Can it happen here?

Traveling briefly in Croatia and Montenegro last year led me to think more than I had formerly about "Europe." The former country ...

We could all use some cheer and Serena William served it up after winning her historic 22nd grand slam tennis title at Wimbledon. She raise...

It's been a little warmer than it was last weekend, but still ... summer in the city.

Studies and reports from advocacy outfits and think tanks are a dime a dozen. (I know; I used to help churn these out.) Very occasionally, o...

Because I'll running long miles on trails these days, I wanted a really long audiobook. And I found one. Susan Wise Bauer's The Hist...

There's a lot of nonsense in published reactions to the violence of the last week. A commentator has to be really graceful to say anyth...

In this season of oh-so-Amerikkan grief and violence, I keep running across internet writers who ask: is this like 1968? No, it isn't. B...

After this week that saw the police killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota capped by the sniper shootin...

A British report -- named after the author Sir John Chilcott -- has told us what we already knew about the U.S. and British war on Iraq: ...

Morty can be such a dignified fellow -- you might almost think this was his nature. Until he does something like leap to the top of a clos...

Mark Scandrette, Fr. Richard Smith, and La Mesha Izarry Still no word from the San Francisco District Attorney about charges for the San Fr...

As I turn 69 today, I find myself enjoying a season of unalloyed personal delight as great as any of us are likely to get in a fucked up wo...

Okay, so our digital economy has transformed the lives of many of us, probably all of us whether we quite know it or not. So how do we make ...

Homage to past glories on our national day. Since we're celebrating "rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air" today, i...

Sometimes a warm laundromat is the only available place to take a nap. We do this in San Francisco every few years. Shocked to notice t...

Homeless people live in San Francisco; how can this be? The Chron called on local media to chime in. Some of resulting commentary has been t...

That's Tokyo doing her fur ball act. She's good at it. Meanwhile, Morty guards his purple catnip toy on the rug. Have I mentione...

They learn to vote. TPM reports: “The beauty of this country is that we have a voice,” Ehsan Islam began as he looked out onto a room so cro...

Here in California, we are accustomed to living in a system with a lot of direct democracy, a system where voters can vote on nearly everyth...