During a May 2004 appearance on The Daily Show, Janeane Garofalo told Jon Stewart, "At this point, I think voting for Bush is a character flaw." Now news from Connecticut suggests she may have been more accurate than she knew.

The New Haven Advocate reports:

[Christopher] Lohse, a social work master's student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Read the rest here.

And for the record, Lohse is a not a dirty liberal like Garofalo-- he describes himself as a "Reagan revolution fanatic".

(via Tom Tomorrow)

David Reyes has a piece in the Times about plans to widen the I-5 from three to five lanes at the county line. Most surprising is the final paragraph, which might have warranted earlier mention:

In other business, Art Leahy, OCTA's chief executive, was given a 6% pay raise and one-time 3% bonus after receiving an excellent performance review. Leahy's annual salary is now $230,336.

Most amusing, however, is the meat of the piece--the announcement of a sign on the freeway to inform (warn?) motorists that they have crossed from Los Angeles to Orange County.

The freeway — a virtual Main Street of Southern California — is being widened and improved on the Orange County side of the county line.
When the project is finished in 2010, the ride will become a brake-tapping experience for motorists when they hit the unimproved section in Los Angeles County.
Now county planners are thinking of doing a bit of bragging to southbound motorists at the county line by putting out a $175,000 welcome mat.
Think orange trees and swaying palms, and a sign saying "Orange County," a clear signal to travelers that life for commuters is a bit more relaxed this side of the Orange Curtain.

Hey everbody, we're going to get some orange trees back! I can't wait to bring visiting friends to see these new trees and tell them, sadly, that they are looking upon one of the last orange groves in the county.

Reyes reports a $35,000 project planning cost and a $140,000 construction cost, with a completion date in 2010. That means we still have time to try and influence this process. There's still time for something to be done.

What do I mean? A county motto, that's what I mean. A subheading, if you will. A phrase to add to the new sign. Something to stick in people's heads as they cross over from Los Angeles, and perhaps someday Riverside and San Diego as well. Something to function as an intensifier; an illustration. A warning?

So let's hear it, people - what are some of your ideas? I'll give you some options to get the juices flowing:

ORANGE COUNTY:

• Home of America's Horniest Sheriff


• The Real Orange County--Really


• Fresh Kool-Aid Provided Daily


• Come for the Republican Pedophiles, Stay for the Gang-Rape


• Fear and Loathing Behind the Orange Curtain


• What Happens In Orange County, They Broadcast Around the Globe
  


• WARNING: Now Entering Federally-Protected Republican/RINO Sanctuary--No Hunting Allowed!


• (on loan from the Don Bren Collection)
  

Newport Beach filmmaker Aric Avelino's American Gun was announced today as an Independent Spirit Award best picture nominee. Half Nelson, The Dead Girl, Pan's Labyrinth and Little Miss Sunshine round out the premiere category for the 2007 Film Independent's Spirit Awards ceremony that will air live beginning at 3 p.m. (and, if past years are any indication, immediately rebroadcast) on Saturday, Feb. 24, on IFC, the Independent Film Channel.

Only Half Nelson and Little Miss Sunshine, with five nominations each, received more Spirit Award nods than American Gun, which received three nominations, as did The Dead Girl, Man Push Cart and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Forest Whitaker was nominated for best male lead and Marcia Gay Harden was nominated for best supporting female. Avelino talked with me about Whitaker's stunning performance and how much it helped his project casting a solid actress like Harden here.

Sadly, Avelino joined Pan's Labyrinth's Guillermo Del Toro in being the only directors of best picture nominees shut out of the Spirit Award's best director category. But they were bumped aside by two heavy hitters: Steven Soderbergh, whose teeny Bubble changed the way films may someday be distributed (it was released in theaters, on DVD and on paid cable television simultaneously), and the recently deceased Robert Altman, who will likely win many sentimental votes since A Prairie Home Companion will be considered the capper to a brilliant career.

Worse for Avelino should American Gun win best pic: producers, not directors, receive the award. Del Toro also produced Pan's Labyrinth.

But Avelino surely does not mind. Just receiving the best picture award raises American Gun's stature, as well as his own. Not only did the 28-year-old make his directing debut with the film, he co-wrote it with Steven Bagatourian, his classmate from Edgewood Private School in Santa Ana. (Avelino went on to graduate from Mater Dei High School and Loyola Marymount University's film school.

American Gun interlocks fictional stories from three different cities (Chicago, Bend, Ore., and Charlottesville, Virginia) to demonstrate how America's grip on deadly firearms is as tight as, well, a firm hand around a Glock handle. Avelino and Bagatourian's central idea came from a Los Angeles Times "Column One" article, and they were influenced by a friend from Chicago who told stories about how students brought guns to school—not to use on campus but to protect themselves from the dangerous neighborhoods they lived in or walked through to get to school.

As you've no doubt heard, Operation Iraqi Chaos (or whatever the official name is for the U.S. invasion and occupation) has now lasted longer than America's involvement in World War II. And judging by President Bush's statement this morning, American troops won't be leaving anytime soon.

While it's not clear what the president means by "victory", we can be sure that whenever he speaks about "our children", he certainly isn't referring to anyone in his immediate family serving in Iraq. But that doesn't mean that his perfect-age-for-military-service daughters haven't inherited their dad's steely determination to Stay The Course! in countries where their presence is unwelcome.

Yesterday, ABC News reported:

Of course, sometimes you have to Adapt to Win (another trademarked Bush administration slogan)-- and today's news shows that once again, the hard-partyin' acorns don't fall far from the tree (a tree that had many "youthful indiscretions" until its forties). This morning's Washington Post reveals that the administration is considering taking sides in the civil war it denies is occurring in Iraq, while ABC News reports that Bush twin have also embraced a new strategy. Barbara has now strategically redeployed herself (i.e. pulled out of Buenos Aires). Sturdier twin Jenna, however, remains in hostile territory ("plans to stay for at least another 10 days") to proudly fly the Bush Party Flag.

I suspect most of the twenty-five year olds in Iraq would be willing to trade places with Jenna. No sign, though, that either Bush twin is about to join up to serve in the fight their father assures us is well worth the lives of other people's children.

Chris Prevatt is a local blogger, an employee of the County Health Care Agency, and a man without a computer.

The County took Prevatt's computer as part of an investigation as to whether he used county time to post a blog entry on TheLiberalOC. The post in question displayed a photoshopped image of Supervisor Chris Norby as "Darth Norby", wielding a light-saber and garbed in the robes of a Sith Lord.

The investigation is ridiculous—Prevatt has already explained how he wrote the post in his personal time and had a fellow blogger post it later in the day. This is S.O.P. in the blogosphere. I've done it myself. I'm sure that Jon Fleischman has done it in his capacity as founder of Flashreport.org, a right-wing political blog.

