Looking To Win Votes? Change Your (Chinese) Name

One of every five residents of San Francisco is Chinese-American. And many don’t read English, which means city election ballots have to be translated into Chinese. That presents an opportunity for the politicians doing the translating. Take last November’s ballot from one if the city’s districts. Michael Nava was running for Superior Court Judge; his [...]

Another Sad Chapter In Edwards’ Fall From Grace

Just about everyone who was out in North Carolina’s capital, Raleigh, on Friday night was painfully aware of John Edwards’ indictment on federal charges that he violated campaign finance laws. On their way to dinner, Gay Bradley and Jerry Riveros said the news puts an official stamp on their feelings of disappointment. “He seemed really [...]

To Hyundai’s Rivals: Prepare For A Bumpy Night

The big winner in the auto industry in the last few months has been the Korean automaker Hyundai. Last month, while car sales stalled, Hyundai had its biggest month ever in the U.S., selling nearly 60,000 autos. Analysts point to Hyundai’s success as a sign of the increasingly competitive nature of the U.S. car market. [...]

Music Industry’s Blessing Lifts Hopes For iCloud

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will come back from medical leave to announce a new music service at the company’s annual developers conference on Monday. The service will be called iCloud, and it’s rumored to have been in the works for the last year. All indications are that, for the first time, the major record labels [...]

Your Health Podcast: A Nutritious Plate And Foreign Accent Syndrome

On this week’s podcast, we have an intriguing tale of a woman who developed a rare condition called foreign accent syndrome that’s usually caused by an injury to the part of the brain that controls speech. We also talked about a big change in the way the government gets its message out about what makes [...]

‘Farishta’: Afghan Fiction From The Foreign Service

Like many reporters, Foreign Service officers overseas often say they have a novel in their heads that they’ve been trying to write for years. Patricia McArdle actually wrote hers. A retired Foreign Service officer who has served in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, it was McArdle’s final posting in northern Afghanistan that served [...]

Any Way You Stack It, $14.3 Trillion Is A Mind-Bender

The U.S. government is $14.3 trillion in debt. When we first neared the trillion-dollar mark in 1981, President Ronald Reagan said that the height of our debt amounted to a stack of $1,000 bills about 67 miles high. That’s somewhere in the thermosphere. Today, that pile of $1,000 bills would be floating in space, more [...]

U.S.: To Resolve Conflict, Yemen’s President Must Go

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was blunt this week, saying the ongoing conflict in Yemen won’t be over until President Ali Abdullah Saleh accepts the transition plans drawn up by Gulf states. “President Saleh was given a very good offer that we strongly backed. And, you know, we cannot expect this conflict to end unless [...]

Thomas Jefferson And The Cha Cha Slide

There’s a meet-up planned at the Jefferson Memorial today. People are invited to bring their own music, listen to it on earbuds, and dance. I’m not sure the meet-up began as a protest. It’s become one now. In May, an appeals court ruled that the U-S Park Police were right to arrest a woman named [...]