Archive

The first time I heard someone speaking Spanish in public, I’d just started college in Davis and went to a shoe store in Woodland to get some cool but cheap platform sandals (it was the ’70s, man). I heard two women chatting in Spanish in...
View This Article →

So, I auditioned for “Glinda”… but was offered “Auntie Em.” Dang. But… Okay!!! I’ll be the best Auntie Em ever! At least I’ll get to holler, “DoroTHEE!!!” into the face of the tornado (which haunted my childhood dreams and still swirls up from time to...
View This Article →

The Alt-Right WANTS violence this weekend. And the more racially charged, the better. Why? Simple: Violent clashes, particularly racial ones, completely occupy the media's attention, and therefore our attention.
View This Article →

I’m just old enough to remember monthly air raid siren drills, although at the time, I didn’t really understand what they meant, I only understood that they terrified me. I’d run and hide whenever they sounded. Everybody in the room who’s also old enough to...
View This Article →

Stick in your thumb and pull out that plum... from your horse's sheath.
View This Article →

Black Lives Matter. Yes. But Red Lives Matter too. Lots of folks like to counter smugly that "All Lives Matter," because of course, they do, but they miss the point. It's that "OTHER Lives Matter."
View This Article →

Some weeks in a small town are harder than others. This was one of those weeks. Winters lost two of its icons, only three days apart — and on the heels of another last month. They say bad luck comes in threes. Note to Universe:...
View This Article →

It's a pretty cozy arrangement. The medical and insurance industries openly collude to boost each other's massive profits, and Congress cements that unholy alliance by forcing Americans to purchase insurance to fund it. Extortion!
View This Article →