Shaping mud into adobe bricks was brought to the Americas by the Spanish, who had learned it from the Moors. But adobe was a material Pueblo culture had worked with before, although not in the efficient brick form.

Pessimists! Like the poor, they’re always with us. When people started to promote the notion of an Oceanside Museum of Art about five years ago, James Pahl, director of that museum today, recalls, “About half …

"People put stuff in your drinks,” said Angela, a topless dancer with Jagger lips and Parton breasts. “It happened to me once. It wasn’t enough to knock me out, but I could tell something happened.” …

"The Japanese were literally dying in the streets from hunger. MacArthur commandeered all the food that had been stored up but never used for the invasion of Kyushu, and he turned it over to the Japanese people.”

Brian Bilbray has no doubts: It's time to send in the troops. All along the border. "We need to send a very clear message, almost in the tone of John Kennedy, when he said, 'We …

Citizen watchdog Mel Shapiro has won yet another court battle in his never-ending crusade to pry open the obscure machinations of local government to public scrutiny. The latest victory came last week, after Shapiro and …

Dear Matt: Is McDonald's really the largest purchaser of cow eyeballs? -- Jason, Mission Beach Yeah, I know I said I'd had my fill of obvious urban legends. But with this tall tale I figured, …

Hey, Matt: I keep hearing what I think is a commercial in a foreign language on several of the local radio stations. It goes something like this. "Icky, socky, ramey, afamey, Baja California, Mexico." What …

Dear Matt A: Have you ever heard of rats chewing the wiring in a car engine? Rats are eating my car! What I'm wondering is, why are they doing it and how can I stop …

If you like big trees, Middle Peak is the place to go in San Diego County. Middle Peak's cone-shaped form is capped with some of the largest coniferous trees in the Cuyamaca Mountains and in …

When it was announced two weeks ago that John Moores had pledged $20 million toward construction of a $75 million cancer-research center at the University of California San Diego, Los Angeles Times reporter Tony Perry …

“We’re the number-one nursery county in the nation. The acreage hasn’t gone down. If an acre disappears on the coast, it pops up somewhere else; for instance. It’s now San Marcos, Twin Oaks Valley, Fallbrook, Valley Center.”

“She’s contracting every seven minutes and liquid is coming out.” It was a Sunday morning in early March, and I was the doctor on call for family practice and pregnancy-related matters. This call from a …

Joe Mazares, at 57, still has the trim, muscled body of the lightweight boxer he once was. "I boxed," he tells me, "under the name 'Joey Vincent' during the late '60s and early '70s. Most …

On the evening of December 8, 1980, Kristy Mundt, a cashier at Vons, was relaxing in her Lemon Grove home, watching the Miami Dolphins play the New England Patriots at the Orange Bowl. When Howard …

The intrigue surrounding the relationship between city councilwoman Valerie Stallings and the Padres grew last week with the release of telephone records from Stallings's office in response to a California Public Records Act request. According …

Dear Matt: Every once in a while I run across a rather cryptic notation, this being a "CE" inscribed on a product in a rather curly, Phoenician-type script. I've seen this on everything from Vuarnet …

Hey, Matt: In newspaper ads for television sets I often see, in tiny print, "simulated picture" or something to that effect. Is there some obscure consumer law that requires the notation? -- Verve, the Net …

Born of snow-fed rivulets, the many tributaries of the East Fork San Gabriel River gather together to form one of the liveliest mountain streams in the San Gabriel Mountains. At a spot called "the Narrows" …

I took Gabe’s hand in mine. “Thank you, Gabe, for all the joy you’ve given me,” I said. “I’m so grateful to have had you. I’m so proud of you. And I love you so much.”

