Monday, September 23, 2013

Track of the Hunter



By: Reader Publishing Group



Author Ken Cable gets ready to cut the cake at the launch party and book signing for his second novel, Track of the Hunter. The new novel, released by Reader Publishing Group, tells the story of Mark, a 16-year-old Forest Service intern who finds himself on the trail of illegal poachers who are slaughtering bears to sell their organs on the black market.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Do You Need Instructions to Wash Your Hands?



By: George Lee Cunningham


Just days after I made fun of Starbucks at Long Beach’s Marina Pacifica for posting a six-step restroom guide on how to wash your hands, the Orange County Register comes up with a story on the flu that includes – you guessed it – a six-step, almost-quarter-page guide with pictures on how to wash your hands.

The two hand-washing instructions are a little different.

The Starbucks hand-washing tutorial is:

1.  Wet your hands 2.  Put soap on your hands 3.  Wash your hands 4.  Rinse your hands 5.  Dry your hands 6.  Turn off the water

The Orange County Register hand-washing tutorial is:

1.  Wet your hands 2.  Take off your jewelry 3.  Put soap on your hands 4.  Wash your hands 5.  Rinse your hands 6.  Dry your hands

So the message is if you are in Orange County you need to take off your jewelry before you wash your hands, but you don’t need to turn off the water. In Long Beach, it’s OK to wash your hands with your rings still on your fingers, but you need to turn off the water when you are through.

This is somewhat complicated since I do sometimes wash my […]


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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Party Time at City Hall



By: George Lee Cunningham



And we all thought City Council meetings were dull and stuffy. Apparently not. It appears some of the political folks at City Hall are finally letting their hair down and loosening up their stuffed shirts. According to this headline, they tried it, they apparently liked it, and they decided to try it again.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Dumbing Down of America – Exhibit A



By: George Lee Cunningham



This six-step instruction guide – with pictures – on how to wash your hands is from Barnes and Noble’s Starbuck store restroom at Marina Pacific shopping center in Long Beach. Wet, Soap, Wash, Rinse, Dry, and Turn of the Water. If one is still unclear on the hand-washing concept, he or she can just look at the pictures and figure it out.
Saturday, September 7, 2013

Social Unrest – There’s a Profit in It



By: Ken Cable


In my long career as a first responder I have participated in many events where citizens have peacefully assembled to discuss, debate and sometimes protest some action taken by their government. When these gatherings take place in the street, a park or a plaza, and the catalyst is something such as the George Zimmerman acquittal, participants often forgo the peaceful discussion stage and go straight to protest.  This protest is usually against police officers whom government places between themselves and the protesters – and who can do little to mitigate the protesters’ complaint in any way.  This can be especially true when race is a factor, and when the rocks and bottles begin to fly, the fight is on.  This is not to say that all peaceful gatherings turn violent.  Tea Partiers, religious memorials and Million Man Marches on Washington D.C. generally do not.

I am writing now of those events that do turn violent – and who profits from the violence.  My observations are that unrest often follows sporting events, jury trials that involve race, union disputes, police shootings, and poorly conducted street arrests – to name a few of the most obvious.

The catalyst group is […]


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Saturday, September 7, 2013

Someday We’re All Going to be History



By: Reader Publishing Group



George Cunningham talks about the history of the Port of Long Beach at the closing session of Cargo Business News’ CalExport Conference at the Long Beach Hilton. George and his wife Carmela are writing a book on the history of the Long Beach Port.
Friday, August 23, 2013

Chasing the News in a Skirt and High Heels



By: George Lee Cunningham


Mary Neiswender is an old-school reporter who walked away from daily journalism more than 30 years ago after a beef with her editors over news coverage and the lack thereof.  She talks about that and much more in her recently released book “Assassins… Serial Killers… Corrupt Cops… Chasing the News in a Skirt and High Heels.”

Part autobiography and part true crime, Neiswender’s book is interesting, readable and disturbing. But it’s not perfect, and it’s not for everybody.

If there is a primary message in the book, it is this. Evil exists in our world. It lurks outside our doors, it lives down the block, it watches our children as they frolic on the playground, and it respects no one and no thing. It takes many forms. It might be a scraggly low-life living in the shadows, a dumpy, middle-aged lady with a gun in her purse, a crime-savvy prosecutor with a trigger temper, a respected doctor with a bright smile and a dark secret, a pervert whose joy is in the screams of his victim, or even a guy in uniform driving around town in a black-and-white with flashers on the roof.

If you are an opponent of […]


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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Don’t Know How to Read? Read This



By: George Lee Cunningham



Here’s a helpful sign that caught our eye at the Los Angeles Central Library. The folks at the library are smart folks, but if you don’t know how to read, how can you read the sign? Just wondering.

Here’s a helpful sign that caught our eye at the Los Angeles Central Library. The folks at the library are smart folks, but if you don’t know how to read, how can you read the sign? Just wondering.

 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Big Fish/Little Fish Question



By: George Lee Cunningham


At some point in almost everybody’s life they have heard the question. Do you want to be the big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond?

It’s one of those questions for which there is no correct answer. And like most such analogous questions, it begins to unravel the minute you begin to analyze it. For one thing, we’re not fish. And we don’t live in ponds. And even if we were or did, the question misses the point.

The question really is, do you want to be a leader or a follower and where do you want to do it. In the world where people live, leadership is a spectrum. On one end of that spectrum the correct answer would be, I would rather be a big fish in a big pond and on the other end, I would rather be a little fish in a little pond.

Even the most powerful leaders have to answer to someone, whether it’s his customers, the voters, or his own conscience. And even the most humble follower has somewhere within him a spark of rebellion that at some point says enough is enough. I am […]


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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Politics in Early California: Slinging Mud and Slinging Lead



By: George Lee Cunningham


When people think of the Wild West, they usually think about Tombstone, Ariz., Deadwood, S.D., or Dodge City, Kan. They certainly don’t think about Sacramento, San Francisco or Los Angeles. But California was as wild as anyplace else in the West and sometimes even wilder.

Between September 1850 and September 1851, there were 31 homicides committed in L.A. and the vicinity, according to historian John Boessenecker. That may not sound that extreme, but the population of the area at that time was only 2,500. To put it in today’s terms, the murder rate in the United States in 2011, was 4.7 homicides per 100,000 people. The murder rate in Los Angeles in 1850-51 – adjusted for population – would have been 1,240 per 100,000. That makes it one of the toughest towns ever in the history of the West.

Glenna Matthews in her book, The Golden State in the Civil War, noted that more than two-thirds of the state legislature during the 1850s showed up for their deliberations carrying firearms. “The same legislature had made dueling illegal in 1854, but juries refused to convict and more duels were fought in California in the 1850s than in any other state in […]


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