If you meet a swordsman in the road, show him your sword.But if you meet a man who is not a pigeon racer, do not show him your pigeon.— old Zen sayingOkay, say you spend …

The San Diego Union-Tribune harbors “unprofessional, childlike, head-in-the-sand attitudes toward events and ideas." The paper has "bad journalistic habits, plus [a] tendency to sound the bugle call to action whenever it feels its ideological tenets …

Dear Matthew Alice: My girlfriend and I got into an argument about eggs. I said that the narrow part of the egg is the bottom. She thinks that the fatter part of the egg is …

My library, which is more than a couple of thousand volumes, has been accumulated over a 35-year period. It’s the most diverse personal library that I’ve ever seen, and that includes the libraries of friends …

Matt: Okay, so I’m driving along. It could be Anytown USA. Sun is out. Gotta have the sun out. I’m wearing my shades. I notice that a lot of cars around me have these weird …

Dear Matthew Alice: Are there any saints in the Bible? I don’t recall reading about Saint Abraham or Saint Lot. A Catholic friend said that Peter was the first pope and thus the first person …

“I have always been interested in music.” says composer Ron Gillis, founder and artistic director of the San Diego Choral Artists. “As a kid I always walked around with tunes in my head. I thought …

Mr./Ms. Matthew/Alice: Perhaps you could resolve a lingering dispute between a friend and me. He insists that armadillos cross streams by holding their breath and walking along the bottom until they reach the other side. …

Dear Matthew Alice: In the movie Fargo, Margie’s husband, Norm, is painting in a competition for wildlife postage stamps. Is this something artists get paid for or work worth doing because of the honor of …

Al suggested I get into the nuclear field. It required a high score for entry and entailed a lot of training— more than two years — but would translate to a marketable skill in the civilian world.

What woke me was a hand over my face, over my mouth and nose: the pressure, the instinctive still-asleep panic of being unable to breathe; someone’s hands yanking my arms over my head; a body on mine, knees crushing my chest and stomach.

"The universe is a bar," Buck says between swigs of beer, in one of those lines that led the late poet William Stafford to observe, "Everyone wanders into poetry sometimes." If Buck hadn’t just told …

To: Matmail: The City of San Diego owns how many golf balls? — A. Pismo Clam, La Jolla Okay, I’ll bite. My answer is zero, but something tells me Senor Clam is already preparing his …

Dear Mat: Since even a minute quantity of somebody’s blood can be analyzed to determine the person’s DNA, what happens when somebody’s entire blood has been replaced by someone else’s blood during a transfusion? — …

Dear Matthew Alice: I lived in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. One of the things that I remember about the place is that there were underground coal fires that had been burning for years. Have they …

Dear Matthew: A cocktail waitress at Milligan’s told me that a maraschino cherry will stay in your stomach for four years. Something to do with the preservatives. This seems unlikely, at best, but it raises …

Five a.m., and the sounds of sleeping fill the house. Dona Juana rises first, climbing from the slumping bed as Don Manuel snores lightly, the swollen knuckles on his left hand glistening in the dull …

Last December, my wife and I successfully completed the adoption of a baby boy from an Eastern Bloc country. We have both decided that he is officially the cutest child in the entire world. In …

Matt: I just read somewhere that California has an official state dance, the Western Swing. Can this be possible? — M.J., San Diego In Sacramento, all things are possible. But right at the top, to …

Mr. Alice: When and where did the displaying of one’s middle finger to another originate, AND is there an “official” or “proper” name for the gesture, AND how did it come to represent expressions of …