Still, Fleischman suggests in the OC Register that the problem isn't when the blog was posted – it's what it said.

"I'd be awfully careful if I was a county employee to post critical stories about your boss," he said. Prevatt, Fleischman notes, "may be more than liberal, he may just be dumb."

It's scary, in a mafia or Communist kind of way, to think an employee ought to know better than to criticize the boss. It reminds one that Bill Hunt is still on administrative leave following his campaign for Sheriff. Hunt attacked his superior officer; Prevatt, a county employee, attacked the Supervisors. He attacked them for not taking more action against Tan Nguyen and suggested several alarming trends including a history of racism on behalf of Supervisor Norby:

Attorney H. Bryan Card pointed me in the direction of the sexual harassment case of Pamela Mokler against Chris Norby from 2005. In a sworn testimony on March 7, 2005 Ms. Mokler claimed that Supervisor Norby had said to her on one occasion when she was discussing outreach programs targeting Latino seniors "Why the [fuck] do you have to do something special for Mexicans?
In testimony under oath, Norby admitted to the "Mexicans" statement but denied dropping the F-Bomb.

Perhaps this explains why there is practically no discussion on FlashReport.org about the school for scandal that is Sheriff Mike Carona's administration; until recently, Carona was Fleischman's boss. Dan Chmielewski discusses this point over on TheLiberalOC.

I searched Flashreport and couldn't find any discussion of the controversies surrounding Sheriff Carona, but there were some Sheriff-related items. There's a vague post from Adam Probolsky, member of the Orange County Republican party Central Committee's Executive Committee. It pretends to discuss a protest against the Sheriff; he calls the activists "crazies" and claims "it wasn't clear why they were protesting". That's idiotic--Probolsky links to a Register story in that same post, the second paragraph of which clearly states that the protesters were calling on Carona to resign because of "sexual harassment allegations and problems with his reserve deputy program."

There's a post by Matt Cunningham, an Orange County election roundup from March. Cunningham mentions a Carona legal victory over his opponent Bill Hunt and, without any mention of scandal, opines that Carona is in great shape to win a third term. He also points to a post on OCBlog, which he says "has a good analysis" of the discussion—not surprising, as it was also written by Cunningham.

And there's a scintillatingly sycophantic pre-election post from Blogministrator Jon Fleischman himself: "Mike Carona: A GREAT Sheriff who should be Re-elected."

For over 900 words, Fleischman expounds on the glory that is his boss, Mike Carona. He tells of Carona's ironclad support for Republicans including Diane Harkey—odd, as Harkey lost her State Senate campaign to Tom Harman. Fleischman mentions his job in the media relations office of the Sheriff's Department, which he says gives him "an insider perspective of Sheriff Carona." He doesn't go so far as to acknowledge the piece as a press release, but if it walks like a kiss-ass and talks like a kiss ass, well, sometimes ass is being kissed.

He calls the Sheriff's opponents B-players, accusing them all of "worst kind of campaigning -- where they takes the lies and falsehoods printed in publications like the Orange County Weekly and spread them around as if they are true."
"There have been a number of news articles (primarily in the OC Weekly and in the LA Times) that have been negative about the Sheriff. Well, I can tell you as someone who is truly in a position to sort out fact from fiction -- most of what they have said simply isn't true."

That's how a spin-doctor tries to avoid getting sued for libel. Although he does say we print lies. Which is, of course, a goddamn lie. The OC Weekly has some of the best fact-checkers love or money can buy, and I challenge Fleischman to point out a single lie we've published.

Finally, Fleischman fawns over Carona's support of Flashreport.

I think that it speaks volumes about Sheriff Carona that he has been very supportive of my efforts to start and maintain this website. Often times I will pen controversial things, and while neither he nor you, I'm sure, agree with all of them, I think it shows a commitment on Carona's part to the causes in which we believe that he has been so supportive.

So what, it shows a commitment towards causes he supports? There's a neat trick. And of course the goon supports your blog, Jon—all you do is blow smoke up his ass.

The holidays are a time for celebrating tradition, and a story from The Associated Press reminds us of one of our country's greatest traditions: corporations screwing the public and lying about it.

Confirming what you've suspected as you stand at the self-service gas pump, swearing under your breath, "an Associated Press analysis suggests that big oil companies have been crimping supplies in subtler ways across the country for years. And tighter supplies tend to drive up prices."

The story focuses on the closing of the Shell refinery in Bakersfield, and is replete with corporate denials of any wrongdoing-- the sort of corporate denials that can't help but remind one of the old days when cigarette companies used to deny any link between smoking and cancer. Very seasonal really, since the holidays are also a time for nostalgia.

The godfather of blogs trashes what he calls the MSM (mainstream media--essentially, anyone who doesn't toe the Republican line) every chance he gets. But in a post today on his blog, Hewitt reveals he's an investor in The News Right Now, a news aggregator, and calls it a "very wise move."  Here's the funny, hypocritical thing: of the 12 news sources, 11 are the websites of daily papers, and only two of them (the Moonie-controlled Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal are not part of Hewitt's hated MSM. The only non-daily paper link is to Real Clear Politics, itself an aggregator of daily newspaper articles (along with a couple of original conservative authors). Hey Hugh: better pray that the MSM's declining circulation bumps up lest your investment go sour, ¿qué no?

Last week the LA Times wrote a piece about OCTA's South Orange County Major Investment Study. Its results directly contradict the Transportation Corridor Agencies' claims that its planned Foothill South (241) Toll Road extension would relieve traffic in south Orange County. Steve Lowery cites the new study in this week's Diary of a Mad County:

The study, titled "We Are So Screwed: Seriously, Royally Screwed" says that if the toll road is built, traffic will be alleviated on the Santa Ana Freeway to the point of being "severely congested" by the year 2030, which would be about the year the toll road would open, what with the expected work delays, cost overruns, mob extortion and unearthing of dinosaur/Native American/guy who wouldn't pay the mob bones.

He's right—maybe not about the mob, but certainly about work delays and cost overruns. The implications of the study (which, incidentally, this blog discussed with the study's instigator, Cassie DeYoung, about a month ago) are simply this: the toll roads are not a form of traffic relief. If anything, the 241 toll road will only serve as a traffic alternative, while functioning to help make traffic worse. DeYoung put it best:

…traffic in Orange County will increase by one thousand percent on the streets and roads, and over two hundred percent on the I-5 South—with the fully completed 241 extension, given the alignment they came up with. There would be virtually no traffic on the 241.

