Author Archives: coopgeek

This blog has gone mostly silent over the past year, with only occasional cross-posts from a new website, called Confluence. When I have posted here, I’ve often recalled Sacramento’s historical struggles. Chief among these are a failed uprising in 1850 … Continue reading →

This is another cross-post from my new project, Confluence. This post is not exactly co-op related, but don’t worry, we’ll get back to that shortly… Something profound happened here in the Spring of 1868. It utterly dominated the news. What would … Continue reading →

Note: This is a cross-posting from the website for Confluence, my new project to unearth Sacramento’s hidden history. I apologize for any geographic references that are unclear to my readers outside of this very complicated patch of real estate. I … Continue reading →

A note to my long-term readers: Last year I moved back to Sacramento, where I have launched a historical project called Confluence. I’m developing history tours and online resources to set the record straight about my hometown’s long struggle against land speculation, which has … Continue reading →

Individualism is killing us. Our shared faith in an idol – the rugged individualist – is leading us off a cliff. We must rediscover a suppressed feature of our origins and history. We succeed when we work together, but we … Continue reading →

The speed with which the supposedly pluralist Iraqi state has given way to sectarian extremism is breathtaking and heartbreaking. After nearly a century of contrived interethnic states carved out of the old Ottoman Empire, a period of score-settling seems inevitable … Continue reading →

My last post was a bit heavy, I’ll admit. Pondering statewide catastrophes that lead to permanent regional change is not easy reading, and probably most people would rather not think about it too much.  If I lost anyone, I regret … Continue reading →

Last week was full of disastrous anniversaries: Most notably, 108 years ago the United States was struck by its last truly catastrophic earthquake. Meanwhile, an unsettling series of earthquakes seems to be working its way up from South America: Chile … Continue reading →

A couple of days ago I submitted a modest blog post proposal that California’s agricultural system should be transformed in a modular sort of way, starting with irrigation districts (and other water-delivery entities, including mutuals and co-ops). My thinking was … Continue reading →

Pope Francis caused a lot of excitement during his papacy’s first year, and much of it was economic in nature. He has been making a whole variety of statements that have caused unease among those most comfortable with the established … Continue reading →