Columnists

Dispatches From The Edge: Iran and Israel—To the Edge?

By Conn Hallinan
Thursday July 17, 2008
Will they, or won’t they? Is Israel on a collision course with Iran, or is all the recent saber rattling about Israeli politics? -more-

Undercurrents: Media Treatment of Jackson-Obama Flap Obscures Underlying Issues

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday July 17, 2008
Chinese-American author of Bone Fae Myenne Ng was at Moe’s Books in Berkeley this week, presenting her new novel in a dialogue with Berkeley author Ishmael Reed. Ng revealed that she had been a student years ago in Reed’s creative writing class at UC, saying that as one of three Asian-American students in the class the experience was “traumatic.” -more-

Wild Neighbors: Following the Passionvines

By Joe Eaton
Thursday July 17, 2008
Gulf fritillary visiting a Cleveland sage.
If there’s a passionvine in your neighborhood, you may have noticed a big showy butterfly, flame-orange with silvery spots like a spatter of mercury on the underside of its hindwing, hanging around. That would be a Gulf fritillary, which is actually a longwing rather than a true fritillary. -more-

About the House: Do You Speak Toaster?

By Matt Cantor
Thursday July 17, 2008
I was chatting with my friend Charlie this morning about things variously fixable and unfixable. Charlie is that rarely spotted bird, the philosopher/handyman (et mariner/gadabout/movie and social critic). My little secret is that even though I have these last 20 years inspected buildings for a living, my roots run deep in the same garden that Charlie curates. -more-