Lovable Weekly contributor Greg Stacey, er, Stacy just sent us the following...

Last week I was at the local Fatburger, paging through the latest LA Weekly, when I read the blurb featured at the top of an ad for the new indie picture Ten 'til Noon and damn near spit out my turkeyburger:

"Best movie since Pulp Fiction" - Greg Stacey, OC Weekly.

Talk about mixed feelings. I've always wanted to see myself quoted in a movie ad, like I was Roger freaking Ebert or something. But unfortunately that quote was taken completely out of context, giving the impression that I consider Ten 'til Noon to be the very best movie, of any kind, since Pulp Fiction. Well, I absolutely do not. I saw this Tarantino knock-off at the 2006 Newport Beach Film Festival and quite enjoyed it, jokingly suggesting in my review that Tarantino himself secretly directed it and that this was his best film since Pulp Fiction. In other words, I thought Ten 'til Noon was better than, say, Jackie Brown... which is a long way from calling it the best movie made since Pulp Fiction in 1994. The really nutty thing is that there were plenty of legit quotes they could have pulled from my original review, the thing was basically a rave. Whoever put this ad together is a sleaze or an idiot... or maybe both.

Oh, and they spelled my name wrong.

Just as children's thoughts begin to turn to visions of a friendly rabbit bearing gifts of chocolate, jelly beans, and peeps, Garden Grove is gearing up for a mass killing of bunnies.

Since Easter-- both Christianity's most sacred celebration, and the religion's leading bunny-themed holiday-- is almost here, perhaps the county's anti-rabbit strike force should use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. (Of course, the use of blessed munitions may raise separation of Church and State issues.)

Instruction from Brother Maynard on how to use the rabbit-killing relic here, via You Tube.

Jonathan Lansner has an interesting column in today's Reg on how the meltdown of Irvine's subprime mortgage monolith, New Century Financial (here's yesterday's New Century bad news, and here's today's fresh New Century bad news), is effecting other financial institutions with similar names. There are unrelated banks named New Century in Illinois, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. The Irvine-based stench of failure has wafted over all of them, but so far it's only caused embarrassment and the urgent need to explain to customers that they have nothing to do with New Century Financial.

And so we are reminded that just because the name's the same, it doesn't mean that any other characteristic is shared. Something to keep in mind if you read this Capitol Weekly story on the split between the California Medical Association and the California Association of Physician Groups over physician assisted suicide. Especially when you get to the seventh paragraph, and learn that the president of the California Medical Association is Dr. Frankenstein.

Really.

Dr. Frankenstein.

He must have a helluva reassuring bedside manner to overcome a name like that.

The president of Riverside's Golden State Fence Company, and the company's manager, were sentenced yesterday to 1,040 hours of community service and three years of probation, after pleading guilty to knowingly hiring workers illegally in this country. Both also received six figure fines.

A construction business in California knowingly hiring undocumented workers? Happens every day, right? How is that news? you ask.

Simple.

As the AP notes, Golden State Fence "once helped build a fence to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the Mexican border".

Apparently all those jokes about using Mexican laborers in the U.S. to build a fence to keep Mexican laborers out of the U.S. are true. Still not funny, but true.

"Wild" seems to be the word of choice among headline writers to describe yesterday's weather. The LA Daily News bucked the trend, going with "Crazy", but for the most part, editors across the country agree, it was wild.

Of course, in the impressive natural events category, yesterday's weather, wild as it was, is nothing compared to what happened on March 27 forty-three years ago: the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.

At magnitude 9.2, it was the largest North American earthquake ever recorded. Following the quake that day were 11 aftershocks of magnitude 6.0 or greater. Lesser aftershocks continued for months. The effects of the earthquake were noted as far away as Florida.

115 Alaskans died in the quake, and the tsunamis that followed. And just after midnight, forty-three years ago today, tsunamis generated by the earthquake reached Crescent City, California, 1,400 miles south of Alaska.

Ten people were killed, and 29 city blocks were severely damaged. 289 homes and businesses were destroyed. Total property damage is estimated to have been $7.4 million.

When the waves reached Los Angeles, they were greatly diminished but still had enough power to sink three boats, and tear many others loose from their moorings.

.
So while it can in no way compare to what happened in March of 1964, yesterday's weather was a little reminder of how little control we have over nature, when it turns dangerous. (Which is why it would be a good idea to address this, before the situation gets any worse.)

