SAD SACK Remember Stephen Joseph, the contrarian attorney fighting to save plastic bags whom Nick Welsh told us about ("The Bag Man," September/October 2012)? New research undertaken by two law professors looking at San Francisco's ban-the-bag ordinance reported a spike in food-borne, bacteria-related emergency-room visits after the 2007 law went into effect. The study has its critics, though. For example, the ER visits weren't definitively linked to people using cloth bags. "We've cannibalized a little bit of our local audience in the opera house." OPERATIC HIGHS AND LOWS After we asked ... Read More