It's Annoying After All

I feel duty bound to overjoy/alarm you with the news that there’s a charming/dreadful event scheduled next month that will be a cause for celebration/despair.

Disneyland’s It’s a Small World, the famous ride that features dolls in ethnic attire singing a kitschy tribute to the elusive concept of world peace, will mark its 50th anniversary. Folks around the planet will join in singing the attraction’s theme song that’s No. 1 in the all-time Earworm Top Forty.

This will cause some to dance in the streets, others to pour beeswax in their ears lest they hear one bar of a song that will remain in their heads for weeks, months, even years.

I am firmly in the latter camp. To me, no matter how heartfelt the lyrics, the song conjures visions of an ice cream truck parked in front of my house for hours on end.

Indeed, I believe that, played on a continuous loop, it could be piped into jail cells and the most hardened criminals would confess just to make it stop. Call it musicboarding.

There are, of course, various opinions on the “small world” question.

“We took our 2-year-old on it yesterday while in Florida. He loved it and it’s one of my only memories of Disney from my first visit when I was 3,” wrote one mother on a Facebook page.

But another had a different experience. “Worst nightmare! Stuck in the broken down “small world” for 45 minutes with two 4-year-olds that had to pee and the song playing over and over and over. That was in 1995 and I still cringe at the thought of it.”

She was not the only one. A man who was forced to listen to “It’s A Small World” over and over again for 30 minutes sued Disney and won.

The disabled man got stuck when the ride broke down. His lawyer said the music continued to play and never stopped playing. Workers were able to evacuate other passengers, but the man’s boat was stuck in a cave. He had to remain in place for about a half hour and then required several hours of medical assistance.

He was awarded $8,000 in his lawsuit.

The annoyingness of “It’s a Small World (After All)” is so well-established that even Disney has acknowledged it with a self-referencing wink, writes Jason Richards in the Atlantic.

In a scene from “The Lion King,” the movie’s villain, Scar, asks Zazu, who he has captured, to “sing something with a little bounce in it.” When his prisoner breaks into “It’s a Small World (After All),” Scar quickly interrupts: “No! No. Anything but that.”

So who’s responsible for this legendary opus?

The It’s a Small World attraction was originally designed for the 1964 World’s Fair. The tentative soundtrack featured the national anthems of the countries represented throughout the ride all playing all at once, which resulted in a cacophonous noise.

Walt Disney showed a scale model of the attraction to his staff songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, saying, “I need one song that can be easily translated into many languages and be played as a round.”

The Sherman Brothers then wrote “It’s a Small World (After All)” in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which influenced the song’s message of peace and brotherhood.

It’s the fault of those damn Russians again.

Of course, there is one school of thought that suggests no matter how the Shermans crafted their song, it was doomed. That’s based on an online poll conducted in 1996 that surveyed approximately 500 people about their most and least favorite musical sounds. Children’s choirs were on the “hated” list, along with bagpipes, accordions, banjos, synthesizers, harps and organs.

So is “It’s a Small World” the most annoying song of all time?

Not even close, in my highly unscientific and off-the-top-of-my-head opinion.

Number one would be “I Love You” sung by Barney, a purple and green dinosaur character who appeared on a PBS children’s show for a number of years.

How bad is it? A U.S. undercover operative told Newsweek in 2003 that he was forced to listen to the song for 45 minutes during training. “I never want to go through that again,” he laconically stated.

Then, in no particular order: “McArthur Park” by Richard Harris; “Your Having My Baby” by Paul Anka; “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” by Brian Hyland; “I’m Henry the VIII, I Am” by Herman’s Hermits; “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window” by Patti Page; “Achy Breaky Heart” by Bill Ray Cyrus; “Ebony and Ivory” by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder; “Jingle Bells” by the Barking Dogs; “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” by Tiny Tim; and, of course, any rap song, anything by Pat Boone, anything by Justin Beiber.

Matched against that lineup, maybe Mr. Disney’s creation wasn’t so bad. After all.

Auto Erratic

This is a tale of unrequited love, of affection rejected, of suitors seduced, then abandoned.

It is the story of the American public’s love affair with the automobile. And how the industry rewards that love and loyalty with a callous disregard for our safety and well being.

The latest example of this twisted tale is the shocking disclosure that General Motors is recalling 1.6 million vehicles because of a faulty ignition switch.   The flaw can cause the car’s engine to switch off leaving it with no power steering, no power brakes, no airbags.

Even worse is the revelation that the defect was first discovered in 2001. But the public was never told.

Six people have died in ignition switch related accidents, according to GM, and six other deaths are linked to problem. As many as 303 deaths could have been caused by a defect, according to a report commissioned by an independent consumer watchdog group and reported in the Los Angeles Times.

Federal prosecutors and two congressional committees have opened an investigation into the matter.

At the same time, GM announced the recall of:

- 1.18 million SUVs because their side air bags, front center air bags and seat belt pretensioners might not deploy if drivers ignore an air bag warning light on their dashboard. The recall includes the Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia from the 2008-2013 model years; the Chevrolet Traverse from the 2009-2013 model years; and the Saturn Outlook from the 2008-2010 model years.

— 303,000 Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana vans from the 2009-2014 model years because the material on the instrument panel might not adequately protect unbelted passengers' heads in a crash.

— 63,900 Cadillac XTS sedans from the 2013 and 2014 model years because a plug in the brake assembly can get dislodged and short, increasing the risk of an engine compartment fire.

While the motoring public was reeling from this news, the Justice Department announced this week that Toyota will pay a $1.2 billion penalty to settle the criminal probe into its handling of unintended acceleration problems that led to recalls of 8.1 million vehicles beginning in 2009.

In the meantime, Toyota's lawyers are in settlement talks over hundreds of civil lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths or injuries, potentially adding hundreds of millions to the tab, according to published reports.

None of this should come as a complete surprise. We’ve been down this road before.

 In 2001, the infamous Ford Explorer, prone to rollovers, was equipped with Firestone tires, prone to shredding.   That combination led to an estimated 200 deaths.   Ford recalled the vehicle for a tire change.

In the 1970s, Ford brought us the Pinto, a car so badly engineered that the fuel tank was placed behind the rear axle with a fuel-filler pipe that was vulnerable to bursting in a rear-end collision.   According to published reports, an internal memo at Ford indicated that better protecting the fuel tank would cost about $11 per Pinto over its production run, but that it would be cheaper for the company to pay settlements for injuries and deaths from the resulting fires instead. Ford ended up doing both:  re-engineering the fuel tank and paying our millions in settlements for injuries and deaths.

In the 1980s, GM produced the X-Cars. One of these, the 1980 Chevrolet Citation, has been recalled nine times. Glitches on that car included everything from faulty fuel lines to a steering gear that detached from its mounts.  That almost beat the dubious record set by the Chrysler corporation which in the 1970s produced the Aspen and Volare, two models that were recalled eight times in one year.

Just this past year Hyundai recalled more than 1 million vehicles due to brake-light problem also affecting its sister company Kia. 

And Chrysler recalled 2.7 million vehicles due to a potential fuel-system problem that could cause fires in a rear-end crash.

Does this mean that the century-long love affair between motorists and manufacturers is nearing an end?   It depends on who you ask.

According to some automotive experts, GM's new car sales are unlikely to take a big hit. The company's current vehicles have received much better marks on quality than in the past. GM was named highest quality automaker by J.D. Power in 2013 for the first time in its history.

Yet, aging boomers and especially millennials are a reason why public transit demand is its strongest since 1956. New transportation systems are being built across the United States, witness light rail and subway construction in Los Angeles.

Why?  Today’s young people simply don’t drive like their predecessors did. According to one report, adults between the ages of 21 and 34 bought just 27 percent of all new vehicles sold in America in 2010, down from the peak of 38 percent in 1985. Miles driven are down and the proportion of teenagers with a license fell by 28 percent, between 1998 and 2008.

It could be a statistical aberration.   Cars are expensive, the job market remains shaky.  But what if it’s a fundamental change in thinking?

Consider:  According to a report in the Atlantic,  Zipcar is the world’s largest car-sharing company, with some 700,000 members. Zipcar owes much of its success to two facts. First, gas prices continue to rise which makes car-sharing alluring. Second, smartphones have become ubiquitous, which made car-sharing easier.

In all likelihood, cars and trucks will never disappear from our world.  But our torrid love affair with them shows signs of chilling.  And as a result, the how and why of our driving habits could change forever.

Everyone's a Critic

The first food critic I ever observed up close and personal was a woman named Lois Dwan who plied her trade at the Los Angeles Times.

It was from her I learned that food critics were like undercover cops. They travel under assumed names and embrace anonymity.   They do this to insure that they experience the same food and service as everyone else.

Lois held down the job by herself, remarkable in a city the size of Los Angeles, and managed to write dining guides and other food-related books in her spare time.

She was never reluctant to criticize a bad dish but wrote with enough style and grace to avoid taking a linguistic chainsaw to an establishment if the soufflé fell. 

She was also the mother of five.  You might say she had a lot on her plate.   But it must have agreed with her.  She lived to be 91.

Elmer Dills was a high visibility foodie on local television and radio for a number of years in Los Angeles.   I first ran into him at in a buffet line at a Pasadena restaurant.   I asked him what was good and he said everything since he didn’t have to pay for it.  I think he was kidding.   I hope so.

He learned his craft as an officer in the CIA, a job that took him on extensive travels though Europe and the Middle East.  He must have been the guy who put the “secret” in “secret recipes.”

As a radio host, Dills read commercials for restaurants on his show, which some critics considered a conflict of interest. He disagreed, saying in an interview, "I will not accept a commercial until I personally have evaluated the restaurant, and I actually reject about 70% to 80% of the restaurant commercials that come to the station."

He passed in 2008 but there’s still a pizza place in Pasadena that proudly flies a banner out front displaying Dills’ favorable opinion of their cuisine.

Jonathan Gold, the current food critic for the Los Angeles Times, brought an egalitarian touch to the art of food criticism, often choosing small ethnic restaurants to review.    His approach brought him a Pulitzer Prize, the only food critic to ever win one.

Other name critics --- Ruth Reichl, Irene Virbila to name two --- have successfully plied their trade here. But there’s a critic in town that could be a game changer.

That critic is You.

Is your chowder cold and your chicken medium rare?   Does the waiter call you “dude” and pour your wine into a water glass?   Does the bus boy spill leftovers into your Kate Spade bag?

Thanks to the Internet, you can now praise or savage just about any commercial establishment under the sun, be it a restaurant or a car dealership or an entire city.

Your tool for this endeavor is a website called Yelp.   The word itself is defined as “a sharp quick shrill cry” and you’ll find plenty of that wherever you look. 

When it comes to dining, there seems to be little in-between when Yelpers offer their opinions.

You’ll find either five star reviews (the highest) that appear to be written by the mother of the owner;  or a one star review usually written by someone who’s mad because he and 10 friends showed up without reservations at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night and had to wait to be seated.  

It’s easy to trash talk when writing reviews.   To underscore that point, some Yelp contributors take a meat cleaver approach to their posts:

“I would rather pay $5 to chew on an old lady’s chin mole than eat this ever again.”

“If you're up for waiting around over 90 minutes for an order that looks like a failed 4th grade chemistry experiment, go for it.”

 “The place is dirty. I shudder to imagine what the kitchen looks like. Save your money. Go lick a bus seat to get the same gastrointestinal experience for free." 

All very funny but at the end of the day, is Yelp just a source for a belly laugh or does it really influence the restaurant business.?

 First, a word about credibility.   Over the years,   Yelp has been accused of   manipulating the website's user reviews based on participation in its advertising programs.   These charges have been denied and several class action lawsuits against the website have gone nowhere..  Questions linger but given the nature of the beast, they probably always will.

Second, Yelp ratings do move the market.  Two economists from UC Berkeley surveyed 300 restaurants in San Francisco and correlated their evening reservations rates with their rating on the company's website. They concluded that an upgrade from 3.5 to 4 stars caused an increase of 19 percentage points in the sellout rate.

But of even greater interest, Yelp has taken the haute out of cuisine.  In a story that appeared in these pages recently, Yelp listed the top 100 places to eat in American.

Number One was a tiny seafood joint wedged into a condo complex in Hawaii called De Poke Shack, which features salads that combine Japanese-inflected spices and greens like seaweed or kimchi with generous chunks of fresh, raw Ahi tuna.  The cost?  About $8.

The top Los Angeles choices were Porto’s Bakery which has locations in Glendale and Burbank featuring Cuban fare.  Next was Joe’s Falafel, a Mediterranean place in Studio City.  And next was Ricky’s Fish Tacos which operates out of a food truck.

Not a linen tablecloth among them.

Fine (read expensive) dining will always be with us.  Indeed, Yelpers share their opinions of upscale bistros and steak houses along with the mom and pop diners..

But Yelp and websites like it open up a menu as vast and fascinating as the city we live in.  And that's a recipe for success   

The Myth of Los Angeles

“Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really dropped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically — any way you want to look at it — everybody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.”   - Michael Connelly, “The Brass Verdict”

“All come from somewhere/To live in sunshine/Their funky exile/Midwestern ladies/High-heeled and faded/Drivin’ sleek new sports cars/With their New York cowboys.” — Billy Joel, “Los Angelenos”

Where do the myths, the stereotypes, the cliches begin? Neighbors chatting over the backyard fence? Water cooler conversation at the office? A conversation over a beer at the local bar? The Internet?

I wondered about this while reading an obituary of Harold Ramis, the once-in-a-generation comedic genius who died way too soon this past week.

In a Chicago Tribune piece,  Ramis, a Chicago native, explained that he moved himself and his family back to his hometown after his successes as an actor/director/screenwriter in Hollywood because “There’s a pride in what I do that other people share because I’m local, which in L.A. is meaningless; no one’s local.”

And that quote, along with the words of Connelly and Joel and many more, answered my question.

The people who perpetuate the myth of Los Angeles as a city of soulless transients seeking fast fame and fortune are the writers and filmmakers and musicians and actors and authors who have grabbed the golden ring in the very same town, then condemned everyone else as shameless opportunists.

It’s time to bury the image of Los Angeles as the home to the vapid and rootless. It has never been true and it never will be. It is fiction perpetuated by the same people who engage in fiction as a livelihood.

I guess I’m a little sensitive about it because I was born and raised here. With the exception of college and a stint in the military, I have lived here all my life.

My father came from “Somewhere Else.” He moved his family here in the late 1930s from New Orleans. It was the post-Depression era when any job was a good job. He found his in Los Angeles and became the ultimate “local,” one of the biggest civic boosters you would ever want to meet.

He had no particular financial motive for his boosterism. He was just a hard-working guy with a family to feed who honestly believed this was the greatest place to live on Earth. He never kept a bag packed. He never made a break for it. The concept would have puzzled him. And I guess it wore off on me.

Nobody claims this is paradise. Drive through some areas of L.A. and it’s a depressing journey through miles of shoddy apartment buildings and sleazy strip malls. We must be the mattress store and nail salon capitol of the world.

There is beauty, too. The beaches, the mountains, the canyons, the 300 museums, the 80 stage theaters, the dozens of parks. We have a breathtaking skyline that continues to grow. Los Angeles may not be Paris but it’s not El Paso, either.

The traffic is terrible. It takes and hour and a half to get from Point A to Point B almost anywhere in the city on a bad day. But we are on the verge of having a first-class public transportation system in spite of ourselves as subways and light rail expands. We should have done it 50 years ago but the freeways were less crowded then and the motivation and foresight was lacking.

Most importantly, despite the myth that we are a mass of people who are just passing through, we are fast becoming a population with local roots.

According to the new demographic projections conducted by USC’s Population Dynamics Research Group, the majority of Los Angeles residents will be California natives, rather than immigrants. By 2030, two-thirds of new residents will have been California natives, the report says.

Civic pride? Yeah, we have that. We’ve hosted two Olympic Games, seven Super Bowls and are home to World Series champions, NBA champions, Stanley Cup champions, NCAA champions.

We have survived earthquakes, fires and floods but our population and median income continues to increase. More than 20 million people come here every year on vacation.

Do we all come from somewhere else? Certainly we do. So does everyone else in the United States unless you’re an American Indian.

The difference is when people come to Los Angeles, they stay. We are the most ethnically diverse city in the nation.

About 48 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino, nearly 13 percent is Asian and nearly 9 percent African-American. There are Armenians and Ethiopians and Iranians and Pakistanis in large numbers. More than 200 languages are spoken here.

And we all get along. Why? Because we love L.A.

The Right Direction

Want to develop a better mouse trap? Easy. Just go to war.

The billions spent on military research and development in this country not only results in ever more sophisticated weaponry, it also provides us — sometimes accidentally — with consumer products that we might not have if we weren’t engaged in smiting our enemies.

We wrote recently about drones, those pilotless search and destroy aircraft that have been used extensively in the Middle East. Kinder and gentler versions are now in production that will be used to deliver everything from packages to pizza.

Thanks to the military, we also enjoy cargo pants, the brainchild of the British; duct tape, which was originally intended to seal ammunition cases; the microwave oven, discovered in researching radar; the Jeep, which, during World War II, did not come equipped with a leather-wrapped steering wheel; jet engines; digital photography; and, of course, the Internet.

We mention all this because we are celebrating the anniversary of another military invention that we would be lost without.

Let’s hear it for the Global Positioning System.

We have come a long way since we fumbled through the glove compartment to find an Auto Club map that, once unfolded, could never be folded correctly again.

Or lugged out a Thomas Brothers guide that left us dazed and confused as we tried to follow a route from one page to another.

Now, 25 years after the launching of the first GPS satellites, we can use our car’s navigation system or our smart phones to guide us to our destination.

And it works just great. With a few exceptions:

One blogger reported that if you went to one GPS service and requested a route from Trondheim, Norway to Haugesund, Norway it gave you the direct route between the two cities, a distance of about 476 miles.

But if you reversed the cities and asked for directions from Haugesund to Tronheim, it told you to take the ferry to Scotland, drive to London and take the Chunnel to France, and then drive through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden to get back to Trondheim.

It must be the scenic route.

Meanwhile, in Australia, three Japanese tourists decided to take a day trip to North Stradbroke Island, according to news reports. They trustingly followed their GPS system’s instructions to drive directly through Moreton Bay to the island, forgoing real roads.

The students were able to navigate the rented Hyundai about 50 yards into the bay before they realized they would be unable to drive farther.

They attempted to turn around, but the incoming tide forced them to leave the vehicle behind.

One of they three defended their decision to attempt the drive, saying, “[the GPS] told us we could drive there.”

Apparently, they haven’t learned to program common sense into these devices yet.

A pizza delivery driver in Michigan, listening to his GPS, made a wrong turn, landed on some railroad tracks and lost his car to an oncoming passenger train. Fortunately, the driver and the pizzas escaped unharmed.

A group of California tourists became lost in Utah at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. They attempted to use a GPS to plot their route to the Grand Canyon but the GPS route they took included a series of rough roads that ended in cliffs. The group eventually was led back to safety with the help of sheriff’s deputies.

The first GPS system I ever saw was stuck to the dashboard of a friend’s SUV. He was a bit of a rascal so he would make wrong turns on purpose, then chuckle as the otherwise soothing female voice that gave directions grew annoyed. But he had nothing on German drivers. BMW had to recall early GPS systems in its autos because German men refused to take directions from a female voice.

My first GPS system, a portable unit, refused to recognize the 210 Freeway. On a trip from Glendale to Big Bear one weekend, it implored to me to exit on every offramp I passed and take surface streets to the 10 Freeway. I ended up unplugging it and throwing it in the back seat.

These days, of course, the GPS system is a commonplace tool for the traveling public. But apparently, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

GPS-like devices are already in development that will provide turn-by-turn directions in large indoor spaces such as airports, museums, schools and hospitals. One is already in use in New York City where it provides a map of all 11 levels of Macy’s iconic Herald Square store.

The inventor of the GPS believes its future is in self-driving cars.

“I think (the future) leads to robotic cars. I think there will come a time when you go down the highway and you don’t have to have your hand on the steering wheel at all,” Bradford Parkinson told CNN. “It’ll be a combination of GPS, radar and other sensors.”

Which would take the device from saving time to saving lives.

Flights of Fancy

Need a new toaster or coffee maker? Simply go online, choose the model you like, and it will delivered to your door in 30 minutes.

Want a pizza for dinner? One mouse click or phone call and it’s on its way to you in 15 minutes. No tip necessary. Want beer with that meal? A six-pack arrives so fast it’s still ice cold.

Ditto for your dry clearing, groceries, shoes and clothing and other everyday items from baby needs to books.

Just call 1-800-Drone and it will be swiftly directed through the air and gently deposited in your hands before you can say “the future is now.”

OK, we may be getting ahead of ourselves a bit here. But not by much. Drones, familiar to most Americans as military hunter/killers, are about to be tamed. In an unprecedented image makeover, we are on the verge of converting a weapon of war into an airborne convenience store.

And if you think it’s a fantasy, know this: Amazon is developing a fleet of delivery drones called octocopters.

If that project flies, it won't be long before Target and Wal-Mart will be launching their own air forces. Knowing Wal-Mart, it will probably equip its drones with air-to-air missiles to eradicate the competition.

Dominos Pizza has the DomiCopter, which has already been tested in Great Britain. Soon you will be able to get mediocre pizza in minutes.

At a recent music festival in South Africa, small robots provided beer to fans who placed orders through a smartphone app.

Lakemaid Brewery in Wisconsin recently posted a video of their product being delivered via drones to ice fishermen on a frozen lake in Minnesota. However, the Federal Aviation Administration was not amused and shut down the operation. The brewery, not to be deterred, has started a petition on Whitehouse.gov to get their suds in the sky.

Drones are also being developed to assist in firefighting, search and rescue operations, border surveillance and scientific and environmental research. Yamaha has sold more than 2,600 remotely piloted helicopters for agricultural use in Japan. The drone costs $100,000, weighs 140 pounds, stands three and half feet tall and 90 percent of farmers use it for crop dusting, spot spraying, weed and pest control and fertilization.

Several media outlets have experimented using drones to film news events, meaning, I suppose, that reporters will soon be required to have a background in aeronautics.

But wait just a darn minute.

There is inherent personal and professional danger in praising a federal agency for pursuing a wise and prudent path, but the FAA appears to be doing exactly that.

Currently, the FAA issues domestic drone authorizations on a case-by-case basis, according to published reports. They are limited to government agencies, universities and law enforcement. But now the agency must finalize plans for allowing drones in domestic airspace by 2015 under a law passed by Congress in 2012.

The FAA has set six test sites to review safety issues, but has said it likely will not meet the 2015 deadline.

That’s a good thing. We shouldn’t rush into this.

I’m trying to envision life in my neighborhood with drones flying about at all times of the day and night. Would it disrupt the sense of peace and serenity? Would it be hazardous? I assume drones, like many mechanical devices, fail from time to time.

Would packages left on the doorstep attract thieves? Could drones be used by drug dealers?  Or terrorists?

What if some yahoo decided to pump a couple of thirty aught six rounds into a drone to exercise his Second Amendment rights?

If you lived near an Amazon distribution center, the number of drones coming and going could blot out the sun.

And who’s going to be piloting these things? The same kid who used to deliver your pizza? 

What about commercial aviation? According to a story from UPI, the U.S. has one of the largest passenger fleets in the world and its airspace is significantly more complex than, say, that of Japan, especially at lower altitudes where drones fly, said Michael Huerta, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA expects 7,500 drone-like craft in the skies within five years of the regulations being set.

“We don’t have a complete understanding of where this might go in the future,” he said, in what could charitably described as an understatement.

Perhaps most importantly, what about privacy? According to the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance.

“Routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public life in America,” the ACLU states. “Rules must be put in place to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a ‘surveillance society’ in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the government.”

Some would argue that we’re already in a surveillance society. Having a drone watching your every move because someone considers you “a person of interest” would validate that point of view.

In the meantime, I’ll get my own pizza and beer in the fervent hope that we are making sure we remain in control of technology instead of the other way around.

Robert Rector is a former editor with the Pasadena Star-News and Los Angeles Times. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector.Blogspot.com. He can be reached at Nulede@AOL.com.

Super Bowled

     Can it be?  Why yes, it’s Super Bowl Sunday once again. For the XLVIII time.

      It was just XII months ago that we enjoyed the action of Super Bowl XLVII when XXII football        warriors battled for LX minutes before the Baltimore Ravens emerged victorious over the San Francisco 49ers by the score of XXXIV to XXXI.

      This year the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks will meet at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the game time temperature is expected to be in the neighborhood of XL, dropping to below freezing at night.

     That’s ridiculous weather for a championship game but, hey, that’s just my II cents worth.

     The Super Bowl is an American institution, Roman numerals notwithstanding. And while we like to think of the game as a tribute to civic pride, skill, fair play and sportsmanship, it’s largely about wagering.

      According to one estimate, more than $8 billion is wagered every year on the Super Bowl alone. An estimated 200 million people bet on the outcome of the game worldwide.

Then there are the side bets. For example, you can bet on what color Gatorade will be dumped on the     winning coach.  Or how many members of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, the halftime entertainment, will appear shirtless.   Or the jersey number of the first player to score a touchdown.   Or how long will it take Renee Fleming to sing the national anthem, if she will forget or omit one word or if she will be wearing gloves. If so, you can wager on what color gloves she will wear. 

You can also put your hard earned cash on who the Super Bowl MVP will mention first in his speech:  Teammates are at 2/1, followed by God (5/2), Fans (5/1), other team (7/1), coach or family (12/1), owner (25/1) and none of the above at 4/1.

Besides betting, the Super Bowl is about eating.  Super Bowl Sunday can make Thanksgiving look like a day of fasting.  And we’re not just talking about your famous football shaped cheese log or 50-layer dip. 

The National Chicken Council estimates that 1.25 billion chicken wings will be consumed during the Super Bowl. There are expected to be 48 million take-out pizzas ordered. Some 80 million avocados will be consumed along with 11 million pounds of chips.  It will be washed down with 325 million gallons of beer.  The diet business will take in millions the following week.

The Super Bowl pregame show on Fox will last four hours.   I defy you to find anyone who will admit to watching the entire thing.  Somewhere in the midst of hours of sleep-inducing analysis, commentator Bill O’Reilly will interview President Obama.   Expect some frank but cordial trash talking.

 The game, including half-time show, will last another four hours.  That should just about take up your day.  But rest up.  Marathon coverage of the Winter Olympics will begin and last more than two weeks. Break out the Stroganov and vodka and raise a toast to the fact that you don’t live in Russia.

Of course, there’s more to the Super Bowl than gorging and gambling.  In fact, there’s more than just football involved.  Who can forget these memorable moments?

The great blackout:  In the middle of the 2013 game at the Superdome in New Orleans, the lights went out giving the proceedings an eerie third world feel.  It lasted 35 minutes and was blamed on a faulty relay switch.   That explanation didn’t sit well with Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis who opined, “You cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens [are] about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ … That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.”

The worst national anthem.  Christina Aguilera’s version in 2011 was pretentious and bizarre ("What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last reaming.")  Fortunately for her, it sounded like grand opera compared to the “Star Spangled Banner” as performed in other venues by the likes of Steven Tyler and Roseanne Barr.

Worst (or maybe best) halftime show:  The great wardrobe malfunction of  2004 in which Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed for about half a second by the ham fisted Justin Timberlake.  Also known as Nipplegate , it resulted in one of the greatest overreactions in the history of American entertainment:  The FCC fined media conglomerates involved with the broadcast including Viacom and CBS, and subsidiaries MTV, Clear Channel Communications, and Infinity Broadcasting,  It also enforced a blacklist of Jackson's singles and music videos on many radio formats and music channels worldwide.  Timberlake, meanwhile, faced no such backlash.

Worst commercial:   Anything produced by Go Daddy, which every year offers up cheesy ads that are just this side of porn.  After all, sex sells.   And what does it sell?   Go Daddy is primarily an internet domain registrar and web hosting company.  Could have fooled me.  Based on their ads, I thought it was an escort service.

A close second was the Bud Bowl commercials in which a bunch of long neck beer bottles banged into each other in a simulated football game.   It was so cartoonish and silly, it couldn’t hold the attention of a five-year-old.  

Honorable mention:  an ad showing Fred Astaire dancing with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner 10 years after he died.  Dishonorable mention:  In 1996, Giants quarterback Phil Simms became the first Super Bowl champ to announce “I’m going to Disney Land.”

Let the game begin.

.

Fault Frauds and Fantasies

I sat at a desk in the disheveled offices of the Los Angeles Times Valley Edition on Jan. 18, 1994.

It was the day after the great Northridge Earthquake and we were not far from the epicenter.   Just the day before, the office resembled a junkyard, a jumble of broken windows, spilled file cabinets, toppled desks and computers, books and newspapers, all soaked by a sprinkler system unleashed by the quake.

Through some miracle it was up and running the next day and we were deep into the herculean task of covering what at the time was the biggest natural disaster to befall an American city.  We paused only occasionally to dive under our desks when an aftershock rolled through.

Late in the morning the phone rang.  It was a woman who called to tell us that she always experienced a bout of gastro-intestinal distress before an earthquake.  And it happened the evening before the Northridge quake.   Would we like an interview?

I thanked her for the call and joked that many of us had experienced gastro-intestinal distress during and immediately following the quake.  She was not amused and threatened to call another newspaper the next time her symptoms struck.

We received a lot of calls like that, from psychics and pseudo scientists who were convinced they had found the Holy Grail of earthquake prediction.   Clearly, they had not.

One call, however, turned out to be at least partially correct.  A regular caller to our office was a woman once married to a small-time hood who operated in our zip code called Sid the Squid.  Sid had departed this planet some years ago so we referred to her as the Widow Squid.

Ms. Squid explained that some years back, she would share a bottle of booze and her favors with a building inspector who would drop by to visit.  On one such occasion, he told her that if there was ever a major earthquake in the Valley, all those apartment buildings with parking areas built beneath them would come tumbling down.

All of them didn’t.  But a lot did, including the infamous Northridge Meadows collapse which left 16 people dead.  It was a good tip that came too late.

The 20^th anniversary of the Northridge quake has raised the question once again about earthquake predictions.   Many scientists believe it could become a reality sometime in the future.   Many believe it never will.

While the research continues, there are plenty of folks out there that will fill the void with their own theories.

Just a couple of months ago, a website called Catholic Online published a story headlined, “Major Quake Predicted for California.”

In it, the story pointed to the mysterious appearance of two oarfish washed up upon California shores as a precursor to an earthquake.

“In Japan, there is a traditional correlation between oarfish and earthquakes that dates back for centuries,” the story reports. “Traditional Japanese folklore says that oarfish beach themselves as a warning to the people before an earthquake. The normally elusive fish, which can be up to five meters in length, are said to be messengers from the palace of the Sea God.”

“A possible scientific explanation may be that deep-sea fish, such as oarfish, are more sensitive to seismic shifts and stress, and somehow respond to the tectonic pressure that builds before an earthquake by coming to the surface.”

It goes on the explain that “to be clear, the only evidence then is traditional Japanese folklore, which in a scientific sense isn't evidence at all.”

But it adds, “However, not all folklore is nonsense either.”

Maybe not, but the story certainly is.

Britain’s Daily Mail breathlessly reported to its readers this month that floating orbs that  “ have been linked to UFOs and hallucinations and thought to be harbingers of doom” could be a tipoff to a quake. 

“The lights, which take many forms and appear before or during earthquakes, could provide an early warning sign,” the paper reported.

Of course, if those lights happened to be stars or moonlight or aircraft or search lights or swamp gas, well, forget it.

The idea that animals can predict earthquake has been around for centuries.   It is still studied in Asia.   But here, according to the National Geographic, even though there have been documented cases of strange animal behavior prior to earthquakes, the United States Geological Survey says a reproducible connection between a specific behavior and the occurrence of a quake has never been made.

"What we're faced with is a lot of anecdotes," said Andy Michael, a geophysicist at USGS. "Animals react to so many things—being hungry, defending their territories, mating, predators—so it's hard to have a controlled study to get that advanced warning signal."

Just to be on the safe side, if you run across a beached oarfish with strange lights dancing above it while a dog howls somewhere in the night, you might want to get under a table.

There are well-intended but bogus predictions, then there is downright fraud.   A classic example was one that hit the Internet in 2010 claiming that Caltech was sending all of its students and faculty home because of an impending quake.  

Adding to the paranoia was the unspoken belief that, heck, if anybody knew a major quake was going to strike, it would be Caltech.

This, of course, kept the public relations staff at Caltech quite busy for a number of days,  telling the curious that scientists so far are unable to predict quakes  and that no one had been sent home.

It was my second favorite outrageous rumor, the first being the alarming disclosure some years back that Zero Population Growth had booby-trapped men’s toilets with razors to castrate the unsuspecting.

The most accurate prediction about earthquakes is that they will indeed occur, some small, some large, somewhere in California.  Always have, always will.   And the best advice to take away from the prediction community is to always be prepared.

We're Not All Weirdos

Welcome honored Rose Bowl guests.

Especially those from Michigan State. But first a word of caution.

No unsuspecting Midwesterner should be dropped willy-nilly into Southern California, a place so defined by clichés that reality becomes blurred.

To hear tell, we are a massive community of surfers who sprinkle our conversation with the word “dude,” drive convertibles on gridlocked streets, spend a lot of time poolside, are surgically attached to our cell phones, wear sunglasses indoors and are mostly air kissing bores who end each conversation with “let’s do lunch.”

Some of that is true. Some isn’t. So as a public service, this column is a primer on the Southern California lifestyle and how to deal with the natives here.

Lesson one: There are damn few natives here. While there are undoubtedly a lot of folks from your home state who are residing in L.A. now, you have a better chance of bumping into people from Thailand or Tokyo, Uruguay or Uganda. We are truly the Ellis Island of the 21st Century. The good news: We mostly all get along just fine. And if you’re an adventuresome foodie, you’ll find a restaurant representing every nook and cranny in the world here.

Some other truths:

Yes, there is a sizable group of surfers here. But most people are content to surf the menu board at In-N-Out Burgers. The real surfers I know are indistinguishable from other human beings. They speak actual English and are not known to show up for a dinner in a wet suit. Everyone needs a hobby. Theirs is jumping into the ocean at dawn to ride the waves. Yours is ice fishing. Judge not.

If someone calls you “dude,” don’t be offended. After all, it was originally a new word for “dandy,” an extremely well-dressed male who paid particular importance to how he appeared. According to the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, the best known of this type is probably Evander Berry Wall, who was dubbed “King of the Dudes” in 1880s New York and maintained a reputation for sartorial splendor all his life. Nowadays, it’s an informal way of addressing someone (“Dude, the house is on fire.”).

Yes, we are devoted cell phone users. Be careful in approaching a native. He or she may be startled by an attempt to initiate a conversation that does not emerge from a hand-held device. Confusion may ensue and it may take a few minutes to establish eye contact.

There was a time when it was common to spot a celebrity or two while driving around Hollywood. Those days are gone. Most celebrities these days spend their days hiding from the paparazzi behind the walls of their mansions, only emerging at night to attend a Lakers game. Or to punch the aforementioned paparazzi.

We’re not all weirdos. After all, there are some 38 million people living in California so the chances of encountering some goofball are greater than in, say, North Dakota. Besides, if we’re smart enough to live here, we can’t be all bad.

Whatever you do, do not watch the local news on TV. If you do, you’ll be convinced that the streets are awash in blood. That’s because TV is devoted to the “if it bleeds, it leads” school of reporting. The fact is that crime figures for 2012 show that the overall crime rate in Los Angeles fell 1.4 percent. Notching a decline for the 10th year in a row, Los Angeles now has the lowest crime rate in the country for cities with a population over 2 million people. Does that mean you should loudly poke fun at a biker gang in a dark alley? Only if you want to skew the statistics.

Contrary to popular opinion, we do not all live on the beach. In fact, most of us don’t. If you want to sample beach living, drive out to Malibu where an ocean-front lot costs more than the entire city of Detroit. While you’re there, stop at an eatery and try the free-range sushi at $25 a pop.

Traffic? It’s bad. Depending on what source you choose to use, the worst cities for traffic are either L.A. or Washington, D.C. or San Francisco or Honolulu. Why split hairs? It’s like determining whether you’d like to be stabbed by a Philips head screwdriver or shot with a crossbow. Either way, it’s going to be painful. Finding a cab in this town is like looking for an albino rhinoceros. Buses usually display a destination that most residents would have trouble identifying. Best advice: walk or take the lite rail.

Last but not least, if you’re looking for Stanford fans, they’ll be the group down at the end of the bar dressed in white lab coats and horned rim glasses discussing Higgs boson. If you don’t know what that is, don’t bother speaking to them.

Mea Culpa: The Year in Corrections

Cue the trumpets, please.

It’s time for the annual Mea Culpa awards, presented annually by this column to honor the very finest in corrections and retractions to appear in the media.

Why commemorate mistakes?  After all, journalism is a profession that prides itself on accuracy.  But sometimes in the production of countless words spread across countless pages, mistakes are made.  And some are funny.

So once a year we pause long enough to laugh at ourselves.  After all, a little humor is good medicine when you spend your days covering a world that seems to have gone mad.

Consider these oldies but goodies, both personal favorites.

From a Texas newspaper:  “Norma Adams-Wade's June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.”

Or this from a British tabloid:  “Recent articles in this column may have given the impression that Mr. Sven Goran Eriksson was a greedy, useless, incompetent fool. This was a misunderstanding. Mr. Eriksson is in fact a footballing genius. We are happy to make this clear.”

You get the idea.

Rising about all others this year was the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.  It seems that in 1863, the paper then known as the Patriot & Union published an editorial about Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Talk about bad reviews.

“We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.”

On the 150^th anniversary of the address, the paper issued a retraction.

“In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.”

Not far behind was the New York Times that published this:  “This just in: we made a mistake – 136 years ago. It was in a Jan. 9, 1877 article about a police officer shot by a saloon burglar. The Times called him Officer McDonnell. His name was McDowell…The record is now set straight.”

The Guardian in Great Britain was on a correction roll this year.  Consider:

“The Duchess of Cornwall might have been somewhat surprised to read in an article that she is due to give birth next month. It is the Duchess of Cambridge who is expecting a baby.”

“An article about eating mutton referred to the disastrous effects of the prolonged winter on sheep farmers and their livestock but said ‘resilient mutton are coping well.’ A farmer points out that it is the sheep that are resilient; mutton is the meat that comes from them.

“An interview with Carrie Underwood asked the country music singer if she decided to become a vegetarian after seeing her parents castrate a cow. Unlikely. Only bulls can be castrated.”

“An…item about the enduring – and, for many, irritating – popularity of ‘Gangnam Style,’  the pop song and video by the South Korean rapper Psy, said it was ‘like a virus that is immune to antibiotics.’  A doctor writes to point out that all viruses are immune to antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial infections.”

“A television listing for the BBC program ‘Wartime Farm’ described it as recalling ‘the acute foot shortage of 1943.’  That might have made an interesting program, but this one was looking at a wartime food shortage.”

The Washington Post came up with this gem:  ‘An Oct. 14 Style article about access to the prison camp for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, incorrectly referred to Navy Capt. Robert Durand as ‘thickset.’   He should have been described as muscular.”

From The Sun, United Kingdom:  “On 14 December, we published an article listing the ‘laziest’ MPs (members of Parliament) based on their voting record.  We acknowledge that Lucy Powell MP was absent during the concerned voting period due to being on maternity leave.  It was therefore wrong for us to say she is lazy. We have therefore withdrawn the article and apologize to Ms. Powell and others listed.”

From the London Evening Standard: “…we referred to the exhibition of the late Sebastian Horsley’s suits at the Museum of London and the Whoresley show, an exhibition of his pictures at the Outsiders Gallery. By unfortunate error we referred to Rachel Garley, the late Sebastian Horsley’s girlfriend, who arranged the exhibitions, as a prostitute. We accept that Ms. Garley is not and has never been a prostitute”

 From Wired:  “A previous version of this story incorrectly quoted Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston saying ‘anyone with nipples’ instead of ‘anyone with a pulse.’”

From the New York Times:  “An article …about the documentary maker Morgan Spurlock, who has a new film out on the boy band One Direction, misstated the subject of his 2012 movie ‘Mansome.’  It is about male grooming, not Charles Manson.”

From the Wall Street Journal:  “A Bloody Mary recipe…called for 12 ounces of vodka and 36 ounces of tomato juice. The recipe as printed incorrectly reversed the amounts, calling for 36 ounces of vodka and 12 ounces of tomato juice.”

From the Sun:  “In an article on Saturday headlined ‘Flying saucers over British Scientology HQ’, we stated ‘two flat silver discs’ were seen ‘above the Church of Scientology HQ.’  Following a letter from lawyers for the Church, we apologize to any alien lifeforms for linking them to Scientologists.”

The Tampa Bay Times:  “ A Tampa Bay Times reporter not strong in the ways of the force (or Star Wars lore) quoted the event’s moderator, Croix Provence, as asking: ‘Are you ready to find love in all the wrong places?’  What Provence actually said was: ‘Are you ready to find love in Alderaan places?’ She was referring to Princess Leia Organa’s home world, which appeared briefly in the 1977 film. Regret the error, we do.”

From the New York Times  “ An article on Monday about a lawsuit filed against the Internet Movie Database by the actress Junie Hoang  for disclosing her age in an online profile misstated her age.  She is 40, not 41.”