A lawsuit was filed in March of this year by five environmental groups — including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club — stating that overarching land-management plans prepared by the U.S. Forest …

In January 2005, Alan Inn bought 816 acres in Ocotillo Wells, smitten with the desert’s rugged beauty. A general contractor with experience ranging from residential remodeling to government projects, Inn planned to build a “wellness …

Daughters Are The Best That was a great piece of writing about your father (“Daddy’s Girls,” “Diary of a Diva,” July 3). It touched me greatly! I was choked up, and that doesn’t happen often. …

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have released updated lists of their so-called bundlers, fat cats who hit up their friends for the maximum amount of campaign contributions allowed by law. That can be as …

KPBS, the San Diego State University–owned public broadcasting operation that has been suffering financially of late, is looking for a new voice from the right. The website of the TV station and FM radio combination …

San Diego city attorney Mike Aguirre and Chargers owner Alex Spanos finally may have something in common. At loggerheads for years over Spanos’s attempts to build a new taxpayer-financed football stadium, Spanos and Aguirre have …

Thirty Years AgoIn ironic contrast, I find the embarrassing effort at achieving intellectualism exhibited by Duncan Shepherd in his film reviews distasteful and a real turn-off. Now, I’m not putting down intellectuals.— LETTERS: “MUNDANE MOURNING,” …

I’ve fought a decade-long battle to keep hairbrushes in the Kelly home. I’ll snatch a few into custody at the store, but once home, they go underground, never to be found again. The time has …

I tried to fit too much into one day. It started with a Padres game. Well, actually, a lunch and party at Petco Park for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and then a game. After the party …

When I free my body from its clothes, from all their buttons, belts, and laces, it seems to me that my soul takes a deeper, freer breath. — August Strindberg My arms were trapped above …

What are you reading? “Right now, I’m reading Prehospital Emergency Care. It’s the textbook I need to study to become an EMT. It’s actually interesting. Responding to people in need is something I get off …

The two most embarrassing elements of my existence are (1) I enjoy girl folk music, and (2) I occasionally wake up, still drunk from the night before, on the bedroom floors of complete strangers, reeking …

Pico Canyon cuts deeply into the rugged Santa Susana Mountains, a few miles south of the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park. The canyon is considered to be the birthplace of the oil industry in …

“I wish I’d known you were coming,” said Pastor Dan Slagle when I spoke with him after the service. If he had known, he could have warned me that part of the regular band was …

Monday, July 21, 2008, will be remembered as the day activist federal judges decided it was okay to force-feed pornography into the minds of elementary school children. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out …

In six weeks or so it will be nine years since I started this column in 1999. “TGIF” was the brainchild of senior editor Judith Moore, who died in 2006, just after publishing the critically …

The curtain rises at the Old Globe and vwa-lah! We’re in the majestic living room of a Victorian mansion. A bay-window seat, with nine-foot windows, overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge (we’re in San Francisco’s Marina …

Hey. Here it goes. The scalp. Prickling, breaking out in sweat beads. Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff. Tonight I stopped outside this big red-and-yellow sign on Garnet. “World Curry.” Hmm... Why not? I like …

It’s like that Bible story of Ruth and Naomi: “Whither thou goest, I will go.” Or that girl-group song of the ’60s: “I will follow him wherever he goes.” Change the last word of the …

RAMPAGE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF APOLINARIA LORENZANA (Part Five) Apolinaria Lorenzana lived for around 90 years. Born in Mexico City in the early 1790s, she died blind and indigent at Santa Barbara in 1884. …

When the members of Los Lonely Boys, a trio of brothers from West Texas, began writing songs, they didn’t stray far from their roots. It would be fair to assume that when they became a …

It was a few years ago when a friend told me about a band called Comets on Fire. I would hear other descriptions of them later — most labeling them as “heavy psych” — but …

“My checkered past includes skippering a tugboat on the San Francisco Bay and sinking boats as a brown-water river sailor with the Vietnamese Navy,” says blues singer/guitarist Jeffrey Joe Morin. “As soon as I left …

“I grew up on a farm in Cole Camp, Missouri. I enjoyed watching amateur rodeos, but my family wasn’t a rodeo family,” says professional bull rider Matt Bohon. “I’d see bareback riding, bucking horses, calf …

When the smoke clears, The Dark Knight should emerge as just another comic-book movie, the fourth of the summer (Hancock wasn’t based on a comic book too, was it?), avowedly “darker” than the others, certainly …

In 1930, the San Diego yellow pages were as yellow as an egg yolk, the white pages listed the occupation of every customer, and the modern Woodmen of America met every Wednesday at Germania Hall. …

Artist: Lanterns Song: “Knives Gleam” (from myspace.com/wearelanterns) Heard By: Katie Zangaro, North Park It had a light and easy enough sound to where anyone can get into them. I would consider it indie rock. It …

It’s been almost a year since James Benham, a former Navy SEAL, was found guilty of two felony counts of assault. He’s still yet to be sentenced for those crimes and two misdemeanor counts related …

Singer/guitarist John McLeod designs bikinis. “Five years ago I was designing men’s clothes. My girlfriend at the time was a model who was really skinny. She had a hard time finding a bikini that fit …

Two well-connected music-biz professionals say they have been told that the local House of Blues may be in trouble. “I heard that if they don’t have a rapid turnaround [in business] by March they might …

The events of September 11, 2001, precipitated a career change for Carla Sweet, who was at the time a Navy doctor. Outraged, and “disgusted with the resultant Iraq War,” Sweet became a novice filmmaker. In …

Before hip-hop duo Gnarls Barkley plays the Infield Stage at the Del Mar Racetrack on Saturday, July 26, the venue is required to purchase one million dollars of insurance “to cover all claims, liabilities and/or …

Heymatt: My home-office chair is missing its back, and I nearly fell out of it this morning, giving me the “butterflies.” While the vision of a tiny jar full of butterflies fluttered through my head, …

I met Patti LaBelle after a concert in the late ’80s here in San Diego at the Sports Arena. She was playing with Luther Vandross. Her hair was mindblowing: it swept straight up and flared …

Members of the Goodwin clan, Fourth of July, 1923. That’s Charles holding up his straw hat. He had a clothes-cleaning and dyeing business on 16th Street, downtown. Among his children were two boys...one named Odie, …

Name: Dick Vegas Age: 44 (“...and a whole lot more.”) Occupation: Actor Lives In: Linda Vista Surfing: O.B. Jetty Pre-Surf Music: Led Zeppelin “I came out here 22 years ago, and a bunch of my …

Rancho Santa Fe’s John Eggemeyer III gets reams of favorable publicity for buying, rehabilitating, and flipping small banks. But now the stock market is flipping the bird at his prize, the newly renamed PacWest Bancorp, …

Five residents of Greater Golden Hill stood outside the clubhouse at the Balboa Park Golf Course on July 21. Some held green mailers with handwritten notes scribbled on both sides of the page. Resident Jim …