THE UPSIDE of small town life: Saturday night, it having suddenly occurred to me at 7:25pm that I hadn’t bought a Lottery ticket for a chance at 7 mil (I figure I need twice that),…
Posts published in “from the archives…”
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…
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,…
Recently I went to the doctor to have my annual mammogram. I not only had to endure the receptionist’s hype about women being victimized by men’s inventions, but I was also subjected to her obscene…
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.
“This has been the most extensive investigation ever undertaken by the Inspector General's office [in the CIA], requiring the review of about 250,000 pages of documents and interviews with over 365 individuals. I am satisfied…
Stop me if I’m whining, but as long-time readers are aware, quite a number of local tax funded agencies and quasi-public agencies avoid placing advertising with the AVA. That’s how they get their revenge. They…
On March 16, 1968, US soldiers killed 504 Vietnamese villagers on March 16, 1968. The 30th anniversary in 1998 was an opportunity to to give Americans a warm glow. The warmth came of course from…
What do you do when you have to say, “I’m sorry”? If you’re the professor who holds the anti-smoking chairmanship at the University of California, San Francisco, you say it in small print, duck under…