The Governor and the Bear

As a former newspaper employee, I sometimes was amused, or appalled, by the difference between my copy and what appeared in print. I’ve laughed so hard this morning tears still are streaming down my face regarding your Feb. 28 story, “Out of Hot Water--Samson: Bear Gets New Lair.” Did you give the typesetter 10 lashes, or a promotion, for this hilarious sentence?: “After his speech, the governor, accompanied by six children, his entourage and dozens of reporters, climbed out of his pool to pace along his chain-link fence, occasionally standing on his hind legs and tilting his head back.” Can it be the governor will consider this his biggest laugh of the year?

FRANCES ROBINSON

Newport Beach

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* I’m sure Samson the bear was happy to see the man who saved his life enjoying the new bear enclosure, and the children, entourage and reporters must have been entertained.

MARY ANN JONES

Orange

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* When I read the Feb. 28 piece about Gov. Pete Wilson posing with the children before Samson the bear’s new home at the Orange County Zoo, and again when I read the governor’s (“ha-ha”) letter Feb. 29, complaining about the typesetting error in the piece confusing him with the bear, I was terribly saddened.

I deplore the fact this cynical politician can display such warmth and compassion for a formerly homeless animal when he is so callously indifferent to the plight of thousands of homeless Californians whose elected leader he is supposed to be.

R.G. VINET

Irvine