The mainstream media is to “progressive” Mendocino County what liberal bias is to Fox News—a favorite punching bag, an omnipresent boogie man who manipulates, digests and excretes a pile of propaganda. It's a critique that…
Posts published in “Essays”
It’s been unusually cold on the Mendocino Coast. It's the kind of weather that shows on ashen lips and huddled bodies, a conversation starter that always ends with an exclamation point. Needless to say, this…
This story, from NPR's All Things Considered, about a Chinese "garlic bubble" reads like a children's tale: Peasants in China's countryside fill their garages to overflowing with garlic. With swine flu fears running high—and a…
Drawing any conclusions from the state's Department of Justice statistics for Mendocino County and its semi-comparable neighboring counties requires the skills of an experienced and slightly inebriated tasseographer or oenomancer and an empty glass of…
Sometimes I discover a new cooking technique—a little trick, long-established but new to me—and it feels like I’ve landed on a new continent, where colors are twice as brilliant and my tongue possesses double…
The famous and also infamous director Werner Herzog is giving seminars for aspiring filmmakers (which the Rand Corp. pegs at 75% of the U.S. popu lation). Included in the curriculum is: “…the art of lockpicking.…
The North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency that controls the long-dormant train tracks between Humboldt County and the Bay Area, is on the verge of running out of cash. It's been 12 years since any…
Of all the ideas out there on how to pull us out of the economic mess we’re in, none makes more sense than the program laid out by the AFL-CIO and a coalition of civil…
Obama’s dipped below 50% in public approval, which — so the pollsters tell us — is nothing particularly unusual for a new president at this stage of the game. This week, he’s scheduled to announce…