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BRIAN CLARK writes:
I never met John Godwin, but his life
sounds mighty interesting.I have a question about his name: Godwin is Anglo Saxon (British) and not terribly Polish, so was his name Anglicized when he came to this country to make it easier for us Yanks to pronounce?
JAY
JOHNSON writes:
The discussion of John Godwin and
Polish underground resistance in WWII ties in with President Obama yesterday
awarding Jan Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously, for
Karski's incredible efforts to alert the world to Nazi death camps. Karski's
book, "Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World", published in
1944, ranks among the most thrilling, saddest and best books I've ever read. If
you can find a copy, read it.
REBER: Somewhat off the subject: On our visits to
Boston, Mary and I were fascinated by a statue of three (or four?) mounted men
in the Public Garden. They are practically skeletons and their heads are down,
like defeated soldiers. We inquired of many people before we got an answer. We
were told that the figures represent Polish freedom fighters and that statue
was created for display somewhere else, but that fell through so they wound up
in the garden. Wikipedia lists statuary in the Public Garden, but makes no
mention of this one. Strange.
------------------------------------------
DEAN CALBREATH writes:
Note to Preston Turegano. I’m totally
with you on the use of the “f-word” (although with “f-word, more than one word
comes to mind). But as far as I can tell, both homosexual and heterosexual have
been used as both nouns and adjectives since their introduction into English in
the 1890s. Ditto with their use in German, Italian, French and Spanish. That’s
how I’ve always thought of them. They’re both now antiquated – “gays” and
“straights” are much more common (and can also be used as nouns and adjectives)
– but I’m not sure why it would be wrong to use one of them as a noun, such as
the way you used it in the third sentence of your note.
DAVID POLLER writes:
I'm with Preston on being shocked at
seeing an anti-gay slur used in the 919 Gang newsletter. I understand the
context the writer intended, though I see it differently. Rather than showing
"even an apparently bigoted actor can appreciate the talents of a
brilliant colleague, whether gay or straight," I saw the quote as showing
that no matter the talents of the colleague, that person was still a
second-class citizen in the other person's eyes. Part of the danger of using a
slur is that the context can't outweigh how the word has been used to harm
members of a group by those outside of it. The reader may see things
differently than the way it was intended, because of the weight that word
carries with it.In closing, all my best to Bob Hawkins. Fairfield has gained a great guy and a true pro.
WAYNE CARLSON writes:
Dear Preston: Your anger should be
directed at the bad guy, not the reporter. I told that little story mainly to
explain how brilliant the overlooked
actor Montgomery Clift really was. In my book, he ranks much higher than the overblown volcano named Brando
or the meteoric James Dean, whose
flashes of brilliance interrupted
lengthy stretches of overwrought chewing
of scenery.In telling the story, I chose not to whitewash the memory of Gable, the so-called King of Hollywood. Bigots of any era should be called out. And yes, had Gable smeared, say, Sidney Portier. with the word “nigger,” I certainly would have used that word, too. And, J. Justus Reber, I’m betting, would not replace it with an “acceptable” word.
Please, Sgt. Preston (Rick Smith strikes again), reread the story and substitute the word “gay” for the f word or “African American” for the n word. Now there is a story of absolutely no value. What you have now is a story that's distorted, dishonest, prejudiced in favor of Gable, and -- worst sin of all -- boring.
--------------------------------------------------
REBER: Last night Pat JaCoby asked where she
could donate a large quantity of journalism-related books that husband Al accumulated.
SUZANNE MACK writes:
After Bedel passed I contacted the
librarian at SDSU and donated all his books on writing, journalism and related subjects to them.
JONI CALVANO writes:
I work at a nonprofit organization
that would love to have those journalism books for use with high school kids in
a summer workshop. Can you pass along my info to the person who said they were
available?
REBER: Pat will read your message here, Joni, and
I also have forwarded your message so she will have your email address.
--------------------------------------------------
DAVID FARMER writes:
I was watching "The Guns of
Navarone" this week and naturally recalled the concept of "spiking
someone's guns." The 1961 movie, of course, is about a British-American
commando team sent to disable two gigantic Nazi cannons threatening British
naval forces off Greece during WWII. (For the purist, cannon is acceptable as
the plural as well.) The team succeeds in spiking the guns in the modern sense
(I hope I'm not giving anything away here.)But for many years I wondered what the original term meant. Did you pour alcohol into a gun, in the sense of spiking punch? Did you ram a sharpened tree trunk down the barrel? Neither seemed likely, since this would have meant carrying around a large supply of booze or trees. The booze would probably not have survived to fulfill its purpose (you know what soldiers and sailors are like), and tree trunks might tend to be conspicuous while being sneaked into a fort or onto a ship. (I used the word "snuck" in this context the other day and my wife, a former teacher, upbraided me.)
