Mad SF Scientists Unwittingly Resurrect Herb Caen

People loved Herb Caen for many reasons, but perhaps his most passionate advocates were  among followers of a recurring feature called "namephreaks." Caen would often sprinkle his column with examples of people who'd chosen professions bizarrely in keeping with their own names. Berkeley postman Bill Trampleasure -- [Get it? He's a letter carrier who loves to walk.] -- cherished Caen as a personal hero after multiple mentions in the column. Brie Mercis became a big cheese in the minds of newspaper readers merely by dint of his first name -- which befitted his employ at a Burlingame cheese shop.

Now comes a San Francisco nonprofit called the Pangea Global AIDS Foundation, which published a new study in the journal Social Science & Medicine examining the tendency of South African streetwalkers to inject drugs into their veins.

"Sex work [is] closely linked to the buying, selling, and using of drugs," wrote the author, whose name is ... R. Needle. -- Matt Smith