What 5-foot-3, 180-pound Gustavo Palmas Reyes of Anaheim lacks in English-speaking skills he makes up for in nerve. The construction worker arrived home drunk one night in July 2005 and beat his live-in girlfriend. She had made the mistake of cooking him dinner when he wasn't hungry. Annoyed, the 42-year-old then left to drink alcohol and eat fried chicken with friends. Later that night, he came home to the couple's one-bedroom apartment near Disneyland, where he stripped, molested and raped his girlfriend's mute, developmentally disabled 12-year-old daughter.

Caught in the act by the little girl's horrified uncle, Reyes declared he'd gotten "vengeance" against his girlfriend. When police arrived, Reyes tried to blame the consumption of 13 beers and, perhaps sensing he wasn't winning sympathy, finally suggested that he'd mounted the girl only to save her from an alleged epileptic seizure. The tale might have had a slight chance if his DNA hadn't been found in the girl's vagina. "Well, I've touched her," he told a police detective the next day. "I'm not saying that I haven't. But she likes me like you wouldn't believe, that's why I regret this."

He also declared himself "a normal person," cried, noted his otherwise-clean criminal record, begged for "forgiveness" and suggested counseling as punishment. Police and prosecutors weren't impressed. Based on their work, an Orange County jury convicted Reyes, who has a wife and kids in Mexico, on three felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. For an hour's worth of stupidity, he won a free trip to a California prison. It'll be his home for a decade.

(Periodically at OCWeekly.com, discover the depths of human depravity in Orange County, California.)

Click HERE for other "winners" of Citizen of the Week!

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

New Zealand designer Karen Walker started her clothing line with NZ$100—material for a T-shirt. Thirteen years, eight London Fashion Weeks, four New York Fashion Weeks and three successful storefronts later, her customers include Sienna Miller, Madonna and Björk.

Her latest Spring '08 collection looked ready for a day at the Derby (which, actually, is this Saturday), with wide-brimmed hats, floral dresses and argyle vests—and just a touch of that effortless 1970s Laurel Canyon, free-spirited Hippie child look that's still raging hard on the runways and on the streets.

You can purchase her clothing at stores like Milk, Traffic, Creatures of Comfort and Tracey Ross in Los Angeles, but her eyewear (available at Barney's Co-op in South Coast Plaza) is especially noteworthy.

If you're stuck in a sunglasses rut like me—you're totally over oversized sunglasses and aviators and Wayfarers are just too prevalent—Walker's eyewear line might just be it for you.

Offered in a fun variety of colors like grape, ice blue, light pink and tortoise shell, the sunglasses are all simple but offer just enough of a twist on a tried-and-true classic to make you stand out, like these Wayfarer-but-not "Trixie" sunglasses with just enough of a fun cat-eye shape pictured here.

Karen Walker sunglasses can be purchased at Barney's Co-op in South Coast Plaza or online at KarenWalker.com (watch out for that overseas S&H fee!), letrainbleu.com. Visit Karen Walker for a complete list of stockists.

Tomorrow is May Day, celebrated by socialists across the globe and by illegal immigrants in the United States to march for amnesty (as an Aztlanista, I can tell you the shared dates ain't no coincidence, I tell ustedes what). Locally, pro-amnesty folks will meet at SanTana's Civic Center Plaza at 2 p.m., while the loyal opposition known as the California Coalition for Immigration Reform will protest outside the Mexican Consulate off Broadway and Civic Center Drive at eight in the morn.

Of course, a CCIR rally isn't a CCIR rally without a wacko ramble by their president, Barbara Coe (pictured). Rather than leave nasty commentary, I present it below in its unvarnished, Know Nothing brilliance:

Since we all know our mainstream media will NOT report the truth and WILL spin their reports in favor of the illegal alien criminals marching in our streets AND all first-hand reports are so appreciated, CCIR urges you all to practice "Safety First"!
Film the marches and conduct interviews discreetly and say nothing that will incite violence toward you. Some of these "marchers" are violent criminals and with the march "hysteria" , will use any excuse to physically attack you.
At least in the Los Angeles CA area, DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT count on local law enforcement personnel to protect you as
LA Mayor Villar and LAPD Chief Bratton have made their commitment to protect "the rights" of the illegal aliens - they have made NO commitment to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans!
o Work within a group or at least with a partner - o Have your cell phone on and ready to make a 911 call at all times. YOUR reports are invaluable but not at the cost of YOUR life - Be aware, take care and God bless and protect each & every PATRIOT who has the courage to record this illegal alien invasion event!

