By reaching age 100, Henry Kissinger, provided another hook for journalists with something to say about him. The corporate media recounted the career of a most influential statesman, adviser to presidents, winner of the Nobel Peace…
Posts published in “Essays”
Described in Agro World as “a sort of Esalen Institute for lady asskickers,” the mountainside retreat of the Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives stood on a promontory dappled in light and dark California greens above a…
According to Indian tradition, Mendocino County was once a vast mesa, level and waterless in summer, but the coyote (their representative of power and energy) caused an upheaval into its now broken state. Winter rains…
“Urban public transit has never made its living off promises of gentility or grace. To the middle class, it’s mostly been: “We’re faster, cheaper, more convenient than your car.” The pitch to the poor has…
Jack Newfield (1938-2004) wrote that growing up in Brooklyn, the great villains of his youth had been Adolf Hitler and Walter O’Malley (the owner of the Dodgers who arranged the team’s move from Bedford Avenue…
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…
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…
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…
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…