The October terror in D.C. long ago

It was like a bad suspense thriller in the movies. Yet it was real. And near.

Over several weeks in October, 2002, the D.C. snipers killed 10 people and wounded three in random attacks in Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

People were afraid to leave their homes. Our daughter’s soccer games were cancelled.  No one was safe—children or old people, rich or poor, urban or suburban. There was no theme at all for the people selected.

Authorities searched for a white van that was seen in the places where the shootings took place, but that was a false lead.  The two shooters rode in a black sedan with one of them firing from the trunk.

They were finally captured on Oct. 24, 2002, at a rest stop along I-270 in Maryland, near Frederick. One of them, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009. The other, Lee Boyd Malvo, 17 at the time of the killings, is sill in prison.

Why did they do it? One thought he was getting revenge against his ex-wife. They also wanted to terrorize society for some reason.

My biggest memory:  When our family was riding in a car from South Boston to Arlington, we stopped, as we often did, at a Wendy’s in Ashland Va., about halfway there. As we got out of the car, we looked for a place for the dog to relieve herself. There were woods with tall grasses right behind Wendy’s. I thought, “We should be careful. You never know where a sniper might be hiding out.”

Then, in the restaurant, the lady at the counter warned us,  “I heard that the sniper just attacked in Richmond.  Be careful out there!” Well, she was wrong. The snipers had really killed an FBI analyst outside the Home Depot where we often shopped in Falls Church, two miles from our home.

Five days later, we got more news. The snipers had shot and wounded someone in Ashland. It was at the Ponderosa restaurant next door to the Wendy’s we had visited.

I  wondered if the snipers hid out in the same parking lot or in those same woods that worried me last time we were there.

When they were captured, the panic was over. Soccer games resumed. It never happened again.

 

Craving variety today

Where is Ed Sullivan  when we need him?

In the 1950s and 1960s, the arthritic journalist with poor stage presence hosted a variety show offering a variety of talented performers.

There were Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, Jerry Lewis, opera star Maria Callas, jugglers and Topo Gigio, the popular hand puppet.

Millions of people watched on one of only three or four channels available in the “good old days.”

Today there are so many choices that you rarely see so much variety in one place anymore.

I was raving to my friend Peter Sever about all of the opportunities we have to be entertained now. I can ask YouTube to play the Four Freshmen, Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney and their  jazzy tunes all day long if I want. And rather than look at ads that would never interest me, Facebook will find what I have looked at online and try to sell it  to me.

Peter came up with a downside. Your choices have really been narrowed. You don’t have to explore anything at all outside of your interests. You learn nothing new.

We have already heard about how the fragmenting of media has made us such a divided nation. If one person gets all his news from Fox News and another watches MSNow, they can’t have a civil conversation. Each gets facts from somewhere else.

This also extends to entertainment. I have never heard a Taylor Swift song. I’m told she is good. If we had an Ed Sullivan today, I would have seen her. And her fans would have watched today’s version of the jazz greats I adore.

I even have my own YouTube channel (“Pickett Craddock and Mike Doan”) with about 30 songs. If someone became hooked on that, maybe they would never discover Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald! (Dream on, Mike!)

Peter’s solution:

Go outside of your media box and find new things yourself.

 

Loathings avertising--with one exception

This article is  for Facebook and my blog onlyonly, because it is too sensitive to run in newspapers.

The topic: My hatred of advertising.

I just can’t help it. It runs in my family.

My grand father tore out all of the full-page ads of the Saturday Evening Post as soon as it arrived in the mail.

My father may have invented the first remote. He took a radio volume knob and attached it by wire to the television in 1951. When an ad came on, he would turn off the sound.

What do their offspring do? I never look at any ads in newspapers or on TV. I scroll past everything online. I record everything on TV, even football games, and fast-forward past all ads. Including the Super Bowl.  I never see that annoying lizard with the British accent on Geico ads. Or the famous football players raving about their beer.

I don’t watch streaming services with ads either. I even fast-forward the credits and  Viking cruise  ads on the PBS shows I record.