World-Class Beer Tasting Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
Enjoy the frites (we prefer them avec mayonnaise) and learn to love something other than Budweiser. Price: $14 Per Person
KIMERA
19530 Jamboree Rd. Irvine, CA 92612
949-261-1222

It’s Too Darn Hot: Climate Change Panel, 7 p.m.
Special guest speakers will illuminate ways to combat global warming on a local level. Price: Free
Huntington Beach Central Library
7111 Talbert Ave. Huntington Beach, CA
714-374-0500

Second Annual 31-Cent Scoop Night, 5 p.m.-10 p.m.
From 5pm to 10pm, all 2,700 stores nationwide will be offering ice cream scoops for 31 cents. The stores will also partner with the National Fallen Firefighteres Foundation and donating $100,000 to the organization.
Baskin-Robbins locations nationwide
See www.baskinrobbins.com for a location near you!

The 4th Annual Casa Romantica Reading Series Benefit "Fire with Icicles", 7 p.m.
A gala event with poetry by Kay Ryan, music, light dinner and silent auction. Price: $75
Casa Romantica
415 Ave. Granada San Clemente CA 92672
949-498-2139

Karaoke With Tom Terrific, 8 p.m.
Sounds terrific.
Clancy's Pub and Restaurant
803 E. Broadway Long Beach, CA
562-437-1836

There's something a little sad—ironic is too obvious a word—in the apparent fact that Robin Hinch, the Register's famed obituary writer, is among the casualties of the paper's most recent round of self-immolation.

Today I received an anonymous tip from a source with ties to the Register's newsroom saying that Hinch—the subject of a Weekly feature story years ago and a former Freedom Communications Employee of the year—is departing the paper. Besides Hinch, the source said the following staffers were on their way out the door:

*Catherine Reiland, the paper's deputy editor for finance

*Neil Pinchin, a design editor

*Andy Horan, a Sunday editor who joined the revenue-draining OC Post as managing editor until it folded recently, returning to the Reg

*Travel editor Steve Plesa

*Sports editor Greg Gibson

*Daniel Anderson, a photographer and husband of Register columnist Yvette Cabrera

It's still unclear if Hinch and the others are being forced out or are taking buyouts that were announced in tandem with the staffing cutbacks, although one would have to assume that at least some of the departures are voluntary. It's too bad, as our profile of her noted, Hinch was one of the best obituary writers in the business; she actually took more time to get to know her dead subjects than most writers spend talking to live ones. And both Plesa and Gibson edited award-winning and highly readable sections of the paper.

Stay tuned for more names as they become known.

We've been covering the craziness over at Faith Community Church in Irvine (led by documented truth-stretcher Robert Morey) for the past couple of days, and the funniest thing about the entire episode is how Morey and his minions only insist everything is fine to the point of deleting dissension from their blog. "We who actually attend Faith Community Church don’t see any schism or confusion in the church," Morey wrote on this blog.

That's not what Morey has been preaching at FCC for over a month, though. Since February 24, Morey has lectured almost weekly about what the New Testament teaches on eldership, a not-so-veiled to convince FCC faithful that blind obedience to him is a biblical mandate. We'd love to post Morey's rambling sermons, but FCC's page of his recordings mysteriously disappeared overnight (the roll call can be found through Google's cache, but not the actual recordings--if someone has them, please post them here). And the lectures continue: last Sunday, Morey talked about eldership yet again, according to an FCC member. Calling the Movementarians...

