Taking the New Normal for a Spin

Valley Fire 2015 Lake County, California We flew south from Seattle to Burbank arriving over the Thomas Fire where the blaze had just crossed from Ventura into Santa Barbara County. Last summer’s dry season never came to an end. Instead this fall the Southland of California was treated to twenty degree above normal temperatures, low […]

Notes from Near the Last Page

Story on the Front Burner Women of the Oak Savannah’s, my fourth novel has started and ended my day for what will soon be two years. I stand on the edge of the end of my work of seventy-five thousand carefully chosen words. Hot Spring Honeymoon, my previous novel, a sexual farce was in the […]

Paid Well Enough to Not See it Coming…

For 25 years, I have written about the social and natural evolution of Napa, a diverse county that includes rare and valuable biological “hotspots” and 140,000 people, most of whom are associated with what’s now referred to as the wine “industry.” During that time, I have learned something about developers. Foremost is the fact that […]

How’s That Change Thing Working Now?

SMOKING HOT BLAME YOU CAN BELIEVE IN Signed up for the National Park Service going rogue Facebook page this morning. I owe much of my souls most healed aspects to the unfettered, unfiltered quiet time the parks have gifted to my life. To imagine what we need to do is liquidate these national treasures is […]

Into the Wilderness

“Why not be the best version of our selves?”

Working Peeps Pissed

Now that we got this populism thing in the groove… Brexit, Trumpistan, and now on Sunday those wacky Italians joined in and have gone full Fellini. Grab your parachutes peeps. It turns out that all those trade deals we’ve been making since like say 1992 when a Democrat with the help of a majority of […]

Crushing Fame Games

Scene from 2015 Valley Fire Lake County, California Plenty busy now and well along on my fourth novel. In this scene I am dealing with how money in politics is influencing the winegrowing region of Napa County. The billionaires in the region have an outsized influence over the valley. Preserving this wine growing wonder of […]

Lonely at the Top, Stupid at the Bottom

The main ultimate highest priority of one of our two political parties is tax cuts. Even though if you take the time to go read the polls you will discover that a vast swath of the people of the United States are concerned with a great many other priorities. Grover Norquist’s Club for Growth has […]

Finding Patagonia’s Better Nature

By all accounts what work a hearty new arrival might find Patagonia is less than none.

Fair/Free Trade Con Artistry

YOU ARE LOOKING AT A FAIR TRADER I’m going after James Kitfield today. He is a storied reporter, beltway veteran, and quintessential centrist. He holds all sorts of views I have no quarrel with, but on trade he’s off by a Moon shot, perhaps a crash landing on Mars. Look, the new world order, the […]