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Posts published in “Essays”

Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?

Driving down the broad avenues of Cleveland, Ohio, was like flipping through the pages of a picture book about the rise and fall of our industrial empire. Where demolitions had not removed things — a…

Spring Break Cocktails

Patches of snow cling to the muddy earth in the city’s picturesque 19th-century cemetery just to our north. Down in the gorge immediately to our south the creek builds momentum every hour as the thaw…

Gene

Rednecks fear that hidden gene That’s in somebody’s blood That interferes with lean and mean And Mississippi mud — Or puts the lean and mean in chicks And has men suck each other’s dicks. *…

The Game’s Finally Up: California Water & Real Estate

In spite of this winter’s rains, California is still going into its fourth year of drought and its second year of high-powered water warfare. The state now lives in a state of perpetual water anxiety.…

An Idiot Wind

Given my choice of movies, the execrable Michael Jackson puff piece/pseudo-documentary *This Is It* would have remained near the bottom of my list, but on a long airplane journey over a cloud-obscured ocean, having read…

March!

The soggy agony of March! The lone ray of cheer in the last dreary week was when the swans settled on the pond in front of the house. Ma and Pa swan seem to be…

Timber Down, Subdivisions Up

The economic value of timberlands has fallen, there is a decrease in industrial ownership and tim­berland subdivisions have increased, county planning staff has told the Planning Commission. Information on the county’s Timber Production Zone (TPZ)…

‘Bring Down the Eel Dams’

The Friends of the Eel River (FOER) has filed a petition asking the State Water Resources Control Board to “protect public trust resources on the Eel River and prevent unreasonable use of water” by reducing or eliminating PG&E’s water rights. And after hearing requests for the county to become involved as a supporting party, supervisors showed interest in doing so.

Phantom Of Mexican Narco Guerrilla Haunts US Security Chiefs

Mexico City — Last July, in a meticulously planned raid reminiscent of classic guerrilla jail breakouts that are legend in Latin America, a commando group of 20 heavily armed fighters freed 53 comrades from a…

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