Your favorite wab invades bookstores nationwide on May 1 with the hardcover version of ¡Ask a Mexican! (pre-order your copy on Amazon now). What can you expect? Here's Publisher's Weekly take on it:

In Arellano's popular Orange County Weekly column "¡Ask a Mexican!" now widely syndicated and gathered in this acerbic volume, he answers serious, curious, and sometimes hateful but mostly irreverent questions about Mexicans. This book compiles what are presumably the best question-and-answer exchanges over the past two years, under topics including language, sex, immigration and food. Arellano wittily defuses bigotry and mocks stereotypes with his often well-researched replies. To the inquiry on the authenticity of flour vs. corn tortillas, he explains that the Spaniards created the former. "Why do Mexicans wear their clothes when swimming?" is a recurring question among Arellano's readers; his answer: good manners. In response to the vitriolic "What is it about the word illegal that Mexicans don't understand," he points out that U.S. employers don't understand the word either. The author's relentless irony and reclamation of derogatory terms (e.g., "wab," the Orange County version of wetback) is not for the faint of heart, but this approach is a welcome reprieve from common tiptoeing around the fraught subjects of race relations and immigration.

Here's the link (The Mexican is the seventh item down). In the meanwhile...pre-order the book!

A variety of stories lurching forward this morning…

It looks like the most special of all special elections is finally over, and Janet Nguyen is the new First District Supervisor, winning by a total of 3 votes.   Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner rejected Trung Nguyen's claim that the election's recount was performed in an illegal manner.  The winning Nguyen is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow at the Board of Supes weekly meeting.  There are dark rumblings that the losing Nguyen might appeal Judge Brenner's ruling, making the most special of all special election even more special.

Reversing polarity and following the flow of power from a legislative chamber to the courtroom, the Assembly has approved a bill revising the state's sentencing guidelines.  The U.S. Supreme Court struck down California's Determinate Law back in January, declaring, as Justice Ginsberg wrote, "any fact that exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by the jury, not a judge, and established beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence".  The Associated Press reports, is that,

Law enforcement officials estimate the Supreme Court's ruling could allow 10,000 California convicts to seek new sentences.

Unlike those convicts, the state's prisons secretary is unlikely to be complaining about his situation anytime soon.  Thanks to the governor's intervention, Secretary James Tilton is now one of the highest paid state officials.   Yesterday, we noted that the governor was looking to boost spending for his personal office.  Today, the Times reports on another increase at the upper end of government.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has quietly given substantial raises — some exceeding 23% — to top state administrators, claiming they deserve increased compensation to keep pace with the private sector and local government agencies.

Last year, the governor used a new state law to raise the salary of his prisons secretary to $225,000, a 71% increase that made James Tilton among the highest paid officials in California state government. Now Schwarzenegger is approving hefty pay hikes for 49 other officials.

Cabinet secretaries, for example, will receive up to 22.7% more, and department directors up to 12.2%.

Of course, there are always pessimists when it comes to such pay raises.

The governor is raising salaries of some of his top political appointees at a time when the state's budget picture is grim and may get worse. Elizabeth G. Hill, the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst, said California could face a shortfall of billions of dollars under Schwarzenegger's budget if the Legislature balks at proposed spending cuts.

And some lawmakers are not enthusiastic about cuts championed by the governor, including proposals to reduce welfare programs by hundreds of millions of dollars and slash public transportation aid by more than $1.1 billion.

"If you want to get good people in there, you need to pay them commensurately with what they can get on the outside," said Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine).

At state government's lower levels, salaries are not rising as fast, union leaders said Monday. Earlier this year, a group of about 25,000 managers and supervisors received a 3.5% pay hike, their first increase in six years, said Tim Behrens, president of the Assn. of California State Supervisors.

Back in December, and then again in January, we noted Miller imaginative approach to combining his private real estate dealing with public sector dollars and tax breaks.  Some, like the FBI, find Miller's deals suspicious.  Especially a deal in which Miller claimed that the city Monrovia forced him to sell the city a piece of land he owned.  Others claimed that Miller pressured the city into buying it.  Now, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has gotten a hold of the video tape of the city council meeting in which Miller's sale is discussed.

Greg Sargent has the video and some more background material posted at TPM's Election Central.  If Miller ever tries to claim in court that this evidence of him being "forced" to sell his land, he'll probably fare about as well as Trung Nguyen did.

