The American electoral system is a difficult thing to explain to Europeans with a long tradition of proportional representation. My first two-year stretch spent living in Berlin between 2003 and 2005 coincided with the endless…
Posts published in “Essays”
The apparent demise of the Twinkie brings back memories for me. A dozen police cars had been set on fire, which in turn set off their alarms, underscoring the angry shouts from 5,000 understandably angry…
“Life is full of obstacle illusions.” — Grant Frazier A recent San Francisco 49ers game ended in a tie with the St. Louis Rams, the first professional football game to end in a tie in four years.…
Paul Stanford, 52, is the author and prime mover behind Oregon’s marijuana legalization initiative, Measure 80, which had gotten 46.5 percent of the vote as of Sunday morning when I called to offer condolences. “We…
Jim Jones's most ardent supporter in San Francisco press circles was Steve Gavin, the San Francisco Chronicle's city editor. A Baltimore native, he joined the Chronicle in 1969. Life in San Francisco agreed with Gavin,…
Last week’s column touched on Pomo sites near Fort Bragg, which in turn sent me to Samuel Alfred Barrett’s The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians, first published in 1908. Much of the field…
The Romney “Believe in America” bus may have been on the road right until the end, but in the last weeks of the campaign it was clear from the laughable musical forces gathered under the…