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Posts published in “Essays”

Four Chairs

Marcia and I recently bought four new chairs for our dining nook, and I think the way we got these chairs and the feelings they inspired will be of interest to people of my generation, those of us born in America between 1945 and 1955 or thereabouts. We were teenagers and young adults during the world-changing era known as the Sixties, which I believe lasted roughly from 1963 to 1975. By no coincidence those are also the years of the American chapter of the Vietnam War.

New Work Awaits KMUD’s News Director

An era is ending for the news department of KMUD FM, Southern Humboldt’s listener-sponsored radio station, as its community-conscious director Terri Klemetson is leaving her post. Klemetson’s seven-year stint as KMUD’s news and public affairs…

A Visit To Boonville

Thunder boomed, lightning flashed that Thursday night as our ride dropped us off at the Caretaker's Garden, near the old Boont Berry farm where we planned to spend the night in the yurt I built…

Missing The Mark

Film maker Ron Howard has stated several times that the sneak preview of his 1995 movie Apollo 13 produced one comment card that totally trashed the film, alleging a typical Hollywood ending because no astronaut…

Loma Prieta (1989)

California has been extremely fortunate in terms of the timing of its urban earthquakes. The San Francisco earthquake of 1865, the Hayward quake of 1868, the 1906 San Francisco temblor, the 1971 San Fernando quake, and the 1994 Northridge event all struck in the early morning hours, when most Northern and Southern Californians were either home in bed or preparing to go to work or school. Even the tsunami generated by the 1964 Alaska earthquake that devastated downtown Crescent City in the northwest corner of the state arrived in the predawn hours. During these events people were scattered about, for the most part in single-family residences.

The Milky Way

The rich drop bombs, the poor plant bombs; armies crush their enemies en masse from above; terrorists counterattack from below in blind spasms. Above all this hatred lies The Milky Way. Missiles use it to…

Crazy Money

Just got the annual news from Social Security about how much they will be sending me each month in 2016. Last year, they upped me from 565 dollars to 575, not much of an increase, but this year the powers that be have declared: there was no increase in the cost of living in 2015. Thus zero increase in Social Security for me, though my Medicare payment is going up, so actually less money for me.

Rebel Reporting

John Ross was a man who lived as he chose and wrote it as he damned well pleased. A reporter with a cause in the time-honored leftwing American tradition of John Reed and I.F. Stone, Ross chose to live most of his life in Mexico in a kind of exile from his native United States.

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