Gizella Sabo took the news hard. “I survived Auschwitz,” she said, smashing that bitter noun to smithereens. “I came out alive from that place. And for what?” she demanded. “For this?” This had turned out …
October 30, 1997
Thursday, October 30
Gizella Sabo: “I survived Auschwitz... for this?"
I track the previous owner of my sewing machine to Sun City
The next week, I met Mrs. Ferguson, aged 82, during Mike’s regular Thursday visit to Sun City Gardens, a triangle of blue-carpeted buildings by the freeway that overlooks, on three sides, the hot suburban desert.
October 30, 1997
Matt Lickona: my darling droolbucket
Four months. Four months since I left the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, a little surprised that they were letting me just leave with this newborn, half expecting some sort of institutional monitor to be sent …
October 30, 1997
Fake owls on gas stations, liquor stores — what they mean
Mattster: Being the designated dad in my family of six, I am usually too busy to watch the passing scenery during our local travels via the family wagon (actually it’s only a hatchback...). But my …
October 30, 1997
How we can change the date of Halloween
Matthew Alice: How do you go about changing the observed date of a holiday? My friends and I feel that Halloween should be observed on the last Saturday in October. That way children could go …
October 30, 1997
From the Baja-Ha-Ha race to the Coconut Milk Run
It takes a lot of work to drop out of the rat race if the escape route entails crossing 3000-plus miles of Pacific Ocean. Justask Ellie Goolkasian and David Hudson, most recently of Oceanside. Three …
October 30, 1997
Should Bears Have Arms?
If the bears had not ripped Fred Gilbert's arms off, he might never have made the connection with Maria Amparo 40 years later. The accident happened when he was a boy. He'd gone to see …
October 30, 1997
San Diego's secret new lease agreement with Sea World
Well-connected observers say the next big controversy to hit city hall will involve the city's secret new lease agreement with Sea World. Officials in the city's real estate assets department say that a hush-hush copy …
October 30, 1997
All primary care physicians have patients we call our albatrosses
If you are a woman therapist in your late 40s, about 5'7" (“but not too tall”), blond of hair, conservative in dress, self-assured, nurturing, non-flamboyant with a pleasant voice, I want to meet you. Not …
October 30, 1997
The danger of getting fleas from kissing my cat
Matmail: Okay, now don 't give me any trouble about this. I kiss my cat. Not on the mouth (yuck!), on the head. She's a very loving affectionate cat. Bumps heads (the cat way of …
October 30, 1997
Thursday, October 23
Up close and personal with Scammon's Lagoon whales
“But we still don’t know simple things. Like how many there are. How fast they grow. How long they live. We don’t know where the juveniles go. We don’t know even if [young gray whales] migrate.”
October 23, 1997
Downtown San Diego hotel room bleeds a woman dry
I did what I would have advised anyone to do. I said to my face in the bathroom mirror, a pale face made paler by the bathroom’s subaqueous light, “You’ve got to quit living on peanut butter.”
October 23, 1997
Whether we really use 10 percent of our brains
Matmail: I have heard that we humans only use 10 percent of our brains and that Einstein used 11 percent. Is this true, and where do they come up with these numbers? What would they …
October 23, 1997
How they came up with the name Certs
Matt: Where did Certs get its name? — Rip Van Laer, P.B. I hope you’re grateful, Rip. Who else would take this question seriously? Warner-Lambert was pretty dumbfounded that we were wasting their time with …
October 23, 1997
Shooting the mountain lions after incident in Julian
In 1972, for example, only 4 permits were issued statewide for killing mountain lions that posed a threat to humans or livestock. Compare that with 1994 when 328 permits were issued and 121 were killed.
October 23, 1997
Father Rudy Kos, priest and accused molester of altar boys, arrested at the Loft in Hillcrest
The cameras are there in the courtroom in the San Diego County Courthouse, but they are not yet rolling. Not for the Hispanic male who needs an interpreter to help him grab the gist of …
October 23, 1997
Susan Golding staff gets childcare room
A friendly item by Union-Tribune columnist Diane Bell about pregnancies among the staff of Mayor Susan Golding has inspired a not-so-friendly anonymous hit by a group calling itself "City Moms." According to the October 7 …
October 23, 1997
The size of Rosie O'Donnell's head
Matmail: Exactly how big is Rosie O'Donnell's head? Why do the hairstylists on her boring show give her an even bigger head with their “big hair" stylin'? If you have been stumped, I'd settle for …
October 23, 1997
Thursday, October 16
El Cocinero confesses about FBI Top Ten Most Wanted's Arellano Felix
Last month, the United States government took the unprecedented step of placing Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and the State Department offered a $2 million reward. The government began …
October 16, 1997
Emerald Triangle of marijuana production moves to San Diego County
Is more marijuana grown in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties than in Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and Del Norte counties? And do Mexican nationals produce close to 90 percent of San Diego County's crop? Yes …
October 16, 1997
The melancholy journey of a Ramona steer to meathood
Vern Robinson’s Little Pistol Pete, a 16 month – old, 1250-pound, largely black Maine-Anjou/Angus steer, stands on the clean concrete slab under the burning blue sky of an August day that is just beginning to …
October 16, 1997
The problems with Southwood Psychiatric Center in Chula Vista
Christy Scheck, on March 6, 1992, a Friday evening, walked into a bathroom in Southwood Psychiatric Center's Residential Treatment Center in Chula Vista (now called Bayview and under new management). Thirteen-year-old Scheck had been a …
October 16, 1997
The 15-foot photo of Susan Golding at the airport
A yet-to-air expose on child-resistant bottle caps by KNSD, San Diego s NBC owned-and-operated television station, has stirred up a tempest in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the station put …
October 16, 1997
Co-founder Don Selby of Poetry Daily
“We have variously independently chosen a week of poems and worked collaboratively. All three of us read books and journals that we receive from publishers. We try to put poems together that hang together….”
