A cannister sat in the garage. We added to its contents gingerly, wondering if black widows saw nesting possibilities among discarded household batteries. We didn't know quite to expect last weekend when we hauled the batteries, expended fluorescent lights and dried acrylic paint tubes to Fresno County's semi-annual residential waste drop-off. I ...

Been inside jail twice -- best kind of visits -- before one opened in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the 1970s and before Fresno's ''mail jail'' opened in 1989. Antiseptic and eerie. Heard one Fresno County supervisor say a few years ago that all jail food should be concocted into a single biscuit, and that inmates should be forced to pedal bicycles that ...

Back in the days of Charles Dickens, people were tossed into prison for unpaid debts. And, illogically, they were forced to stay there until somebody came up with the money. Just how many people do you think are being held in the Fresno County Jail for an unpaid traffic ticket? I'm thinking not a one. However, the possibility of filling an ...