Columnists

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Updating Two Stories: Desert Mirage, African Report Card

By Conn Hallinan
Friday January 18, 2008
Dispatches From the Edge is going to start off 2008 by revisiting two stories the column covered in 2007. -more-

Undercurrents: Ghost of America’s Racial Past Lies Uneasy in South Carolina

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday January 18, 2008
It should come as a surprise to no one—should it?—that the issue of race resurfaced in the Democratic primary campaign as soon as that campaign dropped down I-95 from the snows of New Hampshire to the sandhills and seashores of South Carolina. However it tries to escape or pretend otherwise, the Palmetto State continues to live in the long shadow of the slaverytime plantations. -more-

The Sunset ‘Idea House’ Opens for a Peek This Month

By Steven Finacom
Friday January 18, 2008
For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. -more-

Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday January 18, 2008
My Quake Resolutions... -more-

Garden Variety: A Walk in the Woods, or Not

By Ron Sullivan
Friday January 18, 2008
A few years ago, Joe and I got a tour of Garvan Woodland Gardens, a newish botanical garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas, courtesy of Uncle Leonard and Aunt Evelyn. We were all toted around in a golf cart, and a docent told us about the origins and current state of the garden, about the plants and other features we were seeing. -more-

Column: No Butts, Said the Pregnant Lady

By Susan Parker
Tuesday January 15, 2008
I’ve spent the last two months campaigning against Measure A. That’s the $300 million parcel tax on the Feb. 5 ballot which calls for Alameda County property owners to subsidize construction of a 12-story high-rise for Children’s Hospital Oakland, a private medical center serving northern California. -more-

Wild Neighbors: Squirrels Vs. Snakes: The Snakeskin Treatment

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday January 15, 2008
I was interested to note that Kathleen Wong, who was (briefly) my editor at the late California Wild, has an article in the current Bay Nature about the California ground squirrel. It’s a nice summary of several decades’ work of research by Donald Owings and Richard Coss at UC Davis, who have discovered remarkable things about the relationship between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes. -more-