DEDICATED TO BJ ALUMS FOUNDER HARRY LIGGETT 1930-2014, BJ NEWSROOM LEGEND 1965-1995, AND TO JOHN OLESKY JR., 1932-2024, BJ MAINSTAY 1969-1996 AND BLOG EDITOR 2014-2024.
Blog for retired and former Beacon Journal employees and other invited guests.
While Paula and I are in Fort Lauderdale and
then on a Key West/Cozumel cruise Feb. 23-March 8, please direct all BJ Alums blog inquiries and information
to Ken Krause, former BJ sports editor who lives in Medford, Massachussetts.
As usual, we’ll have a reunion with retired
BJ photographer Don Roese, this time with his wife Maryann, a meal get-together
on Monday. Don and Maryann have been in Hollywood, Florida for weeks.
In New Zealand, Don met us at Auckland Airport, where Don and
Maryann were waiting to depart when we landed. They just spent a week at the beach home of 1970s State Desk reporter Cathy Strong, and Cathy was flying from Wellington to Auckland to show us around for the day.
If you rent a car in Florida, it may take an unexpected
“toll” on your wallet
Driving a rental car in Florida? Beware of "phantom toll booths," which don't permit cash payments but take a photo of your car license plate and bill the owner -- the rental car company -- for the toll unless you have a SunPass, Florida's equivalent of the EZ Pass transponder in use in 15 other states, including Ohio. This saves the state of Florida the cost of manning the toll booths. But somebody has to pay for the toll. The problem is that the rental car company then bills you a $25 "administrative" fee for EACH toll plus the toll. You drive past two automated toll booths, that's $50 plus the cost of the two tolls. How can you avoid this money-making quagmire for the car rental companies, which charge the lucrative "administrative" fee that way more than offsets their cost for having a SunPass? You can pay the rental car firm's "toll insurance," which varies from company to company and the number of days or weeks you rent the car. Or you can bypass enriching the rental car company by setting up a toll-by-plate prepaid account online
at www.tollbyplate.com or by calling
1-888-TAG-TOLL (888-824-8655) from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Put the account on your credit card. You must provide the license plate number of the rental car, and the start and end dates
of the rental period, every time you rent a car in Florida. It's simple if you have an EZ Pass from Ohio or another state. You can drive through Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Virginia and West Virginia and the tolls get deducted automatically from your EZ Pass account, and your credit card is billed for replenishment when your EZ Pass account gets low. But NOT in Florida, which loves to pass on costs to the tourists, who can't vote in their elections.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Carol Eubank: Busy, busy, busy
Beacon Journal Accounting Department retiree Carol Eubank is active in the Portage Lakes Kiwanis Club and Portage Lakes Historical Society.
Carol Eubank at another Portage Lakes activity
Carol also has been involved in Greystone Building activities in downtown Akron.
Carol, a 1957 Coventry High grad, lives in Portage Lakes.
She runs into BJ retirees like Diane Lynch, Tom Melody and Kathy Antonetti at a Kiwanis fish fry. Carol has had reunions with former co-workers like Amy Saviers, who lives in Massachusetts; Linda McElroy, Harold McElroy's widow who lives on Pauleys Island, South Carolina; and retired printer Dick and wife Pat Latshaw, who also live on Pauleys Island.
Carol was there when the Portage Lakes Historical Society had its 35th anniversary celebration at Craftsmen Park dining hall, 4450 Rex Lake Road in 2013. Among the items for sale was the Portage Lakes Kiwanis portagelakesopoly game, written by Carol.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Who the hell thought that
“Let it snow” was a good idea?
BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96) The Weather Channel estimated 4.4 inches of fresh snow overnight at Akron/Canton Airport. And Akron/Canton says only 12.1 inches of snow as of Monday. But Eric Poston, the late Harry Liggett's nephew, wrote that he had "7 inches in my driveway" in Green and Lori Blatz reported "7 inches in North Canton." Tammy Evans reported "7 to 8 I would guess in Ellet." And Paula and I had snow 12 to 15 inches deep on the small table on our patio, so it can't be affected by drifts. Wiseacre Stuart Warner, former BJ editor and columnist who lives in Arizona, wrote: "Zero." Nice, Stu. Rubbing it in, huh? BJ reporter Jim Carney, on Facebook to get information for a BJ story, posted: "How much snow did you get? Let me know and where you are? If you can measure it? For BJ story. I've heard a foot in Copley to 8 inches in Akron. Thanks folks!!!" A foot of snow in Copley probably made BJ columnist Bob Dyer a happy camper, shoveling or snowthrowing the crap off his driveway. However, Tom Duke wrote, "Only 8 inches in Copley. I measured it at 8 a.m." Should be a piece of cake for Bob to shovel, huh?
Kathy Hagedorn Kortvejesi
But this is nothing compared to 2010, when the Akron area got 37.2 inches of snow. 2008 was next with 25.8, although it sure feels like 2014 should have surpassed that by now. You probably don't remember 1988: There was only a TRACE of snow for the entire winter! Ah, the good ol' days . . . A lot of it depends where you live, even in Summit County. Akron/Canton Airport reported 2.4 inches in the 12 hours preceding 7 a.m. today (Tuesday, Feb. 18). During that same time, Cuyahoga Falls got 6.7 inches and Munroe Falls 5.5 inches, according to WKYC-Channel 3's snow-measurers.
Kathy Hagedorn Kortvejesi, since she's an artist/designer (that's code for page layout, I think) at the BJ, knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. So I included her photos of her home and the snow with this article.
The best photojournalists always keep an eye out for a good shot, and last Friday, that approach paid off for former Beacon Journal photographer Matt Detrich.
Matt, in his 16th year at the Indianapolis Star, recounts that snowy Valentine’s Day morning: “I parked on the seventh floor of the parking garage of the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre, and wanted to kill time before my
assignment inside the hotel. So I shot some photos from my vantage
point. About 10 minutes into making some photos, I noticed a couple walk
up to the steps of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Before I knew
it, the man got down on one knee and appeared to propose to his
girlfriend while another person took pictures.”
Matt did not have time to get down to talk with the couple, but was able to track them down later with a little help from social media. Taylor Cox, 23, explained to the paper how he set up his proposal to Hannah Klenotic, 21, with the aid of another Matt:
“It all started a couple of weeks ago, when we began planning what we would be doing and how we would be spending Valentine's Day together. We met in the summertime of last year, so this was our first Valentine's Day. She also told me that she had never really celebrated it with anyone, so I wanted to make sure that it was special. I knew from our second date that I loved her more than anything, and wanted to be her husband one day. She has been my best friend and companion ever since then. I contacted my photographer friend, Matt Morgan, and asked him if he could get us in for a 'couple's shoot,' since we don't have very many pictures together, something Hannah always brings up. I asked him if he could help me with the proposal, and direct her to turn her back away from me so that I could get down on one knee, and hold the ring out while she turned around. I wanted to capture the moment, and get her natural reaction on film for us to always have. So, we met Matt downtown on the Circle where we were going to shoot, and you know the rest! She said 'yes'!”
Matt Detrich, a 1994 graduate of Ohio University, worked at the Medina County Gazette and the Beacon Journal before joining the Star in 1999. He has won many awards for his work, including being named 2012 Photographer of the Year by the Indiana News Photographers Association.
On his profile on muckrack.com, Matt says there is “no greater career in the world” than photojournalism. Especially on days like last Friday.
Matt Detrich's photograph for the Indianapolis Star captures Taylor Cox proposing to Hannah Klenotic.
A mountain of grandchildren
Former 1970s State Desk reporter Cathy Strong, who has been in New Zealand for at least three decades and set up Massey University's journalism master's program in Wellington, is surrounded by a gaggle of grandchildren. Facebooks Cathy: "Me and all my grands (left to right) Zoe (Jeff's), Libby (Rebecca and Dion's), in my arms Alexandra (Amanda and Jeff's) and Pippa (Rebecca & Dion's). Zac (Jeff's). Latoe-Belle (Dion and Rebecca's). Little Bede (Dion & Rebecca's). Missing is new grandson, Eamon, who is John's little 4-year-old. "Lucky, lucky me." If you're counting, that's 6 of Cathy's 7 grandchildren, all in one pile of loving.
