As you may have heard, a former San Francisco Giants relief pitcher named Rod Beck died over the weekend at the way-too-young age of 38. I loved watching Rod Beck. He was the closer back when the Giants were good. He had a body that did not appear to have…
The phrase that will always be associated with Vice President Dick Cheney is “undisclosed location.” Whenever there is a crisis in government, that’s where Cheney is. Whenever anyone in Congress needs Cheney to answer questions, he is out at Rancho…
I practice acceptance, which is to say: I occasionally acknowledge the obvious. It’s a harder discipline than it seems. Anyone with a dread disease knows that. Denial is a fine and lovely place, and sometimes it’s the best place to be. My view on denial is…
I seem to have read quite a lot about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln recently. The year 2007 does not represent any kind of significant Lincoln milestone — it’s 142 years after his death and 198 years after his birth — so I’m not sure why there should…
Just for you, I have continued my ceaseless search through obscure basic cable stations to find peculiar little cult hits that might amuse you on a chilly summer evening. Last time, as you’ll recall, I touted “Mythbusters,” which is shot right here in the Bay…
So we’re in deacquisition mode around the bungalow. We already gave away many, many books, but that was several years ago, and in the interim we made the mistake of buying more books. Also, people lent us books, people who curiously did not want the books…
Gosh, how things change. Three years ago, Google was everybody’s darling, a well-conceived, well-run business that provided a useful service and had a little fun while doing it. Now suddenly it’s the Evil Empire (Microsoft having been given a retroactive free…
My favorite news story of last week involved Lurita Doan, the administrator of the theoretically independent General Services Administration, the stated goal of which is to “help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior…
I’ve been trying to come up with a way of describing a Mike Daisey show. Try this: The lights come up on a fat man sitting at a table. In front of him, neatly aligned, are six or seven pieces of yellow lined paper. To his right is a glass of water. He starts…
It was my job to drive the chickens. I was going to drive the eggs (which, by the way, came first, thus settling the old argument), but I was busy. Then the eggs turned into chickens, and it was my job to drive them home. Chickens are more restless passengers…
Prologue: The paper you are holding in your hands is a miracle. It has been put out by men and women dealing with sadness and loss. The personnel cuts have begun at the newspaper, and they ain’t stopping any time soon. Everyone will be losing friends; some…
Lately, two more high-profile books about Hillary Clinton have been published. There have been a lot of them so far, and there will a lot more of them, and I stand with many Americans when I ask: Where am I supposed to put them all? I suppose I could brick…
I don’t remember the weather being this complicated in other places. When I lived in Chicago, I could be sure that if it was cold in Evanston, it was going to be cold in Hyde Park. The next day it could be 20 degrees warmer or cooler, but usually it was…
It’s hard to remember 1975, even if you were there. Among the things that didn’t exist: personal computers, cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, the Internet, iPods, TiVo, CDs, DVDs and PDAs. A virus was a biological entity; Spam was a meat-like product…
(This is a column about obscenity. In this column, I will use “the duck word” and the “the spit word” to denote two very popular obscenities. Anyone over the age of 6 will understand what I really mean. However, this column should not be read by humans under…