South Dakota

"Miracle" Cannabis Oil: May Treat Cancer, But Money and the Law Stand in the Way of Finding Out

Kamala Harris: Is She Really the Nation's Foxiest AG?

President Obama yesterday calling out Kamala Harris as, "by far, the best-looking Attorney General," was, unquestionably, an odd moment. It was a clunky thing to do for a man with strong reputations as both an egalitarian and a glib orator; it'd be akin to watching Richard Petty driving slowly in th ... More >>

Inmate Sues Hospital After Learning He Was Circumcised Decades Ago

Who better to serve as the poster child for how circumcision creates a lifetime of hardship than a convicted criminal behind bars?We have to say we were shocked to read that a South Dakota inmate was shocked when he recently discovered that he's circumcised and has been since he was a newborn. Natur ... More >>

Soup to Nuts: Crazy Food Taxes Penalize the Poor, Benefit the Rich

Dave Schwartz, "Hero" of Nevada's Pot Movement, to Take Over Michela Alioto-Pier's Mayoral Campaign

Luke ThomasMichela's marijuana man​The days when "gambling" with marijuana on a Las Vegas' Strip could result in lifetime imprisonment are long gone. Reefer now mixes with roulette in the nation's Sin City -- where, it should be noted, one has never needed a medical recommendation to use prostitut ... More >>

Californians Are Stifled by Their Own Government

​That's the conclusion, more or less, of a new study that ranks California near the bottom among the 50 American states for the freedoms it grants its citizens.The study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University ranked California 48th in its "state freedom rankings." Analysts measured su ... More >>

Can We Find More Like Him?

Nancy Pelosi's Daughter to Lead Young Democrats

For Just $13 Per Hour, Nancy Pelosi's Daughter Will Teach You How To Lead The Public​Nancy Pelosi may no longer count herself the leader of Old Democrats -- thanks to an election that ceded the House to Republicans. But her family today captured leadership of the Young Democrats.The House minorit ... More >>

California Economy Among Nation's Worst, Study Claims

Our new state seal ... or piggy?​The bad news for California: A recently released study named the Golden State's "economic outlook" to be the fifth-worst in the nation. The good news: There's always Illinois, New Jersey, Vermont and New York. Sucks to be them! Taking stock of California and surmis ... More >>

The Humane Society and big agriculture slug it out over animal rights

Voice of 511 Often Calls Himself

This is the fellow telling you where to go on 511 -- Bob Hesse​Halfway through a phone interview with Bob Hesse, we just can't help it anymore. It's just too much of a trip. Here we are talking to the voice of 511 -- and he understands what we're saying. None of those "I didn't get that," or "I mi ... More >>

Got Stress? List of Most and Least 'Stressed' Counties Updated -- S.F. Makes Neither.

Dorothea LangeYes, San Francisco's economic 'stress levels' have been worse...​If you needed a statistical analysis to back up your gut feeling, here it is: San Francisco ain't such a bad place to be. At least that's what the Associated Press' Economic Stress Index reported on Monday. The index -- ... More >>

Palin's Palm: What Pearls of Wisdom Lie Within?

It takes guts to criticize the president for using teleprompters while taking advantage of the manual version on the end of your wrist. But, then, Sarah Palin certainly has plenty of guts (seriously -- they've run out of refrigerator space. Todd had a field day out on the last hunting expedition). A ... More >>

Toilet Economics: Why Has Cost Per Restroom Jumped $53K Since '08?

Jim HerdThe price tag for this john in the Panhandle exceeded $531,000​Last week, via a series of toilet-related double-entendres, the Chronicle announced that the city's restroom commission -- yes, such a thing exists -- was ready to begin spending $7.2 million to renovate or replace 19 of the ci ... More >>

Top 10 Onstage Gaffes of 2009

We'll admit there's more than a little schadenfreude going on in this list of the best onstage gaffes of 2009. But why else would Al Gore have invented YouTube if not to feed our obsessive need to see celebrities get taken down a peg? Here with, our favorite of the year's music-related missteps, cau ... More >>

Few Show For California Redwoods' Football Opener -- But Fans Still Manage to Have Fun (Legally and Illegally)

Jim HerdThere is grandeur in this view of life...​Text by Joe Eskenazi. Gorgeous photos by Jim Herd. In the many months between when we first reported the inception of the San Francisco-based United Football League up to the moment we wandered into a largely abandoned AT&T Park for the Saturda ... More >>

Tree-Huggers, Meet Your Redwoods! Fledgling San Francisco Football Team Signs 31 Guys ... You Likely Never Heard Of.

