It seems so right. It should have been true. Edgar Allan Poe, his jaw taut and his eyes bloodshot, ought to have been wandering along a foggy San Francisco alley upon a midnight dreary, pondering weak and weary. Alas, 'twas not the case. Poe -- who would have been 200 today (and barely made a fifth of that in his mortal coil) -- did not leave his Telltale Heart in San Francisco. Since we don't trust Wikipedia, we called the Poe Museum in Richmond, Va. and spoke with tourguide Keith Kaulfelt, who
A good quarterback and the NFL's top receiver -- there's two things the 49ers could useAre the Arizona Cardinals a great team? Hardly. Are they a good team? That's up for debate. But the only question that matters come Sunday is: Are they good enough? Just as Tila Tequila can achieve success and stardom with a few salacious Web clips -- when it used to require millions of dollars of studio publicity or, in rare cases, talent -- assembling a Super Bowl team doesn't seem to be the task it once wa
Even if your room looks like this, you've got to admit the Raiders' stadium plan is bogusIf Oakland politicos and Raiders officials earnestly reported that the sun rotates around the earth or that the world is shaped like a yam, we would expect something other than a cursory retelling in the next day's papers. So why, when the city and team announce that they hope to bring about "economic revitalization" via partly city-funded development centered around a new mega-stadium for the Raiders, are t
Five months ago, two black homicide detectives got fed up with the Police Department's inaction on black-on-black murders. Thus was born the Crime Response Unit to Stop Homicide (CRUSH): six cops with the grit and guile to tackle the toughest cases in the
Burl Toler's plaque at the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
It's never easy to write an obituary. If someone outlives their contemporaries, it's often hard to fill in the details of a life beyond inane observances such as "she really was a good hostess" or "He really loved to play canasta." Burl Toler presented a radically different challenge. He was a man who accomplished so much in life, that his obituary could begin to read like a C.V. (thankfully, local and national obits were riveting, as th
