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Posts published in January 2004

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…

Lion’s Tales

The fierce cougar attack last week in the afternoon on one of the two women biking together at a Southern California Wilderness Park only half a mile from some houses was both tragic and unusual.…

Dangerous Books

Forever, people in power have been afraid of fiction. Wild imaginings threaten to undermine the view of the world as unchangeable, the easy idea that history is set in its course like footprints in cement.…

Vietnam and Iraq: Fog of War

American leaders don’t easily learn lessons from the past. Before choosing war in Iraq, the Bush leadership might profitably have consulted former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons…

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman

Lately I've received several end-of-the-year form letters wherein the sender(s) painstakingly detail their lives over the past year. It's the kind of missive only mothers could love, but nonetheless are becoming quite trendy among the…

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