If I do look at ads by accident—maybe when fast forward is disabled—I feel like I have just lost three minutes out of my life. If you watched TV a lot in your lifetime, maybe that’s an entire year of being dead?

In most of my career as a writer,, I just hung out with other news people. But when I was a magazine editor, I dealt with the advertising staff all the time. When I told them about my forebears’ loathing of commercials, they were horrified. Who could dislike ads, which fuel the free enterprise economy? By avoiding ads, I was stealing from them, they thought. Surely I realized that my news content was just filler to lure people to see the real content—the pitch for hemorrhoid cream, kitty litter or a drug that could kill you.

So I see their point—but I am still skipping ads.

That said, I make exception: local radio ads on WHLF (95.3) in South Boston, owned by Lakes Media Company.l  I like hearing the colorful local people pitch their wares in a Southern drawl--the mattress company, the appliance dealer, the restaurant and the lawyer looking for car wreck victims. I know some of these people. I have shopped at many of their places of business. I may actually want something they offer.

If I was selling something I would go there. The audience is well targeted, you hear the station all the time in stores, and the rates are cheap.

 

 

Itcing to wrie about AI

In the 17 years since I retired, I have never wished I was back at work. Until now.

At the Kiplinger Letter, I covered the growth of new technologies—from the early years of the internet through personal computers, social media and smart phones. But nothing compares to artificial intelligence, which I think is he biggest advancement since the atomic bomb.

Well, I don’t  have the energy to go back to work, so I am going to share my thoughts here in the style I would have used back then, looking at both the good and the bad, without judgment.

Some of the changes ahead, for better or for worse:

--Personal agents. They will make appointments for you, negotiate with vendors, fill out complex forms, do your taxes, book airline flights and find stuff in your computer that you never could. In fact, Meta is offering most of this now.

--Computer programmers. Someone could say, “Build me a computer that will do this” and no one would have to come up with complex codes.

--Individual tutors. They would take the skills and learning level of children and adults and provide personal instruction, sounding just like a real person.

--AI “doctors.” Already you can upload a test result and get an analysis of what it all means. Soon they will be able to diagnose diseases and recommend treatments and medicines.

--Manufacturing: Robots will handle production schedules, find faulty materials and give out their own instructions. Will they hire and fire too?

--Transportation. They’ll coordinate traffic lights and direct trucks, autos and industrial equipment from afar. Also, water and energy systems. They are aiding air traffic controllers now.

--Arts. Music, literature and art are being mechanically produced already. Will we get an artificial Beethoven, Shakespeare or Michaelangelo?

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad:

--The job market will be thrown into chaos. What will happen to all of those tossed out of work by these machines?  Not just assembly-line workers but the brainy people who program computers, manage banks, supervise factories and—of course, old men who write columns.

--Copyrighted works are out the window. There is no easy way to protect them.

--Too much of the thinking will be left up to machines, making human judgment less needed. The impact will be worst on school children. And what can they aspire to be?

--Cyberterrorism: Think of what an AI hacker could do to damage a traditional network.

--AI agents are already going rogue, defying their masters and cheating right and left. Their human creators are holding back on their plans to let AI design its own next generation of AI for that reason. And there’s no telling what AI could do in the wrong people’s hands.

--So much investment is going into AI now that other financial sectors are being neglected. Are we in a financial  a bubble that will burst? (Personally, I think not.)

--States and localities will limit data centers because they use too much electricity and water. Still, that won’t be enough o slow AI’s growth.

--The federal government is slow to act. It has historically  regulated industries such as aviation, food, medicine, finance, telecommunications  and weapons. But a consensus is building that AI should be slowed down and there will have to be rules. Will that put us at a disadvantage with China? Don’t think so. China’s  AI hasn’t advanced nearly as much as ours.

-0-

Fears of Ai  wiping out civilization seem way overblown to me.

I look at the atomic bomb as the best comparison. In the 1950s we debated its merits, but there was no way to stop it. We thought it would destroy us all, bur 81 years later, here we all are!

