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Posts published in “Essays”

Google: One Of Our Biggest Tax Dodgers

Yesterday San Francisco’s politicians announced that Google, Apple, and other Silicon Valley companies will be charged for the use of the city’s bus stops. Until yesterday the private buses, untold numbers of them, enter the…

When The Well Runs Dry

Charles Mallory Hatfield was certainly the most successful person to practice the art of pluviculture, or artificial rainmaking. Born in Kansas but raised in southern California, Hatfield first gained broad public acclaim when, in 1904, he climbed to the top of Mt. Lowe and released a secret mixture of chemicals into the air.

Putting Food By

Last autumn, I received permission to harvest apples from our neighbor’s tree. I had no idea what variety they were; they looked a bit like Gravensteins, but ripened later and were not very good eaten…

The Less Fortunate

Do you believe that your contributions are really helping the less fortunate? Do you want to know where the tax dollars and honorable contributions for the needy are really going? Have you been told that there are plenty of services, programs, and much help given to the impoverished people in your community? I asked these same questions and would like to share my experience with you.

Confessions Of A Failed Computer Professor

Actually, I was not a computer professor but a junior college part-time computer instructor in the late 1980s at Evergreen Valley Community College in San Jose. I bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1979 when…

Crisis & Opportunity

In 1967, when I was a senior in high school and intending to grow up to be a star of stage and screen, I landed one of the leads in the Woodside High production of the not-so-great musical Take Me Along, based on Eugene O’Neil’s play Ah, Wilderness.

Detroit (Part 2)

Today we go to a ballgame at old Tiger Stadium, in Detroit. Life is good, real, real good. And, MOTOWN, baby, Barry Gordy’s home — Hitsville, USA.

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