If you belong to one of the groups targeted for a good squeezin' called on to sacrifice in the governor's budget plan-- college students, public school teachers, families on welfare-- rest assured that the truly needy will still be well taken care of.

Kate Folmar reports in the San Jose Mercury News:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to boost spending on his personal office next year by more than 5 percent, even as a lean budget prompts him to limit welfare grants and ask college students to pay higher tuition.

For the second year running, the Republican governor seeks to peg spending on his 185-person staff to an inflationary formula that dictates spending for the state Legislature and some courts.

In and of itself, Schwarzenegger's proposal wouldn't break the bank - adding only $1 million to the $103 billion state budget.

But the notion galls some observers because it smacks of the formula-driven "autopilot" spending Schwarzenegger railed against in 2005 as he campaigned for the power to make unilateral budget cuts.

And, Schwarzenegger's budget simultaneously expects others - notably welfare recipients and public university students - to take hits. California's revenue projections are cooling due to lackluster home sales and lower-than-expected tax payments.

The call for more spending in the governor's office leaves Mike Herald, a legislative advocate for the Western Center for Law and Poverty, "dumbfounded."

"They don't think a cost-of-living adjustment is appropriate for the poorest people in the state, but it's perfectly fine for the people making $100,000 in the governor's office?" he said. "I just can't reconcile that."

I suppose that depends on one's definition of "everyone". But members of legislature don't have time to worry about little things like that. These days, there's "a lot of activity" in Sacramento.

According to Jim Sanders of the Sacramento Bee,

A modern-day Gold Rush has erupted over $43 billion targeted for California public works projects, with legislators crafting dozens of bills to affect how the money is spent.

Voter passage of the record bond package last November has spawned a frenzy in which communities and their officeholders are fighting for a piece of the massive pot.

[…]

Lobbyists are counting on a windfall from intense jockeying over bond funds.

"I think it's safe to say that there's money being spent, and there's probably a great deal more money to be spent as the bonds are let and the monies become available," said Don Burns, a veteran lobbyist. "There's no question but that it does spawn a lot of activity."

Others may be excused if reading the news this morning, they hear the less virginal Billie Holiday singing some familiar words, Them that's got shall get...

Honestly, sometimes it all seems like a mutant Agatha Christie novel, in which the party guests disappear one by one.  It started quietly enough back in October, when art director Heather Swaim left, politely declining to discuss the why's and wherefore's of her decision to leave.  Lately, the body count has skyrocketed.  And now the Weekly has lost one more:  editor, blogfather, and all-around mensch, Matt Coker.

Matt is leaving to become the editor of the Sacramento News & Review (not just News, not just a Review, like Certs, it's "Two, two, two mints in one!").  Unlike most people faced with relocating to Sacramento, Matt actually seems to be looking forward to it.  And why not?  In addition to being the state capital, Sacramento is known for… for… give me a minute… for being the hometown of Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson, founder of Shakey's Pizza, America's leading chain of palsy-themed pizza parlors.  (Sorry, Matt.  It was the best I could do on short notice.)

The N & R's pursuit of Matt is certainly understandable-- great editor, exceptional writer, excellent human being-- and now that it has him, the results will no doubt be brilliant.  It's about time there was something in Sacramento that could be described as brilliant.

Judging by this photo, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Not at all Drunk in the Photo) would not make an attractive woman, but apparently the good folks of Bush administration disagree. It seems some of them find him so evocative of things feminine that they have trouble remembering what gender he really is.

Back in January, we noted that Congressman Rohrabacher was feeling emasculated by the arrogant behavior of the Bush White House. Now it looks like the Bush Justice Department has decided to finish the job. On March 16, the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs (whose only job is to work with Congress) sent the Surfin' One a letter. A letter that begins,

Dear Congresswoman Rohrabacher:

(thanks to Victor Infante for the tip)

The last time the combination of Long Beach and crime was featured in this space, some of the area's dimmer predatory perverts were doing their part to help NBC's ratings. Now comes better news.

According to the Long Beach Press-Telegram, crime is down in LBC, despite what you might see on Dateline NBC's hidden cameras.

City crime rates dropped for the fourth consecutive year, including the lowest number of murders - 41 - since Long Beach began tracking crime statistics more than 30 years ago, according to 2006 statistics released by the city.

Although overall crime was down 3.3 percent for 2006, the city saw a 28.8 percent leap in forcible rape cases that year, according to the city's annual crime report.

