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Posts published in “Essays”

Victor Navasky, R.I.P.

One fine day in the Winter of 1958, two oddly dressed men appeared in the narrow doorway of my office in the Yale Daily News building. The office was small, despite my grandiose title of…

Never Schiff

Left out of last week’s piece about Barbara Lee’s run for the US Senate was some background on Rep. Adam Schiff, the “centrist” bore the Democratic National Committee intends to foist on us when Dianne…

Looking Back

In the late 60s I'd been living in a condemned building in San Francisco, teeming with deadbeats, which I more or less managed for Coldwell-Banker in exchange for free rent. It was at Sacramento and…

Sky River Casino

Indian casinos. Is that an oxymoron? I guess I wish it was an oxymoron. But what do I know about Indian affairs, the affairs of Indians? The Sky River Indian Casino on Highway 99 South…

Dying

I'm continually impressed with my peers, many of whom have moved back home to live with, care for, or be near their aging parents, or have moved them out here.  My mother had moved back…

Mexico, Oh Mexico, So Far from God, So Close to the USA

It's not yet my first full day in Guanajuato, a small provincial city in Mexico, but I've already had a lengthy conversation about violence and drugs, which pervade the society and spill across the border.…

In Dreams Begin Illumination

Ours might be the first civilization that pays no heed to our dreams, those semi-silent, highly personal, psychologically rich nightly weavings that are both fresh and repetitive, manufactured purely by us and for us, then…

The Dinner

My dad, Louis Wasserman, was for many years a professor of Political Science and Philosophy a San Francisco State College, now University. Among his many activities was as the head of the College Lecture Series,…

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