Opinion

When Barack Obama won the presidency two years ago, the naysayers amongst us worried that the Bush financial tsunami was just about to crest, and that he and his party would be stuck with cleaning up the mess. Or even worse, that the Democrats would be blamed for it, even though the Republicans caused it.

Count me among the Cassandra crowd. (Recap: she was the ancient Greek who accurately predicted catastrophes but no one believed her.) And we were, of course, sadly, right. It was inevitable. And as predicted, the Democrats have paid in this election for the sins of George W. Bush and company. -more-

Frances Dinkelspiel on berkeleyside.com has a sensitive story about a Berkeley High freshman of 14 who was shot and killed by an older boy (17) who was supposedly his best friend. Reports in The Daily Californian and other publications differ slightly from this account. Berkeley police have yet to release much concrete information about this shooting--a number of questions are still unanswered. -more-

The results of the Daily Planet’s Measure R cartoon contest have been tabulated.

Gar Smith is the winner by a nose, followed closely by Justin DeFreitas, with J.Epstein a very respectable third and Matt Breault and Joseph Young not far behind. -more-

The King's English -more-

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available. -more-

My upbringing wasn’t highly unusual. I believed I was much more different a person than I actually was. I was a fairly typical Jewish boy; shy with girls, intellectual, and ambitious. However, in high school, I was bullied to the extent that I wanted to get out of school and go to work early. This I did. However, my job wasn’t much to brag about, looking back on it. The job also caused me to be somewhat isolated. And at age seventeen, my behavior inexplicably became bizarre and dangerous. My older brother had exhibited mental problems at the same age. Now I was acting strange and bad enough that I was put into a mental hospital. -more-