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Posts published in “Essays”

The Oldest Game In Washington

You can see how seriously Obama is taking the hot populist temper of the American people and their eagerness to strangle every banker in the entrails of every insurance executive. In an altogether welcome departure…

Mendo’s Major Industries

I thought I overheard the following discussion the other day outside the Ukiah Visitors Center. A man in a tailored suit who was driving a late model BMW was discussing his line of work with…

Happy Garden

There is a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco a few blocks from my parents’ house. The Garden is indistinguishable from dozens of other Chinese restaurants in Beijing-By-The-Bay: harsh fluorescent lights, black metal chairs that look like they were stolen from a VFW Hall in Fresno, a pair of grubby tanks in which lobsters and fish await the executioner’s pot. A place where rock cod and appetites come to die.

Bird’s Eye View By Turkey Vulture

Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comforta-bly then I shall begin. A brief column this week as I have had little time to get out and about having spent all weekend at the…

The Smell Of Snow

Last week, it rained enough in Tucson for the riv­ers to run, however briefly. At the same time it rained in the desert, snow dusted the mountains surrounding Tucson. I am not in Arizona to see snow.

Don’t Look to Washington for Help: Rule By The Rich

The election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate by Democratic voters in Massachusetts sends President Obama a message. Voters perceive that Obama’s administration has morphed into a Bush-Cheney government.

Brian Murphy Takes A Hike

Two years ago last December I was hanging out in my Waikiki condo watching the evening news when the top story was about a hiker lost on Mauna Kea. Michigan resident Brian Murphy, age 67,…

Richard Blum: The Man Behind California’s “Developing Economy”

On April 17, 2009, with the edifice of the global economy rotting under an architecture of monumen­tal greed, war deficits, and official hubris, the Univer­sity of California, Berkeley conducted a ground­breaking ceremony for its Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies.

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