enough isn’t enough and too much isn’t too much then turning us loose on ourselves and the world.” — John Trudell…

Skidding Toward Fall

This economy has a destination for sure, but it's not in the direction where all eyes are trained in moist hopefulness: that glimmering horizon of longed-for growth. You will not get that kind of growth…

How BP Harnesses Music To Its Message

There is nothing more sincere than a guitar. A few simple chords, plucked or picked one note after the other at a gently swaying tempo summon reflexive feelings of trust, comfort, love, and hope. This…

Broncs, Boots & Boobs: Rodeo, Then & Now:

1949, the spotlight illuminated the most fantastic event I had ever seen in my six years of life: Casey Tibbs winning the saddle-bronc rider championship of the world in eight seconds. Since then, my heroes…

Gimme Shelter

Here we were, on the brink of nuclear destruction, and my parents couldn’t grasp the necessity of a fallout shelter. We were a typical 1950s middle class family. Dad brought home the bacon and Mother…

The Little Train That Can’t

Four environmental groups are preparing a lawsuit against the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) alleging that the agency is segmenting environmental review for redevelopment of its 316-mile rail line. The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC),…

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