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Posts published in “Essays”

Reunion On The Playa – 2022

Gathering together again the first thing Burners heard on the Black Rock playa was the laughter of old friends reuniting after three years. It was a love fest for those of us who go for…

John Burroughs: An “Arkie” Teenager Heads West

To continue my “Arkies” in The Valley stories, I thought I would explore the life of an “older” immigrants’ child. As Einstein theorized over a hundred years ago with regard to age and time, everything…

Gotterdammerung

An Englishman I met on a kibbutz in Israel during the many international travel years of my youth asked me a question I’ve pondered ever since. Genuinely curious, he asked me in his measured, lilting…

History of Modern Hospitals

Last week our hospital on the coast underwent its Joint Commission site visit for the clinical portion of our accreditation survey.  We passed with flying colors.  This accreditation survey is done every three years and…

Laguna Honda’s Predictable Crisis

September 13 was the day on which all the patients at Laguna Honda were supposed to have been evacuated and the hospital’s federal funding cut off. So it was decreed back in April by the…

Unraveling Israeli Mythology

Editor:  A recent Bay Area letter illustrated some of the misinformation being circulated regarding Israel and the Palestinians.  Israel— the state of the Jewish people who have returned to their indigenous homeland — is a…

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

Chiggers are small, affectionate animals frequently encountered in the southeast and which the North Carolina Board of Tourism wisely avoids mentioning in its travel literature and nature guides. Chiggers are a tiny fraction of the…

Books are Not Quite Dead: AVA Readers Talk Books

Attention readers and writers: Send us your list of favorite books, especially the ones that influenced the way you live and think. We'll begin with Bruce McEwen who has inspired me to list some of…

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