McKinney helps Kent State
storytelling win award
The International Storytelling course of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University, taught by Prof. Gary Hanson and assistant Prof. Mitch McKenney, a former BJ editor, is the Global Partnership division winner in the 2014 Best Practices in International Higher Education Awards of the NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) International Education Knowledge Community. Students enroll in a 15-week course, learn about another country, plan and research stories they will cover in multimedia reporting teams, spend two weeks in their destination country reporting stories in partnership with students from that country, and return to produce their stories for a multimedia website available to the public. The first offering was in March 2011, when Kent State partnered with Shanghai International Studies University. Next came Brazil. In March the students will go to Estonia. McKenney joined the BJ in 1998 as a deputy metro editor and worked in Metro, as Features editor and as online editor. Before the BJ he worked at the Palm Beach (Florida) Post and the late Rochester (New York) Times-Union.Mitch lives in Hartville with his wife, Kim, and three children. To read the entire Kent State release, go to http://www.kent.edu/news/news-detail.cfm?newsitem=06B5416F-D709-35CC-22C14D8CA3112A6E
Snopes explains Facebook
posting privacy problems
I post this as a cautionary tale to the many BJ folks, including myself, who use Facebook. Acceptable Facebook math is that, via Friends of Friends, if you have 50 Friends, then your posting has a potential audience of 2,500! Be forewarned. If you don't want it out there, then don't put it on Facebook.
Claim: Facebook has "deleted all privacy
settings" and is "getting rid of its privacy policy."
FALSE
Examples:[Collected via Facebook, October 2013]
OK FOLKS HERE WE GO
AGAIN, AS OF MONDAY OCT 14, 2013 ACCORDING TO THE NEWS, IT WILL NOW BE HARDER
THAN EVER TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING ANY INFO ON YOU CAUSE FACEBOOK AND OBAMA
CROOKED ASS SO CALLED GOVERNMENT HAVE TEAMED UP TO DELETE ALL PRIVACY SETTINGS ON
FACEBOOK. MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE YR PRIVATE INFO, PLEASE SHARE AND
DELETE YR MOBILE NUMBERS, EMAILL ADDRESSES ETC BEFORE YOU CANNOT. THIS IS ON
FOX, ABC, CBS, AND ALL RADIO STATIONS !!!!!!!!
I heard that Facebook is getting rid of its privacy policy? If so, what about
the safety of the children who are on Facebook?
Origins: Back in December 2012 Facebook announced
it would be retiring an option that allowed users to control whether they show
up when others type their names into the Facebook search bar. The social
network began eliminating that option (which shows up in privacy settings as
"Who can look up your timeline by name?") from the accounts of people
who weren't using it, and in October 2013 Facebook announced it would be
completing the removal of that setting for
the "small percentage of people still using it":
Everyone used to have a setting called "Who
can look up your Timeline by name?," which controlled whether you could be
found when people typed your name into the Facebook search bar.
The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it
was very limited. For example, it didn't prevent people from navigating to your
Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual
friend's Timeline. Today, people can also search Facebook using Graph Search
(for example, "People who live in
Seattle,") making it even more important to
control the privacy of the things you share rather than how people get to your
Timeline.
The setting also made Facebook's search feature feel broken at times. For
example, people told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking
for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find in search results, or
when two people were in a Facebook Group and then couldn't find each other
through search.
The search setting was removed last year for people who weren't using it. For
the small percentage of people still using the setting, they will see reminders
about it being removed in the coming weeks.
Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what
people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual
things you share.