“It’s not against the law for Americans to travel to Cuba. It’s just illegal to spend any money on Cuban businesses,” Michael Dessen says, laughing. Dessen, trombonist with local avant-jazz band Cosmologic, is talking about …

“That’s the value of a brand. They’ve got the domain name.” Like MP3.com’s Michael Robertson, James Gambale runs a San Diego-based Internet music-distribution company. But unlike Robertson, Gambale has a much harder task to bring …

For some people, charity begins someplace else -- anywhere but home. As children, Joy Warren and Roberta Arredondo found it at San Diego County's Health and Human Services Agency when their parents could not properly …

The brown-robed monk leads the way down into the crypt. "In 1791 the Mission of Santo Tomás de Aquino was founded by Dominican friars, south of Ensenada. Along with the mission, they brought grape vines...." …

The former minister of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church has been put on trial by the national Presbyterian Church for allegedly committing "sexual abuse" and "misuse of his office and position" in connection with his involvement …

Dear Matthew Alice: Every time I go through the airport metal detector, the buzzer goes off and I am taken aside and checked by a hand detector. I am ordered to empty my pockets, which …

Dear Matt: Please help us. A die-hard baseball fan and I have a dispute to settle, and we know only you (and the elves) can help. How many players have played major-league baseball since the …

Dear Matt: I have read that ancient Egyptians circumcised slaves. Moses kept the practice to remind Hebrews of that episode. I have also read that Egyptian rulers practiced the same rite. Are you knowledgeable if …

“They were throwing up on the boat, and no one was there to clean it up,” said one employee of the Clear Channel radio group about a “Ships and Salsa” radio promotion April 21. Clear …

Send me a dime and I'll entertain you for life.” This blunt supplication just about sums up the purpose of Justin Duke’s website. Justin, 21, is from El Cajon and, in his own words, “flat …

Starting from the spacious Pine Creek Trailhead outside Pine Valley, the Secret Canyon Trail weaves and bobs its way along the canyon of Pine Valley Creek, finally emerging some 15 miles later at Horsethief Canyon, …

Beth at the snack bar asked me if I wanted butter on it and I said sure. Turns out, I think it was butter flavoring, which is really some kind of petroleum product, and I got a headache, which did not put me in the mood for comments like “I hope you didn’t put salt on that. I think we’ve had enough problems in the blood pressure department, don’t you? Is that butter? Well, they’re your arteries.

Support your local junkie,” read the bumper sticker. “Ahh, Marion, do you have to?” said the police in Barrio Logan. The junkie is Marion Martinez, part-owner of Mini Truck Dismantling Center, what used to be …

l baked a chicken the night I left my wife. It was a chubby-thighed roasting hen I rubbed with olive oil and salt and hefted into a 500-degree oven where I left it to sizzle …

Is the Clinton administration developing a conscience on border pollution? When Energy Secretary Bill Richardson comes to San Diego May 11 to host the energy conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, he will be …

At the Carl's Jr. on Clairemont and Burgener, Michelle is on top of everything. Conscious of every customer, she double-checks the cleanliness and efficiency of the staff. Although not the manager, the other employees treat …

Democratic state senator Steve Peace has been fighting hard for Western Water, formerly Yuba Natural Resources, the company once run by ex-felon Dick Silberman, one-time husband of San Diego mayor Susan Golding. Before Silberman went …

Vincent Price movies were always the best, I thought, at least at the drive-in. The Abominable Doctor Phibes or Theater of Blood. Billy Jack was good, too, at the drive-in,

Matthew: I like to fish Lake Hodges, and a pal told me that somewhere at the bottom of the lake there is a town that existed before they built the dam. Is this a fish …

Heymatt: I was at Office Depot the other day and felt like a fool for asking them where there "mice" were, as in a mouse for a computer. Is there a way to pluralize this, …

Dear Matt: Do convicts still make our license plates, or was that all a big story told to us by our mothers? -- Charlie B., San Diego I see the cars a-comin', Rollin' 'round the …

The extravagantly lush Cold Creek Canyon Preserve is a crown jewel set in the patchwork of public lands known as the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The preserve lies in a steep, north-facing bowl …