Dan Chmielewski over at The Liberal OC posted that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will hold a $2,300-per-plate fundraiser at Newport Beach's Balboa Bay Club but doesn't mention how much of a wrench it is to the county's political cosmology. Read the above again. Barack Hussein Obama. Holding a fundraiser. At the Balboa Bay Club.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS WORLD?!?!?!?!?

The Balboa Bay Club represents all that's reprehensible with the old Orange County, where GOP men spent many a day doing business in the sauna, where John Wayne knocked a few too many back, where every possible reptilian speaker (from Dinesh D'Souza to Barbara Coe) has held forth before appreciative audiences. My god, Orange County Register political reporter Martin Wisckol spoke there last month before a bunch of coffin-dodging Republican women, and the pendejas were railing about Obama's middle name. And Obama's holding a fundraiser there?! Part of me is loving the fact this is another nail in the coffin to a part of Orange County's history, but a much-bigger part makes me wonder why, of all the places in Orange County, is he holding it there. Do his handlers understand where he's speaking? If they do, however, and they're holding it there on purpose, then they're bloody geniuses..

Like Rich, we're excited to see the "new" Orange Coast, and wish it the best even though it's now technically a competitor. I've yet to see the issue that Rich dissected but did catch the one before, one that already had hints of the literary journalism and well-written analysis readers can expect under newish editor Marty Smith.

One article stuck out in particular: Matthew Heller's contention that Orange County Christian pastors try not to mix politics with their faith. "If the GOP has realized that politics and an undiluted faith-based agenda don’t mix, it has finally arrived at a conclusion reached by some of Orange County’s most prominent evangelical leaders, who for the most part have steered clear of strident political activism," Heller asserts. It's a rather crazy argument (just check out the posts in our "Gimme that OC Religion" archives) with little proof other than Heller corralling three pastors to say so: Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (who's gone on the record to oppose gay marriage--gee, wonder how his Purpose-Driven flock will vote on the proposed ban-gay-marriage amendment this coming November), Dale Burke of Fullerton's First Evangelical Free Church (who tells Heller he's against gay marriage and states, "When people hold to a core set of values ... it’s natural that that they would align themselves with a party that holds similar values"--yep, no politics there!) and the Crystal Cathedral's Robert Schuller the Elder.

Schuller has made it a career of telling people he used to be political but hasn't been for years and does the same with Heller. “Every time you have an issue that’s controversial, there are smart people on both sides," Schuller says, "I don’t like to take positions when there are intelligent people on both sides”--a funny statement considering he let Mike Carona slime his way across the Cathedral's stage.

Then comes the matter of Schuller's McCarthyite past.

We met San Juan Capistrano councilmember Lon Uso a couple of months ago at the Friday morning coffee klatches organized by Capistrano Dispatch editor Jonathan Volzke and thought him a swell guy for daring to speak good about Mexicans in a room full of elderly, crotchety gabachos who didn't believe Mexicans assimilate. But as my mentors at the Weekly always teach me, never like a politician too much, 'cause they'll always do something to prove themselves a fool.

That's exactly what Uso did today in the Dispatch, a community weekly that does a fine job of covering San Juan Capistrano. Volzke wrote a story about the continuing controversy involving Ignacio Lujano, the 85-year-old orange farmer that San Juan officials are trying to boot out of a city-owned grove that he's tended to for nearly 40 years. Uso--a former columnist for the Dispatch--has an op-ed piece (not yet available online) and, like the rest of his Capistrano government colleagues, is desperately trying to spin his way out of a PR fiasco.

The corrido of Ignacio Lujano, the San Juan Capistrano man who has tended to some of the county's last standing orange groves for the past 40 years, continues. The Los Angeles Times, KCAL-TV Channel 9, and KTLA-TV Channel 5 have covered his battle with the city of San Juan Capistrano to boot him out in favor of a maintenance yard, and each story has provoked increasingly disgusted reactions from readers and viewers aghast that city officials would seek to boot out an 84-year-old man and pave over one of the last remnants of King Citrus.

In the face of public anger, San Juan officials are now busy trying to spin their way out of it. They've now issued a press release seeking to "clear the air" in the face of such scrutiny. Problem is, everything they state has already been reported. And they can't help but to try to spin Lujano as a ward of city residents.

"Over the past few years, the City has had to supplement Lujano’s maintenance of the orchards and surrounding area – at taxpayer’s expense – and the City has transitioned the entire maintenance of the property to its Public Works Department," states the author-less release. San Juan residents would hope the city maintain city-owned property with its coffers, no? And then, they continue.

