Good evening, 919 Gang. Mary’s sister is visiting us, so we
are doing the tour guide routine. We will be gone most of next week, planning to return
in time to file Friday night.
Last night I published an empty report because I had no 919
Gang messages. About 2:15 today when I fired up the computer there were
messages I should have seen yesterday. What went wrong? I have no idea, but I’m
glad to have those messages tonight.
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LESLIE WOLF
BRANSCOMB writes:
Ok, since the well has run dry on the Rebergram, I'll start
a new topic. For those of you with teenage/ millennial kids or grandchildren,
have you also been puzzled by how communication norms have changed? My husband
is a community college professor and is usually able to keep up with the latest
lingo, and I work with a lot of 20-somethings in my job. In our 50s I don't
consider us ancient. But today I caught my 19-year-old daughter chuckling (ok,
guffawing -- which is a word she would never use) over a family group text. She
thought it was quaint/adorable/really hysterically funny how her mom and dad
(ie: dad, a college journalism professor with a Ph.D, and mom, a UC Berkeley
grad with 30+ years in journalism and politics) always use full sentences, with
proper capitalization, grammar and punctuation in our texts. (Also, her friends
think it is "adorable" how we have a family group text.)
The thing that sent her off into giggles this morning was
my husband's text to the family after driving our oldest daughter back to
college in Arizona. He was responding to an earlier text from me asking about
the heat and weather there. His text: "It's okay. Everything is green and
beautiful. Michaela is happy." Youngest informed me that in millennial
text world, to end a sentence with a period means you're angry. She told me
that a couple of years ago, in high school, she texted me to ask if she could
hang out at a friend's house and watch a movie. My reply: "Fine." She
tells me now that she thought I was angry at her and didn't know why.
Exclamation points are to be used sparingly, and usually only as a joke.
She and her sister also find it "adorable"
(pretty sure by now this is an insult, meaning quaint, out of touch, clueless,
see Mnuchin's wife's latest go-round) that Max and I use emojis in our texts.
Do the kids not use them? I think they do, but for some reason for their
parents to sign off with a smiley face is a cause for eye-rolling. (I would
like to add here that my children are not immature or uneducated. Oldest is 21,
entering senior year studying aeronautical science; youngest is 19, just
entering UC Irvine). Even though neither of our children went into journalism,
both have benefited from knowing proper English grammar and punctuation in
their college careers. However, they tell me this is not to be used in texting
or other social media. Go figure.
I've known for a while that we (former and/or current
journalists) are unique in that we post things on Facebook that are not only
grammatically correct, with proper punctuation and capitalization, but often
the posts are beautifully-written mini-stories, often with gorgeous
photographs, especially from our esteemed photogs. I love hearing what my
former comrades are doing! But my kids consider Facebook passé, something they
post on only occasionally to satisfy their parents, aunts and uncles. It's the
public front intended for parents, family and prospective employers to look at.
Meanwhile, they post their carefully-curated photos on Instagram, and their
actual personal thoughts on SnapChat, which has the advantage of disappearing
after a few minutes (which means Mom can't spy on them. Drat!)
------------------------------------------------
BONNIE ROGERS
writes:
THROWBACK THURSDAY:
Remember that old Benjamin Franklin
proverb about unintended consequences?
“For
the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For
the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For
the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For
the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For
the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And
all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”
Sometimes things can be found in just such a
sequential fashion.
In the mid-1970s I was Editor of
Publications for the City of Hope in Duarte and my husband Gene was the
Editorial Director at KFWB an all-news radio station for Westinghouse Broadcasting.
He handled politics and world affairs; I handled the household budget.
One night as I was opening the mail I
got our new property tax bill. I flipped out. It had jumped from about $400 to
more than $4,000! The Los Angeles County assessor had reappraised all the
property in the county, basing the new tax bill on the inflated value it had
recently been given.
I ran into Gene's den, waving the bill
in the air and screaming. "It's 1932 all over again," I yelled.
"We can't pay this. But not just us. Nobody is going to be able to pay
these taxes. The banks will foreclose. With nobody paying their mortgages, the
banks will close! It's the Great Depression all over again!"
"Calm down," Gene said.
"Tell me what you mean." I did, in spades. I told of the hardships my
family suffered during the Depression, how my parents had to mortgage their
house to meet payroll, then the banks failed and they lost everything. And how
a large percentage of the country was in the same boat. There was no capital,
so there was no work.
"Let's say I'm a farmer growing
onions and somebody buys the farm next to me and builds a shopping
center," I said. "This makes my property value go up. Now they tax my
property like I am a shopping center but I'm still just growing onions. My
piece of dirt still has the same value to me, whatever the Assessor says."
Gene got the point in my home-grown economics.
"You know," he said. "A
guy came into my office the other day complaining about the same thing, only he
was speaking on behalf of apartment house owners. He wanted me to do an
editorial asking the City Council to rescind the new assessments. I got his
point, but he's never going anyplace with it trying to save apartment house
owners. I think I'll call him and set him straight."