This development did
not, as claimed in some alarmist messages spread on the Internet, "delete
all privacy settings on Facebook," nor did Facebook "get rid of its
privacy policy" (and the change certainly had nothing to do with the Obama
administration or the U.S. government). All of Facebook's other privacy
controls and policies remain in place, and while the "Who can look up your
Timeline by name?" setting had some utility for helping Facebook users be
less visible to those who might be searching for them, it didn't absolutely
prevent others from finding them:
[The setting] wasn't perfect. It would not have
stopped, for example, Facebook users from being able to access profiles if
those users had been tagged in a public post or picture. Still, it did help
those users to keep a lower profile on the social network, such as those trying
to hide their profiles from abusive ex-partners or harassment.
There is no equivalent
function for preventing other people from finding a Facebook user by name in
the search bar, as Facebook has been moving towards prompting users to maintain
privacy on an item-by-item basis rather than by entirely hiding their profiles
and activity from others.
However, as noted in a Washington Post
Technology article, using a variety of
privacy settings and precautions can help prevent the revealing of your
personal information to those whom you might not wish to see it:
[W]henever and however you post, you should be
checking to see if what you're putting up is for public view or just for
friends or specific lists of friends. Also, consider turning on Timeline
approval, which shows you what your friends may be posting about your location
or whom you're with. You can ask them to remove your name from those posts. Facebook
has settings that let you review posts and photo tags before they're posted to
your Timeline. If privacy is a major concern, use these tools and don't
hesitate to ask other users to remove posts about you that make you
uncomfortable.
Another key option in the privacy settings menu is one that lets users disable
search engines from linking to their timelines. That will at least cut down on
the chance that someone looking for you outside the social network will be able
to find your profile.
If your whereabouts or similar information are sensitive, particularly if it's
a safety issue, you should be very aware of locations on your posts — no
check-ins — and be careful about writing posts that give clues about where you
are.
Users should also remember that they can also always block specific users from
seeing their Facebook page or from contacting them, but this is more of a
reactive step than a proactive one. Plus, just as you could alter your name
(yes, in violation of Facebook's guidelines) to hide your identity, so could
anyone who is looking for you.
If you're concerned about past posts, Facebook has a setting that lets you
limit the audience for posts and information that are already on your profile.
You can also go to the "Activity Log" on your timeline to get an
action-by-action view of how your activity shows up on the site.
And finally, as Facebook itself makes clear, remember that "things you
hide from your timeline still appear in news feed, search and other places on
Facebook." These include some things you just can't hide, namely profile
pictures and cover photos, but also some news feed activity.
In October 2013,
Facebook also loosened restrictions on the extent to
which teenager users could share their Facebook activity with others:
Facebook Inc removed a restriction for users
under 18 that previously limited who could see their online postings.
Facebook said that teenagers would now be able to manually alter the setting
and share information with the public. Until now, a teenager's postings on
Facebook were only viewable to their friends, and to the friends of their
friends.
Claim: Facebook has "deleted all privacy settings" and is "getting rid of its privacy policy."
Examples:[Collected via Facebook, October 2013]
OK FOLKS HERE WE GO AGAIN, AS OF MONDAY OCT 14, 2013 ACCORDING TO THE NEWS, IT WILL NOW BE HARDER THAN EVER TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING ANY INFO ON YOU CAUSE FACEBOOK AND OBAMA CROOKED ASS SO CALLED GOVERNMENT HAVE TEAMED UP TO DELETE ALL PRIVACY SETTINGS ON FACEBOOK. MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE YR PRIVATE INFO, PLEASE SHARE AND DELETE YR MOBILE NUMBERS, EMAILL ADDRESSES ETC BEFORE YOU CANNOT. THIS IS ON FOX, ABC, CBS, AND ALL RADIO STATIONS !!!!!!!! I heard that Facebook is getting rid of its privacy policy? If so, what about the safety of the children who are on Facebook?
Origins: Back in December 2012 Facebook announced it would be retiring an option that allowed users to control whether they show up when others type their names into the Facebook search bar. The social network began eliminating that option (which shows up in privacy settings as "Who can look up your timeline by name?") from the accounts of people who weren't using it, and in October 2013 Facebook announced it would be completing the removal of that setting for the "small percentage of people still using it":
Everyone used to have a setting called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?," which controlled whether you could be found when people typed your name into the Facebook search bar.
