The elephant’s not even in the room, which is why the 2016 election campaign is such a soap opera. The elephant outside the room is…
Posts published in “Essays”
(Excerpts from the book "Then and Now: An Anderson Valley Journey" by Wes Smoot & Steve Sparks. Available at local stores. All proceeds go to the…
Merle Haggard died last week, up in his beloved Mount Shasta region, on his 79th birthday. His son Ben wrote this online: "A week ago…
During the battle to save the pristine salmon and steelhead habitat of Headwaters Forest in 1998, I got a phone call one morning from Mike…
So I’m driving home from my acupuncture treatment and I come to the stoplight at the south end of Fort Bragg and here are a dozen people on the west side of the highway with signs saying Honk For Bernie, Volunteer for Bernie, Learn About Bernie, and I’m honking my little old horn, and the people are smiling and waving, and the excellent effects of my acupuncture treatment are amplified by a release of endorphins as I imagine Bernie Sanders becoming President of the Unites States and millions of people, old and young, black and brown and white, who have been disenfranchised for their entire lives finally having someone leading the country who wants to help them.
The mystery is at last revealed: why does the field of candidates for president score so uniformly low in trust, credibility, likability? Why are there…
Saturday afternoon the blusters of the North plains blasted the Ohio valley relentlessly. Our chickens loitered on the leeward sides of buildings, with sustained gusts…
As I write this, we are smack dab in the midst of March Madness — the NCAA basketball tournament, for those of you disinclined to…
The first week of April marked the centenary of legendary San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, a journalist who mastered social networking before it had a…
THE NUMBER is 686. That’s how many registered nonprofits we have in Mendocino County today. One for every 127 people. As opposed to 2,975 in Sonoma County. One for every 166 people. All of theirs report revenue. All but six show assets. Where poverty is eleven percent. With all the nonprofits here, we should be kicking ass. But we’re not. 385 of our nonprofits — over half — report no revenue and no assets. Our economy ain’t doing so hot either. The poverty level here is nineteen percent.
“Take the back roads instead of the highway.”
Minnie Pearl was right. If you want to take the pulse of America, forsake the interstates of commerce and the stately boulevards where the big shots live. Try a back road to see what’s what.