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Posts published in “Essays”

The Pandemic Continues

From Fort Bragg: “The [pandemic] has taken a second start at this place as it has in similar other sections and some forty-five or fifty cases are reported. The Board of Health held a session…

What’s Wrong with KZYZ? (Everything)

(I asked Marco McClean why KZYX was always asking for money. MM being the county's premier radio guy with a thorough understanding of how radio works or doesn't work, who better to explain the KZYX…

Tale of Two American Deaths

When a close girlfriend was recently in the market for an “assisted living” facility for her husband of 40 years, I volunteered to check out a few places for her. Her husband, who I’ll call…

A Glimpse at Hell On Earth

While Mendocino County is experiencing a pandemic surge, it’s nowhere close to the dire circumstances in other parts of the state. So let’s take a quick look at how C-19 is ravaging the state of…

California Commitments

From the 1870s to the 1920s according to Richard W. Fox’s 1978 study ‘So Far Disordered In Mind: Insanity in California, 1870-1930,’ California had a higher rate of commitment for insanity than any other state…

Other People’s Weed

If you think of the weed world as a chair with four legs then the legs are the grower, the dealer, the go-between and the consumer. Each plays an essential part, though the go-between or…

My Jewish Christmas

I did what Americans Jews are supposed to do on Christmas. I ate Chinese food. Not alone, but with three other members of my family: my two younger brothers and my sister-in-law who was born…

Ranching Near Laytonville, 1902-1907

When we were growing up around Laytonville in the 1900s, Papa used to say that folks in California need never go hungry if they have piece of ground and are willing and able to work.…

Water & Power in California

Some sleuths have a detective gene. One of them is my brother Adam, a PI for the past 40 years who tells me that everyone lies: cops, criminals, judges and lawyers. I think of Mark…

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