On Thursday, February 14th— Valentine’s Day, about three weeks after my article, “El Úndecimo Mandamiento” appeared in The Anderson Valley Advertiser, Samantha called. It was the first time I’d spoken to her in 18 years.…
Posts published in “Essays”
After digging out of the Big Snow of ’75 I checked in at the Mendocino County unemployment office in Ukiah because my six months of $31 a week had run out. I was asked about…
Dear Dr. Zack, Please help me settle an argument with my girlfriend. We agree that the two sure signs of life are irritability and the ability to reproduce. She says a man who can’t get…
“Writer’s block” - A euphemism for having nothing to say. It happens. But I was thinking about a piece on Freedom and Liberty, a couple of terms that have been hijacked, co-opted by the far…
Last week, in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the narrow (5-4) majority that "Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so,…
Rather than heading south with the droves of springbreak-bound students fleeing the endless winter of Upstate New York, I spent a couple hours last week in a local venue at least somewhat warmer than my…
“What do you know about Winsted’s firemen?” my mother asked me one day when I was eleven years old. “They jump into fire trucks and go put out fires fast,” I replied. “Well, you should…
Another baseball season begins with nobody, including myself, expecting much of our Minnesota Twins. The satellite dish company sends a nice letter every three days urging me to hook the dish back up for a…
In his famous essay on parenting, Punishment Versus Discipline, Bruno Bettelheim wrote that children do what their parents do, not what their parents say to do. My father, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was a big fan of Bettelheim, but he did not heed Bruno’s advice in rearing my siblings and me.