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Posts published in “Essays”

Anderson Valley Brewing Company Gets Eaten Alive (aka SOLD)

The inevitable has happened. Ken Allen, who founded Anderson Valley Brewing Company in 1987 and grew it into one of Northern California's most beloved craft breweries, found a buyer for his little company that could.…

Richard Blum: Godzilla Regent

Current and former campus workers from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz — joined by several student sup porters — were on hand to challenge Richard Blum on the poverty he promotes in his capacity as a UC Regent. Blum, who fashions himself as a global anti-poverty crusader by way of his Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, has had a primary hand in shaping the policies that have led to deep pay cuts and widespread employee layoffs at UC campuses. Moreover, as a leading finance capitalist and political influence peddler on a global scale, he and his ilk have played a strong role in causing the ongoing global economic meltdown — and the various financial austerity measures it is leading to.

Perils In Plastics?

Poor Marge Simpson. In a recent episode of “The Simpsons,” the insecure cartoon housewife made the mistake of using nonstick cookware and offering plas­tic cups with No. 7 stamped on them. The other mothers at…

Bird’s Eye View

Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comforta­bly then I shall begin. First may I wish a very happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone — the Irish, the Irish-Americans, the Irish Mexican-Americans, etc. With…

Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?

Driving down the broad avenues of Cleveland, Ohio, was like flipping through the pages of a picture book about the rise and fall of our industrial empire. Where demolitions had not removed things — a…

Spring Break Cocktails

Patches of snow cling to the muddy earth in the city’s picturesque 19th-century cemetery just to our north. Down in the gorge immediately to our south the creek builds momentum every hour as the thaw…

Gene

Rednecks fear that hidden gene That’s in somebody’s blood That interferes with lean and mean And Mississippi mud — Or puts the lean and mean in chicks And has men suck each other’s dicks. *…

The Game’s Finally Up: California Water & Real Estate

In spite of this winter’s rains, California is still going into its fourth year of drought and its second year of high-powered water warfare. The state now lives in a state of perpetual water anxiety.…

An Idiot Wind

Given my choice of movies, the execrable Michael Jackson puff piece/pseudo-documentary *This Is It* would have remained near the bottom of my list, but on a long airplane journey over a cloud-obscured ocean, having read…

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