Columnists

“He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher—the Wonder House as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon,’ hold the Punjab; for the great green bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.” -more-

The job of the news media is supposed to be to report on the news as we find it. -more-

It’s a tough world for the seemingly fragile butterfly. -more-

In 1881, Irish-born playwright George H. Jessop wrote a minor comedy-drama titled Sam’l of Posen, the Commercial Drummer whose lead character, a shrewd Jewish peddler with a heart of gold, attains bourgeois respectability by means of little wiles interleaved with honesty. -more-

Although I am generally sympathetic with the varied plights of the home buyer, I have to admit, in all my curmugeonitude that I have no tears to shed for anyone in Berkeley that has to meet the requirement of our RECO ordinance. -more-

Broadway Terrace Nursery is a tad off my regular circuit, and it had been too long since I’d dropped in when I dashed there last Saturday. It was just before closing time—a good time to watch the staff get its collective mettle tested. I was as impressed as I’d been on the regrettably few occasions I’d visited before. -more-

Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the Bay Area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault about which USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says, “It’s locked and loaded and ready to fire.” -more-

The good news is that Telegraph Avenue and the Southside commercial district are doing just fine. -more-

Three quarters of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world would finish if people were to put on the shoes of their adversaries and understood their point of view. -more-

Unless you’ve been living in a cave since 1979, you have undoubtedly seen the Mad Bluebird. It was captured by aspiring wildlife photographer Michael L. Smith on a cold February day in Maryland. The subject, a male eastern bluebird, feathers fluffed out, sits on a fence post glowering at the camera. The Mad Bluebird has been very good to Smith, enabling him to quit his day job as an electrician. Over 100,000 signed prints have been sold, and the image appears on calendars, coffee mugs, and all kinds of tchatchkes. The royalties by now must be considerable. -more-