“The Sierra Nevada is one mountain range, 430 miles long and 40 to 80 miles wide ... a 25,000-square mile construction with granite cliffs as walls, wildflowers as carpet, and a star-studded sky as the…
Posts published in “Essays”
Willis Haviland Carrier invented modern air conditioning in 1902. Although Mr. Carrier probably doesn't deserve a national holiday, an occasional moment of silence in his honor wouldn't hurt, especially after last week. Sure, we don't…
On August 7 and 8, the Kent State Truth Tribunal (KSTT) traveled to San Francisco to record and preserve narratives from west coast-based original witnesses to and participants in the 1970 Kent State shootings. My…
“What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.” — Thomas Paine A mile inland from Highway One, the Comptche-Ukiah Road becomes a two-mile straightaway traversing rolling hills of pine and huckleberry and…
Skuntown/Willits — Mark Scaramella’s report on the County Supervisors August 3 meeting in Covelo was right on target — a reality-based, bullshit detecting analysis in a few concise paragraphs. The Mendocino National Forest has been…
Contrary to Thomas Wolfe’s dictum, you can indeed go home again. It’s just that there’s no guarantee home will be anything like the way you left it, if in fact it’s still there at all.…
I went to get my hair cut the other day in the town of Fortuna and waited ten minutes while the elderly barber finished buzz-cutting a young Mexican American. After the young man had exited…
One of Barack Obama’s campaign slogans as he ran for President two years ago was, “The change we need.” Unfortunately, for those in the Federal Criminal Justice System, this change has proven to be the…