It’s the merry laugh on the lip of the abyss. Christine O’Donnell, senatorial candidate with her “no hand jobs” program has cast an unfamiliar ray of sunshine over the surreal landscape of American politics. In…
Posts published in “Essays”
If you entered the word “wine” into the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s website search tool on September 30, 2010, you’d get 14,388 hits as of September 30, 2010. Here are a random selection of titles…
Valley voters last year grudgingly passed a bond issue worth $15.25 million dollars to fix up our 50-year-old schools. The money does not come without stipulations as to how it might be disbursed. In theory.…
Last Wednesday afternoon (Sept 22nd), against Santa Rosa against Roseland Prep — arguably the league’s strongest team — the Panthers were greeted with the usual intimidating atmosphere provided by close to 150 opposition fans hugging…
There are few things worth giving up a perfect fall afternoon in Upstate New York for, but Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman with live music is one of them. A dinner break and a return for…
“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein I first encountered the writing of Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1967 when I was 19, a freshman at UC Santa…
I should have been an experimental physicist or perhaps even an astrophysicist. One disadvantage to the latter profession is that you can't really get close to the explosions you're studying. “A good explosion,” a friend…
I didn’t know Barney Fetzer, a lumber executive turned legendary wine entrepreneur. He had already died when I arrived in Mendocino County 25 years ago. But over the years I have had the privilege of…