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Posts published in “Essays”

From Poor Boy to Dictator

In early 1969, less than a year after his Baath Party seized power, Saddam Hussein spoke to an aggrieved family who complained that one of their number had been unjustly executed. Spurning a suggestion that…

Found Objects

Found objects — objets trouvés, if you opt for high-toned Gallic terminology — have always appealed to artists. Recently read about a scavenger who’s harvested bushels of discarded paper shards, selections from which will be…

Career Journalists

One of today’s prevailing myths is that the American media has a liberal bias, that it is a press fueled by left ideology. Leftists, of course, disagree with this notion, claiming that the media is…

Three Strikes Statistic

On the face of it, Hill Road correctional facility inmate Kenton Kor seems to be the kind of career criminal the three strikes law was designed to keep behind bars. In and out of jail…

Froggers

The froggers would arrive in the mornings, having driven in from their night hunt in Central Valley wetlands, bullfrog country. They'd carry burlap bags, wet and heavy, into the front building, talk for a while,…

Beets Me

Detroit Dark Red Beets and January King cabbage are the only vegetables still worth harvesting at our farm this time of year. The beets’ flavor has remained sweet, their texture soft when steamed or sautéed.…

The Day I Met Mike on the Street

I'd just encountered Glenda Anderson, journalist and prisoner of love when, only minutes later, just around the corner on West Church, Ukiah, there was the dungeon master himself — Mike Sweeney, Mendocino County's trash czar,…

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