Meditations

We’re hearing the word ‘breakthrough’ a lot lately. It’s starting to sound like one of those words that has no meaning, like ‘compassion.’

I have a good friend in the Azores who lived in California for 18 years. He’s been back on his home island in the mid-Atlantic for 20 years, but retains…

How did humankind come to this pass? Not just evolutionarily, which is a fairly straightforward process in a random kind of way. But rather as the separating and separate, fragmenting…

If I had any doubt that woolly-headed Democrats are just as responsible as heartless Republicans for America electing this cretinous president, it was removed by a young 40-year-old man from…

Acrid smoke wafts in over the parkland from an unknown fire. Upstream, a dog standing in the water barks loudly for fifteen minutes, goaded by its owner. Despite these things…

Donald Trump is about to meet his new bosom frenemy, Kim Jong-un. This is what it looks like when crazy-dark meets crazy-dark. The world holds its breath, and ‘wishes them…

This column began about 25 years ago when I moved to this sylvan northern California agriculture/college town. But I didn’t become a writer until a reader got word to me…

Even with the late rains this year, the mountain reservoir is surprisingly full, fuller than I’ve ever seen it. Public access down at the lake is closed today, so we…