Cherries on Geary & 4th

$ 5,000 a month was paid to a Washington D.C. public relations firm by the Assad family of Syria to broker a story in Vogue favorable to Mrs. Assad, wife of the Syrian president, portraying her as sleek, progressive, and Western-leaning.

The story was titled, "A Rose in the Desert." The writer, Joan Juliet Buck, said Mrs. Assad was "extremely thin and very well dressed, and therefore qualified to be in Vogue."

The cherries were dumped in a wooden box on the sidewalk outside the fruit market on Geary & 4th, early Saturday afternoon. I passed them on my way to the museum and passed them on my way back, surprised they were still there, exactly as I'd first seen them, though they looked like they were dying.