Cautionary Tale

At 3 a.m. on July 2, 1993, Steve Sposato sat down in his darkened living room to write, by hand, a letter to the president of the United States. His life had just been shattered. Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semiautomatic weapons had gone on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman's motive would remain forever a mystery. Among the slain: Steve's wife, 30-year-old Jody Jones Sposato, the mother of...

Three California boys were arrested Thursday in connection with the sexual assault of a girl who later committed suicide, reports the Associated Press : "After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious," [family attorney Robert Allard]...

Three California boys were arrested Thursday in connection with the sexual assault of a girl who later committed suicide, reports the Associated Press : "After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious," [family attorney Robert Allard]...

Retail disasters come in different forms. Walk into a J.C. Penney store these days, and you're likely to see an appealing work in progress, with lovely ­signage, spiffy layouts and popular brand-name merchandise beautifully displayed. It shouts, "I'm soooo trendy. " Walk into a Sears or a Kmart, and you're likely to see the department store equivalent of tumbleweeds: scuffed floors and indifferent merchandise plopped sloppily onto tables and shelves amid a dingy atmosphere. It wheezes, "Time has passed me by. " But these...

As Washington buzzes about yet another restart for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, I have been reading a book that summarizes the past 44 years of botched peacemaking, blown opportunities and, sometimes, sheer folly. The book is a posthumous memoir by Jack O'Connell, a former CIA operative who was for many years King Hussein's "case officer" in Jordan. Yes, you read that right: When O'Connell was station chief in Amman from 1963 to 1971, he dropped off monthly envelopes of cash at the palace as part of a long-running CIA covert action...

On the Internet, the old saying goes, nobody knows you're a dog — which, when it comes to finding love, can be good or bad. On Valentine's Day , I wrote about the interesting ways various couples met — the blind dates, the chance encounters, the silly serendipity. As I was pulling it together, I wondered: Now that so many people meet online, will such stories be told in the future? Will fathers say to their children, "I met Mommy when we shared an umbrella in a downpour in Paris"?

Angered by what she thought was shoddy work on her home, Fairfax resident Jane Perez did what has become the go-to form of retail vengeance in the Internet age: She logged on to Yelp and posted scathing reviews of the D.C. firm that did the job. Perez ticked off a list of accusations, including damage to her home, an invoice for work the contractor did not perform and jewelry that disappeared. She closed one post by fuming, "Bottom line do not put yourself through this nightmare of a contractor.

C'mon, admit it: You wish you were one of Ina Garten's friends. They mix cosmopolitans and bring her treats, appearing on her Emmy award-winning cooking show and in the pages of her cookbooks. And they sure eat well. No matter. She's practically offering the keys to her kingdom in her eighth book, " Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust " (Clarkson Potter, 2012; $35; about 100 recipes). In addition to the standard Cocktails and Starters and chapters, Garten devotes one to lunchtime...

In a last-ditch effort to save the business his mother created 35 years ago, Nick Kassman tried to borrow against the equity in his home. The bank rejected his requests. Maybe it was for the best, Kassman now says. At least he still has a house. Later this year, Kassman will shut the doors to Chevy Chase Bridal, the last remnant of his mother's clothing boutique that has been a staple of Washington fashion since 1977. Like many small-business owners, he said he found it difficult to stay afloat...

A D.C. Superior Court judge on Friday officially exonerated Kirk L. Odom , wrongfully imprisoned for more than 22 years in the rape and robbery of a woman in her Capitol Hill apartment in 1981. "Mr. Odom has been the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice. He is actually innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted," Judge Herbert B. Dixon wrote in a three-page order that vacated Odom's convictions on the basis of new DNA testing that proved he was not the...

Several years ago I noticed something strange: My wife seemed to be getting taller. "Pilates," she said. This was a running joke in my house. My wife, a devotee of the fitness regime, was always urging me to take a class. If you ever saw me try to stretch, you would understand why. I assumed it was a bunch of hokum. But in a moment of weakness, I gave it a go, and darned if I didn't quickly feel like I was standing a little straighter. It wasn't until I read an excerpt from J.W....

With all the financial advice gurus on TV and the Internet these days, how do you know whom to believe? Now comes a book urging caution about everyone from best-selling personal finance authors to financial advisers to the sponsors behind financial literacy initiatives. The book is written by Helaine Olen, who writes about money and was a personal finance journalist for the Los Angeles Times. Financial information sold and even given away comes under scrutiny in her book, "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side...

At 3 a.m. on July 2, 1993, Steve Sposato sat down in his darkened living room to write, by hand, a letter to the president of the United States. His life had just been shattered. Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semiautomatic weapons had gone on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman's motive would remain forever a mystery. Among the slain: Steve's wife, 30-year-old Jody Jones...

Angered by what she thought was shoddy work on her home, Fairfax resident Jane Perez did what has become the go-to form of retail vengeance in the Internet age: She logged on to Yelp and posted scathing reviews of the D.C. firm that did the job. Perez ticked off a list of accusations, including damage to her home, an invoice for work the contractor did not perform and jewelry that disappeared. She closed one post by fuming, "Bottom line do not put yourself through...

C'mon, admit it: You wish you were one of Ina Garten's friends. They mix cosmopolitans and bring her treats, appearing on her Emmy award-winning cooking show and in the pages of her cookbooks. And they sure eat well. No matter. She's practically offering the keys to her kingdom in her eighth book, " Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust " (Clarkson Potter, 2012; $35; about 100 recipes). In addition to the standard Cocktails and Starters and chapters, Garten devotes one to lunchtime...

In a last-ditch effort to save the business his mother created 35 years ago, Nick Kassman tried to borrow against the equity in his home. The bank rejected his requests. Maybe it was for the best, Kassman now says. At least he still has a house. Later this year, Kassman will shut the doors to Chevy Chase Bridal, the last remnant of his mother's clothing boutique that has been a staple of Washington fashion since 1977. Like many small-business owners, he said he found it difficult to stay afloat...

Peter Marks's Sept. 20 Style review of Round House Theatre's production of "Fahrenheit 451" [ " ‘Fahrenheit 451' cools a bit over the years" ] seemed to me much less a review of a theatrical production than a proclamation of the alleged liberating benefits of digital technology. Mr. Marks found inapposite the show's use of current technology to dramatize Ray Bradbury's cautionary tale about a government exercising control over the minds of its citizens by burning all their books since, he suggested, today's digital...

You have a great idea for a product. You have a great designer. You have a manufacturer willing to pump something out for not much money. You're on your way to gadget riches, right? Wrong. Dan Costa wrote a cautionary tale for all those looking to produce a consumer electronics product. His focus is magicJack, a company that we wrote about in August 2007, a post that currently has 167 comments, none of them particularly good. Here's an example from our own comments:How do you CONTACT these people I can find NO way to send...

Adapted from a recent online discussion. Dear Carolyn: My wife and I married young, and lately I've been wondering how we can ever be sure about each other without having had other experiences. I guess this is a cautionary tale about early marriage. We knew each other well at the time and, as we've gotten older, have continued to grow together, not apart. I love her as a person and partner. She is my best friend. But I don't know if I feel the same way romantically.

In 1994, 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay vanished from his San Antonio neighborhood. Three years later, a kid in a Spanish children's home claimed to be Nicholas. It's not a spoiler to reveal that he was lying; after all, the gripping, twist-packed documentary that tells this story is titled " The Imposter . " Aside from a gap in his front teeth, the guy from Spain didn't look much like Nicholas. He had brown eyes, not blue, and brown hair, not blond. He also was some seven years older than the missing Texan.