Hank Stuever: We live in the age of extreme niche fandom. Even more extreme is the quibbling.
I was commanded by Paramount's publicists -- the Legion of Women With Clipboards -- to come alone to an advance, clandestine screening of "Star Trek" a couple of weeks ago. I expected the theater to be sadly semi-private, with just a few entertainment writers and all those empty chairs. But when I got there, it was packed with serious Trekkers who had all been there for hours and hours (of course they had), summoned by some magic e-mail. Really, they have been there for 43 years -- waiting, watching, assessing, obsessing. The night was at once joyful and as serious as a heart attack.
Michael Brick: SACRAMENTO — It was billed as an invasion. On a chartered tour bus carrying two dozen fighters, promoters of the wrestling style known as lucha libre rode through California last month to stage matches replete with the colorful masks, sexual slapstick and frenetic, acrobatic fighting style that have propelled their sport to rival soccer for popularity in Mexico. The headliners were long-haired, muscle-bound and handsome, promising crossover material for the American market.
But in the heart of the fight card, a deeper conflict played on the racial tensions and stereotypes of a downtrodden immigrant audience. Among the wrestlers, the vilest of the vile were the members of La Legíon Extranjera, the Foreign Legion, gringos who openly disparaged the spectators, their language and their country. The invasion, in this sense, referred to the chance for the Mexican heroes to drive out the Foreign Legion.
Lane DeGregory: Jim Moore still remembers the sweet smell of drugstore perfume, his birthday bike, a broken promise. But that's all he has left of his mom.
She disappeared 56 years ago. He never knew why.
Just after Christmas last year, his youngest grandson started grilling him. What happened? Where did she go?
His grandson is 13, the same age Moore was when he lost his mom.
Now Moore is 69. He had no answers. He wasn't sure where to start searching — or if he wanted to know.
At his home in Washington state, he logged onto Craigslist and clicked "Tampa Bay." He typed into the blank box:
Are you my mother?
Michael Kruse: Buddy Johnson feels most comfortable in restaurants. He visits four a day sometimes. The chatter and the clatter of cutlery offer the illusion that he's less alone. The restaurant he goes to most these days is BuddyFreddys, where the waitresses greet him by name and he eats for free. Sitting at his table, he can see the sign outside with his name on it, and inside, in a frame, his tiny blue and gold Cub Scout uniform hangs on the wall. "To this day," he said one afternoon this spring, "people still say, 'You're the Buddy of BuddyFreddys?' And I'm very proud of that."
This restaurant remains the site of his best success. It is also now his most reliable refuge.
For most of the last six years, up until November, when he was voted out as Hillsborough County's supervisor of elections, Buddy was in charge of an office that became notorious for botched elections and mismanaged budgets. His personal real estate deals were ill-advised, at best, and maybe illegal.
He has been called a horror and his own punchline. That's from the headlines. He has been called inattentive and incompetent, careless and unfocused, sneaky and paranoid. That's from some of the people who know him and have worked with him. He's also been called affable and intelligent and friendly and winsome. Same people.
Buddy Johnson says he is who he has always been.
"At the end of the day," he said, "I'm a salesman."
The product never changes. The product is Buddy.
Adam Bosch: BLOOMINGBURG — A 56-year-old ironworker shot his wife, barricaded himself inside the dream house he built and refused to answer telephone calls from police negotiators during a nine-hour standoff Saturday.
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