While traffic on both the 5 freeway and nearby arterials crawls to a halt, the rich and careless will be able to cruise down a traffic-free toll road while the rest of the county thinks back to a time when cars actually moved on the road. As far as work delays are concerned, well, let's just say construction was initially scheduled to begin in 1997; now they're hoping for 2008. So we're already looking at a decade plus one.

And cost overruns? I'm glad you asked. Since last year the TCA has claimed the Foothill-South extension will cost $875 Million to construct. But in the last two years the cost of highway construction material has skyrocketed.

Recently Fitch Ratings, one of several agencies which evaluates the TCA's bonds, affirmed the Foothill/Eastern TCA's bond rating at BBB. Still, their evaluation assumes a "high likelihood of future construction increases." According to Fitch spokesman Mike McDermott, "We've seen in the last couple of years dramatic increases in production costs for projects like this. In the southeast and parts of the west costs have gone up dramatically – 40, 50, 60 percent."

What's $875 Million plus 50 percent? A healthy $1.3 Billion – just a million over the TCA's minimum estimate for the cost of widening the I-5, an option they admit will do a better job of relieving traffic but which they claim is too expensive compared to the 241 extension.

One final note--according to the Times story, "OCTA spokesman Michael Litschi said he did not want to comment on which study might be more valid." Well, we called Litschi up and he said those words never crossed his lips. "I don't even think they asked me the question," he said. "They paraphrased me, so I guess that's accurate." His actual opinion is that the studies can't really be compared because they were calculated in different ways. "For one thing, TCA's projections are looking at 2025 and ours are looking at 2030," says Litchi. Any other differences? "The demographic data they use is, I believe, older, so I have been told."

The Transportation Corridor Agencies have yet to respond to a request for a comment.

Ugh. And from our sister paper up the 5/101 Freeway. In David Ehrenstein's otherwise-fine story about Brits living in El Lay:

British pop star Morrissey encountered a similar phenomenon during his own nine-year L.A. residency, when "tribute" bands began springing up in the Latino community (as documented by William E. Jones in his 2004 film Is It Really So Strange?), having discovered in the lower-class British dandy a kindred spirit. Morrissey's ultraemotional singing style, coupled with his look — particularly his pompadour hairdo — is very much in keeping with Mexican pop singing. But Mexican pop stars don't have the special edge of melancholy regret and worldly-wise ennui that drives his L.A. Latino fan base wild. As Jones' film notes, tough-as-nails cholos have been known to break down sobbing at "Moz" concerts.

Where to begin...well, begin with this charming piece answering the eternal "Why do Mexicans love Morrissey?" question once and for all. Then consider this: Mexican pop isn't "ultraemotional", as Ehrenstein claims--Mexican pop is canned and without a soul (hear anything they play on KSSE-FM 107.1 "Super Estupid for proof). The emotional stuff comes courtesy of ranchera music, the true Mexican musical soundtrack. Why Ehrenstein put in the pop reference as opposed to the ranchera mention is mystifying. And why, oh, why did he then have to mention that cholos cry to Morrissey? The next gabacho journalist who mentions cholos in a "Latinos-like-Morrissey" story gets a free jumping by the gang of his choice.

Last year Omar Chatriwala moved from Austin, Texas to Orange County to help get Squeeze OC off the ground. Recently he decided to move again, this time from Orange County to Qatar to help get Al Jazeera's English-language channel off the ground. Chatriwala's blog, OC in OC, is among the most popular blogs on the SqueezeOC website, of which he was an editor. He has traveled from Austin's city limits to the middle of the Middle East with a brief layover behind the Orange Curtain, all for the sake of helping media outlets make news. We decided to make a little news out of him.

Weekly: So what brings you to Qatar?

Omar: I'm in Doha for a job with Al Jazeera—the newly launched English channel and re-launched English website.

I see. Al Jazeera. So when exactly did you start hating America?

If I were to actually hate America, which I've contemplated (but decided not to), it would've started long before my stint in Orange County. Seriously though, sometimes you just need a break from the rampant consumerism.

You spent about a year here, yes?

Thirteen months, after moving from Austin, Texas. Which was an awesome city. I was there 4 years, but in a couple of months I quickly grew sick of hearing people going on about "I'm the type of person that..."

How do you mean?

Everyone tries to stick out and show off their unique weirdness by being utterly mundane and boring.

Our last photo editor, Tenaya Hills, moved to Austin recently. It must be interesting, what with festivals like SXSW and Austin City Limits. What were you doing there, and where were you before that?

Before Austin I was in Bahrain for three years. In Austin I went to school, University of Texas, freelanced a little, talked to homeless people, interned with SXSW and got a degree in journalism. SXSW didn't pay me, but they did give me all access, which was fun. I also worked at the university for a bit, building "teaching tools" for staff like a video-based website to teach American Sign Language, but on the whole I sat around, drank coffee and played video games. I highly recommend Einstein's Arcade.

So what brought you from Austin, a hotbed of cultural diversity and creative talent, to Orange County, a sinkhole of retrograde conservative thought?

Really? Doesn't everything come from OC?

Only television shows and Cold War Kids.

People make millions by selling really, really big paper clips there.

Um....and that's a draw?

Well, i presume that takes some creativity. I was looking for a good journalism-related gig, and though the community paper outside Houston that offered me a job sounded like it could be fun. But it was a really small news market and I wasn't sure I'd be able to afford dinner on the salary. The alternatives to that were the about-to-launch SqueezeOC and early interviewing w/ a similar publication in Milwaukee. I was leaning towards Milwaukee, but everyone else told me i was crazy—sun-kissed beaches and all that.

How'd you get on to the Squeeze bandwagon?

Accidentally I suppose. Being web-savvy, I wouldn't say I spammed my resume, but I sent it out to lots of jobs, including ones I didn't necessarily want.

I applied there for a 'super user' position that I didn't want and probably wasn't qualified for, but after talking to Iris [Yokoi, editor of SqueezeOC] for a couple months (while they were preparing to launch) and freelancing a multimedia flash package for them, she offered me a position as web editor.

When did OC in OC start?

That's a title I'll also attribute to Iris. She thought it was very catchy (I'll reserve comment). It was actually pretty early on, probably November or December, that we were soliciting bloggers for the site, and either Iris or Erlina [Tulabut, Senior Web Editor] suggested I blog on my experiences as a newbie. I was game, but a slacker, so didn't move on that—but a couple other people wrote in to say that they'd like to take that angle. Iris and Erlina again asked me and I gave in. I'd posted the first entries on a community forum of longstanding friends, so repurposed those, post-dated them, and we launched the blog in January.

Now that you're no longer in OC, what happens to the blog?

