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Posts published in April 2012

In Defense of Nursing Homes: Too Much Welfare!

According to some in the business, Minnesota's nursing home system is in financial trouble in large part because people seem to think that no matter what their net worth, when it comes time for long-term…

Hand-fishing For Swamp Monsters

Cypress boughs dangle over the still, mocha-muddy waters of an Oklahoma swamp as a gaggle of drawling Southern country boys walks waist deep through the sleepy current. The men, shirtless and tanned, feel their way…

HumCo Supes Back Pot-Related Power Cap

The enrollment of some indoor marijuana growers in low income energy assistance programs is being targeted by a state bill and county supervisors are supporting it. Senate Bill 1207 is being considered by state lawmakers…

Brautigan’s Rise & Fall

Richard Brautigan once observed that “It’s really something to have fame put its feathery crowbar under your rock and then upward to the light to release you, along with seven grubs and a sow bug.”…

My Father

When my father died five years ago, my siblings and I did not hold a memorial service in his honor. We were each of us so wounded by our father’s incessant criticism and disapproval of…

America, for God’s Sake, Pay Your Whores!

Some years back, when I was doing location rewrites on a movie, I was cornered on the set by an anguished limo driver. We were in a Spanish-speaking nation, and my command of that loving…

Letters to the Editor

BAJA NEWS Editor, Our next trip was to travel from Baja Norte to Baja Sur in search of the Grey Whale. These whales travel from their summer feeding grounds in the Bering Sea to the…

An Envoi For Christopher Hitchens At The Pearly Gates

On April 20 there’s a memorial for Christopher Hitchens at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. There’s a PEN tribute, also in Manhattan, on April 30. Here’s my own little envoi. The regular Diary, tumbrils and…

Redevelopment: The Party’s Over

The theory of “redevelopment” is that public agencies borrow money they then put to public or private purpose to increase the borrower's tax base. The tax base thus magically broadened, the public agency pays back…

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