When Tania Schweig decided to become an orthodox Jew, she didn't expect that many of her faith's traditions would make her lifestyle so cutting edge.

Peggy Hansen puts out a feeder to please her local feathered friends, but keeping everybody happy turns out to be not so simple.

A mentally ill man is removed from a public library by the police — and the ugly scene leaves Jocelyn Wiener with difficult questions.

Anne Stuhldreher's mom suffered silently while undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma, until a speech by Maria Shriver made it possible for her to share her fear and pain with her daughter.

Golf writer Gerry Stratford argues that saving Sharp Park is about saving not just a golf course, but also an experience valuable to people from many walks of life.

They say you're only as old as you feel. Richard Friedlander knows that's a bunch of baloney.

More and more towns and cities are encouraging — or ordering — their residents to compost. Fern Burch has some tips for how to get started.

Julie Turjoman's daughter was well prepared for college far from home, except when it came to dealing with her health care.

For Brian Dinday, abalone diving is dangerous and challenging — but its compelling thrills are about much more than abalone.

Carol Arnold heads for Zion National Park where her experience of the wild is tempered by prerecorded guides, bus tours and people, lot and lots of people.

Changing your name isn't easy and it isn't cheap. But for Sho Sho Smith, it was worth every inconvenience.

When she immigrated to this country, Youth Radio's Denise Tejada was taught relentlessly by her father about saving, credit and real estate. Now, at 20 years old, she's bought her own home.

It's been a year since America elected its first African American president, and Brenda Payton says the country is still figuring out how to deal with it.

The stock market skips above and below the 10,000 mark, but Bob Goldman wonders why investors attach so much meaning to a number that doesn't mean much.

To Lewis Heathcote, California's referendum-soaked direct democracy means that a constitutional convention to cure what ails state governance is more likely to be a Trojan War than an Age of Aquarius.

How did a Celtic celebration of New Year's Day become our modern Halloween? Michael Ellis has the answer.

When John Mathias established a small arts scholarship, he didn't realize that perhaps its biggest beneficiary would be himself.

Socialism isn't usually associated with Americanism, unless, as history teacher Josh Gnass notes, you happen to be the author of the Pledge of Allegiance.

There's a spot on Irving Street in the Inner Sunset where you're sure to find street musicians. Katherine Field-Rothschild's family taught her never to just walk on by the music.

To some people time is a fact. To Jessica O'Dwyer, who doesn't have a single clock or watch keeping the same time, it's a little more complicated than that.