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Posts published in “Essays”

Train Trekking to the Great White Bears

It all started out because I'm married to a man who likes long train trips. Really long train trips. In the past five years we've traveled 17,000 miles criss-crossing the US seeing our nation from the window…

Martin Luther King: Terrorist

Let's not mince words. Were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. alive today, he would be at risk for being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or access to legal counsel, as an "enemy combatant." He would be…

Johnny Diaz

I sometimes think the greatest thing we got from Puerto Rico was Johnny Diaz. Of course, there was Raul Triaz. He was and still is (as far as I know) a wonderful Puerto Rican. But…

Gooch and the Big Hotel

“I can’t believe it,” Gooch said, after swinging open the polished door to his hotel room. “Imagine you and me, both right here.” I hadn’t seen Gooch in a long-assed time. Not since back in…

Mystic Miles

The big Yurok — 6’5”, 270 pounds — standing for the first time in the light rain on the high bluff over Requa which overlooks the merger of the Klamath River and the Pacific Ocean…

Newspaper Politics in a Small Town

One thing people never seem to get tired of is wondering what evil forces are at work behind the scenes that shape the reporting of local news events in our village newspapers. Any controversial subject…

Rescuing Momi

A lot of goofy and bizarre New Age behavior takes place here on Maui. We have everything from fake Rastafarianism and aroma therapy to sensory-deprivation tanks, and tantric-yoga cults, which, in the words of one…

Haying Equipment Sought

Every winter, when the season comes to do maintenance on the tractors, it is merely my sheer laziness that causes me to meditate on the virtues of keeping draft horses. I know how well the…

Franz Schulte-Bisping Interview

I was born in Germany in 1945 just at the end of the Second World War, the eldest of seven children. We grew up on a farm that had been in the family for 400…

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