How do you deal with what you read and learn in your local newspaper? My household has subscribed to the San Francisco Chronicle for years. For a while, one of my housemates also subscribed to The New York Times -- which I much prefered but found to be too expensive. I typically read The Chronicle over breakfast. If I'm out of the house for breakfast, I don't tend to read the paper that day -- the Chronicle is almost always a morning-only companion for me. I sometimes wonder whether this means that reading the Chronicle is mostly a waste of time -- like channel surfing or mindless web browsing.

Still, I learn stuff when I read the paper. And they certainly provoke various reactions in me.

Articles that make me think that I should watch my bank very closely: Banks defeat privacy bill yet again / Speier vows to put stricter measure on state ballot and Wells dishing out bank data

Article that makes me think that the current administration is really as bad as I have suspected:
E. J. Dionne's Framing the issue and the lastest column by Robert Scheer: "What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?" (no permalink yet)

An article that makes me want to organize a group of friends to go to the Oakland museums: Powerful glimpses of black history in Oakland exhibition

Something that helps me think about what I can do for the many homeless in Berkeley: John Carroll's Well, sure, a house can be a home, about the Berkeley Food and Housing Project

A techno-lust inducing piece: Handspring unveils Treo 600 handheld / Wireless device to be available in the fall

Forcing myself to respond to what I read, I hope, redeems some of my morning time. (But isn't it just enough that I have fun reading the Datebook?)