When Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world and announced that he’d be the first pope in six centuries to retire, primarily due to declining health and increasing infirmities, tens, if not hundreds of millions of people around the world (mostly Catholics) prayed for the pope’s well-being. At… Read full post »

Up until a month ago, I’d never owned anything “Apple.” Then someone bequeathed me a used IPod and I was immediately flabbergasted to learn that to download any new music to it from my computer, I’d first have to erase the 400+ songs that were already on it, something I never… Read full post »

Hey, 49ers fans: I know you’re devastated that the team lost, especially when they almost pulled it out with a great comeback. But take consolation that you weren’t one of the real losers.

You know who should feel bad right now? The person who they find out was responsible… Read full post »

Not being a non-sports fan living in San Francisco, I was NOT looking forward to this Sunday’s Super Bowl between the 49ers and somebody else, because the attendant hysteria of guys greeting me with a hearty “Go Niners!” all week has left me feeling as alone as a Jew on Christmas… Read full post »

Dear GOP,

It's already begun: the hand-wringing, gnashing of teeth, and much ruminations, fulminations but little illuminations amongst you regarding why Mitt Romney lost the election to Barack Obama. Especially since you thought it should’ve been a “gimme.”

After all, Obama had… Read full post »

Nate Silver

You are my rock

During this turbulent presidential election contest

When the race has appeared so close

And there are apocalyptic predictions that Mitt Romney                      and Paul Ryan

Might actually… Read full post »

After we’ve finished sputtering, splaying and spasmodically displaying our outrages and anxieties about the upcoming presidential election, every conversation I’ve had in the past couple months about it comes to a point where somebody forlornly shakes their head and says, “How can a… Read full post »

Day 2 of “Stan’s Swing State Saga,” which has taken me from California, a presidential electoral non-entity except as far as candidates dropping in to plunder our pockets so they can go buy media coverage in “important” states,  to Florida, one of the swingiest of s… Read full post »

Literally overnight I have been thrust into the thicket of the presidential election.

The mere act of emerging from a red-eye flight from San Francisco to Florida has transported me from a land where the citizens worry about how “they” will vote out yonder in the hinterlands, to a… Read full post »

Reports are that Mitt Romney is coming to Wednesday's presidential debate with President Obama loaded for bear, with 'zingers' - devastating one-liners - the weapon of choice to bring the president down, and which will make the viewing public at home en masse cry, "Good one, Mitt! You've got MY vote!… Read full post »

Reports are that Mitt Romney is coming to Wednesday's presidential debate with President Obama loaded for bear, with 'zingers' - devastating one-liners - the weapon of choice to bring the president down, and which will make the viewing public at home en masse cry, "Good one, Mitt! You've got MY vote!… Read full post »

I wish I was an undecided voter, living in a swing state. If I was an undecided voter, my vote would count.

Boy, would it count.

Politicians would court me, pollsters would poll me, focus groups would intently analyze my every sigh. Commentators would conjecture over which… Read full post »

Neil Armstrong. First man to walk on the moon. American hero. Done.

But he doesn’t need my accolades:  tributes praising his bravery and heroic service will be heaped upon him from here to… well, the moon. The guy I'm thinking about is Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin was… Read full post »

THE REVEREND AL GREEN’S “GOT TO GO”

When Al Green performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006, it turned out to be a pretty special event. Storms drenched the morning, and the rains stopped and the skies cleared shortly before Green took the stage, so one… Read full post »

As they say at crime scenes, “Move along. Nothing to see here.” 

Now that George Zimmerman has finally been arrested in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, that is.

The story evoked world-wide outrage and became a media sensation because of the seeming travesty of justice… Read full post »

As they say at crime scenes, “Move along. Nothing to see here.” 

Now that George Zimmerman has finally been arrested in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, that is.

The story evoked world-wide outrage and became a media sensation because of the seeming travesty of justice… Read full post »

The “Rapture” has come and gone – and while the world is still here, the ones who predicted that lives would be destroyed on May 21 weren’t totally wrong.

 Ironically, though, it was their own.

Starting with Robert Fitzpatrick, the retired MTA worker who spent $140,000… Read full post »

It’s widely assumed that Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” was a counter-point to Glenn Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor” two months earlier, with its attendant crazed government conspiracy theories and paranoia and delusions regarding all things Obama.… Read full post »

Pushed to the wall by incessant questioning from reporters after her gubernatorial debate regarding her statements that illegal immigrants are responsible for "beheadings" in the Arizona desert, Arizona governor Jan Brewer issued a plea: "Can some illegal immigrant please behead someone in the desert… Read full post »

Pushed to the wall by incessant questioning from reporters after her gubernatorial debate regarding her statements that illegal immigrants are responsible for "beheadings" in the Arizona desert, Arizona governor Jan Brewer issued a plea: "Can some illegal immigrant please behead someone in the desert… Read full post »

The most infuriating thing about the people who showed up for Glenn Beck’s rally (many of whom are from the Teabagger crowd as well), is the disconnect between what they clam to want, who they’re steamed at, and reality. To wit, they proclaimed they were in D.C. to:     &nb… Read full post »

WHY I ROOTED FOR THE LOSER

By Stan Sinberg

Thursday night I was walking around an outdoor “entertainment complex” filled with bars and restaurants and big-screen TVs, so it wasn’t very long before I noticed that the 7^th game of the NBA Finals was in progress, which,/… Read full post »

REPUBLICANS BASH OBAMA FOR USING 22 PENS

News item: President Barack Obama used 22 pens to sign the Health Care Reform bill into law.

Republicans today denounced President Obama’s use of 22 pens to sign his name on the Health Care Reform bill as proof that the bill… Read full post »

Dear President Obama,

When a friend of mine told me that you were giving out $4500 for my car – my car! – under a new program to get old polluting “clunkers” off the road, I thought “Holy mackerel, it’s Christmas in July!” Also, boy, it’s a good thing… Read full post »