City officials attributed the jump in rapes to an unusual decrease in 2005, when 104 forcible rapes were reported compared with 134 in 2006.

[…]

Despite the rise in rapes, Long Beach saw an overall drop of 4.3 percent in violent, or Part I, crimes.

[…]

For the first time in more than 40 years, there were no murders reported in the East Division, which covers the entire city east of Cherry Avenue. Overall, there were 41 homicides reported in 2006, compared with 42 the previous year, for a 2.4 percent reduction.

The 2006 murder rates are the lowest since 1971, when 31 homicides were recorded. City officials are quick to note that the city's population of 350,000 residents at that time was far lower than today's roughly 500,000 residents.

[…]

Long Beach also experienced a 2 percent dip in overall property, or Part II, crimes. Major reductions occurred in the number of garage burglaries, a 24.7 percent decrease, and auto thefts, with 460 fewer vehicles stolen for a drop of 12.3 percent.

If the relative safety of Long Beach makes you think the place must be boring, you couldn't be more wrong, according to a story in Sunday's Times. The Times quotes a Mr. W. Swaim of Irvine, who says of Long Beach,

"It's a city with everything — visionary artists, great bars and restaurants, a thriving music scene and a culture of political corruption that's like Christmas every day for investigative reporters," Swaim said. "I feel like I've discovered a little Chicago."

You know a political scandal has sailed past the point of no return when even Dana Rohrabacher (R-Surfin') sounds like a voice of reason.

From CBS News:

Pressure mounted on the White House Thursday to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for the abrupt dismissal of U.S. attorneys. More Republicans called for his ouster, and one Republican strategist close to the White House told CBS News that Gonzales is "finished."

Congressman Dana Rohrbacher became the latest Republican to say Gonzales should go, reports CBS News White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

"Even for Republicans this is a warning sign … saying there needs to be a change," said Rohrbacher. "Maybe the president should have an attorney general who is less a personal friend and more professional in his approach."

Gracias to the many people who submitted entries to our "Win Gustavo's Anaheim Ducks Season Tickets" contest. All of them were great 25-words-or-less arguments on why a hockey team should be named after ducks; some examples included bawdy limericks, testaments to a duck's loyalty, even a case where a duck was apparently kept in a refrigerator for two days and lived.

The winner, however, didn't even talk about Ducks at all. Thomas Dickan's response is beautiful in its simplicity and...eh, read it for yourself below! And if you don't agree, vent your anger in the comments section!

THE WINNER

Canucks,
Canadiens,
Predators,
Devils,
Rangers,
Flyers,
Islanders,
Kings,
Lightning,
Hurricanes,
Flames,
Capitals,
Senators,
Coyotes,
Blackhawks,
Sharks,
Bruins,
Thrashers,
Panthers,
Penguins,
Ducks, why the hell not?

… or, Drive, He Snored.

Ever feel you spend all your waking hours in your car?  Well, thanks to modern science, now you can also spend your non-waking hours trapped in traffic. 

The Associated Press reports:

All sleeping pills, including the blockbusters Ambien and Lunesta, may sometimes cause a bizarre but dangerous side effect — sleep-driving, the Food and Drug Administration warned Wednesday.

It's like sleepwalking but behind-the-wheel: driving while not fully awake after using a sleeping aid — with no memory of doing so.

[…]

FDA wouldn't say exactly how many cases of sleep-driving it uncovered, or if it knew of any car crashes, saying only that "there have been rare adverse events reported."

The pills in question-- "sedative-hypnotic products"-- are "Ambien; Butisol sodium; Carbrital; Dalmane; Doral; Halcion; Lunesta; Placidyl; Prosom; Restoril; Rozerem; Seconal; Sonata."  I'm sure the manufacturers would want it pointed out that these behaviors, swellings, and possible fatal allergic reactions are rare, and average users shouldn't lose any sleep worrying about them.

Or, rather, former Weeklings (yes, Virginia: Steve Lowery and Theo Douglas jumped ship last Friday) are starting a new paper in Long Beach, according to Orange County Business Journal via LA Observed yesterday. Pick up the inaugural issue April 11. Good luck, cabrones!

The Windy Ridge Fire is 80% contained, according to the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA), and is expected to be fully contained sometime tomorrow.

The OCFA recommends checking news radio stations-- KFWB (AM 980), KNX (AM 1070), KFI (AM 640)--  for the latest updates on the fire.  Or you can call the Orange County Operational Area Public Information Hotline at (714) 628-7085.

