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Posts published in “Essays”

Senate Debates Marijuana Prohibition

This week’s US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Conflicts between State and Federal Marijuana Laws" will get infinitely more media attention than the July 12,…

Medi-Cal Is Failing

About 160,000 people in the Sacramento area are uninsured even though they could be signed up for the state’s low-income healthcare plan, Medi-Cal. Instead, they…

The Wall

“The Wall” in Washington, DC. is a sacred place to Vietnam veterans. Built with private funds and spearheaded by ex-enlisted man Jan Scruggs, it represents…

Lost & Found At Burning Man

While many writers take to print and electronic media to pooh-pooh Burning Man with pronouncements about false values and carbon footprints and financing I personally question whether they have ever actually attended the event.

Keith Jarrett In The Landscape Of Bach

No keyboard player of this or any other age has been more wide-ranging than Keith Jarrett. His contributions to jazz extend from the endlessly astonishing…

Nationalism

Let me get this straight. The United States government blithely oversees the killing and maiming of women and children and unarmed civilians with missiles fired from drones and helicopters and jets and battleships, invades other countries in the service of multinational corporations and uses artillery shells made with so-called depleted uranium spreading cancerous dust wherever they explode, and incarcerates and tortures people without charge for years and decades, but that same government says we have a moral obligation to bomb Syria and kill untold numbers of Syrians because the Syrian government has killed people using weaponry we don’t like them using, though we did nothing in response to the Syrian government killing tens of thousands of people over the last two years using weapons we do approve of?

Down To Downieville

We’re fortunate to live here in a place called Big Valley in the northeast corner of California on the Lassen/Modoc County line that has so far managed to avoid overpopulation and overdevelopment and the resultant hyper lifestyle that gives sad valid relevance to the contemporary epithet Californicated.

Some Call It Legalization

Attorney General Eric Holder phoned the governors of Colorado and Washington August 29 to advise that the U.S. Department of Justice will allow implementation of…

Wake Up, Burners!

The giant Burning Man structure went up in flames on Labor Day weekend as usual, and I watched it — online. It looked very dramatic and impressive. As the tens of thousands of “BM” attendees gathered around to watch and cheer in person as the smoke and fireworks rose to the sky, it also reminded me of the main reason I don't go up there to witness it all in person.

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