As a citizen (not a rep of
Westinghouse), Gene called Howard Jarvis, who was a lobbyist for the Los
Angeles County Apartment Owners Association. Howard invited us over for dinner.
His wife Estelle cooked us a fabulous dinner of Julia Child's burgundy beef and
we worked out the broad plan for a campaign.
Gene said to put the emphasis on
homeowners, not just commercial properties. He explained that neither city hall
nor the state government in Sacramento would ever back up on taxes. He said
Jarvis should go the state proposition route and take the issue to the voters,
but not alone. "Something coming out of just Los Angeles will never fly
statewide," he said. He told Jarvis about Paul Gann, a conservative
activist in Sacramento who had connections in the northern part of the state.
 |
| Paul Gann (left) and Howard Jarvis election night Prop 13 win |
The
result of that dinner was Prop. 13, the great California tax revolt. Property
taxes were cut 57 percent and only allowed to rise 2 percent a year unless the
property changed hands. Old people can't be taxed out of their homes as long as
they stay put (or exchange for a like property in another county). It changed
the way California is run, as well as many other states which adopted similar
tax plans.
Why
did all this happen? Because the L.A. assessor ran amok. Because I flipped out.
Because my husband listened. Because Howard Jarvis learned. Because two thirds
of the voters in California agreed. That's how that battle was won. Better than
a new horseshoe nail.
**************************************
Yes,
there are unintended consequences to Prop 13 that need fixing. But I am still
living in the house I lived in during the 1970s where I raised three kids and
grew tomatoes. Zillow tells me it is worth $1.4 million in today's inflated
dollars. I couldn't afford it without Prop 13 which froze my property tax
increases. In that respect, Prop 13 is doing just what it was supposed to do.
-------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID FARMER writes:
Almost
every movie contains at least two arcs. The most noticeable is the character
arc, meaning the transformation of the hero* from the start of the film to
the end. Humphrey Bogart is a great example. He usually began a movie as a
cynic who refuses to help innocent characters, but ends up as their champion.
Here are a couple of examples:
In
"Casablanca," he plays an embittered bar owner who declares, "I
stick my neck out for nobody."
By the movie's end he's handing off his lover to her
husband so they can go save the world.
In "To Have and Have Not," he's a cocky fishing
boat owner who won't lift a finger to help the Free French smuggle one of their
leaders to safety.
By the end, he's risking his boat, his freedom, his life to
transport the leader and his wife somewhere so they can go save the world.
In
the movie story arc, the
situation changes as the film progresses through its standard three acts (more
on that another time).
I
mentioned other kinds of arc in movies. One is the arc light that projects the
film image to the screen in theaters that still use that method.
Another
is "Joan of Arc" if it happens to be revived in a given theater.
Here's Joan as a red-head. The disguise didn't work, as the bad guys captured
and toasted her:
*Other characters have arcs too, generally revolving around
the lead actor. (I use "actor" in the way the Screen Actors Guild
uses it, applying the title to females and males equally.)
-------------------------------------------------------
MICHAEL BURGE writes:
One of Japan’s most popular sites is the Inari Shrine in
Fushimi, Kyoto. This consists of thousands of vermilion Torii gates that ascend
Mount Inari. Torii gates signify an entrance to a Shinto shrine, and these
gates are striking for their beauty and number. The gates span trails that
ascend the mountain, and visitors can pass under the gates up the mountain as
high as they wish.
The
day we visited it was hot and humid, but that didn’t deter the thousands of
pilgrims who hiked the trails beneath the gates. Small Shinto shrines punctuate
the trails, paying homage to Inari, the god of rice.
 |
| A Japanese visitor in traditional garb walks beneath the vermilion Torii gates of the Fushimi Inari Shrine. |
 |
| As sunlight filters through the brightly colored gates it creates a dappling effect on the walkway. |
 |
| Foxes show up regularly along the trail, carrying messages from Inari, the rice god. I didn't get one. |
 | ||
| The trail scales Mount Inari, which ascends to about 760 feet. In this photo, my son passes by some of the shops along the trail. Unrepentant commercialism is ubiquitous in Japan. |
 |
| Each gate has an inscription that typically identifies its donor, sort of like signs at a Little League field. For some that detracts from the gates' mystical qualities. OK, for me that detracts from the gates' mystical qualities, but I'm just one American guy. |
---------------------------------------------------------
DAVID FARMER writes:
If
I were an ophthalmologist I would create an online presence and call it a site
for sore eyes.
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REBER: Last night’s strikeout means I
am a day late in wishing Happy Birthday to Alison DaRosa, Michael Kinsman and
Joe Schneider Aug. 26. Birthday coming up before I return are Patricia Dibsie
and Frank Green on Aug. 29 and Lew Little Sept. 1. Happy Birthday wishes for
all.
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
