I think it was 1999 and Eddy Lepp said to me, “Oaky Joe you gotta come down the mountain and get your shit legal, now is the time!” Sooooo I followed Eddy’s really bad advice…
Posts published in “Essays”
Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog, now out on NetFlix, recognizes no borders. It’s a Western that crosses the frontiers of geography, genre, and gender with unapologetic, well-funded ease. Set in 1920s Montana, the film…
In 1969 my husband boarded a military transport bound for what he assumed would be a long flight to Danang. The flight landed instead on the island of Okinawa, where he and another young recruit…
Though we didn't know it at the time, the bustling Emerald Cup held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in December, 2019 — just before Covid-19 hit and the so-called Legal Cannabis Industry got undermined by…
In 1859 Mendocino split off from Sonoma, forming a county of its own. In the first year of its existence marauding militias, like the one led by Walter Jarboe, murdered hundreds of Native Americans in…
Rural America’s local dumpsites have always been a magnet for me, partly because of their fairly convenient accessability compared to city and suburbia’s formal garbage pickup services, partly because they also are serendipitous social centers,…
My encounter with Charlotte Mailliard Schultz was brief but spectacular. The legendary San Franciscan and I had two long telephone conversations 30 plus years ago. I have never forgotten them. The first was brief, and…
Why would Nicole Glentzer, a hitherto invisible Ukiah Unified School District administrator, suddenly decide to run against incumbent Michelle Hutchins for Mendocino County School Superintendent, especially since Ms. Hutchins has established the agency as effectively…
The Auditor-Controller calculates the property tax rates, the distribution factors for ad valorem taxes, and distributes $160 million dollars to the County, Schools, School Districts, Colleges and Special Districts. The Controller is the chief accounting…