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Posts published in “Essays”

The Adventures of Thomas Crapo

While the current versions of newspapers in Fort Bragg and Mendocino rarely cover stories outside of the myopically local, their progenitor, William Heeser, reported on news from around the state, the nation, and the world…

The Most Powerful Man In The World Redux

The logic of the rich? - want more, get more. But there's never enough. Towers all over the world with your name emblazoned in big gold letters, proclaiming, extolling celebrating...ME. If billions of dollars and a constant torrent of publicity and attention don't satisfy, what is left? Power - what else? Whenever it was that the president of the United States started being called the Most Powerful Man in the World, as a kid who had grown up reading Superman comics, I knew, felt strongly, that something wasn't right about this. POTUS had become a comic strip character. Somewhere I had read that the desire for a position of authority and power ought to be the primary disqualification for the job.

Nothin’ Doin’

I am a busy man. Busy, busy, busy. Beaver, bee, one-armed paperhanger: choose your preferred symbolic figure for a chap in a condition of constant occupation. Not complaining, mind you, just saying, and in fact…

Looking Back At Wanda

Professor Don Foster's 1999 book "Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous" solves what the editor of "The Letters of Wanda Tinasky" grandly called "The Literary Mystery of the Decade" (the 1990s). It's also an…

Code Compliance

A brief history of Building and Planning Codes in Mendocino County, as presented to the Coastal Mendocino Association of Realtors on May 26, 2017

Paris to Boppard

The room — Our trip, what I’m calling our European Adventure, began on the 30th of May with our flight to Paris. This segment of the trip is from Paris to Boppard. That morning we…

World Music Fest 2017

The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (SNWMF) relocated to Boonville in 2006, after operating in the Sierra foothills since 1994, making this the 12th year here. After some challenges with an extreme heatwave and then extreme fires in the first couple years, it's been pretty much smooth sailing since, albeit with some adjustments to volume and such. Any notable changes planned for this year?

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