I first started reading the ‘San Francisco Chronicle’ in the ‘70’s, picking up a copy in town with breakfast and my weekly cuppa coffee at The Woodrose Cafe. I remember the day in 1977 when…
Posts published in “Essays”
Donald and Melania Trump are seated at a secluded table awaiting lunch on one of Mar-a-Lago’s shaded patios. The worst of the unforgiving Florida sun is blunted through the scarlet Bougainvillea bower above the round…
A lot more than we thought. Take Fort Bragg. Driven by the pique of social-justice activists, Fort Bragg’s in trouble, because of its name. Philip Zwerling, BA, MFA, PHD—born in New York, here via academia,…
Even frivolous fictional characters have found a convenient whipping boy in the youngest son of J. S. Bach. The late, lamented Dr. Peter Schickele’s send-up biography of P.D.Q. Bach quips that the talentless rogue had…
Live in California all your life and if you love the out of doors there is a bird you’d want to seek out and observe: the California Condor. It’s big, it’s ugly, and to me…
“Gonzo journalism” was popularized by Hunter S. Thompson, and means injecting yourself, your antics and behavior, into the story and making it as much about you as about the alleged subject. Perhaps gonzo journalism predates…
The greatest threat to mankind is the cowardice of the Democratic Party. – Corbin Trent The Dissing of Barbara Lee When Kamala Harris was elected Vice President in 2020 – leaving the US Senate without…
We are all, alas, susceptible to lesser and greater degrees of regrettable moral lapses; it’s the price of being human. Most of these best-forgotten incidents fade away as time swallows them up and redeposits them…
She walked in, diamonds first, tapping the tips of her long, slender fingers of one hand against the elegant fingers of the other. Her expression: a mix of casual boredom and mild amusement (amused, most…