Where mortarboards come from
Matthew: What lunatic designed the mortarboard, and why are people still wearing them in the 20th Century? — Gary in La Mesa We don’t have the lunatic’s name, but he sort of ripped off the …
October 16, 1997
Behind scenes at San Diego's Museum of Photographic Arts
1. The Vault If a photograph dies and goes to heaven, it might end up here in the breathable vault at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. The prospect for immortality is good, …
October 16, 1997
Monday, October 13
Why the trip home always seems shorter
Dear Matthew Alice: From a perceptual point of view, the trip home from a destination always seems shorter. Anything to it? — Sugar Van Tassel, San Diego Definitely. Scientists have studied this phenomenon, and their …
October 13, 1997
Thursday, October 9
Moe Greenberg Can Still Make Me Cry
On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Moe Greenberg puts on his suit jacket without a word and drives to temple for the second time, this time alone. During the morning service, my father felt …
October 9, 1997
The Tijuana-San Diego life of man executed in Virginia
'Mexican Hit Man Laughs, Forgives Before Execution," headlines read the morning after the State of Virginia killed 26-year-old Mario Benjamin Murphy. "It's a good day to die," he was reported as saying when strapped to …
October 9, 1997
Norman "Kyoti" King wants his medical marijuana, cuts CD
Legalize it, legalize it, being in America should be about being free/ Legalize it, legalize it, it's a basic right for you and me. First off, Norman "Kyoti" King has a CD out. Second, he's …
October 9, 1997
Mayor Susan Golding warns San Diego about El Nino
Last week, Mayor Susan Golding, who spends much of her time out of the city running for U.S. Senate these days, briefly returned to her old stomping grounds for an elaborately staged media event to …
October 9, 1997
Thursday, October 2
It Will Give You Cancer. It Will Make Your Children Stupid. It Will Break Your Bones. The Fluoride Controversy Continues
Hillcrest dentist David Kennedy recently posed the following question to several friends with whom he was dining: What would you do if you knew that a toxic substance was going to be added to San …
October 2, 1997
Poet James Schuyler at UCSD
He read for an hour. Then stopped. Still, he’d never looked up. People rose to their feet. Clapped. Clapped louder. All at once Schuyler looked up from the table into the faces that fell down before him.
October 2, 1997
Why we pay a check at a restaurant and not a bill?
Dear Matthew Alice: Why is it that when you dine in at a restaurant, the waiter leaves you with what is referred to as a check? Why is it not called a bill, since it's …
October 2, 1997
The early use of "dope" for illegal drugs
Matt: If you can avoid the obvious wise-guy answer, can you tell me how drugs got to be called “dope”? — No Dope, La Jolla We sure know our dope: early America, the Dutch word …
October 2, 1997
What is good E. coli and what is bad E. coli
Matt Alice: I'm totally confused over this whole Escherichia coli ordeal I learned in microbiology that E. coli exists in our intestines. What's up with E coli 0157:H7? Where did it come from? How does …
October 2, 1997
Why John Brizzolara hates football
Most things on television are moronic and violent, but these players aren't actors; the violence is real and we are invited to participate in the stands, in the parking lots, in our living rooms.
October 2, 1997
Should we or shouldn't we welcome the aircraft carrier Midway to San Diego Bay?
"San Diego is the right place to have this. It's a tourist town with naval history. It's like trying to have a steak house in Kansas City. You have to blow it for it not to work."
October 2, 1997
Mayor Susan Golding invested well in pharmaceuticals
Mayor Susan Golding has filed a personal financial disclosure statement showing she has invested well in the pharmaceutical business. The mayor, who's seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, is required by Senate …
October 2, 1997
Where we get flower "bed"
I have a new set of instructions from the research elves, communicated to me through a spokeself, who apparently lost a round of one-potato, two-potato. I have to warn them when there’s a word-origin question …
October 2, 1997
Up and down Symphony Towers
“If you have an office building, 1 story, 30 stories, or 80 stories, the owner wants to look forward to a profit. One way, if the economy is good in that market area — you can raise the rents.”
October 2, 1997