Three O’clock in the Morning

Scott Fitzgerald once famously opined in The Crack-up that “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” I think he was addressing his alcoholism, his despair, and the resulting tailspin of his literary output. Three in the morning must be a fairly desperate time–if […]

The Universe of Lost Socks

Where is the country now, more than two weeks after President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory? That place where the lost sock has decamped to, leaving its mate forlorn and forever unselected in the drawer. I could say the country resembles the abandoned sock, ever unworn, except for two things. First, unlike the locus of the […]

Snapshot of Catastrophe

At press time, what most disappoints me about the 2020 Presidential Election is, actually, the electorate. Sure, Joe Biden has so far garnered north of 73 million votes–an all-time record–but more than 69 million have voted, inconceivably, after everything, for the incumbent. An incumbent who, at press time, is dishonoring the process with lies, lawsuits […]

This is Not an Article

Back in the day, as the saying goes, when we were actually in print, my wife, The Chief, used to pen a column called “Political Fix.” I remain convinced it was the best feature of the paper. She has abstained from that effort, largely because we have been shifted to an online presence, but I’ve […]

Comes a Down Ballot Rider

If you are anything like me, and would like to rudely unhorse our current commander in chief, there is no better way, metaphorically, than the tip of a lucky joust strike right through the eyehole of our president’s helmet–like Henry II suffered. Had he survived, Henry’s entourage were prepared to call him “Blinky.” Or “Left-turn […]

You Can Do Better

A month ago I wrote briefly about having been twice washed over the South Jetty of Humboldt Bay in early 1983. Folks, that jetty is 6,000 feet long, and we were a good two-thirds along that distance when the events unfolded. I was taken twice; scared to death the first time, and more angry than […]

Resign

When the chips were down and Tulare’s hospital was in danger of going under Devon Mathis did exactly nothing–except take money from HCCA, the hospital’s former management company. Now that the chips are on the table again, in the form of an election, he has nakedly, cynically, grandiosely donated that money to the hospital’s foundation. […]