Crosscurrents

Frustrated by cuts to the judiciary system, some Bay Area courts are pushing for legislation that would transfer control of the system's $3 billion budget from a central bureaucracy to lawmakers and local trial judges. The California Assembly votes today on the measure... 

Everything you always wanted to know about bicycles but were afraid to ask!

In a case of history repeating itself, Caltrans worker Duane Wiles was fired, then rehired, then fired again for issues relating to “incompetence, insubordination, and dishonesty,” and most recently, falsifying data in tests of the safety and integrity of freeway structures. This time, however, the settlement agreement with Caltrans is allowing Wiles to resign instead of having his issues publicly aired…

No, jazz legend Coleman Hawkins is not from the Bay Area, and he’s not back from the dead. But you’ll learn about him, and other jazz greats, in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, “A Great Day in Harlem,” which you can see at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco on Sunday (January 29).

The program also includes live jazz from Jimmy Ryan’s Balboa Be-Bop Band, both before the film, and then again after.

Will Durst here, with a few words on Barack Obama's third, and possibly last, State of the Union address. Although it's an election year, the administration went out of its way to reinforce that this was not a campaign speech, just a report on the progress being made. Apparently, the state of the union is pretty much exactly what we thought it was: good, getting better, but not quite great. Oh, it's definitely going to be great someday, because America has been great before and we will be great again soon. How soon? Well, that's the question. Tomorrow? Next month? 2014?