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Posts published in “Essays”

Creating Our Realities

A friend was telling me about a complicated land dispute he was in the middle of and I said, “Well, we all create our own realities.” He looked at me like he wasn't buying it…

And Earth’s Diameter Is 200 Miles

I’ve been skeptical of population estimates for a long time because it just seems there are far fewer people roaming around Planet Earth than statistics suggest.  Who hasn’t run into a friend from Ukiah at…

Belafonte In The Sun

After the first installment of my planned two-part tribute to Harry Belafonte, who died a month ago at the age of 96, two weeks of nonsense intervened. First came the coronation of Charles III—the pomp…

Strange Days At Junior High Music Class

The original “West Side Story” was on TV Sunday night, I hadn’t watched it in decades, and as often happens, the landmark musical film triggered an ancient flashback… At Lincoln Junior High in the bucolic…

First Causes

When archaeologists from some other planet sift through the bleached bones of our civilization, they may well conclude that our temples were dams. Imponderably massive, constructed with exquisite care, our dams will outlast anything else…

New Kid On Block Scolds His Neighbors

I’ve been in North Carolina for a year and figured when I learned how to spell “Chattanooga” I’d be enough of an expert to lecture locals on how to improve things for me. Being from…

By Any Means Necessary

I was a delegate representing San Francisco’s Noe Valley to the 1968 founding convention of the Peace and Freedom Party. I lived with my young family at 24th and Dolores in an apartment that cost…

Speech For Kamala

Life is too short to ever read a single column inch of Thomas Friedman. But the Times columnist was cited in a letter last week by a lady who liked his suggestion that Kamala Harris…

Eurovisionaries

The Eurovision Song Contest has long burst the geographically borders seemingly staked out by its name. Yet the international spectacle hardly makes a blip on America’s collective consciousness or its screens. Other countries even farther…

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