The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. For example, it didn't prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual friend's Timeline. Today, people can also search Facebook using Graph Search (for example, "People who live in
Seattle,") making it even more important to control the privacy of the things you share rather than how people get to your Timeline.
The setting also made Facebook's search feature feel broken at times. For example, people told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find in search results, or when two people were in a Facebook Group and then couldn't find each other through search.
The search setting was removed last year for people who weren't using it. For the small percentage of people still using the setting, they will see reminders about it being removed in the coming weeks.
Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share.
This development did not, as claimed in some alarmist messages spread on the Internet, "delete all privacy settings on Facebook," nor did Facebook "get rid of its privacy policy" (and the change certainly had nothing to do with the Obama administration or the U.S. government). All of Facebook's other privacy controls and policies remain in place, and while the "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" setting had some utility for helping Facebook users be less visible to those who might be searching for them, it didn't absolutely prevent others from finding them:
[The setting] wasn't perfect. It would not have stopped, for example, Facebook users from being able to access profiles if those users had been tagged in a public post or picture. Still, it did help those users to keep a lower profile on the social network, such as those trying to hide their profiles from abusive ex-partners or harassment.
There is no equivalent function for preventing other people from finding a Facebook user by name in the search bar, as Facebook has been moving towards prompting users to maintain privacy on an item-by-item basis rather than by entirely hiding their profiles and activity from others. However, as noted in a Washington Post Technology article, using a variety of privacy settings and precautions can help prevent the revealing of your personal information to those whom you might not wish to see it:
[W]henever and however you post, you should be checking to see if what you're putting up is for public view or just for friends or specific lists of friends. Also, consider turning on Timeline approval, which shows you what your friends may be posting about your location or whom you're with. You can ask them to remove your name from those posts. Facebook has settings that let you review posts and photo tags before they're posted to your Timeline. If privacy is a major concern, use these tools and don't hesitate to ask other users to remove posts about you that make you uncomfortable.
Another key option in the privacy settings menu is one that lets users disable search engines from linking to their timelines. That will at least cut down on the chance that someone looking for you outside the social network will be able to find your profile.
If your whereabouts or similar information are sensitive, particularly if it's a safety issue, you should be very aware of locations on your posts — no check-ins — and be careful about writing posts that give clues about where you are.
Users should also remember that they can also always block specific users from seeing their Facebook page or from contacting them, but this is more of a reactive step than a proactive one. Plus, just as you could alter your name (yes, in violation of Facebook's guidelines) to hide your identity, so could anyone who is looking for you.
If you're concerned about past posts, Facebook has a setting that lets you limit the audience for posts and information that are already on your profile. You can also go to the "Activity Log" on your timeline to get an action-by-action view of how your activity shows up on the site.
And finally, as Facebook itself makes clear, remember that "things you hide from your timeline still appear in news feed, search and other places on Facebook." There include some things you just can't hide, namely profile pictures and cover photos, but also some news feed activity.
In October 2013, Facebook also loosened restrictions on the extent to which teenager users could share their Facebook activity with others:
Facebook Inc removed a restriction for users under 18 that previously limited who could see their online postings.
Facebook said that teenagers would now be able to manually alter the setting and share information with the public. Until now, a teenager's postings on Facebook were only viewable to their friends, and to the friends of their friends.
Claim: Facebook has "deleted all privacy settings" and is "getting rid of its privacy policy."
Examples:[Collected via Facebook, October 2013]
OK FOLKS HERE WE GO AGAIN, AS OF MONDAY OCT 14, 2013 ACCORDING TO THE NEWS, IT WILL NOW BE HARDER THAN EVER TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING ANY INFO ON YOU CAUSE FACEBOOK AND OBAMA CROOKED ASS SO CALLED GOVERNMENT HAVE TEAMED UP TO DELETE ALL PRIVACY SETTINGS ON FACEBOOK. MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE YR PRIVATE INFO, PLEASE SHARE AND DELETE YR MOBILE NUMBERS, EMAILL ADDRESSES ETC BEFORE YOU CANNOT. THIS IS ON FOX, ABC, CBS, AND ALL RADIO STATIONS !!!!!!!! I heard that Facebook is getting rid of its privacy policy? If so, what about the safety of the children who are on Facebook?
