Hardly typical

          Good evening, 919 Gang. A note of no significance: Two days before the Poway shooting our son, an Escondido cop, pulled the young shooter over for speeding. Said he was pleasant, well-mannered – looked like a typical college student.

   RON HUTCHERSON writes:

          A troubled man shoots and kills. Anti-gun blather erupts like pimples on a chocoholic teenager. It's misguided, misleading and simplistic. These United States do not have much of a gun problem. They have monumental mental public health and societal challenges.

          Consider proportionality briefly. The CDC reports 39,773 firearm related deaths in 2017. Wikipedia reports 44,965 recorded suicides in 2016. About 24,000 involved firearms. The Anti-Defamation League says extremists killed 50 people in 2018, 42 of them with guns. The majority of the killers were white supremacists (crackpots to me) .

          Those numbers are on the benign side--serious and awful nevertheless.

          A multi-year study by Johns Hopkins University found that 250,000 people in the U.S. die from medical errors each year. The Insurance Journal reports that 41,100 people died in traffic accidents on America's roads in 2017 and 40,327 in 2016. Further, it's estimated that texting behind the wheel took 3,477 lives and injured 391,000 in 2015.

          Then there is the opoid problem, which the CDC says caused 72,287 deaths in 2017. From a study covering 2006-2010, alcohol was blamed for 88,000 deaths a year. Worse, the CDC blames cigarettes for 480,000 deaths a year in the USA. I won't even try to detail failures at the dinner table such as diabetes and obesity.

          These numbers provoke questions such as why do they drink? Smoke? Text? Why don't hospital workers pay attention to sanitation? Why do we sell cigarettes? Why do we facilitate all sorts of drug abuse? Profit, probably.

          The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 11.2 million Americans suffer from serious mental illness, that is, illness that can result in harm to self. How many of those, or their 30 million plus who have lesser mental issues, turn to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, erratic or overly aggressive driving to calm down, get through the day, or let off steam? How many kill themselves? How many see others as devils who should be exterminated? How many "lose it" and kill family in fits of rage? How many get treatment?

          Scapegoating guns and seeking to eliminate them won't get us very far in our quest for a kinder and gentler society (to borrow words). We need to seek real answers in mental health treatment, job stress reduction, protection from financial embarrassment or disaster, undue social expectations foisted on all of us by advertisers and ambitious parents. We need to court a Healthy Society.

GLENN GRANT writes:

Jack, I thought we were not supposed to get political here. I find the comment about Trump that Lisa Petrillo threw into her thoughts on the subject to be gratuitous and political. Even if Trump did say that (and I never saw the proof he did, although I would gladly accept it), the Border Patrol agent’s actions with his own or a service revolver certainly did help save the day. He might not have struck the fleeing suspect, but his bullets hit the vehicle and certainly must have given the suspect the knowledge that he was being chased, and had little chance of escaping. I’m sure I could find all sorts of quotes from politicians on both sides of the issue, but Lisa chose only Trump’s, which hardly shows a diversity of opinions, which I thought we all wanted.

I feel awful for the suspect’s family, and I know it hits home that Lisa has had some of them in her house. And I appreciate how difficult it can be for parents to supervise five kids who want nothing more than to have privacy online, whether on a computer, tablet, or phone. However, I know from personal experience that it is absolutely essential to know what your kids are doing online. No privacy, no hidden passwords, no secret chats. Possibly even use a keystroke logger to track where they’ve been. They live under your roof, and are under your control, even at age 19. When my son started getting online around 1992 in his sub-teens, we told him he had to leave the bedroom door open and the screen facing it, so we could see what he was doing. He protested mightily, and we eventually had to pull the plug on him. When I viewed his browser history, I was horrified to see the kinds of sites he was visiting. So that was it. No web surfing unless we were sitting right next to him, and the power cable was unplugged and removed from the PC and his room when we weren’t there. Of course there were other ways he could access the Web outside the home, but at least he knew the rules at our place. So please don’t expect “the forces of constant vigilance that I always assumed spied on our every keystroke” to be able to monitor every hate-filled would-be terrorist out there. It just isn’t possible.

