Back when I was a kid, at about the time one first reads the likes of Hemingway, I became aware not of the Spanish Civil War–that was old hat–but the idea that foreigners would actually migrate to fight in it. I knew that Germany used the conflict as a proving ground, of sorts, for its […]
I am more than perturbed by the fact that vaccinations–which in my childhood were not only free, but compulsory, and conveniently administered at school–are now something of a political hot potato, particularly for those on the right. Don’t get me wrong. There are liberal enclaves where the vaccination rates are not as high as they […]
The news out of San Francisco on Friday, February 6 was not auspicious for oceangoing commerce. Nor was it good for the lengthy inland chain of producers, manufacturers, packers and truckers who send goods of all kinds to market at the nation’s West Coast ports. The Pacific Maritime Association announced that the weekend’s vessel loading […]
Let’s first stipulate that nobody needs Sarah Palin. Ever. She has made herself into one of the first class buffoons of our era–and she has every right to have done so. So–good for her! Congratulations! But this column is not about her, or what she can see from her house. Don’t think Sarah Palin; think, […]
As everyone by now knows, a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace hacked Sony Pictures and tried to prevent the Christmas Day release of the movie “The Interview” because–ironic spoiler alert–at the film’s conclusion, apparently, North Korea’s Outstanding Leader Kim Jong-un meets with a fiery demise. We should be so lucky, right? Still, I […]
Apart from the simmering exasperation–nay, rage–nothing that has emerged from Ferguson, Missouri in the four months since Michael Brown’s shooting death has made any sense to me. Everything–from the events themselves and the characters of the primary actors to the reactions both of protesters and police–has been nuanced by dualism: Michael Brown was a thug, […]
San Francisco Giants Manager Bruce Bochy, like some ancient, uncatchable catfish–the wisest old fish in the water–has, to use another aquatic analogy, skippered his ball club ingeniously through this post-season–at least until Game 7 of the Fall Classic, when he started 39-year-old pitcher Tim Hudson instead of a two-day-rested Madison Bumgarner, who, at 25, is […]
As you read this, my wife and our youngest will have been in Oregon for nearly a week, visiting our oldest and our older daughter. It’s our sophomore daughter’s fall break, and she has been impatient to return. They flew up there last year, but my brief October bachelorhood was immediately scotched by one of […]
That’d be me, if I were a superhero. No ridiculous tights and cape, no backstory or idiosyncrasy, no gadgets–certainly no mask–just a manual typewriter, and the task of writing a letter. Appalling though my penmanship is, still, I am a good letter writer because I take it seriously–I would, after all, be mailing my whole […]
In the 4 September issue of this paper, while honoring the late Judge Paul Vortmann, it was stated that, “If not for a favorable ruling in Judge Vortmann’s courtroom on July 29, the Valley Voice would have been turfed out onto the street.” Only after publication did I realize the implications of this statement, and […]