Culture, Politics and Technology

No issue has so dominated the techies the past few months as online music sharing. While the Internet's bandwidth is increasingly taken up by folks swapping their favorite music in digital format, the record companies and some musicians are crying foul — arguing that this is no more than common thievery.

In this issue: The Turbula Essay: High time for the recording industry to embrace new technology By Bradley J. Fikes Hemingway still kicks ass by Jim Trageser Meeting Gregory Peck By Jessica Padilla Wilmette 223 A reminiscence by Charlene Baldridge Book review — "San Diego: Jewel of the California Coast" The Smoking Section Notes on the news From the Bleachers Observations on the sports world

Still, with tens of millions of folks sharing music online, and the technology for doing so free for the downloading, can we really go back to a pre-digital age in music?

Turbula technology editor Bradley J. Fikes tries to figure out where this issue is likely to, or should, go.

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Since this issue came out, Gregory Peck has passed on.

It has been said often, and probably accurately, that actors – particularly American actors – don't really act so much as portray themselves in a variety of different situations. And so Humphrey Bogart was the tormented tough guy. John Wayne was the untormeted tough guy. And Frank Sinatra was the tough guy who liked to have fun.

And Gregory Peck? He was, alongside perhaps only Jimmy Stewart, the conscience of his nation. In the tributes and obituaries written after Peck's passing from old age, the one theme repeated over and again was that he was as decent and humble off-camera as on.

Jessica Padilla, the Public Relations Manager par excellence for the La Jolla Playhouse – which Peck co-founded more than five decades ago – had a chance to meet him, and her experience seems to confirm what everyone else has said.

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Charlene Baldridge, whose illustrations grace many of Turbula's pages, shares a story of going home. And we also review Charlene's new book, "San Diego, Jewel of the California Coast."

In The Smoking Section, we again vent at the politically correct, the pompous, and the just plain dumb. And we re-visit the world of sports in our From the Bleachers column.

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