Origins: Back in December 2012 Facebook announced it would be retiring an option that allowed users to control whether they show up when others type their names into the Facebook search bar. The social network began eliminating that option (which shows up in privacy settings as "Who can look up your timeline by name?") from the accounts of people who weren't using it, and in October 2013 Facebook announced it would be completing the removal of that setting for the "small percentage of people still using it":
Everyone used to have a setting called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?," which controlled whether you could be found when people typed your name into the Facebook search bar.
The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. For example, it didn't prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual friend's Timeline. Today, people can also search Facebook using Graph Search (for example, "People who live in
Seattle,") making it even more important to control the privacy of the things you share rather than how people get to your Timeline.
The setting also made Facebook's search feature feel broken at times. For example, people told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find in search results, or when two people were in a Facebook Group and then couldn't find each other through search.
The search setting was removed last year for people who weren't using it. For the small percentage of people still using the setting, they will see reminders about it being removed in the coming weeks.
Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share.
This development did not, as claimed in some alarmist messages spread on the Internet, "delete all privacy settings on Facebook," nor did Facebook "get rid of its privacy policy" (and the change certainly had nothing to do with the Obama administration or the U.S. government). All of Facebook's other privacy controls and policies remain in place, and while the "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" setting had some utility for helping Facebook users be less visible to those who might be searching for them, it didn't absolutely prevent others from finding them:
[The setting] wasn't perfect. It would not have stopped, for example, Facebook users from being able to access profiles if those users had been tagged in a public post or picture. Still, it did help those users to keep a lower profile on the social network, such as those trying to hide their profiles from abusive ex-partners or harassment.
There is no equivalent function for preventing other people from finding a Facebook user by name in the search bar, as Facebook has been moving towards prompting users to maintain privacy on an item-by-item basis rather than by entirely hiding their profiles and activity from others. However, as noted in a Washington Post Technology article, using a variety of privacy settings and precautions can help prevent the revealing of your personal information to those whom you might not wish to see it:
[W]henever and however you post, you should be checking to see if what you're putting up is for public view or just for friends or specific lists of friends. Also, consider turning on Timeline approval, which shows you what your friends may be posting about your location or whom you're with. You can ask them to remove your name from those posts. Facebook has settings that let you review posts and photo tags before they're posted to your Timeline. If privacy is a major concern, use these tools and don't hesitate to ask other users to remove posts about you that make you uncomfortable.
Another key option in the privacy settings menu is one that lets users disable search engines from linking to their timelines. That will at least cut down on the chance that someone looking for you outside the social network will be able to find your profile.
If your whereabouts or similar information are sensitive, particularly if it's a safety issue, you should be very aware of locations on your posts — no check-ins — and be careful about writing posts that give clues about where you are.
Users should also remember that they can also always block specific users from seeing their Facebook page or from contacting them, but this is more of a reactive step than a proactive one. Plus, just as you could alter your name (yes, in violation of Facebook's guidelines) to hide your identity, so could anyone who is looking for you.
If you're concerned about past posts, Facebook has a setting that lets you limit the audience for posts and information that are already on your profile. You can also go to the "Activity Log" on your timeline to get an action-by-action view of how your activity shows up on the site.
And finally, as Facebook itself makes clear, remember that "things you hide from your timeline still appear in news feed, search and other places on Facebook." There include some things you just can't hide, namely profile pictures and cover photos, but also some news feed activity.
In October 2013, Facebook also loosened restrictions on the extent to which teenager users could share their Facebook activity with others:
Facebook Inc removed a restriction for users under 18 that previously limited who could see their online postings.
Facebook said that teenagers would now be able to manually alter the setting and share information with the public. Until now, a teenager's postings on Facebook were only viewable to their friends, and to the friends of their friends.