 

 

'Telling it like it is'

 It’s too bad that CBS dropped the idea of finding someone to be another Andy Rooney, the old stick-in-the-mud curmudgeonly journalist who used to complain humorously about inequities of today.

They should have hired me. I fit all those qualifications!

If Andy Rooney was alive today, here are some of the things he would complain about:

--What’s with QR codes at restaurants? Why do I have to point my phone at that silly picture to get something to eat? Why not just say: “I’ll have the usual, Fran, medium well this time.”

--Why do I have to use a password to pay my doctor bill online? They are afraid somebody else will pay it?

--Why does every electronic gadget chave to be black? When I put my black phone or glasses case on my black car seat, I can never find them.

--Why is It so hard to open packages anymore? You need a chainsaw  to open anything sent by FedEx.

--Are they making buttons bigger and buttonholes smaller?  Or is it just my arthritis?

--Why do they close the bathrooms and mop the floors at restaurants when I am there? Why can’t they do this in off hours?

--Why did they replace removable caps on toothpaste with attached caps? I never close them completely and the toothpaste gets all over the place.

--Why are there so many electronic gadgets in cars today? What ever happened to the buttons? When it rains, I can’t figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers.

--Does anybody ever read the pages and pages of “terms and conditions” they have to approve? When I sign it, I feel like I am lying. “Of course I read it.”

--What’s all this about artificially intelligent machines? How about some real intelligence from real people for a change?

-o-

I certainly respected Rooney’s opinions, but there was one thing I could never forgive him for: he refused to give up his typewriter for a computer. I don’t know anyone who ever tried a computer and went back to a typewriter.

But we do miss him. I’ll bet a good replacement would “tell it like it is.”

 

 

 

 

"Anothr openin', anther show'

It starts with the germ of an idea. Double Nickel Players can’t decide what to perform next: a murder mystery, or a group of skits called “Sunday Funnies.” Somebody comes up with an idea: “How about two one-act plays?” says Leslie Pipan. I second the motion: “A great idea!” I say. And it happens.

When the Clarksville Fine Arts Center is booked solid with kids’ shows in the summer, our seniors group practices at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church. Our director, Monica Walter, pushes back chairs and tables for what you could hardly call a stage.

There is gunplay and skirmishing in this play, “The Potman Spoke Sooth.” Old people falling on the floor. They fall very gently. Or they pretend.

Finally, the theater stage is available. Two days a week in the mercilessly hot days of summer. Then three in the last month. A 20-mile drive each way for me. Juggling doctor’s appointments, exercise classes and social gatherings to be able to get there. Whatever for? What’s the payoff?

I come up with an illness and Holly Barden becomes my understudy, but somehow I recover. As showtime gets closer in September, it gets a little more intense. People with 130 lines are still struggling to remember them. Tempers flare a little. But the most fun of all is the group trying to fake its way out of missed lines with their own ad-libs.

Finally it is opening night for your show, and “Frankenstein Slept Here.” Stomachs churn a little. Friends are coming.

You have 14 people staying at your bed & breakfast, most of them friends from long ago, most who didn’t even know about the play.

At the theater, there’s camaraderie backstage as you get makeup and people get into costumes. The stage crew is friendly and wonderful! You don’t fear forgetting lines as much as your microphone falling off because it isn’t taped on tight enough. Sound check is always a thrill—just like they do it on Broadway.

You look out at the theater and there are maybe 150 people there! Holly’s publicity worked! Your 37 lines come back to you automatically after that drilling over all those months. There are a few slips, but your stagemates chip in and help you recover.

You already know when to pause your lines for laughter. And it comes at the right times. It worked! Stage bows afterward are such a thrill. The audience responds wonderfully, and your friends are supportive.

The second performance goes through much more easily. And there’s a cast party. It’s always the same. You want the fun to go on. You don’t want to lose these people. But in our case, we won’t. Double Nickel Players will do another show of some kind in the spring.

 

A day no one forgets

9/11. Twenty-five years ago this week.  I remember it well.  So does everyone else.