Educator Reception, 8 p.m.
PreK- 12th grade educators are invited to attend a reception showcasing materials, new titles and resources for educators and students. Please RSVP for the kids activities at (714) 897-6201.
Barnes & Noble
7881 Edinger Ave. Huntington Beach, CA 92647
714-897-8781

Brian Hutchinson, 9 p.m.
"Who is Brian Hutchinson?" you ask. Well, you're just going to have go show up and find out.
Taco Beach Cantina
211 Pine Ave. Long Beach, CA 90802
562-983-1337

Evening of Holocaust Remembrance, 7 p.m.
Nearly 100 Holocaust survivors from Orange County and Los Angeles are expected to be in attendance for this ceremony of reflection.
Chapman University's Memorial Hall
1 University Dr. Orange, CA 92866
714-997-6729

What They Have, 7:30 p.m.
Parenting, painting and the Law of Attraction collide in What They Have, Kate Robin’s new play where lives can change in a heartbeat, and things aren’t necessarily what they seem.
South Coast Repertory
655 Town Center Dr. Costa Mesa, CA 92628
714-708-5555

It's never fun being right about this kind of thing, but apparently the OC Register is laying off 80 to 90 employees, according to a post today on the newspaper's website.

Here's about half of the post (it's really short):

"... [Publisher Terry] Horne cited Orange County’s sluggish economy, especially in real estate, as affecting the company’s revenues from local retail, automotive and classified advertising for jobs. The company provided no financial details about the decline in advertising revenue.

This is the third round of layoffs in a year for Orange County Register Communications, the umbrella brand for the Register newspaper, web sites, magazines and other community publications. The company also completed a voluntary severance program to cut staff in 2006.

I kind of predicted this was happening in my previous blog posts about the Register's content-sharing agreement with Dean Singleton's MediaNews, quoting anonymous staffers at the paper saying they were worried layoffs could follow. You can find those stories at our OC Register Deathwatch archives.

Singleton was the first to follow the content-sharing deal with staff cuts, but folks—including one crazy Register staffer and serial blog commenter—who thought the Reg was safe and my reporting was speculative hype are now probably wondering if they should dust off their resumes.

For the record, despite the fact that my stories have been filed under the subject header OC Register Death Watch, neither my colleagues nor I here at the Weekly are happy about any of this.

Here's an idea: Instead of firing 90 people, fire Gordon Dillow. Then hire him back. Then fire him again 89 more times.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: Because of some still-unexplained rewriting of readers' comments, the comments feature for this post has been disabled. Messing with comments like that violates the spirit of free-flowing debate and community we've worked hard to cultivate on this blog. We're trying to figure out how it happened—and ensure that it doesn't happen again. —Ted B. Kissell

Okay, filmgoers, it's time for a linguistics lesson.

CEMENTO ARMATO is the title of an Italian film. In English, would you call that movie...

(a) ARMORED CEMENT

(b) CONCRETE ROMANCE

(c) both of the above

NBFF has opted for (c). But which is it really? IMDB says (b) is the international English title, but use of an online translator indicates that (a) is a more accurate translation.

In the film itself, the line is delivered by a crime boss to describe the city outside his window as being a place where he owns everything, and where anyone who defiles it must pay. The subtitles in this scene translate his description as "armored cement."

Not that this semantic argument is of great import, save for the fact that if it screens again, it might do so under either title.

More >>

Sancho over at The Latin Blogger scored a statement from Fullerton Mayor Sharon Quirk regarding her city's endangered Chicano murals on a Lemon Street overpass near Valencia Drive. "The history of the murals tells a story of Fullerton’s neighborhoods, and Fullerton’s culture," writes the MILF-y mayor. "The murals represent a time when our city worked with youth in the Maple neighborhood to be part of a solution and partner with our city."

Nice words—except she doesn't commit to keeping the murals. Instead, she offers this disturbing wiggle quote:

The murals should be maintained, and restored. I would ONLY support removing a mural and updating with a new mural, if there was a strong consensus within the neighborhood to do so. This can only take place after community members have come together to voice their opinions.

Mayor Quirk: I'm all for community involvement, but beware the community. The Lemon Street overpass Chicano murals are important because they document a period in Fullerton's history, a time when the city fathers ensured a generation of unfulfilled promises for the children of Mexican immigrants due to their parents' nationality. You, I, and everyone in Fullerton knows that the neighborhoods near the mural are changing, mostly with idiot Brave New Urbanists buying up lofts in the SoCo district and beginning the slow, historical black hole known as gentrification. Keeping the past alive is important for a healthy community—paint those murals over, and your denying a community and epoch its place in Fullerton's past.

In other community journalism news, Easy Writer did this great video discussing Fullerton's hostile past toward art museums: