Death threats

          Good evening, 919 Gang. I never expected to share something like this:

          LEN NOVARRO writes:
          New York isn't the only target of terrorism. My wife Roz and I have been the target of foreign terrorists since last Thursday when my wife Rosalynn was accosted at a Thai temple in Los Angeles for wearing red. The story was reported on the Times of San Diego website.
http://tinyurl.com/yavbmn33

          Because she innocently wore a jacket with red, yellow and green flowers covering a modest dress, we were ambushed, accosted and forcibly removed from a public area near this temple by private security guards who claimed she was making a political statement. LAPD police were nowhere in sight.
          But the event did not end there. By the time we had gotten home, our Facebook site was the target of the most vile attacks I have ever seen in my life -- and I have gone underground covering the KKK, covered the anti-Castro movement in Miami and more. I thought I had seen everything.
          Some of the attacks had "X" marks over her face with photos of various types of guns.
          By the weekend, YouTube videos in Thailand were calling for our assassination and asking people to go on witch hunts from L.A. to San Diego to locate us and kill us.
          Our grandchildren have been threatened, relatives in Thailand have been sought out and even my nephew in Brooklyn has been a target. We had to warn everyone that has "friended" us on FB that they can be a target and have asked them to disassociate from us. You can imagine what that has done to us professionally and our non-profit organization.
          .We met with the FBI, the local police and sought help from several federal sources and an attorney.
          The bottom line is that there is not much we can do.
          These terrorist rights are protected by the First Amendment and there is a difference between harm and imminent harm. What happened in New York was imminent harm. What we have experienced is just "potential" harm.
          And while this may be cyber terrorism, the hands of law enforcement agencies are tied for fear of violating individual rights and especially the rights of a religious institution, this Buddhist temple, where this originated.
At the same time, we have complained to Facebook and YouTube -- to no avail. The threats go on.
          The links at the bottom of this email are just a few of the websites calling for our killing. They are in Thai, but you can get the idea.
          What is incredible is that we can be threatened by foreigners living in this country, protected by our laws, and their allies aboard, and while they remain free, we, as American citizens have to fear for our lives every second of the day. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the biggest holidays we celebrate with our grandchildren each year. This year we can't, for fear of putting them in harm's way. They don't understand it and neither do we.
          Below are some links calling for our death..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7PQhwyioUs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyyk7iMGtyQ&feature=em-share_video_user

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TutFQ8hh7SQ

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          BERNIE HUNT writes:

          A comment by Pamela Dugan yesterday that “copy editors have to have dirty minds because our readers do” disinters a funny newsroom incident from my mind’s dark recesses.

          I was sitting one morning with the city editor of a Texas newspaper I worked for, discussing details of what his reporters were up to. Then his phone rang.

          My colleague, Scott Walker, answered it, spoke briefly, then put the phone down, excused himself from our conversation and said he had to do something. I saw him turn the pages of that morning’s newspaper. He got to the comics, picked up a pencil and began working the Jumble puzzle, with the phone still to his ear.

          I couldn’t hear all of his side of the conversation. But when it finished, he put the phone down, laughing heartily, and turned to me.

          “That was a woman complaining about the Jumble puzzle,” Scott said. “She asked me if I had done it today and said the answer was disgusting, filthy, and shouldn’t be in a family newspaper.

          “I asked her what the answer was and she said she couldn’t bring herself to say it … I would just have to do the puzzle myself and find out.”

          For people who may not know, the syndicated Jumble puzzle, which runs in many newspapers, features pictorial clues to a series of words that the reader must identify. Each word has a circled letter. Those letters, taken together, then form a word that is the answer to a final, verbal puzzle.

          Scott, still laughing, told me he had worked out all the pictorial puzzles and then the final word that was the answer to the whole thing.

          “She said, ‘Well, wasn’t that a very vulgar and disgusting thing to put in a newspaper puzzle that is done by many children?’” Scott related.

          He said he told the woman he still did not understand. He could not find anything unseemly about the puzzle, whose final verbal clue was: “It stiffens a man’s resolve.”

          “The letters are S-E-P-I-N,” she said. “The answer to the puzzle is PENIS.”

          “Madam,” said Scott, “I got SPINE.”

          At this same newspaper, anchored in the Bible Belt, I once got a letter from a woman complaining about a story we published on Hollywood love affairs.

          “I am sick and tired of having other people’s sex shoved down my throat,” she wrote. 

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          CARL LARSEN writes:

          So there we were Friday night, at Copley Symphony Hall. I wondered which of the gilt edges on the wall had my name on it. 

          We were there to see and to hear the acclaimed Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti perform jazz great Wynton Marsalis' "Violin Concerto in D Major," an experimental piece that draws heavily in four movements from the American songbook, offering hints of Gershwin, Copland and other composers.

          The U-T's George Varga did an admirable advance piece on Bendetti, based on a phoner with her from London, and on the ongoing evolution of the Marsalis piece which first was played in 2015 in London.

 

Nicola Benedetti

          So far, so good. Much anticipation for a night out. 

          As the performance took hold, it was clear that Marsalis had crafted a difficult-to-follow piece, one which still put Benedetti through feverish paces. Varga had tantalized us in his walk-up piece: "his concerto provides Benedetti with a stunning vehicle for her ballet-like ability to dance across the strings, her exceptional execution, and her skill at performing with pinpoint articulation at even the most accelerated tempos."

          When it was over, we turned to freelance reviewer Christian Herzog's review, which certainly would pick up on Varga's themes, I thought. How well did Benedetti do? I thought I 'd soon find out from someone more knowledgeable than I.

          Herzog panned the composition. Fair enough; it was a strong piece of criticism. 

          I didn't agree with all of it, but I did understand his concern about listening to a disjointed composition that seemed to suddenly end, and which, by magic, continued on and on for no apparent reason several times.

          Benedetti that night was to be the star -- the guest brought in from overseas to interpret this piece. And she was the reason we went.

          So, after condemning Marsalis' work, what did Herzog say about her, the night's lead, in the newspaper, remembering that she had been given a full page in the Night&Day section build-up a few days before?

          Here it is: "Benedetti displayed considerable virtuosity."

          I think readers are rightly disappointed. On one hand, they were directed to Varga's story on the night's guest performer. 

          Then, having listened to her performance, U-T readers expected some evaluation of her work, but here the paper came up short.

          Both the Varga piece, and the Herzog piece were well written and made good points, but they certainly did not work together in a seamless fashion.

          Like the symphony, the U-T needs a director to coordinate its coverage. 

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          DAVID FARMER writes:

          What do the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, unicorns and men in fridges have in common? They're all subjects that parents shamelessly lie to their kids about. I bring this up because it's a reason so many children distrust their moms and dads. Let's take them in order:

          Teeth. For some illogical reason, parents tell their very young children that if one of their teeth falls out, they must put it under their pillow. During the night, the tooth fairy will slip some coins under said pillow. There's disagreement about whether the fairy leaves the tooth in situ or absconds with it. That's a big problem. I've known children who wanted to string their baby teeth on a cord as a necklace--much as cannibals do with the people they have over for dinner.

          Whatever form the lie takes, it's only the first in a long series of falsehoods that shake little children to the core.

          Santa. This deception can go on much longer than the one about the tooth fairy. For one thing, the stakes are higher. This one abjures small change. We're talking bikes and trendy running shoes. Santa normally samples a plate of cookies or a glass of milk put out for him. It's no wonder the red-clad sprite is morbidly obese: he has to consume cookies and milk at billions of households.

           When the children finally learn the facts, they frequently become catatonic. When they emerge, schoolteachers despair at the children's rejection of tootums. You know, tootums 2 is 4, etc.

          Unicorns. This lie hits little girls hardest. They'll happily collect unicorn figures, decorate the walls with the mythical beast, etc.

           But frequently a young girl will be passing a dark alley. A stranger will step out and say, "Psst. There's no such thing as a unicorn." The shock can send a girl into premature puberty. Parents of female children really need to be careful about this fib. Boys are not affected. They never believe in unicorns from the start.

          Fridges. As they grow, children naturally become curious about how the interior light comes on when the fridge door is opened. I don't know about you, but my parents told me a tiny man inside switched on the light. I'd stand there for hours, opening the door very fast to see if I could catch the little man off-guard. Eventually I became tall enough to see the switch operated by the door. (It's here somewhere.)

           I realized then that my folks had lied to me once again. This made me so skeptical that I had no choice but to enter the field of journalism, where this characteristic is appreciated.

          Radio. And now we get to the most puzzling phenomenon of all. Say I'm listening to the radio. Several times a day, the announcer, host, or whoever will say something like, Thanks for joining us, being with us, etc. This is one I haven't been able to crack. And my parents are gone, so can't help me. Oh, they're not dead. They're just gone. Something about me letting the cold out of the refrigerator all day.

           My question is, how does the person on the radio know that I'm listening? Is there a camera built into every radio? Is there a switch like the one inside the fridge? I can't believe it's based on lucky guesses.

          If you have the explanation, mail it to me at Stony Brook Rehabilitation Facility. It has to be through USPS. The doctors haven't let me near a computer since I sent an email to Kylie Jenner, asking her to marry me. Far from feeling honored, she turned me in to the Internet Police. She claimed I was stalking her. That was a big, fat lie, almost as phony as her big, fat lips. Here she is, before and after augmentation, as it's called:

           My email may not have bothered her as much as the time I pole-vaulted over the Jenner compound's wall, holding an engagement ring in my mouth. As I say so often, some people can't recognize a compliment when it busts them in their big, fat lips. Oh, I guess I didn't tell you about that little contretemps.

          Well, gotta go. It's time for my applesauce. But after just one spoonful I feel so sleeeeeep....

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          SUZANNE MACK writes:

          I believe Bonny Rogers’ story about her relative seeing the sister walking up the driveway...the day she had died.

          My mother had a similar experience. It was April of 1971. She woke up in the middle of the night and swore she saw her best friend, Ann (then living in Pasadena) standing at the foot of her bed. Thinking it strange, she called and told me about it. In the cold light of day she figured it had just been a vivid dream. Later that same day around 1:30 she had a phone call from one of Ann's family members. They told my mother her friend Ann had passed away sometime in the night. 

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          REX SALMON Updating:

          A 919 party is forming – drip by drip – 26 so far.

          Reminder: Sign up for 919 Reunion  on Dec. 4.

          We still have plenty of time. Just jogging your memory!

          2^nd Annual U-T 919 Reunion on Monday, Dec. 4 at 5 p.m. at Black Angus BullsEye Bar, which can accommodate 150 or more. Spouses and friends welcome. Address: 10370 Friars Rd.

          If attending, send your names to:

         exrayfish@cox.net

          Members who so far have notified me they will attend:

          Jack Reber, John Gilmore, Tom Gable, Steve Oakey, Lola Sherman, Elizabeth Douglass, Robert Laurence, Phil McMahan, Patricia Dibsie, Joe Holly, Rex Salmon, Sharon Jones, John Martin, Katherine Fitzhugh, Gary Mortenson, Diana Mortenson, Terri Spilecki, Bill Scott, Emmet Pierce, Karen Dingwall, Bernard Hunt, Don Harrison, Suzanne Mack-Loeber, Bill Loeber, Margie Farnsworth, Walt Baranger,

Jack J. Reber

P.O. Box 2239

Ramona, CA 92065

U.S.A.

2reberjack@gmail.com

A helping hand

          Good evening, 919 Gang.  Pamela Dugan sent the clipping below. She wrote “It's from the Pratt (Kansas) Review. And it perfectly illustrates a lesson I learned on my first copy desk: Copy editors have to have dirty minds because our readers do.”

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          BONNIE ROGERS writes:

A SPOOKY STORY

          My grandmother Annie Wilson was not a fanciful person. She was a dignified, church-going, Scot Presbyterian from Nebraska. Not given to silliness or flights of fancy. But none the less, she had one of those inexplicable experiences which simply confound.

          Grandma was raised by her older sisters after her mother lost her wits grieving for two of her children who died of typhoid on the family's planned trek to Oregon. They were buried in Nebraska so that's where the family stayed. Annie was taken care of by her sisters May, Maud and Lina. Especially Lina. So when Annie grew up and married my grandpa Charles Hoover and moved to California, it was a wrenching separation. All the girls had married and had families of their own. Annie was the last to go.

The Wilson sisters--Maud, Lina and May

           In those days (prior to 1900), when somebody moved to California from Nebraska the odds were that they would never see one another again. Lina vowed that would not be the case with her little sister Annie. Someday before she died, Lina promised to come to California to see Annie. Lina had a farm, a husband and five children of her own. The chance that she would ever be able to make such a trip was slim.

          Annie and Charles lived on a chicken ranch outside of Stockton with their two adopted children, Carl and Edna (my mother). It was now 1910. One day after lunch Annie was standing at the kitchen sink doing the midday dishes. She looked out the window and saw her sister Lina walking up the long driveway from the road.

          "Charlie! Charlie!" she called out the back door to her husband who was working in the barn. "Lina's here! Lina's here!" He could hear the excitement in her voice.

Charles and Annie Hoover

           She dried her hands on a dish towel and ran through the house to the front door. She threw it open. No one was there.

          "Lina! Lina!" she called. There was no answer. By this time Charlie was by her side. "Are you sure you saw her?" he asked. "Plain as day," Annie said. "She was walking up the driveway."

