Letters

Theft Not Very “Civil”

You are probably unaware of how closely related three of your stories are in the February 23 issue. The cover story, “Tased and Subdued, Throttled and Killed”; the short story “Angry Pizza Man”; and the “News Ticker” story “Electronics Theft” are all about some level of authority — coroner, prosecutor, police — not doing the job without prejudice. Being the smallest of businessmen (taxi driver), I am very familiar with the system only contacting you to extract money and giving nothing back. I have on numerous occasions held runners — people who don’t pay their fare — for the police, and it’s gotten so bad now that they won’t even write the perpetrator a ticket. The police are now calling somebody robbing me a “civil matter.” I see nothing “civil” in the way the system is treating the workingman.

Don Bauder, you are the best. Keep up the good work.

Joseph Ciprian
Little Italy

Jazz and CCs

Re the review of Chico & Rita by David Elliott (Movie Review, February 23).

David, you said they skipped a beat when they riffed on The Wild One, but I would disagree with you. I’ve seen The Wild One, first in June of 1954, and I still remember all the songs, the jazz songs, done by Shorty Rogers, from that film. One was called “Chino” — that was done for the Lee Marvin character. Another one is “Blues for Brando,” another one was “Windswept,” as he and Mary Murphy are riding on the motorcycle through the road covered by tree branches, and there was one called simply “The Wild One.”

To Thomas Larson, who wrote the February 23 cover story on the Watson murder (“Tased and Subdued, Throttled and Killed”). I’d like to ask him a brief question: on page 26 he writes, “Keigwin’s name had been dropped from the CC line.” I’m wondering if everyone in San Diego knows what a “CC line” is, because I sure don’t.

Bob Cruise
Chula Vista

“In e-mail, a carbon copy (abbreviated ‘cc,’ and sometimes ‘fcc’ for ‘first carbon copy’) is a copy of a note sent to an addressee other than the main addressee,” says SearchWinIT, an internet site. “The term is borrowed from the days of the mechanical and later the electronic typewriter (circa 1879–1979) when copies of typed sheets of paper were made by inserting a special sheet of inked paper called carbon paper into the typewriter. For two copies, you would insert carbon paper (sometimes just called a ‘carbon’) between the original being typed and each of the two sheets that would become the carbon copies.” — Editor

“Stringers” Needs Zingers

My heart soars to know that Sir Refried Gringo feels that my letter (February 16) regarding putting more of the neighborhood back into the “Neighborhood News from Stringers” section struck a chord with him (Letters, “Comments from Reader website,” February 23).

A few score and maybe seven years ago, I discovered the Reader. Father Holman brought forth on these pages a new weekly, conceived in creativity and dedicated to the proposition that there are lots of fun, exciting things to do in San Diego. There’s also lots of scintillating news that must be announced to a curious public that will lap it up, especially if color pictures are provided.

Now we are engaged in a great war of whether the regular Reader scribes, who are talented folks, no doubt, are being authentic in getting their “Stringers” stories to sound like boring press releases. Very dedicated San Diego ambulance chasers — I mean, “Stringers” reporters — such as myself, stand ready and willing to report on the most lurid crimes, bloody accidents, and dirty condoms on the beach, if given half the chance.

Please, dear Reader and Father Holman, continue to move forward on your great revitalization of the “Stringers” section, which now includes much more relevant and riveting stories that are actually from the neighborhoods. Occupy is passé and so are all those boring reports from city council meetings. I breathlessly turn to the “Stringers” section each week in a desperate search of yet another Bonnie Dumanis story or dog-attack victim.

Thank you again to Señor Gringo for his kind words of comfort.

Rapunzel
Midway