On an MSNBC interview today, some Republican fossil jovially proclaimed that birth control is a simple matter: all “gals” need to do is put an aspirin between their knees and hold it there. Boy, does that take me on ...Read More

Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I ...Read More

Monarch butterflies are over-wintering down by the bay, the first time in memory that they have been spotted here. Butterfly logic is a little-understood science, but the heavy rains we had last year may have been a factor in their ...Read More

It can be taken as an article of faith that if there’s a dumb idea with any chance of making money, sooner or later someone will try to exploit it. I was at Target buying sundry things the other day, ...Read More

There’s something exhilarating about the start of a new year. It must be the psychological construct of a blank slate, but the effect is no less tangible for stemming from an abstract idea. Here’s to new beginnings! It’s a presidential ...Read More

For the “Occupy” movement to keep growing and not lose the goodwill that has been generated so far, a few things deserve a much broader discussion than I have heard to date:

1) The motivations and tactics of anarchists are ...Read More

Item:

“Orinda has some of the Bay Area’s worst roads, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, but how to repair them—and the storm drains beneath—has proved elusive.

“The city has spent $15.5 million on roads since 2000, enough to repave ...Read More

Two recent articles present opposite polarities on who might win the Republican nomination for president. Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times a few days ago that Mitt Romney is the inevitable nominee, and what happens between now ...Read More

“I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be ...Read More

I’ve been thinking about my observation the other day that forty-something women wearing fashions popular among the twenty-something crowd look foolish. Since my rigorous, scientific study to date includes exactly two Hollywood celebrities, it’s a rather small statistical sampling for ...Read More