The OCFA's webpage on the Windy Ridge Fire is here.

According to the newly released Forbes annual list of the world's richest people, there are 946 people in the world worth $1 billion or better. That's 178 more billionaires than Forbes counted last year. And yet somehow, even despite that remarkable growth in the membership of the International Billionaire Boys and Girls Club, I still feel confident in saying that if you're reading this blog, you didn't make the list. Sorry.

California did very well, and is more thickly carpeted with billionaires than any other state. OC, alas, doesn't crack the list until way down at number 80, when Donald Bren rears his reclusive head. According to Forbes, Bren is worth $8.5 billion. That was good enough to make him number 27 on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans last September, but on a global scale, $8.5 billion won't even get you in the top 75. (You'd need more than $8.8 billion to rank 75th.) Still, Bren did a lot better than fellow Newport Beach plutocrat George Argyros-- best known internationally as our former ambassador to Spain, but well known locally for allegedly "masterminding a systematic "rip-off" scam involving his 4,500-unit apartment empire" which catered mainly to poor Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants-- who is a lowly no. 583, with only $1.7 billion.

Even if Bren isn't running with the biggest of big dogs-- no. 1, Bill Gates ($56 billion); no. 2, Warren Buffet ($52 billion)-- or weighing his wallet on the same scale as the richest Californian, Larry Ellison (no. 11, with $21.5 billion), he still has one distinction that is all his own among the billionaires. Have either Gates or Buffet or Ellison ever had their penises featured in an OC Weekly cover story? No, but Donald Bren has. Some honors just can't be bought, no matter how much money you have.

Meanwhile, in other news, McClatchy Newspapers reports: "The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen."

Ustedes remember the story of Michael Scott Kerr, right? The man who founded Snowball Express, an organization that treated the children and widows of our fallen soldiers in the War on Terror--but was a deadbeat dad himself? Who, when confronted with his past, lied about it? The pendejo who sanctimoniously said the Snowball Express wasn't about him, yet sicced war widows on individuals who dared call him on his shit? That Michael Scott Kerr?

Homeboy was arrested yesterday by Orange County sheriffs on DUI, along with his wife. Sheriff's authorities had to call the father of Kerr's stepchildren to pick them up. He's being held on $10,000 bail. Court date is for scheduled for this Monday. Wonder if this'll put a crimp on the Kerr's March 16 shindig at the Westin Hotel for Snowball Express?

Legendary outlaws and dirty jokes aren't typically mentioned in the obituaries of Superior Court judges in OC, but as the panel of judges who censured him in 1998 could have told you, James Randal Ross was not a typical judge.

Ross, who served as an Orange County Superior Court judge from 1983 to 1995, died of a heart attack at his Fullerton home on Monday. He was 80 years old.

Somewhat ironically for someone who served as a judge, Ross will probably be best remembered for his relationship to a criminal-- Jesse James. Ross was James' great-grandson, a fact he liked to emphasis  emphasize. He even wrote a book about his felonious great-grandpa, I, Jesse James, which earned him great respect among outlaw aficionados, but also helped to bring his judicial career to an ignoble end.

As the Associated Press notes in it's obituary of Ross.

Ross was censured in 1998 for "egregious misconduct" by the state Commission on Judicial Performance and was barred from "receiving any assignment, appointment or reference of work from any California state court."

During an appearance before a three-judge special masters panel appointed by the commission, Ross defended himself against a variety of allegations, including using his courtroom to sell "I, Jesse James."

He also was accused of unfairly threatening to jail a lawyer, telling a dirty joke in court and sleeping during trials. His censure was based in large part to his unrepentance.

Of all the cases he handled, Ross was most proud of one involving Disneyland banning gays from dancing at the Anaheim amusement park, [Ross' cousin] Eric James said.

Disneyland had imposed the ban in 1957, when dancing was first allowed. In 1980, a homosexual couple was kicked out of the park for dancing together. When the case made it to Ross' court, he ruled in favor of the gay couple.

In July 1985, Disneyland lifted the 28-year-old ban.

That companies which use magical accounting practices to rewrite history to fatten the bank accounts of their executives would try to squeeze money from corpses isn't really too surprising, but it is still disgusting. And it's happening in Irvine.

