Blogs are roadblocks on the information superhighway. No, that’s too nice. They’re billion-car pileups on the information superhighway.

They’re touted as democratic, and, yes, they do indeed afford you some magnificent choices on how to waste your time. And democracy’s all about choice, right? You can choose to be dumb enough believe the...

Just a year ago, some so-called experts were claiming that environmentalism was dead. My reaction was, if anything’s dead, it’s the brains of politicians and pundits who deny that global warming exists, ignore the connections between environmental destruction and “natural” disasters, make war for oil instead of demanding energy conservation and clean...

The new energy bill is the biggest step forward in the long struggle to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. But before we get too enthusiastic and applaud too loudly for politicians on both sides,...

The Presidio -- a military fortress in San Francisco built by the Spanish, liberated by Mexico, and later seized by the United States -- recently ceased being a military base and became part of the...

Pemberville, Ohio 1910 Emma Smith was a teetotaler. She did not approve of liquor and thought it was God's most useless creation after Adam. Her husband Allen, in contrast, thought liquor served a useful purpose, primarily...

In many ways, my son is the “All American Kid”. He played little league and soccer. He was a Boy Scout and a Sea Scout and, from the time he was small, it...

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Long ago in what seems like another country, they used to quote these familiar words on the pedestal of...

FIFTY-FOUR or more brown pelicans squat on a sand bar where at this time of day the Russian River and the tides of the Pacific surge east and west. The...

Ever wonder why little gets done in most towns? There are rules that govern the operation of City Hall, regulations learned at the university level and beyond...

You don't need a degree to understand...

So here we are, dancing through springtime, the northern hemisphere of our lovely planet tilting (or maybe skidding) back toward the sun again, birds singing romantic songs, trees beginning to bud, green, real...