The land ripens on Molokai. I saw it ripen once before my eyes, when we passed from the west to the east, along Route 460, the Maunaloa Highway. It ripened out of shrubland and thin, balding patches of kawelu; it gained a soft and greener luminosity as we drove, holding the shore east of Kaunakakai, [...]

I heard a true war story sixth–hand, though I came close to hearing it third–hand.  This is how it came to me: A friend who had recently returned from boot camp – let’s call him Jones – had met someone who had been deployed in Iraq – let’s call him Smith.  Smith was temporarily the [...]

Two hundred million years ago, tectonic conflict forced portions of the Pacific sea floor crust to the surface. Tacked on to present-day Utah and Arizona like a geological afterthought, California has never quite fit in. While states to the East were embroiled in wars of independence and slavery, California was oblivious, independent—free.
It is no accident [...]