Monthly Archives: August 2015

America’s Black Whine

 Thank God for the NRA, or the media might have to contemplate the blood on their own hands in the creation of Vester Flanagan. As it is, the media will probably let Flanagan fade away much the same way they let Christopher Dorner disappear. Remember Dorner? He was the black, ex-Los Angeles police officer who […]

The Wit of the Universe

For a firefighter the best fire seasons are often the worst fire seasons. The muted sunlight, grey skies and the campfire odor that settled over urban areas in the Pacific Northwest recently could be greeted as the smell of overtime by a wildland firefighter. During my college summers, I worked for the U.S. Forest Service […]

Lounging in the Life of the Mind

An alleged rape victim recently made headines when she won $800,000 in a settlement against the University of Oregon, but other news in the same backyard was barely noticed: Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner, who declined to prosecute the alleged rape, resigned to become a state police captain. As one of the state’s workhorse […]