Gizella Sabo took the news hard. “I survived Auschwitz,” she said, smashing that bitter noun to smithereens. “I came out alive from that place. And for what?” she demanded. “For this?” This had turned out …

The next week, I met Mrs. Ferguson, aged 82, during Mike’s regular Thursday visit to Sun City Gardens, a triangle of blue-carpeted buildings by the freeway that overlooks, on three sides, the hot suburban desert.

Four months. Four months since I left the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, a little surprised that they were letting me just leave with this newborn, half expecting some sort of institutional monitor to be sent …

Mattster: Being the designated dad in my family of six, I am usually too busy to watch the passing scenery during our local travels via the family wagon (actually it’s only a hatchback...). But my …

Matthew Alice: How do you go about changing the observed date of a holiday? My friends and I feel that Halloween should be observed on the last Saturday in October. That way children could go …

It takes a lot of work to drop out of the rat race if the escape route entails crossing 3000-plus miles of Pacific Ocean. Justask Ellie Goolkasian and David Hudson, most recently of Oceanside. Three …

If the bears had not ripped Fred Gilbert's arms off, he might never have made the connection with Maria Amparo 40 years later. The accident happened when he was a boy. He'd gone to see …

Well-connected observers say the next big controversy to hit city hall will involve the city's secret new lease agreement with Sea World. Officials in the city's real estate assets department say that a hush-hush copy …

If you are a woman therapist in your late 40s, about 5'7" (“but not too tall”), blond of hair, conservative in dress, self-assured, nurturing, non-flamboyant with a pleasant voice, I want to meet you. Not …

Matmail: Okay, now don 't give me any trouble about this. I kiss my cat. Not on the mouth (yuck!), on the head. She's a very loving affectionate cat. Bumps heads (the cat way of …

“But we still don’t know simple things. Like how many there are. How fast they grow. How long they live. We don’t know where the juveniles go. We don’t know even if [young gray whales] migrate.”

I did what I would have advised anyone to do. I said to my face in the bathroom mirror, a pale face made paler by the bathroom’s subaqueous light, “You’ve got to quit living on peanut butter.”

Matmail: I have heard that we humans only use 10 percent of our brains and that Einstein used 11 percent. Is this true, and where do they come up with these numbers? What would they …

Matt: Where did Certs get its name? — Rip Van Laer, P.B. I hope you’re grateful, Rip. Who else would take this question seriously? Warner-Lambert was pretty dumbfounded that we were wasting their time with …

In 1972, for example, only 4 permits were issued statewide for killing mountain lions that posed a threat to humans or livestock. Compare that with 1994 when 328 permits were issued and 121 were killed.

The cameras are there in the courtroom in the San Diego County Courthouse, but they are not yet rolling. Not for the Hispanic male who needs an interpreter to help him grab the gist of …

A friendly item by Union-Tribune columnist Diane Bell about pregnancies among the staff of Mayor Susan Golding has inspired a not-so-friendly anonymous hit by a group calling itself "City Moms." According to the October 7 …

Matmail: Exactly how big is Rosie O'Donnell's head? Why do the hairstylists on her boring show give her an even bigger head with their “big hair" stylin'? If you have been stumped, I'd settle for …

Last month, the United States government took the unprecedented step of placing Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and the State Department offered a $2 million reward. The government began …

Is more marijuana grown in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties than in Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and Del Norte counties? And do Mexican nationals produce close to 90 percent of San Diego County's crop? Yes …

Vern Robinson’s Little Pistol Pete, a 16 month – old, 1250-pound, largely black Maine-Anjou/Angus steer, stands on the clean concrete slab under the burning blue sky of an August day that is just beginning to …

Christy Scheck, on March 6, 1992, a Friday evening, walked into a bathroom in Southwood Psychiatric Center's Residential Treatment Center in Chula Vista (now called Bayview and under new management). Thirteen-year-old Scheck had been a …

A yet-to-air expose on child-resistant bottle caps by KNSD, San Diego s NBC owned-and-operated television station, has stirred up a tempest in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the station put …

“We have variously independently chosen a week of poems and worked collaboratively. All three of us read books and journals that we receive from publishers. We try to put poems together that hang together….”

Matthew: What lunatic designed the mortarboard, and why are people still wearing them in the 20th Century? — Gary in La Mesa We don’t have the lunatic’s name, but he sort of ripped off the …

1. The Vault If a photograph dies and goes to heaven, it might end up here in the breathable vault at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. The prospect for immortality is good, …

Dear Matthew Alice: From a perceptual point of view, the trip home from a destination always seems shorter. Anything to it? — Sugar Van Tassel, San Diego Definitely. Scientists have studied this phenomenon, and their …

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Moe Greenberg puts on his suit jacket without a word and drives to temple for the second time, this time alone. During the morning service, my father felt …

'Mexican Hit Man Laughs, Forgives Before Execution," headlines read the morning after the State of Virginia killed 26-year-old Mario Benjamin Murphy. "It's a good day to die," he was reported as saying when strapped to …

Legalize it, legalize it, being in America should be about being free/ Legalize it, legalize it, it's a basic right for you and me. First off, Norman "Kyoti" King has a CD out. Second, he's …

Last week, Mayor Susan Golding, who spends much of her time out of the city running for U.S. Senate these days, briefly returned to her old stomping grounds for an elaborately staged media event to …

Hillcrest dentist David Kennedy recently posed the following question to several friends with whom he was dining: What would you do if you knew that a toxic substance was going to be added to San …

He read for an hour. Then stopped. Still, he’d never looked up. People rose to their feet. Clapped. Clapped louder. All at once Schuyler looked up from the table into the faces that fell down before him.

Dear Matthew Alice: Why is it that when you dine in at a restaurant, the waiter leaves you with what is referred to as a check? Why is it not called a bill, since it's …

Matt: If you can avoid the obvious wise-guy answer, can you tell me how drugs got to be called “dope”? — No Dope, La Jolla We sure know our dope: early America, the Dutch word …

Matt Alice: I'm totally confused over this whole Escherichia coli ordeal I learned in microbiology that E. coli exists in our intestines. What's up with E coli 0157:H7? Where did it come from? How does …

Most things on television are moronic and violent, but these players aren't actors; the violence is real and we are invited to participate in the stands, in the parking lots, in our living rooms.

"San Diego is the right place to have this. It's a tourist town with naval history. It's like trying to have a steak house in Kansas City. You have to blow it for it not to work."

Mayor Susan Golding has filed a personal financial disclosure statement showing she has invested well in the pharmaceutical business. The mayor, who's seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, is required by Senate …

I have a new set of instructions from the research elves, communicated to me through a spokeself, who apparently lost a round of one-potato, two-potato. I have to warn them when there’s a word-origin question …

“If you have an office building, 1 story, 30 stories, or 80 stories, the owner wants to look forward to a profit. One way, if the economy is good in that market area — you can raise the rents.”