There's a place for talent like this

"Something like this was bound to happen."
     --Aaron McLear, press secretary to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

As educators universally bemoan the dearth of students' writing skills, I say there's hope. As long as gubernatorial staffers can produce work like this, we don't have to close the doors on the country and declare the great American experiment over.

Did Schwarzenegger drop 4-letter bomb in veto?
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
(10-27) 19:19 PDT SACRAMENTO -- Did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office use a coded veto message to send the f-bomb to Tom Ammiano, soon after the San Francisco assemblyman made news by telling the governor to "kiss my gay ass"?

Schwarzenegger's people say no. But the X-rated evidence is hard to miss in a message that Schwarzenegger sent to explain why he was vetoing an Ammiano bill dealing with financing for the Port of San Francisco.

Keep surfing, there's hope for you

"You can exercise your mind by using the Internet, but it depends on how it's used," he explained. "If you get hooked on gambling or eBay shopping, that may not be positive."

Web Surf to Save Your Aging Brain

Interactivity can help keep older people alert, study suggests

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Oct. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Surfing the Internet just might be a way to preserve your mental skills as you age.

Researchers found that older adults who started browsing the Web experienced improved brain function after only a few days.

"You can teach an old brain new technology tricks," said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatry professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of iBrain. With people who had little Internet experience, "we found that after just a week of practice, there was a much greater extent of activity particularly in the areas of the brain that make decisions, the thinking brain -- which makes sense because, when you're searching online, you're making a lot of decisions," he said. "It's interactive."

Someday we'll find it, the Rubble connection

I've been following this Bay Area murder tale with a bizarre Hanna-Barbera twist since I first heard about it a few months ago. I like the Flintstones as much as anyone, or so I thought. But I'm a bit of a purist, my admiration peaking with 1966's The Man Called Flintstone. The Flintstones Kids might as well be Shemp, if you get my drift, and the 1990s live-action films just couldn't be saved, even by Goodman and Moranis.

Sure, I got my Flintstones placemats from Denny's (this was some years before the racial discrimination lawsuits and no, I haven't been back) and I still have my Fred Flintstone wristwatch (q.v.), which was the only good thing to come out of the films.

But there are limits. I wouldn't kill for Bamm-Bamm. Someone did, though, and now there's an update that is growing more amazing by the day:

Courthouse arrests in S.F.
It was a scene of pandemonium that played out in San Francisco court on Tuesday.

In a packed courtroom at the preliminary hearing for Charles "Cheese" Heard -- accused of murdering a man for his flashy, gem-encrusted pendant of the "Flintstones" character of Bamm-Bamm -- several reputed gang members stood up in unison.

They did so at the behest of the defense attorney as the prosecution was questioning its star witness in the case. The witness was about to be asked whether she recognized the man who killed Richard Barrett, 29, in November...