"Since November 2007, Lujano and his family have been living on the property for free. The City also learned that two adult children and their family members, not permitted under the agreement with Lujano, had taken up residence on the City-owned land."

Look, everyone: welfare-cheating Mexicans! Aren't you glad we're trying to kick this geezer off? What jerks.

The strangest part of the press release, however, is the following:

The City does not intend to build a corporate City maintenance yard at this location. The City will continue to maintain the existing orchard and anticipates restoring portions of the original orchard. The City will use the remainder of the property in the furtherance of other public and open space uses.

That's not what city PR flack Kelly Tokarski told us when we interviewed her for our Lujano story. From my story:

"She said San Juan Capistrano’s open-space master plan called for the Swanner Ranch to become a maintenance yard for the city’s open space and that “this is still the intended use.”

So, which is it, Kelly? And why can't San Juan officials take my phone calls?

Orange County has a notorious tradition of historians who subscribe to the Cult of the Orange Crate, the idea that our region's yesteryears are as immaculate as the images depicted on the labels of the long-gone citrus industry. This paper has long challenged such orthodoxy by publishing stories dealing with the dustbin of OC's past: Francisco Torres, Modesta Avila, the 1936 Citrus War, San Juan's swallows. Because of this, we get accused of being revisionist commies--go figure.

The biggest believer of the Cult out there right now is Chris Jepsen, who works at the Orange County Archives and maintains a personal blog titled O.C. History Roundup, "information and photos for people interested in the history of Orange County, California." The bulk of his postings are historical pictures, calendar of events for historical societies, and links to current articles or specials by media outlets regarding Orange County history--except those of your favorite rag.

Got a MySpace message from Sancho the Latin Blogger regarding a community meeting this past Tuesday in Fullerton regarding the city's endangered Chicano murals on Lemon Street south of Valencia (I would've gone but made the mistake of trying to leave San Bernardino at 5pm--HELL). Not only are the murals not coming down, but Fullerton is receiving a $10,000 grant to restore the murals and the city will actively collaborate with the Maple Street barrio to get the treasures looking their best again. Congrats, Fullerton, for doing the right thing--and for Sancho for spearheading the effort to save the murals.

Also of note: councilmember Shawn Nelson, the idiot who first suggested painting them over, was a no-show. We call him an idiot anew because he also reneged on his promise to meet with Sancho and ask the Mexican a YouTube pregunta. Silly Shawn: where are you???

It's been quite the guilty pleasure the last week seeing the local Right foaming about the California Superior Court's decision to allow homosexual marriage (hey, State Assemblywoman Mimi Walters: are you sure you want to be immortalized in the pantheon of OC GOP wackjobs like James "Barefoot Africans" Utt and Bob Dornan?). On and on they rail about activist judges and the "will of the people" as if they were a bunch of whiny KPFK listeners.

This debate--tyranny of the masses as opposed to justice for all--reminds me of Reitman v. Mulkey, a 1967 Supreme Court decision that found unconstitutional Proposition 14, a ballot measure passed by 65 percent of California voters in 1964. The measure overturned the Rumford Fair Housing Act--which banned property owners from discriminating against potential tenants on basis of race, sex, marriage status, physical handicaps, religion and other goodies--by amending the California Constitution--sounds like a familiar tactic, eh? Although its advocates argued that Proposition 14 was merely combating Big Brother, that position was as valid as Southerners saying the War Between the States wasn't about slavery but state rights.

The local connection, of course, is Dorothy Mulkey. She and her husband Lincoln, U.S. Navy veterans, tried to rent an apartment in Santa Ana in 1963 but were denied based on them being African-Americans. If history continues to navigate its course (remember, we also inspired Mendez v. Westminster), we will see another civil rights pioneer emerge from Orange County once the "will of the people" inflicts its bigotry anew.

...comes from Adelina Pleasants, author of 1931's History of Orange County California. In her entry on the county's citrus industry, Pleasants wondered whether "it is going to pay to replace all our fine walnut orchards with oranges." And you wonder why Orange Count historians are usually as respected as Tan Nguyen...

Yesterday, I gave a tour of Orange County's endangered Chicano murals to Carol Wells, head of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, and Timothy Drescher, one of the preeminent mural scholars in the United States. Wells got in contact with me at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books after reading my op-ed piece in the Times attacking Fullerton City Councilmember Shawn Nelson for mouthing off about the murals on the Lemon Street pedestrian overpass just north of the AMC 20 Theaters complex. Drescher was interested in visiting all the way from Berkeley after Wells told him about the situation.