The late BJ Alums founder Harry Liggett's former Ohio State roommate, Jack Pershing, provides new details about the 1965-95 BJ newsroom editor: John: I read the
eulogy that Harry's nephew posted on Harry. Very
meaningful. Harry and I roomed together at OSU for 2 years. We lost track
of each other since I got married and remained in the Columbus area. Harry
worked with my brother-in-law at the newspaper in Uhrichsville. Harry
did a great job when he set up the Facebook for our high school class.
With Harry posting on it, we were able to keep in contact.
Hope that you are doing well with your Pacemaker.
Again, you did a great job with the information you continued to post when Harry
was ill. I felt bad that I couldn't make it to Akron to see Harry.
Jack Pershing
In an earlier email, Jack posted:
I was a classmate of Harry's at Dennison High
School. I have some photos I want to sent to Tom (Harry's son) that were taken when
Harry and I were in our Junior class play. I also appreciated the
fact that I could keep up with Harry's status thru your BJ Alums blog
when Harry was ill. Harry was a great person and he will
be missed by all. Jack Pershing Harry passed away Jan. 24 after being in and out of hospitals and nursing homes since his August 2013 surgery. He was a legend at the BJ for being a stickler for accuracy and his no-nonsense style in training reporter after reporter. Once, when Harry lamented about a reporter's mistake, I said, "Well, Harry, everyone has to begin somewhere," he replied, in typically terse, muttering Harry style: "Yeah, but you get tired after saying the same thing 500 times." Oh, well, now Harry can help St. Peter deal with Pat Englehart, the whirling dervish State Desk Editor.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Penelope, John wed
Cathy Strong marries off
third daughter, Penelope
Former 1970s State Desk reporter Cathy Strong's daughter, Penelope, married international patent attorney John Pint, originally from Minnesota, in New Zealand (Valentine's Day Friday in New Zealand time, day-before-Valentine's Day Thursday in Ohio time). Facebooked Cathy:
Penelope Strong and John Wayne Pint are now married . In St Anthony 's in Martinborough, New Zealand. Fantastic wedding followed by everyone on a bus tour of local vineyards
Martinborough is the wine valley bout two hours from my place, which is so idealic that Hollywood moguls like James Cameron and Peter Jackson have homes there.
Dinner with Mrs Pint. Non-stop Johnny Cash on the juke.
Off to the winery & honeymoon!
Long-time friend Pam McCarthy, from their 1970s State Desk days, long before Pam's retirement after a long career as a North Canton Hoover High teacher, added:
Give her my very best wishes. Where will they live?
Pam and Cathy are so close that they spent time in a hot tub together in a Boston reunion several years ago, which was memorialized in photo and words in a BJ Alums blog article.
This is the second "earthquake" to hit Martinborough and Cathy. The first came Jan. 20, when it was Mother Nature's turn to make a noise at the 6.3 level.
Cathy's daughter, Rebecca, and husband Dion, have three daughters and a son. Rebecca and Dion were married in 2005 in the tiny historic Pukekaraka St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Otaki. Rebecca is a hydrographer and lieutenant in the New Zealand Navy and her husband, Lt. Dion Hewson, is also a lieutenant in the Navy.
Cathy and former husband Percy Strong's third daughter, Amanda, married Jeff Shima near Waiouru, New Zealand in 2013. They have a daughter. Cathy's impressive journalism career includes her current position as the creator of the journalism master's degree program at Massey University's Wellington campus. She also spent three years in Dubai, United Arab Emirate, teaching journalism, mostly to daughters of Arab royalty.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
What does Comcast purchase mean
for Time Warner Cable customers?
