*** RYAN TATE: Shocking secrets--revealed! ***
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Recent San Francisco Business Times stories

Table set at Ferry Building (Jun. 6)

S.F. out to rattle chains (May. 30)

S.F. plan sets goal of 10,000 homes (Jun. 27)

Stanford's new senior class (Jun. 13)

Is San Francisco's housing crisis over? (Jun. 20)

Stanford Shopping Center on block (May. 23)

Insurers locking up condos (May. 23)

Developer makes bold housing play (May. 16)

Williams-Sonoma revs web (May. 9)

Residential Real Estate Deals of the Year (May. 9)

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Recent personal essays

Private property (Oct. 8)



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Anne and her Cheese Diaries

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Wednesday, January 12, 2005


I had lunch today with an old friend. In the two and a half years since we last saw one another, he had lost 50 pounds and I had lost 35. What's interesting is that we were both more interested in feeling good than in looking good. We both had arrived at our slimmer bodies primarily through exercise, and both still loved to eat good food.

The encounter reaffirms my belief that the gym is the new church, or at least a big part of it. While most traditional churches are shunning gays and lesbians, and while many are throwing rocks at Islam and even other sects of Christianity, when exclusion and fundraising seems to be eclipsing love and charity, young people are turning to less overtly spiritual group activites, including group fitness, to find a genuine connecting with something beyond their day to day concerns. Spiritual life is not dead in America, and it hasn't all taken a turn toward the fundamentalist. It is simply in many new and unconventional places, where one must look closely to recognize it.



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