I think Jit Fong [Chin, Squeeze staff writer – don't call her Dipthong] first suggested just scratching out the second OC and scribbling in Doha in the title. I agreed to blog about my transition out of OC for a bit, free of charge even, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it going more than a month—not sure how relevant a blog from Doha would be to a OC audience.

Speaking of Doha, what exactly are you doing for Al Jazeera?

That's tricky as, on my first day at work, HR gave me a pack of papers—two of which explained I kinda have to get permission to talk about Al Jazeera, as every employee is an ambassador for the channel. But the position's that of journalist. No tv spots for me though. I work for the website.

Fair enough. Can you talk about how they recruited you?

Hopefully—but if they fire me, I'm expecting a position at OC Weekly.

I got an email over a mailing list—Muslim American Journalists Association. It was just letting everyone know Al Jazeera was looking for folks. I wasn't passionately interested in the job, but clicked the link and submitted my resume all the same, then promptly forgot about it. I don't know when that was exactly, but it was probably a month or two later that i got a call on a Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m.

Quite annoying.

The voice said he was calling from Al Jazeera and wanted to interview me.

I said "Dude, it's 7:30 a.m. sunday morning," but since i wasn't about to fall back asleep we continued along.

What staggering professionalism.

It was pretty open and shut—I guess the interviewer was already quite interested; they just wanted to make sure i wasn't psycho or lying on my cv [curriculum vitae – a resume in the rest of the world]. I probably spent a month deliberating.

There were a couple dissenting voices, like my father telling me I'd never be able to get a job stateside again, but on the whole, everyone was thoroughly encouraging. Even Iris! I finally got around to telling her a month before my escape.

In over a year you moved from Austin to Orange County to Qatar. How would you compare the three?

None are so different. People in OC thought I'd hit culture shock from Austin to OC.

But I didn't; I could eat at a McDonald's in all three. Moving to India, China or Japan might be a bit more shocking.

I think Austin was my favorite, but after 4 years I got tired of it—the indie spirit of the place. Orange County, to its credit wasn't as bad as I expected. Sure, flip through a local rag and you'll primarily find body augmentation ads, and it was a bit alarming the extent superficiality was widely accepted-

Nay, demanded!

-but I liked a lot of it.

My first week I wandered around downtown Santa Ana, shocked to be in this town where nobody spoke English. Then the same day I drove down Westminster Ave. and found myself lost in Little Saigon. So that stuff's enjoyable.

Having spent a good 12 or so years in the Middle East, I loved the Little Gaza/Little Arabia area—and to be honest, even walking down the beach and checking out art galleries in Laguna was great fun.

But Doha is already growing on me. Things tend to go at a different pace, one could say. Things happen when they happen. I waited 3 months to get a work visa; first the offices were blasted by Asian Games visa requests, then it was Ramadan, et cetera. But i dig the lack of social pressures here, in terms of appearance and such.

What's the perception of Americans, or The OC, in Qatar?

I haven't hobnobbed too much with Qataris, but the Brits I'm surrounded by have mostly heard of it. One Londoner (of Lebanese descent) is in love w/ the place. He thinks it the ideal lifestyle, though he advocates the counter- or sub-culture of OC—the indie music scene, etc. Other people just say "Ohhhhhhh, Orange County...I see..." Then they kinda frown and look away.

Any conclusory thoughts? Do you miss us?

Some aspects I miss—dude, they don't brew coffee here! If it's not espresso it's instant! But it was the diversity and lower-income aspects of OC that I enjoyed, and that I can find here too.

Oh, there's not as many homeless people here (I haven't actually met one yet).

… who always land on their feet. The politically well-connected are equally skilled.

Consider the case of Joe Desmond.

In May 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Joe Desmond Chairman of the California Energy Commission (in addition to being chairman, Desmond also filled the seat on the commission that is meant to represent the "public-at-large"). But there was a problem-- the position requires senate approval, and most of the senate lacked Schwarzenegger's enthusiasm for Desmond. Critics of Desmond, lead by then OC State Senator Joe Dunn, felt Desmond was too obedient a servant of the big energy companies, misguided in his belief that the state needed "an Energy Secretary who would be exempt from an array of conflict-of-interest rules" (Desmond has firsthand experience of conflict-of-interest questions), and just flat wrong in wanting to return California to the exciting days of electricity deregulation. The Senate refused to confirm Desmond. But this didn't mean Desmond was out of a job-- Schwarzenegger kept him on as CEC chairman for as long as the law allowed.

While Desmond didn't get a chance to reintroduce electricity deregulation, he did get to deal with at least one controversial issue: the building of offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals (scroll down to "Hindenberg Part II"). In early July, the CEC issued a pro-LNG white paper. But by then, Desmond had been gone from the commission for weeks.

By law, without the senate approval, Desmond had to leave the commission in May 2006. But Desmond didn't so much move out, as he moved sideways into a new position the governor created for him. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "one day before Desmond would have been forced to resign from the commission without Senate confirmation, Schwarzenegger in May appointed him to be the undersecretary for energy affairs, a newly created position that pays more than $123,000 a year".

Desmond, however, only lasted 5 months in his custom-built position. He resigned two weeks ago. But if you're worried that the cupboards might be a little bare at the Desmond house this holiday season, since Joe is out of work, fret not-- once again he has landed on his feet. It was announced today that Joe Desmond has been hired as senior vice president of external affairs for NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc., one of the companies that wants to build an offshore LNG terminal. According to the LA Times' Robert Salladay, the "external affairs" in question will involve Desmond trying to squeeze the best deal for NorthernStar out of the state officials who were until two weeks ago his colleagues, and, of course, his former boss and protector, Governor Schwarzenegger.

If cats were as good as Joe Desmond at landing on their feet, they wouldn't need 9 lives.

As of half-past seven Monday night, Lou Correa has over 50% of the vote, beating opponent Lynn Daucher by 1,302 votes and winning California's 34th Senate seat. He collected more votes than opponents Daucher and Otto Bade combined, ending speculation that Bade's last-minute write-in campaign is what cost Daucher the election. Can we please stop calling him Otto the Spoiler now?

This is an unpleasant turn of events for Daucher, who on Election Night was claiming victory. At the Republican's ill-fated fete, R. Scott Moxley reported her pseudo-victorious boasting:

[Daucher] credited "Team Tran"–fellow Republican Assembly candidate Van Tran's get-out-the-vote operation–with getting her elected. She then ungraciously blasted her opponent Correa, accusing his campaign of dirty tricks, and also credited state party chieftain Dick Ackerman. Finally, before even having her election certified, let alone being sworn in, Daucher went after a higher target.

"My campaign showed how to win Mexican and Vietnamese votes. Thank you. . . . Bye-bye, Loretta."

