Columnists

I spent over four hours working on this week’s column, but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. When this happens, I send it to friends whose opinions I respect. -more-

This is not an owl column per se, but it was inspired by a recent conversation with an owl person: Maggie Rufo of the Hungry Owl Project, who brought a barn owl named Wookie to a Keep Barn Owls in Berkeley event. We were talking about barn owl diets, and Rufo mentioned finding a lot of Jerusalem cricket remains in the nests she monitors. -more-

In December, the New York Times revealed that the Bush administration has been eavesdropping on our phone calls, by means of National Security Agency computer systems, without a court order. Although the exact nature of the surveillance is highly classified, it appears that the White House has gone on a massive “fishing trip”—one that invades the privacy of thousands of ordinary Americans. This article considers the pragmatics of Administration eavesdropping—why we should care about it. -more-

As expected—or feared, depending on your point of view—Pennsylvania Congressmember John Murtha is rapidly becoming one of the Democratic Party’s de facto spokespersons on defense policy. That may be a good thing for centrist Democrats who don’t want to get beat by our Republican friends with the “soft on defense” stick in another election. But where does it leave progressives? -more-

Thornhill Nursery is a bit out of the way, not so much in distance from Berkeley, but tucked away on Thornhill Drive in the Oakland Hills. It’s most easily accessible from the freeway, if you don’t mind a little daring on- and off-ramp dodge’em game. Take the Thornhill Drive exit, drive on past the entrance to the Foothill business district and through a tiny patch of school and mini-mall on Thornhill. Keep it slow—you ought to anyway; the sidewalks are narrow and foot traffic can be a tad chaotic and full of rompity schoolkids. The nursery’s not hard to see once you get to its block, and the parking area, though small, is handy on the right. -more-

It has often occurred to me how primitive our houses are for a people who can look to the edges of the universe and plumb the living paths of bozons and muons. They’re not exactly mud huts but they are so simple that you’d think we were still fighting wars with guns and killing each other with bombs. Oh wait. Sorry. Anyway, if you look at the way in which our houses are built, you might think that we’d missed the U-boat altogether. -more-