A week ago, two big stories had just broken: "Senate Exposes CIA Torture" and "Sony Chiefs' Racist Emails Revealed."In response —and in concert— the National Security Apparatus denied the torture charge and Sony staged a…
Posts published in “Essays”
I started writing stories when I was six. My first stories were essentially transcriptions of stories I had invented and told to my friends and classmates. I knew from the get go I would have to practice writing, just as one practices a musical instrument, in order to get good at writing stories. By the time I was ten, writing had taken a backseat to sports. I was a total jock until I was fifteen and severely crippled by a disease called ankylosing spondylitis.
When the rain let up and the sun went down, it started to get cold out. The soggy skies had kept it somewhat milder and sleeping out in the park was OK. Not great, but…
Derek Jeter, the now immortal New York Yankee. I add in New York because that's where I grew up, a blue blooded, pinstriped Yankee fan. But fear not, I've lived a longer life here in…
The authors of a new study on the vulnerability of road infrastructure to climate change say impacts will happen more quickly than anticipated and need to planned for now. A final version of the study…
On August 8, 2014 at approximately 9:25 AM I was traveling northbound on US 101 north of Lake Mendocino Drive in the number two lane. I was driving a fully marked California Highway Patrol vehicle.
When the modern infrastructure of the American West was being constructed in the mid-20th century, it was based on a vision consistent with the contemporary zeitgeist of American exceptionalism and lingering Manifest Destiny (the idea…
Spencer Brewer is a composer, pianist, performer, and impresario… founder of Ukiah’s Concerts In The Park. A few years after Spencer and his wife Esther got together in 1977, they both drew up a list of 20 things they each wanted to accomplish in their lives. Spencer has crossed off 19 of his. There is one more left to do…
Every two bit scribbler since the advent of movable type, every columnist, essayist, memoirist, novelist, scrivener, commentator or toilet stall philosopher ultimately, barring an early demise, grabs his tools and goes a-digging into that most…