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Posts published in “Essays”

Why Young Folks Aren’t Farming

At the Redding listening session in 2008, several board members wondered aloud how to “get young people interested in farming.” Since I am a bona fide young farmer, fresh out of ag university, I am…

My Beautiful America, Part 2

The Battlefield Park at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, claims to be the most intact battlefield of the Civil War. Maybe so, maybe so, bare of monuments except for a few that acknowledge the reunions of those…

‘Paranoia Strikes Deep’

Headline: A lone gunman opened fire today in (San Francisco, Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Oak Creek...) and shot _____ innocent people, killing _____ people and wounding ____ more. Politicians offered sympathy, but no solutions.…

Fracking California

California’s best kept secret since leaky pipes at San Onofre, earthquake faults under Diablo Canyon, the $54 million hidden slush fund at State Parks, and the Governator’s maid, is that the state already hosts at…

Home Care Workers Need Presidential Help

The country's 2-million-plus home care workers have been waiting a whole year now for President Obama to make good on his promise to grant them the federal minimum wage and overtime pay protections they so…

Mendocino County’s First Christmas

  Christmas Eve is with us and Christmas Day will follow. Most of us will observe the holidays in one way or another. I can remember the first Christmas tree I ever saw. It was…

The Gift Of The Old Guy

1. RAY, a slender man of eighty-two, his white hair sparse, gazes out the bus window at the passing fields. He is lost in thought, truly lost, unaware of who he is or where he’s…

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