Regarding security: I know someone who worked many years at a Jewish nonprofit in town. They did, and possibly still do, receive phone and email threats regularly. They have one or two security guards, sometimes armed, sometimes not, stationed at one or two entrances. However, there are several other unguarded entrances that could be easily breached. In fact, this institution even gave out blueprint-style guides when it opened to help visitors get around. My friend was always nervous that a shooter or bomber would easily get past the guards. The excuse was that the nonprofit didn’t have the budget for more robust security. That may be true, but unfortunately today, heightened security should be a priority at most such institutions or houses of worship. Trained armed personnel might not have stopped the Poway killer, but they certainly could have slowed him down or tackled him. I say the more trained armed security personnel the better. But I am in agreement that no one except trained police and military personnel should have access to assault rifles.

Finally, I agree that the start to finding an answer to gun violence is more and better mental health care. Most of these shooters seem to have some kind of mental health issue, and we should be devoting more funds and resources to treating them. A very difficult task, and as long as each state or city has the right to enact its own gun laws, it will take a long time to solve it.

          REBER: We’ve veered as far into politics as we’re going to go. I suggest we have a First Amendment problem as well as a Second Amendment one. Just being a Facebook user, I see an incredible amount of hatred expressed. Lay that on an impressionable kid, then give him access to a machine made for killing bunches of people and you have the ingredients for disaster.

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PRESTON TUREGANO writes:

Behold the 1,000-foot-long, 3,800-passenger cruise ship Norwegian Joy, which is two years old and was taken out of the Asian market to sail from Los Angeles, Seattle and Vancouver (B.C.) to the Mexican Riviera, Hawaii, Alaska and West Coast. Bob and I drove to the Port of Los Angeles to do an overnight on it Monday into today. It’s the biggest cruise ship we have ever sailed. To me, it looked like an office building that has been moved to atop a barge. Thousands of travel agents (and one guest each) were invited (gratis) for the sailing from LA to Ensenada, Mexico, and back this a.m. The good: nice cabins and best cruise ship bathroom layout I have ever seen. Small closet space, too. There are 19 restaurants on board to choose from, and almost as many bars. The bad: you do wait and wait for an elevator. Most of them are usually packed with passengers anytime day or night. At the Savor restaurant, we each had lobster tails, and we wanted to share some Beef Wellington, which was too well done, so we sent it back, only for another piece to be done ever more than the rejected slice. We wanted a pink slice, but could not get “medium” across. Most of the crew is Asian and many do not speak English well. After dinner, we went to the ship’s theater to see a full-fledged almost 2-hour production of the musical “Foot Loose.” Extremely well performed and dripping Broadway quality. Sadly, the fine cast was not identified in any flyer, booklet or poster. (I suspect that’s because the show is probably not an Actors Equity – labor union – sanctioned production, and the cruise line perhaps is not paying royalties for the rights to produce the show. This has been going on for many years on cruises.) I formally protested the cast slight to the ship “Manager.” The Cruise Director – “Dan Dan” -- was just a voice we would hear over a PA system. Never saw him.

The most amazingly impressive things were: virtual reality “rides,” a go-cart track with real go carts, and a water slide tube that hangs partially over the starboard side of the back of the ship. This morning, the captain and a pilot and two tugs navigated the ship into narrow San Pedro (Port of L.A.) Harbor backwards. The ship would not have been able to sail in bow-first and then turn around to dock. The most troubling thing: disembarkation was a nightmare and not well organized. Again, language problems. Can’t imagine what a multi-day cruise on the Joy would be like. It’s just too big and intimidating.

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NICK CANEPA writes:

Saw a photo of the AP Stylebook and it got me to wondering how many people remember Howard Welty's Evening Tribune Stylebook. Don't remember how long it lasted or if any still are around.

REBER: I have one, Nick. It was published in June, 1971. It has 61 pages plus pages I wrote for the Sports Desk and punched so they could be inserted in this loose-leaf book. Howard, one of my favorite people, also issued some supplementary pages. Here’s an excerpt from one:

“QUESTION – We have changed ‘synagogue’ to ‘synagog’. Should we change ‘travelogue’ to ‘travelog’?