Daucher was referring, of course, to Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, the assumption being that Lynn was now in a place to challenge Sanchez in the future. There's nothing worse than a sore winner, except one who turns out to be a loser.

Before Election Night was over, Daucher and Correa each had 50% of the vote. The race came down to absentee and provisional ballots. At first the edge was Daucher's, but from November 10 through November 16, Correa went from being 883 votes behind to 282 ahead.

Last week on the Register's political blog, The Buzz, Martin Wisckol tried to squeeze a boast or two out of the new front-runner.

"I've been through this so many times," said Correa, who lost a 1993 Assembly bid by 93 votes. "You have to wait until the last vote is counted. It's close but no cigar."

I tried to cajole a little braggadocio from him, but the most he would give up was: "I thought I was going to lose yesterday and I thought I was going to lose today. So those two days have gone better than I thought. ... I'm cautiously optimistic."

Perhaps he learned a thing or two from his opponent's mistakes. Either way, we salute Correa for turning things around and pulling out a defeat over the 2006 OC Worst Candidate, as Daucher was dubbed by Moxley shortly before the election:

Speaking from the newsroom that's blasted Lou for his unmistakable conservatism and anti-gay votes, Daucher strikes us as a lying bitch. Not a politically correct statement? Ask me if I care.
...
Lynn, you are a disgrace and when you lose tomorrow, at least have the decency to apologize for your well-funded but sick campaign.

The AP wires are humming today with news that Brian Doyle, former deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has been sentenced. Doyle was caught sending sexually explicit messages to Sheriff's deputies posing as a 14-year-old girl named Ashlynne, for which he has been sentenced to five years in prison, ten years of probation, and a lifetime of sex-offender registration. Doyle apologized for his actions in court:

"I am profoundly sorry for everything. How I feel inside can't be described," Doyle told Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance. - AP

"I know what I did was heinous," he said. "I know I deserve some punishment." His life is in ruins now, he said. "My face has been seen across the world as a predator."
Durrance told him it was clear that he had done a lot of good for people in his life, that he was a generous and kind person and he had endured a difficult upbringing. However, Durrance said, "You will not be treated differently than any other person." - TheLedger.com

Come on, judge. He's already going to prison - no need to smother him in bullshit as well. He won't be treated differently than any other sex offender, certainly, but nonetheless his sentence is life-long.

Why do I care? Because I used to work with Brian Doyle. Before joining Homeland Security, Doyle worked the news desk at Time Magazine's Washington D.C. bureau, where I interned in the summer of 2001. Doyle, a former sports writer, was quick with a one-liner or anecdote, and I remember looking up to him as the sort of journalist I hoped to become, more so than anyone else in Time's D.C. Bureau. 'Twas an interesting summer to be there for two reasons--Chandra Levy, and the AOL-TimeWarner merger.

With mergers come cutbacks. In June 2001 journalismjobs.com's layoff tracker warned that Time Magazine was expected to lay off 38 staff in both editorial and business. In order to minimize damages, anyone over age 50 was offered a decent compensation package. Doyle, just over the line, accepted. By summer's end he was gone, no longer to shout "Gesundheit!" any time anyone throughout the office could be overheard to sneeze.

Doyle's attorney made note of his client's penchant for occasional depression, possibly caused by a traumatic childhood thanks to a violent drunk father. It's also reasonable to speculate that it's incredibly depressing to quit a critical D.C. bureau of a major news organization within months of September 11, 2001--especially when that departure was your choice.

Also, I can't imagine how depressing it must be to work as a spokesman for Homeland Security. Michael Hampton, proprietor of HomelandStupidity.com and usually an eager critic of all aspects of the organization, actually stepped up in defense of Doyle:

As I have said before, this sort of sting operation skirts very close to the line between catching real criminals and entrapment, and in my opinion, crosses the line. Doyle has done nothing here except engage in a fantasy, something many people do. Under Florida law, however, this thought crime will get you thrown in prison. Florida doesn't require there to be an actual victim in such cases.

The crime is victimless, to be true, but it's still a crime, isn't it? Hampton is troubled by the potential for entrapment in this situation--Doyle didn't seduce a 14-year-old girl, he discussed and exchanged sexually explicit material with a cop looking to bust sex offenders.

All I can say is this: if any major news happens around here any time soon, we could be in trouble. All those staffers from the Register or LA Times who take a buyout or are just laid off thanks to recent cutbacks could suffer similar depression, and who knows how they'll act out?

If so, Steve Lowery wants to talk to you. Have a trying-to-get-Sony-Playstation-3 horror story? Steve'll talk to you, too. In the midst of trying to acquire the hottest gaming console around, our intrepid Mad County diarian discovered he began his quest too late and—unless he wanted to sell his car to pay for one drawing large on eBay—he was SOL. But that also got him to wondering what strategies other locals employed to get their grubby mitts on the Playstations. Share your story of triumph (or defeat) with Steve, and he'll forever immortalize you in his next Diary of a Mad County.

Email Steverino here.

Today at Blotter HQ, buried deep beneath the Catalina Channel, we received a press release via email from the office of Senator Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach). Harman was perturbed by the decision of the Orange Coast College student trustees to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from their meetings, as was posted on this blog last week.

I personally enjoyed that post--not only was I able to mock God's sexual techniques, but I also received my first oblique death threat. But Harman wasn't enjoying much--unless he enjoys disgracefulness.

"It is disgraceful that the students at Orange Coast publicly denounced the Pledge of Allegiance," remarked Harman. "Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is one way we remember our nation's founding principles.

Americans have made innumerable sacrifices to protect and preserve our great democracy," Harman commented further. "Their decision chips away at the moral fabric that binds us together and makes this country great. It weakens what so many have fought to protect, and it attempts to undermine a pillar of our foundation."

A pillar of our foundation? The pledge has only been around since the early-to-mid 20th century and since then has undergone significant revision (in both its textual and physical expression). Not only that, but a foundation is the base of a structure. As such, it doesn't have pillars. Pillars have a foundation, sure, but not vice-versa.

All I'm saying is, it could be argued that the pledge is less of a pillar and more of a flying buttress--an external enhancement to prop up the structure (rather than a part of the foundation or founding basis). And do we really want a state senator who uses inappropriate architectural metaphors? I think not.

Thus I found myself emailing Harman's office to ask whether they agreed that the flying buttress analogy was more appropriate than the foundation-pillar one. Kelly Garman, the senator's press secretary (all staffers' surnames must rhyme with Tom's), sent me this response:

"Your question regarding the Pledge of Allegiance is duly noted and I think it could be legitimately argued."

Literally and figuratively, that's all she wrote.