It was a splendid (though overcast) afternoon, as I took them from Fullerton to Placentia to Anaheim. Drescher proclaimed all the murals wonderful (he was especially taken with the the massive Placentia effort, which had motifs of various Mexican muralists), scoffed at Nelson's assertion that the Fullerton murals promoted gang violence, and basically served as a much more enthusiastic advocate than any of the Chicano art All-Stars in Los Angeles I predicted wouldn't give a shit about helping their brethren in la naranja. Drescher vows to fire off a letter to the Fullerton City Council and lend his considerable weight to help preserve the Lemon Street murals. Que viva la causa, my ass. For those of you who care, Fullerton will hold a public hearing about the murals at the Maple Community Center May 27 at 7pm.

A couple of days ago, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEUI) Local 1877 who clean offices at Fashion Island and the Irvine Spectrum Center voted overwhelmingly to strike against the two facilities' owner, the mighty Irvine Company. The Orange County Labor Federation is on board with the strike, as is Zeke Hernandez, director of the main Orange County chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. On Sunday, Hernandez wrote a letter to Irvine Company overlord Donald Bren asking OC's Howard Hughes "to step forward and support janitors by assuring a vibrant future for their families. I call upon you, as a recognized leader in Orange County, to do the right thing and support these janitors and their families. I urge you to show leadership and do what you can to provide janitors a contract that can be cited as an example of your respect for these same workers that help to make The Irvine Company’s star shine brightly in Orange County."

Excuse us a moment--HAHAHAHAHA. We respect Zeke and fully support the strikers in their battle against Bren, but they stand little chance. SEIU: OC doesn't take kindly to strikers--or have you forgotten the 1936 Citrus War? More importantly, don't bother with Bren. He only speaks when positive coverage is guaranteed. Indeed, any negotiations with Bren will probably go a little bit like the comic after the jump, taken from the latest issue of Simpsons Classics (read the rest of it by buying a copy at Rags in SanTana)

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:

Fullerton City Councilmember Shawn Nelson left a comment on our previous coverage criticizing his suggestion to get rid of the city's historic Lemon Street overpass murals which we're posting in its entirety here:

Gustavo: Not only do I have no disdain for the public but it was the public that asked us to do something about the murals. I have certainly failed to be clear that not all the murals are seen by the neighbors as problematic and, in fact, it maybe a select few items within the murals that they have trouble with. I have no problem admitting I could have chosen my words more carefully. As for the community meeting, I agreed to meet with members of the community, Dr. Richard Ramirez and others. Our Mayor, Sharon Quirk will also be at the meeting that is referenced in Ms. Kennedy's post. With the help of the people in the area I have no doubt that we can accommodate the neighbors that are demanding change. Our own Mayor, a hispanic woman who grew up in the area has indicated to me she has always been offended by the particular mural that has the skull and sunburst look to it stating "come again soon".

Thanks for commenting, Shawn. But I'm not the one who ever accused you of having disdain for Fullertonians--that's your constituents, amigo. And I'm sorry that Mayor Sharon Quirk (never knew she was a wab--that must be where she gets her MILF-ness from...) doesn't like the skull, but, to paraphrase Huell Howser's defense of California state parks when trashing the 241 Toll Road, a community's public treasures aren't there for the convenience of councilmembers; they're artifacts of the past, things to cherish and maintain, not destroy due to whims. And, again: "The City I Live In." TWICE?! Considering you grew up in the city, this is inexcusable--it's as if I said a major Anaheim street is Kotolla.

By the way, folks, it strikes me as odd that, 30 years after their painting, "neighbors" are suddenly upset about the Lemon Street murals. Me smells another coming victim of gentrification...

Yesterday, we reported on the efforts of Fullerton Councilmember Shawn Nelson to get rid of the historic murals on the Lemon Street overpass just south of Valencia Drive. Today, we came across a YouTube video with footage of the murals and--more crucially--Nelson's unexpurgated remarks. All we can say is--Nelson, you're turning out to be the stupidest city councilmember in Orange County since Dick Nichols.

First Nelson error: Misrepresenting the Thee Midniters classic "The Town I Live In" as "The City I Live In," not once, but TWICE. Second one: he said of the murals--which have been up since 1979, back when Nelson was some snotnose--"we need to get rid of that crap, like, right now." Like, you think the Virgin of Guadalupe is crap, Shawn? Like, no way! Third: dismissing the murals as gang signifiers and therefore worthy of eradication. Gangs also identify with cities, Silly Shawn: should we get rid of them as well?

