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Posts tagged as “essays”

Another Dead Soldier

The boys were flying on acid on the veneer line, that much I knew. I never worked on veneer but I saw it done. A matter of flipping big flat sheets of Doug fir off…

William Faulkner, Beth Bosk & Political Correctness

Because I have been a recluse for the most part of the last 25 years, if my name rings a bell with anybody, it’s probably because of my occasional AVA byline. My stuff has two…

The Dangerous Lessons of the Tobie Case

In 2003, Lifeworks group home manager Jack Graves recruited a known juvenile criminal named Kevin Tobie, who had been kicked out of San Francisco public schools because he'd been convicted of serious juvenile weapons crimes,…

The Stone and Kelsey Massacre

(Editor’s note: William Ralganal Benson was born in 1862 and learned about these events directly from those who took part. Having spoken only a Pomo language as a youth and never having attended school, Benson…

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Here we are, back in the suicide season: It’s Christmas time. Half of us are thinking not of our fellow man and woman, but of pills and pistols; the other half goes shopping, partyies and…

Where Are the Files, Sue?

Susan Massini might as well have torched Fort Bragg herself that September night in 1987 for all she did about it. In two hours the town's library, Ten Mile Justice Court and the old Piedmont…

America’s Greatest Editor Moves On

By year’s end the greatest newspaper in the United States will have relocated from California’s North Coast to Eugene, Oregon. Bruce Anderson is leaving Boonville. The Anderson Valley Advertiser will become The Eugene AVA.  Be…

The Beheading Video

Upon hearing of the beheading of Philadelphia "contractor" Nicolas Berg in Iraq by self-proclaimed al Qaeda operatives, I searched the internet for articles on the incident. I found over a hundred news reports, most of…

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