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Posts published in “Essays”

Bird’s Eye View

Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comforta­bly I shall begin. When it rains, it pours. And I’m not talking about the weather. No, I’m referring to another very popular topic of debate around…

In Praise Of Rest Areas

On the way down to a Twins game a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at a rest area along US Highway 10 just east of Detroit Lakes. Tucked on a hillside in lake country,…

Battering Pollyanna

I am amazed that I have never even been in an Oldsmobile. Cadillacs, Gremlins, Jaguars, GMCs — I even drove a Ferrari once — but not a nanosecond in an Oldsmobile. This is to acknowledge…

The Ukiah Legalization Forum: Mainstreaming Marijuana

In response to worries among the cannabis community about how legalization would affect the pocketbooks of growers and the region at large, the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board (MMMAB) convened a forum and workshop in…

The Invaluable Legacy Of Willard Wirtz

Never has there been a greater champion of US workers than former Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, who died on April 24 at 98. Certainly in more than a half-century of covering labor, I’ve never…

Plus Marijuana & Psychosis: Volcanoes, Weather & Computer Models

Scarcely a week goes by without some scaremongering headline about climate change, premised on apocalyptic conclusions drawn from some computer-generated model. Modeling lies at the heart of the whole vast climate-change industry, one sparked by…

As Seen in Fort Bragg

Don't know who's running for DA, Fifth District Supe and judge? Now you do.

The Big Scam: How & Why Washington Hooked Mexico On The Drug War

When I first returned to Mexico City in the wake of the great 1985 earthquake, the biggest drug pushers in that distant neighbor nation were Sherwin Wil­liams Paint (“tinner” or “activo”) and Resistol-Dupont glue (“chemo.”)…

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