Folks: the murals are in danger. Spread the word and speak in favor of the murals at Fullerton's next council meeting in a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, tell Silly Shawn at snelson@rizioandnelson.com what an ignorant pendejo he is and to concentrate on REAL issues--like, say, the eradication of, like, the word "like" from, like, your vocabulary.

Below is the YouTube clip with Silly Shawn's words:

Got an op-ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times regarding a ridiculous proposal by pendejo Fullerton Councilmember Shawn Nelson to rid the city of the Chicano-themed murals decorating the Lemon Street overpass just south of Valencia because he thinks that'll stop crime. Faithful readers will recognize that covering the county's Chicano murals is a mini-beat of mine. But one of you pointed out to me that eliminating murals is a Fullerton passion regardless of ethnicity.

In the hallways of Fullerton Union High School's Plummer Auditorium stands "Pastoral California" (shown at left), a magnificent mural commissioned by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s depicting Mexican laborers and the county's Californio pioneers. It was whitewashed in 1939 after school trustees deemed it "vulgar," although local historians don't know what was so offensive about the images depicted. My tipster, on the other hand, is smarter than that: "It was waaayyy too 'ethnic' for the image the then city fathers wanted to portray. After all, it could hardly be appropriate to celebrate -even a romanticized vision of early California, if the descendants of the subjects portrayed were not allowed to attend the school on which the fresco adorned now would it?"

Everyone: email Shawn Nelson at his work email, snelson@rizioandnelson.com, and tell him what an idiot he is and to leave the Lemon Street overpass murals alone. (I'd usually put a councilmember's city email address, but Fullerton has a general one for all councilmembers so fuck it)

Many factors turned Orange County into the wacky-conservative wonderland it's been for decades, and one of the key instigators passed away this Monday. Former California State Assembly leader Joe Shell never lived in Orange County (although his daughter works at Cal State Fullerton in some capacity that currently escapes me), but his failed 1962 gubernatorial primary run against local boy Richard Nixon galvanized the county's conservative grassroots activists. The GOP infighting between its moderate (who supported Nixon) and caveman (who backed Shell) wings during the primary spurred a group of Orange County businessmen to create the Lincoln Club. And Shell's supporters went on to rally behind Newport Beach dentist Nolan Frizzelle when he sought the presidency of the California Republican Assembly in 1964. That year, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater lost badly to incumbent Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election—but Orange County's conservative cred was secured. And the rest, as they say, is historia.

Details is a so-so magazine, an Esquire for guys whose idea of manliness is Aaron Carter. Much better is the writing chops of editor-at-large Jeff Gordinier in his new book, X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but can Still Keep Everything from Sucking. And we love that, in his intro, he gives a shout-out to the legendary eccentric, Eiler Larsen, the Greeter of Laguna Beach. Apparently Gordinier worked at an ice cream shop a couple of feet away from Greeter's Corner, where he explains to a national audience "an old bearded gent who looks like an ancient mariner from a box of frozen fish sticks has been recruited to stand all day long in the scalding sun, waving at cars and confused pedestrians." Gordinier got the recruitment part wrong--Larsen needed no prodding nor did his replacement, Number One Archer--but we nevertheless appreciate his plug. Now, if he could only get his employer to stop their asinine Gay or Straight feature...

News this afternoon that the SanTana police department will shut down most of northbound Bristol Street until tomorrow morning to stem off car cruising is about as breaking as that the city is mostly Mexican. The city has unsuccessfully battled cruisers on Bristol for almost 20 years. In 1989, the city council officially banned cruising at the behest of Police Chief Paul Walters, but enforcing that ordinance failed so spectacularly that in 1993, 12 other police agencies helped SanTana black-and-whites to try and stop the pastime to the tune of $150,000. The city declared victoria in 1995, but the cruisers returned en force in 2001--and here we are again.

The funniest thing about this episode? Bristol is where SanTana Mayor Papi Pulido use to ride low and slow. This shocking revelation (the Papi is usually about as exciting as stucco) comes courtesy of Pulido himself. No, Papi didn't break his years-long embargo against the Weekly--at a 1995 City Council meeting, the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying, ""I used to cruise there, by the way," "there" referring to Bristol. Will we see the Papi flipping the hydraulics on a '65 Impala? Stay tuned...

In preparing for a--shameless self-promotion alert!--coming Navel Gazing profile of Orange County hate groups, I came across a stunning--though not surprising--revelation: Orange County was officially founded by the Ku Klux Klan.