Anyway, Patrick O'Brian, author of historical novels about navies during the Napoleonic Wars, finally explained the concept to me. It meant hammering a metal spike into the touch hole of a cannon. (The touch hole was where you applied a spark to ignite the gunpowder that propelled a shell, grapeshot, etc. ((Grapeshot was not a small glass of wine, but that's another definition entirely.)))
People still talk about spiking someone's guns more than 200 years after the original meaning expired, and it remains a useful image.
(I was trying in this item to equal my record for parenthetical phrases, but my previous best was 14 ((if I recall correctly.))) Do I get extra points for double or triple parentheses? Do such things even exist? (I hope so, because I've just used a bunch of them.) I guess I could employ brackets such as [ or {, but I'm partial to (s. Notice that I skipped a chance to make that last one a parenthetical phrase? (I think I'm to be commended for my forbearance ((which is considerable.))
It just occurred to me that Mr. Reber might spike this entire item (but that's another definition).
REBER: Speaking of parentheses: I correct all
sorts of spelling, punctuation and grammar errors in these message (rarely in
Mr. Farmer's, however), and I find it interesting that there is one rather
minor thing that 919ers almost always get right. When the
parenthetical text is a separate sentence, they place the period inside the
closing paren. When it is a fragment within a sentence, they place the punctuation
outside the closing parent. I am amazing by the consistency with which people
do this correctly. Now if I could just get people to use commas when joining
independent clauses ...
-----------------------------------------------------
DAVID POLLER writes:
Joe Brown asks about links not working
in his email. What email program does he use? At home I use Mail on Mac OS X
and the links work perfectly. But at work I use Microsoft Entourage and if the
preferences are not set to see the email as HTML, the links will not work. So
if Joe's email program is set to see mails as plain text, then those URLs are
just characters and not clickable links. Hope this helps.
REBER: I think you hit it, David. I can talk only
about Outlook, but in that program, open the message, click on the OPTIONS
header and select HTML as opposed to Plain Text. I believe the setting will stick for future messages.
-----------------------------------------------
THANE McINTOSH writes:
Attached are samples from the 600 plus
Panama pictures that Judy and I shot while on vacation there a week ago. The
first is of the Canopy Tower, a radar dome from WWII converted to a hotel. It
is known worldwide as a birder's mecca. Our room was in the second row of
windows from the top. The second photo is a baby iguana we found swimming in
the middle of Gatun lake, the main waterway of the canal. The third is a three-toed
sloth and baby sleeping in a tree at a Smithsonian Society facility near central
Panama City. Fourth is a snail kite on a Gatun lake mangrove tree.
-----------------------------------------------
JAMES GOLDSBOROUGH writes:
Jack, on your recommendation I have
ordered H. Allen Smith's "Life and Legend of Gene Fowler" ($5.09 used)
which I will gladly loan to Tom Nolan when I'm done reading it. H. Allen was
the taste of the previous generation, and my folks had various Smith books lying
around, but not this one, which I look forward to reading. There was another
Smith writing in Los Angeles at the time, Jack Smith, and he wrote a wonderful
book in the same vein, "God and Mr. Gomez," which I still have. It is
a marvelous tale of how Smith, then a columnist on the Times, built a house in
Baja, just outside of Ensenada. Weekends, he would make the roundtrip between
Los Angeles and Ensenada, 500 miles. Now there is a commute. Mr. Gomez was the
guy who built the house for him -- with a little help from the other guy in the
title.
REBER: While unpacking books today, I came across
H. Allen Smith's "Low Man on a Totem Pole." He writes about his first
interview with Marlene Dietrich. As his first question, he asked if he could
see her legs. She said no, but he felt he had set the tone for the interview --
it wasn't going to be the stock questions she had heard a thousand times
before. I offer this as a tip for writers. Nick Canepa, take heed. Next time
you interview Norv Turner, ask to see his legs. I suspect that will lead to a
fascinating column.
------------------------------------------------
REBER: As we close out May, let's wish Happy
Birthday (May 31) to Bill Arballo and Barbara Moss.
------------------------------------------------
REBER: We read the other night that the New
Orleans Times-Picayune is cutting publication of the printed paper to three days
a week.
CECIL SCAGLIONE writes:
New Orleans Times-Picayune colleague
sez staff cutbacks announcement expected in first few days of June.
----------------------------------------------
TIM WILSON forwards:
How to pop the question. A really decent proposal:
http://tinyurl.com/76xelpd
REBER: This next one may be the most unusual thing we have offered. It was
very slow to load for me. Be patient.
TIM
WILSON forwards:
Sonar
-- a song.Ping Sing:
http://vimeo.com/5324878
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
