Columnists

Column: The View From Here: Out of Berkeley . . . and on to Africa

By P.M. Price
Friday June 30, 2006

My daughter beat me to Africa. On Monday morning, “Liana” (her pseudonym in this sometimes embarrassing column), along with 10 other students and two teachers from Berkeley High School, arrived in Shirati, a small village in the East African country of Tanzania. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Pressing Mayor-Elect Dellums on Press Access

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday June 30, 2006

One afternoon, some years after the election of Jerry Brown to succeed Elihu Harris as mayor of Oakland, I saw Mr. Harris walking with some friends and former aides along “government street” between City Hall and the federal and state office buildings that were the centerpiece of the Harris administration’s downtown revival after the devastation of Loma Prieta. I had once described the Harris administration as “dismal” and “drifting” in a column for the old Urban View newspaper, and I had to stop and confess to him that the more I saw of his replacement, Mr. Brown, the better Mr. Harris had come to look. -more-


To Vegas Through the Back Door

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Special to the Planet
Friday June 30, 2006

Last September, on a spectacularly scenic car trip to Las Vegas, I spent a night by Mono Lake, another by June Lake, and another in Death Valley. We drove through the Tioga Pass in Yosemite, which is open only a few months each year—usually May through September (it is closed in winter due to heavy snowfall). -more-


About the House: Some Advice on Avoiding Floods

By Matt Cantor
Friday June 30, 2006

Your washing machine is following you. O.K., so I’m being a bit dramatic but it’s true. Your washing machine is trying to get into your bedroom. -more-


Garden Variety: How to Plant a Plant to Ensure It Will Survive

By Ron Sullivan
Friday June 30, 2006

You buy a tree or shrub and dig a hole and put the plant into it and fill it up and that’s pretty much it, right? Well, not exactly. It’s usually not a technical challenge, but there are right ways and wrong ways to plant a plant. -more-


Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday June 30, 2006

Visited Your Shut-offs Lately? -more-


Column: The Public Eye: Campaign 2006: Top 10 Senate Races

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday June 27, 2006

Voters will determine 33 Senate seats in 2006. According to veteran D.C. prognosticator Charlie Cook, 16 incumbent senators are all but guaranteed reelection. In order to regain control of the Senate, Democrats will have to win at least six of the eight Republican seats that are in play and retain all nine of the contested Democratic seats. Here are the ten most interesting senatorial races: -more-


Douglas-Fir Builds and Graces Towns, Creates Splendid Forests

By Ron Sullivan, Special to the Planet
Tuesday June 27, 2006

Joe and I spent a couple of days up in Humboldt County among the really big trees last week. We stayed in a motel on the Avenue of the Giants among the old redwoods, where we could sit on the front porch in the evening and listen to the Mozartian aria of hermit thrush and the haunting, minimalist song of varied thrush, a bird has perfected wabi-sabi. -more-