Our superlative editorial assistant, Vickie Chang, published a thought-provoking article (Yellow Fever) on the fascination of some with Asian-American females. Unfortunately, it also functioned to provoke the thoughtless, whom she discusses in Your Fetish, My Life in the current issue.

The internet message boards erupted with harsh criticism of the piece.

On MensActivism.com (a "Men's Rights and Activism" website), "John" went further, comparing "Yellow Fever" to Mein Kampf (bringing the number of Nazi comparisons to three). "A childish outpouring of disgusting personal prejudices (a la Mein Kampf)," he declared, "rife with hypocrisy. Her 'Asian male stereotypes' were news to me, by the way. One of the heroes of my youth was Bruce Lee, who was definitely not 'virginal and emasculated.'"

Okay, John-boy, you're wrong on three counts:

1. Chang's piece had less to do with her personal prejudices than other persons' prejudices – preconceived notions regarding females of her race. Her only prejudice in her piece is a strong distaste for people who base their attraction to her on purely racial characteristics, rather than her other virtues – for example, her excellent writing skillz (yes, with a z).


2. Mein Kampf was obsessed with propaganda, while Yellow Fever focused on the results of propaganda – the effect of years of the depictions of Asians as submissive. The only similarity between Chang's story and Hitler's is they are both autobiographical. Your fallacious argument is nothing but a Reductio ad Hitlerum, not to mention a proof of Godwin's Law.


3. Bruce Lee isn't the best example. I'm no Jeet Kune Do aficionado, but I do remember this: Lee, among the greatest Martial Artists to ever live, played second fiddle as Kato to Van Williams's Green Hornet for 26 episodes of The Green Hornet through 1966-67. His acting career was practically based on a submissive role.

Then there's theFighting44s.com – these kids ejaculated four pages' worth of comments on Chang's piece, the majority of which either argued over or assumed her status as a CCB – a "cracker-chasing bitch". Clearly these are not regular readers or they would know that Chang is more cracker-chased. I direct your attention to her recent Trendzilla piece, "The Bro":

"It also didn't help that the guy was kowtowing and screaming "Koniichiwa!" at me at every turn. I'm Chinese-American, asshat."

But the ass-crown must go to TKGuy, who wrote on theFighting44s that "I come to the conclusion that Vickie is a white person trapped in an Asian body."

Rather than convincing people like Vickie that there are white perverts out there I think it's more productive to convince Vikie [sic] that she is not white and that white people do not see her as white. … Once again the option of just looking to her own race for a partner is never ever raised.

Look, Captain Douchetastic, the piece wasn't about HER choice in partners (except Rivers Cuomo). It was about those who would choose her or other Asian females exclusively. Do I hear the cry of an Asian man spurned by his own kind?

Yellow Fever isn't about a white person in an Asian body—it's about white people who want to be in Asian bodies.

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but judging by this report from Drew Cline, editorial page editor of New Hampshire's Manchester Union Leader, the race for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination could prove to be very, very entertaining. Cline writes on the Union Leader blog:

I just got off the phone with former congressman and talk show Bob Dornan, who is considering. . . a run for President.

"I can't stand the thought of my party having as its three front-runners three open adulterers, Newt Gingrich, Giuliani, and McCain," Dornan said.

"I've got one mission left in me, to come up to New Hampshire and tell the truth, and tell the Republicans you better find yourself a fresh face and not Rudy Giuliani who took his mistress around with him and then divorces Donnna [sic] who learns she was divorced sitting at home watching TV with her children.

"We need a fresh face if the Republican Party is going to appeal to an Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical or practicing Catholic."

Aside from adultery, Dornan's other issue is homosexuality, which he called "a cancer in my party."

He said he'd consider backing the right candidate or even running for President himself.
"Fifteen hundred bucks (to file for President)? It would be worth it if I could stand in front of a huge audience again and say, folks, is the Republican Party the party of values, the party of life?"

While it's true that today's Republican party boasts a kennel-full of barking-mad rightwingers, there's still no one quite as rabid as our Bob. Imagine Bob trudging through the snows of New Hampshire, in hot pursuit of Giuliani and McCain, howling about adultery. Filing fee for the New Hampshire primary: $1500. Bob Dornan on a rampage: priceless.

Of course, nobody in his or her right mind believes Bob could win. Even Bob seems to realizes he doesn't have a shot. But as R. Scott Moxley has pointed out before, Bob is a failed actor, and there's nothing a failed actor craves more than the chance to "stand in front of a huge audience", to use Bob's own words. Forget the "one mission left in me" stuff-- this is his last chance to get back in front of a national audience. And as Bob knows better than anyone, nothing attracts TV cameras so reliably as someone behaving outrageously. Bob knows how to behave outrageously.

So, a Dornan presidential bid, no matter how short-lived, would be a misery for the star players in the GOP primary, but very, very entertaining for the rest of us.

Run, Bob, run.

"Fresh perspective" and "new eyes" have been Bush administration buzzwords since the nomination of Robert Gates to be Secretary of Defense was announced. Whether the eyes of Mr. Gates-- which saw no evil when he was the Number 2 man at the CIA while the Reagan administration was busy undermining the Constitution with its Iran-Contra scam-- manage to see anything new remains to be seen. But starting today there will be a fresh perspective on world events available to Americans.

Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language news channel, is launching Al-Jazeera International, an English language service. "Around the world," the San Francisco Chronicle reports,

the new channel will be available in 80 million households with cable or satellite access. In deals announced Tuesday, the channel will be transmitted in the United States via satellite and the Internet.

The U.S. is going to be an especially challenging market for the new network, since Al-Jazeera is regularly portrayed by rightwing news outlets like Fox News as nothing more than a propaganda channel for terrorists. (Ironically, today The Huffington Post published an internal Fox News memo, which shows how eager Murdoch's network is to broadcast terrorist propaganda, if the propaganda can be spun as being pro-Democrat.) This has always been nonsense. Al-Jazeera's core personnel are professionals, most of whom learned their trade at the BBC. And people who have actually watched the network, understand that it operates at a higher level of professionalism than Fox News. The Chronicle story quotes Sarah Benson,

a 26-year-old Arabic-speaking development worker in the Washington area who worked in Jordan for two years, [and who] watched Al-Jazeera when she lived there. "It will be nice for Americans to see a little more realism" from war zones, she says. "Before I went to Jordan, I read that (Al-Jazeera) was a horrible network -- that it showed terrorist videos. In reality, that's not at all what it is."

But recognizing that in television, appearance is as important as reality, Al-Jazeera International features faces that should be readily acceptable to American viewers.

