A new report by a Virginia-based company suggests that bird droppings on your car may not be as random as you might believe. The report is based on survey results and ornithological research. Writing for the Gizmodo Newsletter, Gayoung Lee states that the report’s conclusions “reveal a mix of expected yet surprising insights into the relationship between avian bowel activity and vehicle appearance.” The “Bird Dropping Report” was published by Alan’s Factory Outlet and it con

Harlan Coben is a best-selling author whose previous novel, The Stranger, has been the basis for a Netflix series.According to the cover of The Woods (2007, 404 pages in both hardback and softback), this work, too, is coming to Netflix.Coben’s novels have been translated into 45 languages and he’s sold more than 75 million copies of his mystery/thrillers worldwide.He’s on the short list of my favorite contemporary authors. In The Woods, Paul Copeland, prosecutor for the Distr

Our national government and corporate titans rob the poor to feed the rich. We vote for politicians who fail us. Working-class Americans feel left behind. We struggle to recover from a worldwide pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, shuttered small businesses, and divided communities with anger and distrust. Small men threaten war. Gun violence headlines our newspapers. Racism infects hearts and minds. Snake oil salesmen take advantage of religious believe

Let there be no mistake about it: The reduction in the price of certain weight control and reduction drugs that was negotiated by Mr. Trump is another gift to the well-to-do. Specifically, the drugs in question are Zepbound, a product of Eli Lilly, and Ozempic and Wegovy, offered by Novo Nordisk. The price of these drugs will be lowered for eligible patients on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as for those who choose to use the TrumpRx website. According to Jennifer Jacobs, re

I’m not sure if Sandra Brown knows how to write a novel without at least one steamy sex scene. She is the counterpoint to John Grisham who probably couldn’t write a sex scene if his life depended upon it. But the thing that gets me about Sandra Brown is that she writes great novels, wonderful plots, believable characters. I’ve read many of her books, and find the blow-by-blow scenes of carnal intimacy to be irrelevant. After I finished a few of her novels, I learned to spot t

Well, the elections didn’t go the way I had hoped, but they did go the way I thought. Proposition 50 was a given, or a Gavin. California voters are predictable. East Coast, however, is a misunderstanding. They think the “Robin Hood” theory is a form of government. Socialism and Communism is a smoke screen. Kinda like hemp. It makes you feel good for a short time.

Let me say at the outset that I hate smartphones. But, I’m not a complete technophobe. I’ve had computers for 45 or more years. My hybrid car probably has more embedded computers than I have functioning neurons in my brain. And when I get ready to forward this column to the newspaper, I’ll do so via email. Moreover, I have a lifetime credential to teach “Computers and Related Technologies” at the college level, and did so from 1980 until 1984 when the DEC PDP-1170, which was

This year’s Retired Teachers Week, November 2-8, is especially meaningful. After decades of advocacy, retired educators finally achieved fairness when the Social Security Fairness Act was signed into law in January. This historic victory repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset policies that had unfairly reduced the earned benefits of retired teachers and other public servants. The California Retired Teachers Association (CalRTA) was proud to