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).