Scars

The two errors he made in his third-base debut Friday night were difficult enough for Mark Trumbo to absorb, but a bigger concern for the Angels and the converted first baseman could be the mental scars left by the rocky performance.  “I'd be lying if I said otherwise,” Trumbo said Saturday when asked if his confidence was shaken a bit. “It's not that I don't have confidence in myself, but I know how hard pitchers work to get those outs, and any time you don't pick them up, I feel as bad as anybody.

TAL KHALAKH, Syria - For more than a year, Ghassan Eid didn't speak to his son, Khaled, who abandoned his job as a policeman and joined the armed rebels. "I was ashamed," recalled the father, a shop owner in Tal Khalakh, long renowned as a smuggling hub with nearby Lebanon - and more recently as a cross-border terminus for arms and rebel fighters. "He was not my son anymore. " All that has changed. Khaled has renounced the uprising to oust President Bashar Assad and is studying to become a lawyer.

They are the short stories of the flesh, can evoke the entire event in a moment--the action, the scent and sound--place you there a second time. It's as if the flesh decides to hold onto what threatens its well-being. They become part of the map marking the pain we've had to endure. If only the heart were so ruthless, willing to document what it lived by branding even those sensitive tissues so information might flow back.

TEL AVIV - Before the Israeli rock band 9 Lives takes the stage, its members gather for a rowdy group hug. They slap one another on the back, jump a few times in unison and gulp shots of arak, a popular anise-infused spirit. The nine musicians have overcome crippling injuries and post-traumatic stress to arrive together at a popular Tel Aviv nightclub, where on this night they share billing with Israeli rock legend Ehud Banai. "This band keeps me alive," said 9 Lives vocalist Dekel Darchani, 37, who wears his black hair in a rockabilly pompadour.

Darren Dreifort plans to be there this week when he is inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame. Body willing, of course. His attendance at Friday's enshrinement in Lubbock, Texas, Dreifort notes without hint of irony or pathos, depends on "whether I can walk, or how well I'm getting around." He's recovering from surgery. This probably will come as no surprise to anyone who closely followed the star-crossed professional career of the former Dodgers right-hander.

As with many African Americans who participated in the civil rights movement in the '60s, for me many mental scars remain. Having crowds spit on you, throw waste at you, yell hate comments to you will leave scars. But we had a purpose. That purpose was not "In Living Color." The series is an insult to black people. The fact that many do like it only reflects the cultural deterioration that has occurred. Can anyone with any pride in himself/herself like this show? WILBERT C. JORDAN, MD Los Angeles

I believe the kids of Malama Way, Honolulu, invented bicycle polo. Inspired by nighttime professional games at the old Honolulu Stadium in the 1950s, we adapted fat-tired Schwinns and Columbias to the purpose. We wore no spandex shorts. We played barefoot in the street without helmets. I have the scars to prove it. NICHOLAS HORMANN Pasadena

Regarding " 'Rose's Rambling Journey," by Kirk Honeycutt (Sept. 15): A grown woman seducing a 14-year-old boy is "comic but tender." Really? Would the same be said of a grown man seducing a 14-year-old girl? I am a marriage, family and child counselor. As any therapist who has dealt with sexually abused boys can assure you, when a woman seduces a boy it can--and often does--leave permanent scars. There's nothing tender about it. Saying that "the girl needs love" is sexist whitewash.

Now that the threat of Islamic this and Islamic that has passed Y2K without incident, which media or law enforcement organization will be the first to offer apologies to the millions of law-abiding American Muslims for the biggest-hyped nonevents to happen since, well, Y2K itself? While the scars of humility and blanket accusations will be difficult to forget, the real shame is that "better safe than sorry" will be as close as we'll get to "we were wrong." TARIK TRAD Glendale

Re "Tougher Sex-Crime Laws Spark Right-to-Know Flap," Feb. 18: Since when does getting married, attending church, living in a "nice" apartment and being employed automatically translate into a "reformed" sexual predator? Are we to then draw the conclusion that only single, nonchurchgoing, unemployed people living in ugly apartments molest and rape our children? Get real. If we had our priorities straight, notification laws would be a moot point because they would be staying behind bars where they belong.