The Wall Street Journal reports that dozens of companies used the collapse of prices in the stock market following the 9/11 attack as an opportunity to shovel more money into the troughs of their executives via the backdating of stock options. (The story is unfortunately available online only to subscribers, but Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed has a summary of it.) Backdating stock options is the practice by which a company allows its executives to buy its stock at a price the stock was in the past, and then enjoy the rise in value the stock has already experienced by the time the exec actually buys the stock. So, instead of the traditional buy-low-sell-high approach, the privileged exec gets to pretend to have bought low and then actually ride the high. It's rewriting history, it's magic. And certain rather depraved companies looked at the smoking ruins of 9/11 and saw the most magical opportunity of all. After all, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, stocks tanked in a way Wall Street hadn't seen since Hitler rolled into Paris ("the worst full week for the blue-chip average since Germany invaded France in May 1940", notes the Journal). Short of nuclear war, this was a buy-low opportunity unlikely to be equaled-- so companies with sufficiently low moral standards decided to use the ruins of the Twin Towers as a guidepost by which to backdate stock options, and let execs enjoy the benefits of pretending to have bought low that can only come when thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered. Among those companies, according to the Journal, is Irvine's Broadcom Corporation.

Broadcom, you may recall, is already in trouble over backdating stock options. Earlier this year, Broadcom had to restate its earnings from 1998 through the first quarter of 2006, because its backdating practices cost the company $2.24 billion. There's also an ongoing federal investigation of Broadcom's backdating magic, carrying the potential of criminal indictments. You'd think that with all that hanging over their heads, the folks who pretend to buy low would want to be able to get a good night's sleep-- not one haunted by the smell of burning jet fuel and the screams of the dying-- but I suppose that if you're the sort of who sees 9/11 as a money-making opportunity, you're unlikely to have enough of a conscience to keep you up at nights.

His name is Dave Segal, and he comes from the other excellent paper in Seattle, The Stranger. How did we find out? It sure as hell wasn't an internal memo.

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money", runs the quip that is the only reason most people who remember Senator Everett M. Dirksen remember him at all.  And news of the Great Park in this morning's Times brings that quote, if not Everett M., to mind.

Not to worry, though-- even if the new starting point is well beyond than the old finish line.

Money for the work is expected to come from fees and taxes from the housing that will be built on the edges of the park.

"That means no new taxes for the citizens of Irvine," said Michael Pinto, a park board member.

It's painful picking up the Los Angeles Times every morning and notice it's getting lighter every week. While they're doing this, however, their Chicago pendejo overseers are spending mucho millions on how to attract more readers. Their supposed salvation: Mexicans.

If so, why in God's green earth would they axe La Cucaracha, the pinche funny comic strip drawn by legendary pocho Lalo Alcaraz??? It's one of the precious few comic strips in Latino USA drawn by Latinos and that deal with Latino issues. But fuck affirmative action: the strip is funny (we'll never forget the one or two strips dealing with Paris Hilton's Mexican relative, Fresno). What's more boggling is that the Times deported Lalo while keeping creaking gabacho favorites like Crankshaft and Rex Morgan, MD and unfunny tripe like Dennis the Menace and that weird one with the kid that doesn't talk.

Below is Lalo's take. And Los Times: if you ever get rid of 9 Chickweed Lane, I'm cancelling my free subscription.

Dear friends

My daily comic strip, La Cucaracha has been CUT from the LA TIMES, without so much as an explanation. Can you please help bring to their attention that perhaps Los Angeles, with its majority Raza population might need at least ONE THING in the newspaper to show kids and grownups that represents a large part of Los Angeles in the paper? I'm thinking "Blondie" isn't really reflective of Los Angeles.

If you email them, please cc me at laloalcaraz@yahoo.com

Please contact:
Los Angeles Times Readers' Representative Office
E-mail: readers.rep@latimes.com
Telephone message line: (877) 554-4000
Fax: (213) 237-3535
Postal mail: 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Gracias
Lalo Alcaraz

For those who have followed the twisting path of the proposed Foothills South toll road-- ably plotted on this blog and in the pages of the Weekly by Alex Brant-Zawadzki and others-- the latest report in the Times will come as no surprise.

For more than a year, transportation planners have said that preparations for a toll road passing through San Onofre State Beach were on schedule.

On Wednesday, that message was revised.

Planners now say it will take at least two years longer than expected to get funding and permits for the controversial turnpike, which will complete Orange County's network of toll roads and link Orange and San Diego counties.

The Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies had hoped to secure funding for the Foothill South by 2008, but underestimated the complexity of the permit process.