I had just arrived for work at my job at the Kiplinger Letter in Washington, D.C. Someone told me to come to the conference room and see the TV reruns of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.

It must have been a terrible accident, we all concluded. Then another plane hit another tower. No accident. History changed at that moment.

We all gathered there, except for a top manager, who fled to the garage and drove home right away.

The Pentagon was hit next. Only two miles away. There were rumors on TV (later shown to be false) of bombs at the nearby Washington Mall and the White House.

Fortunately, I had ridden my bike to work and decided I would leave too. Things were getting too close. The subway shut own and the roads were jammed with traffic.

The scene riding home to Arlington was like a war movie. Smoke curled up to the skies from the Pentagon as everyone was trying to flee town. I think a Korean War film once had a scene just like that, but with carts and animals instead of cars.  Could this really be happening here?

I talked to Pickett, who was still at her preschool, and we both picked up daughter Sara at her school.

After I had left work, the staff put out a special edition of the Letter, just as they did after Pearl Harbor. I felt somewhat guilty about leaving my post as a newsman. But I was really editor of the Kiplinger California Letter, which was not involved in this. As a 25-year-old I would have wanted to dive in. At 59, I wanted no part of this story.

Should I have stayed? No! One of the planes crashed in Pennsylvania before it reached its target: either the Capitol or the White House. Since the White House was only two blocks from my office, I felt like I did the right thing.

Next came the anthrax attacks, a poisonous substance mailed to high-profile buildings such as government offices and newsrooms. Someone told me not to worry—few places were targeted. “Oh, I remember. You work in a news office. Well, that’s different," he said. They eventually traced the letters to a worker at a-government lab making anthrax, but he killed himself before he could go on trial.

The shock from these events continued for years. Security was beefed up not just at airports but at banks, shops, offices and homes. Two unsuccessful wars followed, and the U.S. was never the same.

My talent at clearing tables

As I clear the table for bed and breakfast guests, I often boast, “I am a PROFESSIONAL busboy.”

With the viewpoint of a real pro, I go nuts at restaurants when the server places the glass of water on the left side instead of the right Or asks me to hand them the finished dish in front of me.  I mean, I have STANDARDS!”

I started out busing dishes at Mannings cafeteria in San Francisco at age 17 in the summer of 1959, living in a fleabag hotel in the seedy Tenderloin district.

 Next summer, I graduated to table service at Zephyr Cove Lodge at Lake Tahoe.

I got off to a rocky start: the head waiter hit me in the face with a wet dish towel because I was too slow. I broke so many water glasses that the chef accused me of working for the manufacturer.

To ease the stress, I would sit by the lake at night and talk to it.

 Months later, the manager wanted to fire me because I did such a lousy job ironing my shirts, but I must have gotten better. The nasty waiter defended me this time: “He is the best busboy I have ever seen.”

Business was slow, and the waitresses were getting grumpy. They were supposed to give me 15% of their tips, but I knew they were shortchanging me. Rather than yell at them, I counted the change customers left on the tables and confronted one of them nicely. I got my money!

Lake Tahoe was a paradise in the summer. I would lay on the beach in the morning before starting the dinner shift. On days off there was hiking in the mountains. It is still my favorite place in the whole world.

I got an education in working-class people. The servers told horror stories of their broken marriages. Some were holding two jobs to pay off debts. A cook and a waitress got drunk at a casino and returned home husband and wife.

But my naïveté showed through. One of the chefs got fired and persuaded me to “lend” him $5. Of course, he would mail it back to me after he got his new job, he said.  A crowd of kitchen staff crowded around him and made him give it back.

Two summers later, I had returned to our home  in El Sobrante, Calif.,  from a month-long trip around the country with my dad. I was only back a few minutes when the phone rang. Would I come back?

I said yes, but this time I wasn’t very motivated. Why should I bust my butt hauling dishes around? I’ll just put in the time and save up my pay for my final year of college.

They had to expand their staff of two busboys to four. The owner came up to me and said, “For you, I guess this year just wasn’t the same.”

Well, no. After I graduated next summer, I would get a real job!

--Drawing by Ron Miller