Anticipating the skepticism of potential U.S. viewers, Al-Jazeera has hired well-known Western reporters to be the face of its English-language channel, among them [former Nightline report Dave] Marash (who is Jewish); British TV icon Sir David Frost; former CNN International anchor Riz Khan; and ex-Marine spokesman [Josh] Rushing, whose forthright approach made him a hit among reporters who interviewed him in Doha, Qatar, during the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2003.

But a well-scrubbed white face, even when its attached to an ex-Marine, isn't enough to reassure everyone.

Six months ago, a crew from Al-Jazeera International's Washington bureau went to Crosby, N.D., intending to report on the economic conditions of a remote American town. None of the crew was Arab or Muslim. In fact, one of them was Josh Rushing, a former Marine who was a popular spokesman for the U.S. military during the initial phases of the Iraq war. That credential didn't matter to the townspeople, who were suspicious of the crew's affiliation with the Arabic news channel.

"It's a news organization that's basically anti-American," says Lauren Throntveit, the sheriff of Crosby, whom residents called when they realized the crew was from Al-Jazeera. "I found their visit extremely unusual. They're being financed by the same guy who finances the (Arabic version of) Al-Jazeera. If you study them at all, their (personnel) are always getting arrested for something. And if you look at a map, you see that we are only a couple of miles from the Canadian border."

Agents from the U.S. Border Patrol interviewed Rushing and his colleagues, then let them resume their reporting.

It looks like a visit to Crosby could have easily added an extra 30 minutes to Borat.

If, unlike Sheriff Throntveit, you're interested in watching Al-Jazeera International, you can find it on the GlobeCast satellite network, or online at JumpTV and VDC (Virtual Digital Cable). Not the most impressive roll out for a new network, admittedly, but perhaps today is an auspicious day for its premiere. It was, after all, 80 years ago today that the NBC network first went on the air.

Local blogger El Serracho (or The Serrach) finds himself in the Netherlands at the moment, where he reports that it's Christmas season. El is a Global Internet Manager of Production (or GIMP), a job that has sent him to the Netherlands at least 15 times. Those wacky Dutch are so high they give out gifts at the Feast of Saint Nicholas on December 6, see. Right now it's high Yuletide over there--Christmas Day is more of a quiet family holiday sans gift-giving.

Our man in Amsterdam (or near it anyway) has been seeing lots of pictures of people in black-face adorning the windows of storefronts. A throwback to Jim Crow humor? Nah, it's just Black Peter.

Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, functions as the Netherlander's equivalent of Santa's bad-ass black manservant. Think Jerome to The Time's Morris Day. His origins are unclear: in the Dutch tradition Old Saint Nick has similarities to the Norse god Odin, thus Black Peter might be a reference to Odin's black ravens Hugin and Munin; in the middle-ages (also known as the dark ages' second adolescence) Zwarte Piet was a name for the Devil, whom St. Nick is said to have defeated then enslaved; he could be inspired by Moorish invaders of southern Europe; or there's the PC version, which depicts Piet as a former slave now willfully in the employ of Saint Nick, his liberator. Piet first appeared in 1845 in Dutch author Jan Schenkman's Saint Nicholas and his Servant, although he is depicted as Indian; he does not become black until the book's 1850 edition.

Zwarte Piet. Black Peter. Swarthy Pete. Whatever you call him and wherever he came from, this man is the original bad motherfucker--Samuel Jackson be damned. If you're a good little Dutch kid, then he helps Santa deliver your well-deserved gifts. But if you're a naughty kid, then he fucks you up good and proper. In the bad old days he would scoop you up into a burlap sack, kidnap you and take you to Spain. That's right--SPAIN. Hence the possible Moorish connection. Nowadays he just beats you with a whip or scourge (or, in France, a martinet - think a cat o' nine tails)

As El Serracho says, "This is the enlightened Europe."

Interesting Side Note: Speaking of naughty kids, the English use for martinet does not refer to a weapon but a person, a motivator like Tom Delay (formerly the Majority Whip in Congress). Ponder this excerpt from Wikipedia's martinet entry while you imagine naughty Republicans being thrown into sacks by black men and kidnapped to, say, France.

In an extended sense, a martinet is a person for whom rules and etiquette are paramount: martinets often use etiquette and other rules as an excuse to trump ethics, to the point that etiquette loses its ethical ground. Pettiness and small points of order are permitted to justify duckspeaking and mask deep groupthink.

Borat clung to No. 1 again this past weekend, no doubt bouyed by countless favorable reviews, exceedingly positive word-of-mouth and Steve Lowery's article on the climactic scenes filmed at the Block at Orange. Steve's story surmises that because mall security spilled the beans to him about what they knew beforehand about the Block scenes with an abused Pam Anderson, the ultimate joke of the film may have been that the gasp-inducing finale was the lone set-up piece.

But there is ample evidence that Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was simply a series of elaborate set ups. That's not to say some of what happened didn't really happen—especially the priceless racism you'd have to hire a Minuteman to make sound so authentic. But how these slackjaws became unwitting movie stars was no doubt less, um, witting than it appears in the film. Take the fact that there is a never acknowledged camera crew filming the whole thing, that the crew always knows exactly when and where to point the camera despite events supposedly unfolding randomly, and that the camera miraculously cuts through walls, time and space to get shots of subjects as they leave one place and instantaneously arrive at another.

At a dinner where Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat abuses female dinner guests, he leaves the table and the camera lingers on the guests and their conversations about his faux culture. Choosing to wait until their befuddled guest is out of earshot, would they not also notice a camera crew still in the room? How does the camera get from that dinner table to a bedroom where Borat is simultaneously calling a female escort? And, after Borat and his big-bottomed "date" are bounced out of the house, how does the camera suddenly go from framing them in the entryway to the commotion of them apparently being chased out of the home while threats of police calls fly to an immediate steady shot (set up on the lawn) of the shunned guests coming out the door, from the opposite direction? One guy with a camera and another holding sound equipment probably could have got all these shots—NOT! (Sorry ... that was the film talking.) That is, they could have if they were given time to break down and set up or, more plausible if this was indeed a surprising development, if they had a second crew on the lawn. The credits do list two cinematographers.
There is also at least one brewing lawsuit shedding light on how Cohen's crew captured the worst in Ugly Americanism. Anonymous plaintiffs John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2 are suing 20th Century Fox and One America Productions for unspecified damages, claiming members of their college fraternity interviewed by Borat were singled out at a pub, plied with drinks to "loosen up" and that they signed releases for a film they were told would not be shown in the U.S. after rounds of heavy drinking. These would be the dumbfucks who in the movie pick up a dejected and hitchhiking Borat in their rolling party RV. The white lads go on to make racist comments along the same lines as all the repugnant things done and said by Red Staters the film characterizes as being, in their own way, every bit as backward as Borat's fictional Kazakhstan villagers. But the suit contends the filmmakers provided the RV and invited the frat boys into it—defying the reality presented on screen. (I must say that, while watching the film, I kept wondering who the hell was driving the thing. If the suit has merit, now we know who.)