“ANSWER – Holy jumped up jesus, NO! This is a  question of current usage and applies only to the word mentioned. (Don’t go applying logic to the language. Col. McCormick tried this and learned the hard way.)”

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DAVID FARMER writes:

          When you see prehend in a word you know something is being grasped. If you comprehend something, you're grasping it. If you apprehend someone, you're clutching him or her in the sense of detaining. Or you can apprehend the meaning of something.

          If you have a prehensile tail or hand, you can hold on with it. Of course, elephants have prehensile noses and giraffes have prehensile tongues. Possums have prehensile tails. Some creatures even have prehensile lips. People and apes have prehensile hands, or feet in the case of the latter. We gave up our prehensile feet in exchange for walking on them.

          And here's one I've never seen: prehensile, greedy or excessively intent on acquiring something. Rare: a person gifted with a keen intellect.

          The root generally means prae, before; and hendere, seize or take.

          This list is not meant to be comprehensive. I only wanted us all to grasp various meanings.

Jack J. Reber

P.O. Box 2239

Ramona, CA 92065-0938

United States

Don't blame the family

          Good evening, 919 Gang. We’ll talk a bit about the shooting in Poway, then I will clean up the backlog of messages.

LISA PETRILLO writes:

Jack - re the Poway synagogue terrorism:

We of all people should remember that the evil that men do should not be instantly blamed on their families. How many heinous crimes have we all dealt with in our careers - shouldn't we know from experience that pat answers to hard questions are lazy, usually wrong and unhelpful in solving how these horrific tears in the social fabric happen. And therefore how the shredding of the social fabric can be fixed.

In this case, unlike the 919er who tries to blame this on the alleged shooter's parents -- I'm here to say that the Earnest family of this alleged killer are good people. My children were nurtured by the young man's father, an award-winning physics teacher at Mt. Carmel High School. My family knows some of his siblings well. They've been in my house, and I've watched them grow up, on the swim team, on outings, in the school music program. Nothing on this earth will excuse what happened. But look deeper -- why were his internet ramblings and intentions not caught sooner by the forces of constant vigilance that I always assumed spied on our every keystroke? How could a young man from a strong and large family be so horribly radicalized by a website that activated five other copycat attacks of racial terrorism? When are we going to call our leaders into account -- for god's sake, Trump's typical oversimplification of saying the answer is MORE GUNS by praising " a good guy with a gun" that saved the day (which was wrong, he actually didn't save the day). I don't know the answer, but that history has surely proven endlessly that it is never more guns.

          DAVID FARMER writes:

          We will never see an end to the slaughter of innocents until we take assault rifles out of the hands of civilians. I don't mean we should prevent more people from getting them. I mean we should require current owners to turn them in to be destroyed.

          For many years, we have allowed a relatively few gun enthusiasts to force the rest of us dance to their tune. To me, it's like permitting anyone to buy a military tank. Then these people are turned loose on the streets and highways to shell or run over regular cars. The analogy is not far-fetched. It's exact.

          There are unlimited examples of how society protects itself from small groups who don't want to be regulated to the slightest degree. Some of the most mundane but effective: we make people prove they can drive safely before awarding them a license. We make builders demonstrate that their structures will not collapse and kill occupants and bystanders. We have a current, shocking instance of why such protections are needed: a handful of zealots don't want their children vaccinated; so hundreds of others have to contract a dangerous disease.

          There are few exceptions of the many rightfully defending themselves from the few, the most lethal being unlimited ownership of weapons of almost any kind. It's not difficult to show why no other country features recurring mass killings. They refuse to permit their citizens to own weapons that can destroy or horribly maim scores within moments.

          Why is it so important to allow a troubled individual to prove his worth by showing that he can kill hundreds of the rest of us? As long as even a few hundred assault rifles are loose in our country, you can be sure they'll eventually find their way into the hands of the deranged, the deluded or the depraved.

 I could fill this blog many times over with demonstrations that our officials are not protecting us when they indulge almost anyone who wants to own a deadly weapon.

 I'm very interested to read the views of others in this forum, a group of intelligent, articulate and humane people. I hope Mr. Reber will not block this kind of discussion. It's not about politics; it's about survival.

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          REBER:  We’re getting a lot of mileage recalling newsroom nicknames.