Less than a year after state auditors warned that Bell faced possible insolvency, the city has seen a significant infusion of cash from settlements with firms it blamed for not preventing the corruption scandal that engulfed the town. City officials said the $5.5 million in settlements, along with the sale of $15.5 million worth of city property, has left Bell on the strongest financial footing since the 2010 scandal, when the city defaulted on bonds it had issued and civic leaders first discussed the possibility of bankruptcy.

Just north of the big hotels along bustling Century Boulevard east of LAX lie the remains of Manchester Square. Once a thriving community with its own elementary school, the working-class neighborhood that sprang up in the postwar building boom is now an urban void of unkempt buildings, desolate streets and residential lots scraped bare where thousands used to live. Their long-gone addresses are marked by idle driveways, clusters of trees and chain-link fences that crisscross 20 square blocks.

BUCKHORN MEADOWS, Calif. - Calls for massive salvage logging, restoration and reforestation projects in the 257,000 acres of public wilderness scarred by the Rim fire have ignited controversy over how to proceed with the largest recovery effort undertaken in the Sierra Nevada. "We're hoping to negotiate our way through this, but we need the infrastructure and personnel," said Jerry Snyder, a spokesman for the Stanislaus National Forest. "This effort will be huge, so we'll also need additional help from Washington.

Toronto Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion needs surgery on his left wrist and will sit out the remainder of the season. All-Star left-hander Brett Cecil is also being shut down by the Blue Jays for the final 13 games because of a sore elbow. Encarnacion sat out four games last week because of soreness in the wrist. He returned to play all three games of a weekend series against Baltimore, but had only one hit in 12 at-bats. Encarnacion ranks third in the majors with 36 home runs and his 104 runs batted in are the fourth-highest total.

LONDON - Has the sun finally stopped setting on the British Empire? A day after Parliament's surprising refusal to back a possible international military strike on Syria, Britons both wrung their hands and rejoiced over what some pundits described as the end - yet again - to British imperial pretensions, to punching above the country's weight on the world stage. "There will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world, whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system," a disappointed George Osborne, a senior Cabinet member, said Friday.

According to Lakers all-star Kobe Bryant, listening is a vital part of leadership. "You have to be able to listen to what your teammates are saying," said Bryant in a YouTube clip released Thursday while he was on a tour of China with Nike. "You have to be observant," he continued. "Observe what they may be going through, what their emotions might be at that point and time. Then once you listen and observe, then you can figure out the best way to motivate them. There's no one way of doing it. It's always fluid, ever-changing because it all depends on the individual.

Your editorial (July 10), "Not Smut, Just Trash," speaks out more against Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese II and the commission's report than against pornography. The report has flaws, but you copy some of its naivete by using as your sources a magazine editor and a psychologist who believe there is no data relating pornography to sex crimes. No one practicing pediatrics doubts the connection of child pornography with innumerable physical and mental abuses to children and thence to lifelong physical and mental scars.

The grist for Claudia Eller's run-of-the-mill column "Remembering Dawn Steel, a Tough Pioneer" [The Biz, Dec. 23] is pure corn: One of the toughest and meanest executives the entertainment industry has ever known, reports Ms. Eller, was "really just a scared, deeply vulnerable and insecure little girl from Great Neck"--as if that explains and excuses everything. Apparently the real Dawn Steel suffered from two strains of cancer--the one that killed her and the one that left its scars on the many targets of her harsh treatment and success-driven malignant orientation.

A picturesque canyon in Joshua Tree National Park that was scarred by graffiti will remain closed due to an extensive clean-up operation, officials said Tuesday. Rattlesnake Canyon was defaced by vandals who used social media to boast about their exploits, park officials said. The popular hiking area was shut down earlier this month and was scheduled to reopen today. But park officials said that the extensive damage will require that the area be closed for at least 30 more days while crews work to remove the graffiti.  Park rangers began noticing the scrawls in January.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Lihle Muhdin was 11 years old when he first picked up a Kalashnikov rifle, pushed into combat by an Islamist militia in Mogadishu. That was 15 years ago. Now he wields a microphone in his fight for peace. Muhdin is a member of the Somali rap group Waayaha Cusub, or New Era, whose music calls on young Somalis to renounce violence. "I want to tell the Somali youth, don't kill," he said. "We must stop this violence. " The 26-year-old rapper recently returned to Mogadishu after 14 years as a refugee in Kenya to be among the headliners at the Somali Reconciliation Festival, Mogadishu's first major music festival in two decades.