I showed up a little bleary early last Sunday morning on Howie Kurtz' DC-based CNN show, "Reliable Sources," to talk about -- what else? -- struggling newspapers. If we're going to re-plough that graveyard topic, it'd be so much more convenient to do it on West Coast time. But...

It's O-fficial. At least until it isn't again.

Al Franken will be standing - in a puddle of some controversy - along with appointed Illinois would-be Senator Roland Burris at the gates of that exclusive...

The line between punishment and reward can be confusing in any culture. Particularly when it comes to sex. (How naughty have we been, Frau Blucher?)

Sex scandals are so day-before-yesterday. Even the infamous Larry...

First Bernie Madoff. Now this. The sweat-o-meter at the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League has to be in the red zone.

By "this" I don't mean Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip,...

Last Tuesday, a stocky 75-year-old man stood at the bar of the luxuriously 40s-style 1300 Fillmore restaurant, watching the rotating photos projected on the wall of dozens of jazz musicians from the last 80 years. He...

Just when you thought maybe the molten lava of Prop 8 protest backwash had cooled to street steam and legal challenges, BOOM! Barack Obama, of all people, rolls a great big grenade under the door of the gay community.

If you haven't heard the yelling the last 24 hours...

Eight years playing the most powerful person on earth can beat the youth right out of anyone. Just look at all those before and after White House photos.

What we learned in the winter of our 43rd presidency, however, is that George W. Bush is one agile, athletic, quick...

In hard times, it's good to know that we can always count on irrational and unpredictable behavior. And that you'll be able to read about it endlessly no matter how much death-of-news angst is free...

Hey! Hey! What do you say?

Let's Call in "gay" to work today!

Whoa! Wait! I need the pay,

Let's Go To Work Anyway!

Politics is the art of the possible. The idea Wednesday was to get gay people to boycott their workplace - "a day without a gay" -...

Two big holiday season cheers to floppy-haired Ilinois governor Rod Blagojevich for giving us faith again.

Just when we thought we couldn't squeeze out one more drop of righteous indignation. Just when continuing big executive financial...

Some professional journalists and journalism organizations are like weapons manufacturers when it comes to their view of commenters to their web sites. They provide the guns and ammo but feel...

Did you think political partisanship had been momentarily stun-gunned by Barack Obama's outstretched arms? Just because Robert Gates gets to stay on?

No, no such thing when there are still plenty of opportunities to gloat or kick the departing Commander-in-Chief right in the Christmas tree on his way out...

I once sat through one of composer Philip Glass' single note, hours-long concerts. I tried to grasp the conceptual value of it while I also tried not to eat my own hand out of boredom.

Gavin Newsom is the Philip Glass of politicians. And that's the good news.

At...

The story of the guy getting trampled at the New York Wal-Mart lasted about 48 hours in the news cycle.

There are a few "ongoing investigation" clean-up pieces, but the big media wave, like the crush of shoppers busting down the doors for bargains one store employee was anonymously...

Baramania continues unabated, even though the election is over and cloudy crises fill the sky.

"He's still selling papers," a colleague told me the other day. When was the last time you could say that about a politician? Another baby boomer here suddenly realized this was the first Nov....

There were more demonstrations against Prop 8 over the weekend, a tear in the fabric of the same sex marriage opponents' coalition and some lingering, judicious, Rodney King-like insistence that everyone just sober up and behave.

Maybe that's not a good choice of phrases, given that Rodney...

The always entertaining Bill O'Reilly has once again reached into his reliable ammo bag of O'Reilly Factor slugs, peppering San Francisco with the usual stew of foul condiments: we're dark, radical, seedy and dangerous. Come...

Warning to anxious retailers printing up holiday catalogs with your shopping season fingers crossed: Don't just say a prayer for decent sales this year. (And try to say it to the right deity). Absolutely, positively make sure you don't shy away from the using word "Christmas" in your crass annual...

How are regular people supposed to get their Brangelooney fix in all those celebrity-obsessed magazines when everything - from OK! to Us to People -- has become Baramoids. The covers of almost all publications are bathed in the telegenic and charismatic First Family-in-waiting....

While Southern California burned over the weekend, the conflagration set off by Prop 8 also continued to flame up around the country. The Chronicle's story, which was careful after some grumbling last week...