BILL CALLAHAN writes:

          The late, great Wayne Carlson was tagged with "Snake" because he had a mullet like Ken ("Snake") Stabler, Oakland Raiders quarterback. Carlson was also a great creator of nicknames and an accurate weather vane on staff rotations. His desk was close to the glass cages in which the top editors resided and Carlson scouted their annual sessions at which they would move reporters from one beat to another. When Carlson strolled through the newsroom singing David Bowie's “Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes” everyone would get nervous about their future.

NICK CANEPA writes:

Earl Keller is the only person who called me "Nick The Greek." Earl was a genuine pain in the ass. I guess there was a local moving company here long ago called Heck and it had a slogan. Every time Hector Munoz would walk past Keller he'd hear, "Move by Heck! You gotta move by Heck, baby." Earl's desk in the old building sports department, as you were well aware, was very close to the editor's office, Fred Kinne, a good man who made the mistake of hiring me as a copy kid, also made one by not low-crawling into his office when he came in. Fred was a big tennis guy who did so much for local kids interested in the sport. So, when he neared Keller, every morning, he'd hear: "How's your backhand?" Every damn day. Fred was not a big fan of Earl, who once walked over to Fred's table in a restaurant and stole a French fry. If I remember right, Fred flew many missions during WW II and then became afraid to fly. Earl also was afraid to fly -- until his daughter became a Pan Am flight attendant and he could fly all over the world for free. He once brought Bill Finley and yours truly Hawaiian shirts after one of his jaunts. We didn't ask for Hawaiian shirts. He broke our eggs until we paid for them. It would have been different if we had asked for them, but everyone learned the hard way not to tell Earl you needed anything, because he always "knew a guy." Like the time Paul Cour foolishly told Earl he was having a staff barbecue and a truck pulled up at his house and a "guy" brought in half a side of beef. Dan Tedrick's AP office. Every time Earl passed it: "Big Dan! Big Dan, the big AP man!" Even when Dan was on the phone. Earl Keller, rest his soul. A genuine pain in the ass.

          REBER: Every Monday morning during football season, Charlie Sick would stop to see which photos from the Charger game I had chosen to run. Earl always greeted him with “You sick, Charlie?” Charlie would ignore him, and Earl would keep repeating it until Charlie acknowledged him.

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DAVID FARMER writes:

 My daughter once worked for the management company that represented the popular band the Foo Fighters. I always thought the name was cute but meaningless. Here are the boys, behind their most famous member, Dave Grohl:

But I ran across the term a few days ago and found that it had a genuine meaning during World War II. Night fighter pilots over Europe often encountered mysterious round lights (not making this up) that seemed to race alongside their aircraft. The lights were considered UFOs, or possibly secret weapons employed by Germany. I found no mention of attacks by these foo fighters (lower case).

          The name origin was traced back to a Chicago cartoonist named Bill Holman. In his strip "Smokey Stover" (which I read as a kid), the fireman hero would sometimes say, "Where there's foo, there's fire." One night a WWII fighter crew returned from a mission and described "a red ball of fire that appeared to chase them through a variety of high-speed maneuvers."

          A member of the unit remembered Smokey's catchphrase and altered it to "those fuckin' foo fighters." The term was cleaned up for popular use.

 Military history records that the lights were spotted by Germans as well as Americans over Europe. And in the Pacific Theater of Operations, Japanese and Allied pilots reported them.

          No scientific explanation was ever considered definitive. The lights were thought to be similar to St. Elmo's Fire, electromagnetic phenomena, or reflections from ice crystals in the air. Experts have said that today they might be called flying saucers.

          Which raises two questions: why aren't pilots reporting foo fighters in the current era? And do the Foo Fighters know where their name came from?

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          REBER: I am behind on birthday greetings. We hope these folks have a bunch of happy days, not just their birthdays: Chuck Boyd, April 28; Bob DiVeroli, Bill Osborne, Sharon Reeves, Pauline Repard and Rose Wojnar, April 29; and Larry Ross and Marcus Stern, April 30.You could put together a heck of a newspaper with that crew.

Jack J. Reber

P.O. Box 2239

Ramona, CA 92065-0938

United States