          They both settled into a state of puzzlement about the incident and went back to doing their regular chores. A few weeks later Annie got a long letter from her family in Nebraska.

          On the same day and at the same time Annie had seen Lina walking up her driveway in California, Lina had died in Nebraska.

          Her husband had fallen in love with another woman and had put rat poison (arsenic) in Lina's lunch. She lived long enough to tell her brothers what had happened. They took the "grieving" husband aside and told him. "We know what you did. Now we are going to tell you what you are going to do. You are not going to be with your new lady love. You are going to work this farm and support your children until they are all grown. And if you don't do this, we will dig Lina up (arsenic does not deteriorate) and see you hang."

          And that's what happened. In spite of it all, Lina had kept her word. She did go visit Annie in California. Didn't she?

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          ELIZABETH GABRIEL writes:

          \ Oh, Carl Larsen, I, too, am wondering about this new "Murder on the Orient Express." My principal question is "Why?"

          I started reading about the film on IMDB, my first choice for info about such things. But in the production notes, I found no answer.

          I'm thinking that it's one of those stories that gives a producer the chance to call together a group of famous faces, some are new, some are old, in the hope of pulling in the customers, some new, some old.

Here are a couple of quotes from the production notes.

          "After Albert Finney (in 1974), Alfred Molina (in 2001), David Suchet (in 2010) and Mansai Nomura (in 2015), Kenneth Branagh is the fifth actor to embody famous Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot.

          "When the trailer for the film was first released, many Agatha Christie fans complained about Kenneth Branagh's interpretation of Poirot's iconic moustache being insulting to the source material. Coincidentally, when the novel Murder on the Orient Express was first adapted for the screen in 1974, Christie (who was still alive at the time) was rather displeased with how the moustache on Albert Finney's Poirot turned out."

          As for "Mousetrap", I saw it in London a couple of weeks ago. My traveling companion was firm about going, I was so-so. The play was meh, but the sets, the theater (St. Martins), and the theater bar were right on in ambience.

(By the way, we also saw "Five Guys Named Mo" at the Marble Arch Theatre. Fabulous. It's a compilation of Louis Jordan songs strung together in a thin "plot". The theater lobby is decorated in a sort-of New Orleans style, the theater is a tent with a round, revolving platform that circles the audience for some of the numbers. Don't miss it the next time you're in London. And, further tip: My companion really enjoyed the Hurricane drink they whip up there. Here's a link to info on that:

https://www.thespruce.com/hurricane-cocktail-recipe-759275 )

          SUZANNE MACK writes:

          I too think David Suchet was the best Hercule Poirot and that Albert Finny did a great job in the last big screen version of "Murder". I hate to tell them but that mustache on Kenneth Branagh doesn't look like anything Agatha Christie ever described on Poirot. More like something you'd expect on Doc Holiday. I am looking forward to seeing what Dame Judi Dench does with the role of Princess Dragomiroff. Dame Wendy Hiller did such a great job. What Johnny Depp is going to bring to this production is anyone's guess.

          We drove to Orange County (Irvine/Lake Forrest area) to attend daughter Bridget and husband Mike's Halloween party. The decorations were something out of Disneyland at Halloween. There was a Bounce House for the kids, plenty of food and drink and truly inspired costumes. One of Mike's co-workers came as Cousin Eddie from Family Vacation. Bill reprises his ZZ Top roll and I went as Morticia Adams (see photos).

          HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!

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          DAVID FARMER writes:

          Pamela Dugan, I do indeed enjoy Kerry Greenwood's creation, Phryne Fisher. That's the lady (oops, she's no lady) detective in 1920s Melbourne. Some notes on the character:

          Phryne (pronounced fry-knee) was the name of an ancient Greek courtesan.

          While Ms. Fisher is no courtesan, she's unabashedly sexual.

          She keeps a "lady's" pistol in her purse.

           She's a wealthy heiress who can fly a plane, drives a Hispano-Suiza, and sometimes wears trousers.

          Phryne takes on tough cases; in one, she goes after an abortionist who seriously injures pregnant young women. That would be a scandalous thing for a society lady to do in the 20s, but Phryne doesn't shy away from scandal--she thrives on it.

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          REBER: Let’s close out the month (Oct. 31) with a Happy Birthday party for Charlie Starr and Kelly Thornton.

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          TIM WILSON forwards:

          In answer to T.R. Reinman’s question, “What is a Weeble?":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeble

Jack J. Reber

P.O. Box 2239

Ramona, CA 92065

U.S.A.

2reberjack@gmail.com