What would Comcast's purchase of Time Warner Cable mean for TWC customers, including those in Northeast Ohio? 1. Comcast's wider menu of channels and services, such as 50,000 video on-demand choices on television, 300,000 plus streaming choices on XfinityTV.com, Xfinity TV mobile apps that offer 35 live streaming channels plus the ability to download to watch offline later, and X1 cloud DVR. 2. Hiccups in merging customer database -- double billing or accounts getting lost. Comcast says that if the merger is approved by federal regulators, they would become one with Time Warner Cable by the end of this year. "An enlarged Comcast would be the bully in the schoolyard, able to dictate terms to content creators, Internet companies, other communications networks that must interconnect with it, and distributors who must access its content," said John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney for online consumer activist group Public Knowledge. In a MoneyRates.com survey: 25% called cable companies the worst for customer service; 15% named credit card companies, 14% listed insurance companies at 14% and 12% cited phone companies. Comcast and Time Warner Cable are largely in different U.S. markets. If you're dissatisfied with the Comcast takeover, there's always satellite dish companies and AT&T's U-verse. To read the entire article, go to http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/13/tech/web/comcast-time-warner-consumer-impact/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Curt Brown with former United Rubber Workers president Peter Bommarito
Hey, Curt, plaid WAS cool! The guy in the plaid suit is Curt Brown, during his days as the United Rubber Workers' PR guy. Quips Curt: "If you don't throw up looking at that suit, then you don't have a pulse."
Curt Brown, today's suit
Curt went from covering unions for the BJ (1971-74) to working for the URW and the United Steelworkers for years.
Curt has been music director and organist/choirmaster at New Life Episcopal Church, 13118 Church Ave. NW, Uniontown and teaches piano and organ at his Highland Square home. He also does organ recitals. His mother and two sisters also played the piano. Curt was city editor of the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia's largest newspaper, when the Marshall University plane carrying the football team, staff and supporters crashed in 1970 on its way back to Huntington after a game, wiping out the Thundering Herd's grid squad.
The next year, Curt came to the BJ. And later began his PR work for the unions.
Curt was captain of his high school swim team, and also competed in swimming at Baldwin-Wallace. He studied at Oberlin College, with its highly regarded College of Arts & Science Conservatory of Music.
J. Curtis Brown, Jr., 29, is the son of Curt and Curt's late wife, Jolan "Jody" Moldvay Brown, who died Aug. 4, 1993.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Catching up with . . . Russ Musarra
Paula Tucker, Bev & Russ Musarra, John Olesky
Retiree Russ Musarra is 75 pounds lighter than in his BJ newsroom days. He walks around Sunny Lake in Aurora during good weather and inside a Lowe's store near their Streetsboro residence when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate. Bev and Russ have four children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, all living in the area, so they see them frequently. Russ and Bev will celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary April 4. They moved to Streetsboro in 2003 after living 15 years in Northfield Center and 22 in Macedonia. China's Beijing is among their travels, although their favorite trip is packing as many family members as possible into a beach house in Sandbridge, Virginia.
Russ' family came from Sicily. John's family came from northern Italy, in Mione and Pellizzano. Since Russ, John and Paula go back to the 1970s State Desk days, they joined Bev in a toast to the late Harry Liggett, BJ Alums founder and BJ newsroom retiree, at Babushka's Kitchen, a Polish restaurant in Independence. Russ was a BJ City Desk reporter and succeeded the late Polly Paffilas as the BJ's About Town columnist. The great Greek passed away in 2005. Russ and BJ artist Chuck Ayers in 2007 got their "Walks Around Akron," a long-running BJ series, into a book published by the University of Akron that was printed in China. After the Beacon Journal dropped the "Walks" essays, they were published by Akron City magazine and later Akron Life and Leisure magazine. They also collaborated on two other books -- "Greetings From Akron" (subtitled "Celebrating Akron’s History in Picture Postcards"), published in 2000 by the Summit County Historical Society, and "Joe’s Place: Conversations on the Cuyahoga Valley," published in 1999 by the Cuyahoga Valley Association. Russ also wrote "Sleep With the Angels," with former Cleveland detective Robert L. Bolton, that was published in 1985.
Since his February 2000 retirement, Russ has written a general interest column for Focus, a monthly tabloid aimed at readers 50 and older; the Town Crier column for Akron City magazine; covered Hudson as a Beacon Journal news correspondent; and was on the board of Actors Summit Theater in Hudson. If you want to touch base with Russ: Current address: 8916 Falcon Drive, Streetsboro 44241 Home phone: 330-626-4188 Cellular phone: 330-322-8890 E-mail: rmusarra@neo.rr.com
