Did you see the eclipse this week?  The part of it that we got here in Sacramento wasn’t all that exciting.  They said it was about 80%, but the effect was little more than making a bright summer day seem slightly overcast.  What we saw on TV of the total eclipse, however, looked most […]

              Ashland is the first town you encounter when driving into Oregon from California on Interstate 5, and it would be an easy town to ignore were it not for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is held there every year.  This season is the 77th for the organization since it was founded in 1935 (it […]

              Behind all of the news about Russia-gate (the latest being the revelation that Special Counsel Bob Mueller now has two D.C. grand juries empaneled), the threat that Donald Trump’s presidency represents to the American democracy grows ever more palpable.  Yes, the thinking goes, he is unpredictable and uncontrollable, but, as he settles into to […]

              It’s a story that John le Carré should appreciate.  The great British spy novelist was a master at creating mysteries that flowed out of the great craft of espionage that was so prevalent during the Cold War.  But the mystery surrounding Donald Trump and the Russian attempt to hack into and disrupt the 2016 […]