Good evening, 919 Gang. Last night I
wrote that our quail population had exploded. This morning I picked up the U-T
and read that Ernie Cowan was reporting the same phenomenon.
ERNIE
COWAN writes:
Hi Jack...we also have quail babies and they
see to be on a schedule, arriving each morning About 10 a.m. to drink in a
shallow bowl I keep filled with water.
REBER:
That is a great photo. You’ll want to read Ernie’s column (link below). You
will see he also has young coyote visitors.
-------------------------------------------------
ROSEMARY ENG responds to
Mike Richmond:
Mike, many countries -- Taiwan, Singapore, New
Zealand-- have done well controlling covid-19 because they were all united in
effort and self-disciplined. Places like British Columbia, Canada, have done
very well. Their health officer reports daily and no one rebels against what
she advises. I'm surprised that Americans are so self-indulgent that they think
shopping and group fun activities are more important than saving lives. I hope
what comes out of this will be a greater regard for science (it's not hard to
figure out that with a respiratory illness contagion comes from group
activities and that masks help stop virus aerial spread) and more concern for
the common good.
In the Silicon Valley big tech companies
started shortly after February having staff work from home. People started
sheltering in mid-March. People here in neighborhood surveys are not pushing
for opening up, they place more value in preserving the health of all.
I wrote a story about a bright, young mayor in
Birmingham, Ala., who was trying to do everything right, working closely with
the University of Alabama medical school. He tried so hard to act to save
lives, as African Americans die from covid at a disproportionately high rate.
But the old state governor opened up the state for the sake of "the
economy." Now Alabama is one of the states leading in covid cases, and
hospitals are overwhelmed. https://blackmansstreet.today/?s=woodfin
Make sure you vote! And in lieu of national
guidance, keep looking on YouTube for anything Dr. Fauci has to say!
RAY HUARD writes:
I
second Mike Richmond's comments on COVID-19. Too many people seem to think the
pandemic is over, or that's how they're behaving. I had to laugh at a U-T story
this morning about how strict the San Diego Zoo is with its protocols. Ha! The
zoo requires a mask to get in, but once in, people are not observing social
distancing, some walk around with masks dangling around their necks, or
covering their mouth but not their nose- half-masters. That doesn't work. At
mid-day Saturday, we went to a Jersey Mike's on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard and
some of the people making subs were half-masters. We took one look and walked
out. On the plus side, Paul Sisson had a great story in this morning about
COVID-19 from the viewpoint of frontline hospital workers. Paul has been doing
amazing work throughout this mess. Last week, at a Clairemont CVS, a man was
roaming the story sans mask. There's a sign on the door that says a mask is
required to get in, but signs and protocols are pointless if they're not
enforced.
Sorry
for the rant, but this pandemic is serious
REBER: Here’s the
link to Paul Sisson’s story. Definitely worth a read.
-----------------------------------------------------------
CHUCK
BOYD
writes:
The Truman "manure" story I
had heard before.
While I was with the KC Convention and Visitors
Bureau, promoting Kansas City, I went out to Independence pretty often and
stopped at the Truman Library and was lucky enough to catch the retired
President giving a tour for some school kids. Not as spry as Jimmy Carter, but
a pleasure to shake his hand!
Later, when I was the Missouri
Director of Tourism, British Caledonian Airways started direct service London -
St. Louis, so I led a tourism business delegation tour to London in the early
80s. We had 400 group tour operators, travel agents and journalists attend in
an auditorium at the U.S. Embassy in London.
I had found an old Jazz song called
"Smack
Dab In The Middle" and it played before I addressed the crowd
and said "This song describes
Missouri nicely. We ARE in the middle of the United States and halfway from
destinations on each coast. We
did research on what the people of England know about my state of Missouri and
found it mainly was Mark Twain, Jesse James, and .....Harry Truman. Sorry, Mr,
President, it was in that order.
"In
the United States we study your Shakespeare and here you read our Mark Twain,
so I brought along a Missourian tonight I think you'll like to meet - Samuel
Clemens...or, as you know him...Mark Twain!"
And a young actor I hired and brought along
with us, came onstage in a white suit, white fright wig and smoking a stogey.
He did 20 minutes of Twain-isms.
Earlier, before the presentation, I
had escorted the young actor from the hotel, he in full costume, and when we
entered the elevator, we joined three Brits who were surprised. One, nonplussed,
said "Good to see you
again Mr. Twain. He replied, "My pleasure, gentlemen. It's good to be here
again, it's been quite a while."
---------------------------------------------------------------
CARL LARSEN writes:
Sorry
I haven’t been contributing as much as usual, Jack, but I’ve been exiled to the
garage for the past few weeks. Blame this on the virus, and a long-standing
promise to my wife Sharon that one day I’d get around to the job.
One
day has stretched into weeks as an ‘80s music station plays appropriately in
the background as I sort through stuff.
It’s
hard work, going through years of Copley, Press Club and NAREE (National Assn.
of Real Estate Editors) detritus as well as my collection of railway, Titanic
and Downton Abbey collectibles and an assortment of press kits from San Diego
builders.
Then
I’ve got a mountain of articles and correspondence written by my late father
from his days leading public relations at the University of Chicago and the
Smithsonian. There’s even a piece or two from his days helping edit Stars &
Stripes in World War II.
I
feel your pain, Jerry Rife, after I found that a local college library had no
interest in receiving some of my treasures.
But
there’s light at the end of this paper trail after weeks of toiling.
Ramon,
a member of my crew, dropped by Saturday to help build some garage storage
cabinets, a Father’s Day-sale gift to myself.
And a
professor friend wants my journalism books, and I prevailed on my alma mater,
Northwestern U., to take my railway stuff for its world-class transportation
library.
I’ve
read that trash collection in San Diego is up by 17 percent. Much of that
increase is attributable to me.
Still,
this seems Iike a strange hideout for a journalist sidelined in the midst of
two national tragedies. The stories playing out just outside my garage door are
career-defining for any journalist today.
That
was a point made clear to me in the garage as Eddy Grant sang “Electric Avenue”
on that ‘80s station a few days ago.
You
may remember some of the lyrics, which resonate strongly today. The song made
me stop cold in my tracks.
“Down in the street there is
violence,
and a lots of work to be done.”
“Who is to blame in one country
never can get to the one.”
“Dealin in multiplication,
And they still can’t feed everyone,
oh no.”
“Ho, we’re gonna rock on to Electric
Avenue,
and then we’ll take it higher.”
Electric
Avenue is a thoroughfare in the London borough of Brixton.
Grant
wrote the song after rioting spawned by racial injustice ripped the community
in 1981.
The
song and its video had its own run-in with racism. Along with Michael Jackson’s
“Billie Jean,” it was seen as instrumental in MTV yielding to demands to drop a
color bar that had kept music by black artists off the air.)
 |
|
Sharon Larsen photo
|
P.O.
Box 2239
Ramona,
CA 92065-0938
United
States
