Publisher’s View: Architecture
Steven J. Moss A couple of years ago my wife, Debbie, and I joined a tour of Lower Haight homes built more than a century ago. Mostly Victorians, their facades were exquisite in…
Publisher’s View
Publisher’s View: John B. Anderson
Late last year, John B. Anderson died at the age of 95. Anderson, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, unsuccessfully ran for his party’s nomination for the presidency in 1980.…
Publisher’s View: Boring
“Ugh, I don’t want to go there!” my 16-year-old daughter, Sara, exclaimed. “It’s so boring!” We were on one of our frequent meandering drives in and around San Francisco, a…
Publishers View: Heat
Last year’s heat waves – peaking at a scorching 106 degrees in San Francisco in the fall – may be the new normal. There’s nothing we can do about whatever…
Publisher’s View: Cyber-Stranger Danger
No parent would willingly allow a stranger to enter their home, slip down the hallway unseen, enter their child’s bedroom, closing the door softly behind them. Yet that’s exactly what’s…
Publisher’s View: The Last Straw
Straws – those slender plastic tubes from which to sip frothy, sweetened, coffee drinks, sodas, and other beverages – are awesome. Children transform them into toys, sucking in chocolate milk…
Publisher’s View: Statues
The following three dialogues imagine the conversations sparked when newlyweds arrive for the first time at one of the spouses’ ancestral homes, to which the couple will be moving, with…
Publisher’s View: Fringe
In August my wife, Debbie, and I followed our daughter, Sara, to the Edinburgh Fringe, which by all accounts is the “world’s largest arts festival.” Sara was performing in Alice…
Publisher’s View: Hypocrite
“You’re a hypocrite!” my eight-year-old daughter, Sara, would shout, during arguments over how much television she could watch or when she should go to bed. It was the worst epitaph…
Publisher’s View – Driving Rules
Anyone who has spent anytime walking, bicycling, or driving in San Francisco lately knows that it’s a chaotic mess out there. Vehicles – Ubers; Lyfts – pullover abruptly to disgorge…
Noah’s Ark
One of the most famous stories in the Bible occurs in Genesis, in a passage commonly known as “Noah’s Ark.” In it, God, enraged over human behavior, decides to wipe…
On the Spectrum
Urban Dictionary defines being “on the spectrum” as “a phrase used to describe a person with social tics and/or awkwardness, usually associated with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.” As in, “That…
Homeless: Live With It
San Franciscans tend to approach social problems with a mix of expansive generosity, quasi-selfishness, and hubris. We’ve lavished billions of public dollars on Laguna Honda Hospital and Zuckerberg San Francisco…
Loser
I’m a loser. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly lost my wallet, keys, and precious childhood mementos. When I was a teenager, I lost jobs. As I young adult, I lost…
Reality
We humans have been trying to understand our reality, while working hard to mask it, since our first spark of awareness, perhaps seven million years ago. Our quest has been…
1 + 1 = -1
Sara arrived like a beautifully wrapped present. The package was smaller than we expected – four pounds, eleven ounces – but we were delighted to receive her; she was perfect,…
Why San Franciso Has a Homeless Problem
Despite decades of trying, or at least talking about trying, to tackle the problem, there are at least as many homeless individuals in San Francisco as there were 30 years…
Mediators
Donald Trump’s vanquishing of a football team’s worth of Republican Party presidential candidates has prompted intense reflection on how it happened, much of which lands on the same question: can…
Publisher’s View: Change
Change is a bitch. Or maybe more like a cheetah, stalking us from tall weeds. Once, on safari in Tanzania, I saw a cheetah stealthily tracking and killing an antelope,…
Publisher’s View: Hamilton
Hamilton, which opened on Broadway last summer, and has been sold-out ever since, offers a spirited remedy to the current milieu of bigotry, nativism, classism and nascent apathy. The musical…
Publisher’s View: Privilege
I was born into privilege. Not the wealthy kind. My parents, struggling to raise five kids on my father’s aerospace engineer’s salary, cut coupons, dressed us in off-brand on-sale items,…
Publisher’s View: Fairytales
Numerous tales told over many centuries tell of enchanting creatures that used to roam the earth. Ogres, faeries, and dwarfs continue to animate modern-day narratives, in such books and films…
Publisher’s View: Healthcare
My earliest memory of visiting a doctor was created when I was four years old. I had a wart on my index finger, which made it hard to properly hold…
Publisher’s View: Smart Growth
Not long after the arrival of the mass market automobile, which enabled the creation of suburbs stretching long distances away from central cities, land use planners sounded the alarm about…
Publisher’s View: Perfect
There’s an expression, that one shouldn’t “make perfect the enemy of the good.” It’s the cousin of “the devil is in the details” and the granddaughter of “change is on…