Joe EskenaziWho is man enough to wear this jersey?​Jerry Seinfeld once noted that, due to rampant player turnover, sports fans are "basically rooting for clothing." If so, that's bad news for any would-be fans of the fledgling United Football League's California Redwoods (I christen them "Tree-Hug ... More >>

Art & Soul Organizer Explains What Happened To This Year's Festival

You Know You Want This, Oakland: Shawn Colvin​ Earlier this week I wrote about discovering that Oakland's Art & Soul Festival--which happens August 15 & 16--had managed to almost completely ignore the youthful 16-35 demographic with its bookings for this year. There's no live hip-hop, ind ... More >>

If Clergywomen Beat the Gong For an Antidemocratic, Pro-Union Bill and Dianne Feinstein Isn't There To Hear It...

Three wishes, Dianne!If Sen. Dianne Feinstein is susceptible to gong-accompanied incantations, then opponents of the union-bolstering bill currently wending its way through the U.S. Congress had best take warning.Noon today marked the end of a 24-hour vigil organized by local labor groups to s ... More >>

The Audacity of (No) Hope: Cindy Sheehan's Quixotic Quest

Nader and Gonzalez Stump in Marin

Last Night: Tobias Wolff at the SF LGBT Community Center

What the Controller Saw

Breaking News: Ward H. Bushee Replaces Embattled San Francisco Chronicle EIC Phil Bronstein

DethKlok to Destroy DESTROYS UC Berkeley in Bloody Surge of Destructive Destruction

Wide Open Spaces

Sean Penn delivers a soulful road movie and refuses to define his subject

KRON's Last Gasp

How a once-proud San Francisco television station became ground zero in the nation's most controversial experiment in local TV news.

Hipster San Diego

It's not all surf and silicone in America's Finest City

Hear This

Simon Finn's wacky '70s Brit-folk gets a second chance; the Album Leaf soaks the Independent in psychedelic ambience

Yo Soy Centroamericano

Why vote Kerry? Exhibit No. 1: George W. Bush has shamelessly hired the dangerous figures behind the Iran-Contra Affair into senior diplomatic posts.

Sex, Lies, and Audiotape

Jeff Fare and the Paradise Boys may be S.F.'s best hope for electro-rock success

American Dream

Two local filmmakers are busier than ever shooting reality shows for NBC and HBO

Death of a Death School

The 72-year-old San Francisco College of Mortuary Science -- perhaps the country's premier institution of funeral service education -- has its last graduation and moves (gulp) into the great beyond

The Spybots Among Us

How the NSA tracks terrorists in the United States through the Internet

Reel World

Oakland's Black Cinema Café screens challenging films for African-American professionals

Camp WinanObie

Playwrights go to camp

South to the Future

Community or Crime Syndicate? Feds bust online trading scheme

Letters

Censorship Begins at Home, Aww! Dog Bites Blushes, Nursing Home Neglect, On the SFUSD Chain Gang, Informed Faith, Rave Purity

Spy vs Spite

The Clinton administration has praised the Anti-Defamation League for helping shield kids from Internet hate. But should a group that spied on thousands of Californians be allowed to police the Web?

The Man Who Came to Dinner

James Cromwell

Night + Day

A Tree Grows in Tennessee

Night Crawler

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

Night + Day

The President of Oz

Logic Boards, Not Blackboards

The schools' low-wire act leaves students dangling

Genderation X

You can change your body with surgery and hormones, but what happens after that might surprise you