The biggest clue that the whole film was set up is the identity of its director: Larry Charles, who went from a writer/producer on Seinfeld to directing some of the most brilliant episodes of Seinfeld pal Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, a show that itself was one big fake "reality" production and whose look closely resembles that of Borat—right down to the handheld cameras being in the perfect position to capture everything that happens.

Of course, a counter-argument to that reached conclusion would be another recent movie Charles directed and wrote, the Bob Dylan bomb Masked and Anonymous. Surely, something as un-funny as that could not have come out of the same mind that has Borat audiences doubled over.

A little reading as we wait for the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group to unveil a new and improved Iraq policy.

The Associated Press reports:

Baghdad's morgues are full.

With no space to store bodies, some victims of the sectarian slaughter are not being kept for relatives to claim, but photographed, numbered and quickly interred in government cemeteries. Men fearful of an anonymous burial are tattooing their thighs with names and phone numbers.

The tattooing is an even more extreme measure than it may initially sound, since tattooing is forbidden by Islam. When defenders of our invasion of Iraq used to make happy noises about how our actions were going to transform Iraq and the rest of Muslim Middle East by, among other things, injecting Western ideas and practices into Iraq, I never guessed that tattooing was going to be one of those practices.

As for that new and improved policy being cobbled together by the Iraq Study Group, the Washington Post reported yesterday that James Baker, the group's Republican chairman (and, of course, Daddy Bush's right-hand man for most of his political career) "has been testing the waters for some time to determine how much change in Iraq policy will be tolerated by the White House". As John Aravosis points out, "So, that means the guy running this panel isn't going to give his honest advice - he's only going to give the closest to honest the White House will let him give. That is totally messed up, incredibly dishonest, and it's the very reason we're in this predicament to start with."

If that does turn out to be the case, then the much-hyped Iraq Study Group report will be of no real help to anyone, except the tattoo artists of Baghdad.

Kudos to Laguna Beach High School for beating out every other high school in Orange County in the one arena that really matters: alcohol and drug abuse. A California Healthy Families survey claims that LBHS juniors score highest count-wide at getting high (at least, on marijuana and alcohol). Parents were quick to blame MTV, but the music television station is only guilty of failing to televise music. Still, their reality show (Laguna Beach: The Real OC) does present a certain juvenile lifestyle of the rich and fatuous. But here in Orange County we've been used to dealing with drunk rich kids on video ever since the Haidl Three raised their degenerate heads.

R. Scott Moxley pointed out that the Haidl Three, convicted rapists, only had their fathers to blame. In Laguna's case, whose fault is it really? Can a finger be pointed at anyone? Should it? To try and find out, we tracked down a real Laguna Beach High student. She was too high to remember her name. Or was it his name? Either way, s/he's not too thrilled with the show or the survey, but only because of the truths they reveal.

My opinion is that from the limited amount of episodes i have seen (less than 10), I would have to say that it [The Real OC] is pretty accurate. I mean, the romance shit I'm sure is faked half the time. But we get fucked up more than any other high school I know.

The kids who are bitches on the show are bitches in real life. Kids like Chase, who i used to be friends with, are actually nice people. But he just went on the show to promote his band--because, ya know, it's like free publicity.

Just to be a jerk, I've often been tempted to anonymously post the cast's addresses and phone numbers online. Let the papparazzi come in; show 'em fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, ya know? It's quite mean, but hey.

I really don't like it when all these people want to be famous but don't realize some of the less talked-about consequences; like being stalked. It's frustrating from time to time.

MTV's a scapegoat. If the parents really cared, then they just wouldn't let their kids go out with the MTV kids. But in all seriousness that's impossible. And even if the parents did succeed at preventing it, the second the kids get into college they're gonna OD on alch.

MTV isn't just affecting our [OC] kids. It's affecting those kids in Ohio that want to be just like us. They're getting the skewed image as well. We might feel like we have to fit into the image more, but i feel that the Ohioans feel forced to be 'cool' the way MTV says to be cool.

What of it, readers? Is MTV pigeonholing our local kids, or cornholing the less fortunate Midwesterners?

In a meeting on Wednesday night, Orange Coast College student trustees voted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from their meetings, citing an incompatibility between nationwide submission to God and justice for all.

Student trustee Jason Bell explained his position to Reuters:

"That [under God] part is sort of offensive to me. I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that 'under God' was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology." Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn't want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. "Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge."

McCarthyism, named for Joe McCarthy (see Good Night and Good Luck), ran from the late 40's to the late 50's. It was on Feb. 12, 1948, that Louis Bowman inserted "under god" into the pledge at a meeting of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, of which he was a board member. So Trustee Bell's got his time frame right.

The pledge was first published in 1892 in The Boy's Companion. As years went by, especially in the lead-up to World War II, there was an increasing demand for a flag salute statute to, you know, cement loyalty to Vespucci-land. 31 years later, in 1922, that pledge found its way into legislation through the Flag Code [Title 4, United States Code, Chapter 1]. In 1925 over 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. in support of this Flag Code.

What a lovely history lesson, one utterly lost on Christine Zolos, president of the Orange Coast College Republicans. Zolos told Reuters of her disapproval of the trustees' decision: "The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued traditions in America is just horrible."

Most valued traditions, my lily-white ass. This is a tradition so valued that it's undergone change after update after revision in the scant 84 years it's been in common usage. Originally, the salute was a straight-armed, flat-palmed gesture, but in December 1942 Congress amended the Flag Code to the familiar hand-over-heart move so we wouldn't look like a bunch of Nazis. Klansmen and Nazis—these are a few of our favorite things?

Perhaps (no, certainly) I took things too seriously as a child, but I remember being painfully conflicted every single day of my grade school career--all thanks to that damn pledge. I was raised Secular Humanist; I didn't believe that I was under God. If I went ahead and said, "under god", I felt like a liar. If I kept quiet, I felt like an outcast. I wonder how all the little Buddhist kids in Irvine feel about submitting to God.

These days, though I understand why God might favor the missionary position, I wonder whether he'd like to be on the bottom every now and then.

The ballad of Tamara Anne Moonier has reached its final stanza, prosecution-wise.
In February, R. Scott Moxley reported how Moonier alleged that she was kidnapped then gang-raped at gunpoint by six men. Doing so allowed her to claim $1,850 in state victim compensation funds. The men, who faced life behind bars if found guilty, were never in fact charged. Why not? Because they willingly surrendered the