Older Columns:
Presidential Leadership
While it can be entertaining to poke fun at a candidate running for political office, especially the presidency, when the election is over and the winner is installed, the business of running the country quickly turns serious—the President represents all of us—and we want our President to step up to the challenge and do a terrific job.
Math Break
That the Greeks made the leap from the obvious to the meta-obvious at a time when most everyone else was counting fingers and toes was truly amazing. Even today, more than 2000 years later, most of us fall short of an understanding of mathematics some Greeks had,...
To change...
Or not to change? That is the question.
Hamlet said it differently, consumed as he was by his uncle’s murder of his father and subsequent quick marriage to his mother. Thank goodness most of us are not cast out on Freudian fields of such epic proportions that suicide becomes a viable option. The slings and arrows of our outrageous fortune frequently play out on more pedestrian plains...
Little Red Wagon
Last Saturday was beautiful. Clear. Bright. Spring broke through, if only for a weekend, and I’m sure that if I had found a high-enough perch, I would have been able to see San Francisco through the morning mist. But there was no time for that. My wife and I were off to a charrette.
Execrable Guns
Laura Wilcox, a friend of my younger son, was killed while working during winter break at a Nevada City health clinic. A man who was allegedly upset with his doctor used a semi-automatic pistol to kill Laura and two others. Is our gun freedom so important to us that every year thousands of people like Laura must die?
Chevron Glare
The folks who live near the refurbished Chevron gas station in Benicia on West Military, across from the firehouse, must have thought the earth stopped dead in its rotation at high noon on Saturday the 13th when the station reopened, its lights blazing in the evening. Driving past it that night and every night since, I find the lights so intense that they become a distraction, like highway construction lights drawing my attention even though they’re so bright they hurt my eyes.
Meeting Virus
Did you ever wonder why meetings can be so deadly? Recent research suggests that Robert's Rules of Order retrovirus is the cause.
Dead Capital
The industrial west likes to tout itself as an example third-world countries should follow. Knowing that a bad teacher is one who reinterprets the past to fit the present, however, a good student carefully studies the past to understand the present. Such a student is Hernando de Soto, who has written a fascinating book, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, in which an exploration of U.S. capital formation leads him to proposals that might give life to third-world dead capital.
New Year's Dreams
At the beginning of 2001, it's fun to dream of projects what would benefit Benicia. You'll find 10 here, and I'm sure you have your own of greater merit. But should our dreams seem too appealing, remember well Sir Toby Belch's Twelfth Night counsel:
Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when
the image of it leaves him he must run mad.
Council Visits
Members of the Benicia City Council have occasionally suggested that too few people show up for their Tuesday meetings. Is it any wonder we stay away when their house is so uninviting?
Happiness
Carquinez Review ONE has been out for more than a month, and there have been numerous newspaper articles written about it. So I guess this must be what happiness is all about.

Recent Columns:
Advertising
Carquinez Review is a different kind of publication, a regional journal celebrating community arts, literature, people and history, which strives to look at community through the writing, art and experiences of neighbors. (Hopefully you’ve seen the publication by now, out last November, but if not, you can buy it at many local stores.) It’s neither a literary journal, though many refer to it as such, nor an arts journal. While it contains history, it’s not a history journal. And while it contains interviews and personal recollections, it tells our neighbors’ stories not to create celebrity but to remind us how extraordinary our ordinary lives are.ours,.
Dave Dolter, Seeno Project Manager
Two weeks ago, in “EIR Inadequacy”, with metaphors soaring, I likened the community planning process to the design of an airplane, and asked: “Would you feel safe flying in an airplane if you knew that it had been designed and tested using a process like ours, that there had been no discussion, no real exchange of ideas, that the project manager, if he could even be identified, seemed to lack vision, that the plane seemed pilotless?”
Idea Sanctuary
When I was young, I didn’t read books from beginning to end. I was intimidated by their heft, their endless wordy pages. I vaguely remember reading a book about cavemen and another about the wreck of a tanker at sea, but these books were notable less for their subjects than for their rarity in my life
EIR Inadequacy
Two things biased me from the start against the Benicia Business Park draft Environmental Impact Report: It’s too thick, and I’m sure it’s not telling us what we need to know.
First Democrat
March 16 marked the 250th anniversary of James Madison’s birth, and to celebrate, I read Founding Brothers, by Joseph J. Ellis. Beginning with the “interview” (duel) between Burr and Hamilton (Burr, Jefferson’s Vice President, killed Hamilton in 1804), the book goes on to paint a fascinating picture of the leaders and critical events of the period.
Benicia Boom
When Shirley Myopic got a job offer from a Benicia business, she immediately called her best friend, Claire Vue, to tell her the good news and bad. The job would challenge her and help her to learn new skills, she told Claire, which was good, but she’d have to move to Benicia, which was bad....
Wild Dogs
Two tragic events that happened last week tell more about us and our society than we care to know. I conclude this, because the first event has become so numbingly repetitious that news of it faded quickly after the dead were buried. There wasn’t even a clamor for increased gun control. The second event, reported by the Associated Press in the San Francisco Chronicle as some kind of bizarre anomaly, was buried deep in the paper, and subsequent news and analysis of the incident seemed to die before what was left of the dead boy was buried.
Street Names
You probably know the origin of the name Benicia, but what about the street where you live? If it’s named after a person, do you know who that person was? If you live on Semple Court, you probably know. But do you know the origin of Goettel Court, named after a former teacher, coach and principal of Benicia High School who died last year?

Lake Mead Quartet
A melodrama in which my wife and I brave the automotive wilderness, driving our used Chevy Blazer Ruby while towing our tent trailer Tahiti.

First column: Breaking to Lake Mead
My wife and I decide to change our vacation plans, ignorant of the trouble that will plague us, when our younger son tells us he won't be home for Christmas. (But all that obtains is certainly not his fault.
Second column: Breaking Out and Down
After numerous heartbreaks and automotive service sessions, we are finally assured that all is well. Go on your vacation and relax, a service rep tells us.
Third column: Almost Lake Mead
We meet Frank and Jack in Las Vegas and Ruby is finally fixed---Almost.
Fourth column: Finally Lake Mead
In this final installment, Ruby's illness is diagnosed, my wife and I finally camp at Lake Mead, and our troubles are over. (Wouldn't it be nice if life were really like this?)

Election Columns:
Telltale Heart
Bush is president-elect; Gore is history. The divided Supremes have spoken. And you've heard the speeches; you've made up your mind about the future. The election is finally over---or is it? Clinton's presidency was undermined by his unwillingness to tell the truth about his sexual indiscretions. Will Bush's presidency be undermined by chads he was unwilling to count?
Hollywood Endings
Tired of the Presidential Election? Let's give Hollywood a chance to tell us how it should end.
Turkey Talk
Blaming others for doing what you're doing can be an effective strategy, even in a presidential election, but why does such a puerile tactic so easily fool us?
Electoral College Conundrum
Were the constitutional framers able to observe our acrimonious electoral vote counting, surely they would see it as a vindication of their original formulation of the College of Electors. On the other hand, should they point their fingers, saying we told you so, we'd have to remind them that they were the ones who mucked it up in the first place when they created the political parties they abhorred