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Posts published in “Essays”

Bigger Than the S&L Bailout: Why Prop 9 Should Pass

Californians have a chance not only to do themselves a lasting favor on November 3, the can also defeat a particularly outrageous piece of corporate piracy before it ends up costing the nation more than…

The Night of the Long Knives (July 29, 1998)

“Well,” I heard a male voice behind me say, “looks like the passive-aggressives are out in force tonight,” as we arrived at the Philo headquarters of KZYX, Mendocino County’s more or less public radio station…

Beyond the Garden Gate

One of my first memories is of a huge Victorian on McAllister Street near Fillmore in San Francisco where my family lived in 1944. The rambling old house had been hurriedly partitioned off into apartments…

Why Barry Melton Hates Norm Vroman

Ukiah public defender Barry “The Fish” Melton sent press releases to all Mendo County news media this week misrepresenting District Attorney candidate Norm Vroman’s past troubles with the IRS. KZYX Program manager Teresa Simon read…

Hearts

1968 Zen was in. I tried without success to master ‘living in the now.’ 1998 Now, of course, it is simple. Living in the now obviously was a concept conceived by old men. I am…

Thank God for Disorderly Behavior

Here Lies the Good Citizen. He Died Bitter and Frustrated but He Obeyed the Rules, Damn It. Even if I’m wrong in assuming that yet another out-of-town, laugh-all-the-way-to-the-bank consulting firm is involved with the currently…

The Working Stiff

It’s been eight years since his death, but I can still see him and hear him, a wiry, gray-haired, hawk-nosed man. I see him pacing restlessly back and forth behind the podium at union meetings,…

The Cruelest Months

Spring is in the air, and like a toe-tapping number from Englebert Humperdink the effect of the fledgling sun and crocus balm is to coax us mortals into passionate, beautiful malevolence.

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