Watching Steve Talbot’s new documentary, The Movement and the "Madman," reminded me of my own opposition to war, and also that over the past 75-years, US soldiers have gone into battle and died on distant…
Posts published in “Essays”
After several weeks of hesitation, it appears spring has finally sprung in Northern California. The seemingly endless rains of this winter have finally ended and the temperatures are warming, though frost remains a possibility. In…
For at least as long as people have talked about the weather, they have made music about it—from rain dances to pastoral symphonies, from the paleolithic powwows to Prince’s Purple Rain. Even if the climate’s…
My Catholic education taught me never to trust a priest under or over 30. They became quite vicious if anyone threatened their sense of authority or in any way profaned their pride, which I was…
In 1980 a mutual friend put me in touch with Gerry Stone, a Mare Island shipyard worker who had seen some things he thought the public ought to know about. I was then a hustling…
The Anderson Valley Variety Show is always full of surprises. The most surprising act I remember involved a man named Rudy Knoop cooking soy beans on a Coleman stove live onstage. He had an assistant…
Late one afternoon I got a call from a fellow squadron commander over on the training side of Keesler Air Force Base when I was stationed there in 1970. This was unusual. Our aircraft maintenance…