Different drum: Seven decades of Jerry Brown photos
Jerry Brown is the horror movie villain of American politics, and I mean that as a compliment. Every time you think he’s dead and buried, he pops up three years later seemingly unscathed. You remember...
View ArticleQ&A: Jerry Brown answers our baldness questions
Is there ever a good time to ask the bald governor of your state whether he considered a hairpiece? Probably not. But we saw an opportunity, and went for it. The result is the most unusual Q&A in...
View ArticleNegotiation update! I will never forgive BART for any of this
I had this crazy fever dream early this morning. It happened after waking up at 5:23 a.m., as I grabbed blindly at my iPhone to learn how the hell I’d be getting to work this week. In my dream, all...
View ArticleMan writes dog: Breaking governor’s office news from Sutter Brown
So you study hard, go to a good journalism college, become editor of the school paper, then find an internship at a small local newspaper that includes shoplifting offenses in the crime blotter. You...
View ArticleMartin Luther King Jr. at U.C. Berkeley … are you in these photos?
Martin Luther King Jr.’s May 17, 1967, speech at U.C. Berkeley wasn’t announced beforehand in the Chronicle. The day-after coverage was buried on Page 8 of the newspaper, with more attention given to...
View ArticleSeven ironic post-arrest Leland Yee press releases
There’s a point after reading the 1,100th Leland Yee press release that the words start to run together, in a blur of bragging award acceptance, sanctimonious video game manufacturer shaming and C-list...
View ArticleMartin Luther King Jr’s 1967 U.C. Berkeley speech, revisited in today’s...
I started rummaging through the San Francisco Chronicle archives about five years ago, to find visual proof that it snowed in the Bay Area in 1976. It quickly became apparent that I could spend the...
View ArticleIn 1964, a Confederate flag flew in front of SF City Hall
As I spend the year writing about 150 years of history in San Francisco, there are two things that seem to be most shocking to younger residents and transplants: 1) Not that long ago, there used to be...
View ArticleAn important message to 2015 Ed Lee, from 1977 Ed Lee …
“It’s tense. The kids are scared. The women are going out of their way not to appear around the (housing) project late at night. … We’re asking only that the housing authorities be flexible and...
View ArticleHow did SF’s police station get the name “Hall of Justice”?
My first journalism job in San Francisco was a brief stint in the police headquarters at 7th and Bryant streets. I was a courtroom and cops reporter for the Examiner, working on the opposite side of...
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