Last time we explored the details of the May 1856 beating of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The attacker was South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks who used a walking cane to repeatedly strike Sumner. Brooks was…
Posts published in “Essays”
Terence Hallinan was always a bit mystified by Willie Brown’s animosity. Reading a headline in the Chronicle like “Brown excoriates Hallinan, other big-mouth critics,” he would shake his head in sad disbelief. When he said…
In 1835 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow hailed music as “the universal language of mankind.” Few would disbelieve him and deny themselves the comfort of the cliché that music has the power to transcend cultural, political, and…
Many of the articles about cannabis that appear in the AVA are so chock full of bad news that they would depress even Julie Andrews, who plays Maria von Trapp, an eternal optimist, in the…
Given the scary nature of pretty much everything these days (a raging pandemic amidst widespread disbelief in science; a ruling oligarchy dead set on destroying anything worth living for; Attorney General Barr’s “anarchist jurisdictions,” which…
IN THE DELUGE of unhappy news this week was another airliner crash in Indonesia. The plane was flying from Jakarta to the Borneo city of Pontianak. Pontianak! In the year of living dangerously, 1965, I…
Ever heard of Indian Schools in Mendocino County? Why were they needed? Why were there a dozen of them around the County? Investigating this phenomenon from a century ago, please understand all natives were referred…
I was fortunate some 50 years ago to be a member of the California Agricultural Leadership Program. I joined 29 other upcoming agriculture leaders for a two-year pro-bono program that included seminars at four agriculture…
In November 2000, Al Gore and George W. Bush were running for President, and so was Ralph Nader. On the Saturday before the election Ross Mirkarimi, Nader's California campaign manager, called me at home to…