This insight comes courtesy of Dr. Henry William Head, a Civil War veteran who served as a Los Angeles County Assemblymember (representing the Orange County region) from 1883-1889. Biographies on Head in the Santa Ana Library History Room and subsequent stories about him in the Orange County Register peg the good doctor as one of the men crucial to helping Orange County secede from Los Angeles' evil, evil grasp way back when. Problem is, none of them reveal Head's KKK membership--not Orange County Medical History, not Orange County Through Four Centuries or any of the main Orange County history textbooks, not even the self-congratulatory compendium of "notable" Orange County citizens printed in the 1930s whose title I can't remember but has glowing words about Head.

To find out about Head's uber-racist past, one has to delve deep into the Klan's history and read through Annie Cooper Burton's 1916 pamphlet on the Klu Klux Klan (the Santa Ana History Room has a copy), one of the first histories of the KKK and published just after The Birth of a Nation gave rise to the KKK's more-famous appearance in Orange County. Burton used Head--who she described as "a popular physician of Santa Ana, California"--as one of her primary resources, and Head--a former Grand Cyclops from the days when he lived in his native Tennessee--was more than happy to comply. Head was a Klansman almost since the group's founding 1867 convention in Nashville, by his own admission. He was in the KKK for about three years, until the Klan's reputed leader at the time, Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, ordered all KKK members to burn all "Uniforms, oaths, and rituals ...because it meant death to a Klansman to have them found in his possession, so strong had grown the feeling against the Order, due to unscrupulous outsiders who committed horrible deeds in the guise of the Klan," according to Burton. But Head kept his robes and posed for a shot (pictured above) for Burton. "It was strange how the old feeling came back to him," she wrote. "He felt, he said, as if he were breaking his secret oath in thus displaying his uniform. Certainly he did look guilty and a little self-conscious as he emerged from the funny-looking garment."

There you have it, folks: Orange County was founded by a racist. Surprised? Of course not? Surprised that Orange County historians don't bother with this annoying factoid? If you were, you have a lot of reading to do--and don't bother with the Orange Crate Label school of history!

Today is the 75th anniversary of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which rattled Southern California, claimed more than 100 lives, and spurred many of the retrofitting laws that keep us safe from the Big One (remember when that was the only terror we dreaded?). Four people died in Orange County, but the only lasting, visible legacies the quake wrought here are in Anaheim*.

In the Anaheim High School Public library hangs a picture of a magnificent structure with Greek columns--this was the old Anaheim High School, which fell during the 1933 quake. A plaque on the school's William H. Cook Auditorium commemorates the WPA project that helped it rebuild. A couple of blocks away, behind a glass case, sits an old Pinocchio (held by a groovy gal at left). He's better known to Anaheim children as the hero of the Great Flood of 1938, but the crack in the back of his skull came after he fell off a shelf during the Long Beach tremor. Now, back to worrying about gas prices...

*UPDATE: Excuse my Anaheim bias--read what the commentator below has to say...

LA Observed reports that Los Angeles Times reporter Cecilia Rasmussen is taking a buyout, and that's a terrible loss for lovers of historical journalism. Her longtime Sunday feature, Then & Now, was the last regular newspaper feature in Southern California that treated historical events as serious journalism instead of quaint memories.

Though usually writing about Los Angeles events, Rasmussen occasionally covered Orange County and always wrote in a sharp, readable method that made history palatable to modern-day readers. It's unknown whether the Times will continue Then & Now, but we're not hopeful--after all, the Orange County Register hasn't run John Wescott's historical briefs for years, and most of the Reg's readers are coffin dodgers who are unfortunately history's primary audience.

If you need a consistent history fix, read OC History Roundup (even though it's of the Orange Crate Label school of history), OCThen (even though it's history-as-scrapbook) and my own Gunkist Memories (even though it's of the wannabe-Carey McWilliams tradition). And for heaven's sake, don't read the Register's inaccurate (wrong number of deaths, wrong date on the Prado Dam bond measure passage--but who's taking note?) recent story on the Great Flood of 1938, which wrought its watery hell 70 years ago this week--read mine!

On the drive to Weekly world headquarters in SanTana today, I noticed a banner hanging on a chainlink fence near the Santiago Street Lofts. "Santiago Art District," it read, and what a relief! Faithful readers will recall my bickering with some loft residents over their attempted, lame branding of the area as the North Logan Artist District (NoLo for short), a historically inaccurate laugher if there ever was one--and it's no longer there. As I explained to the mysterious Ben Dayhoe (author of the chingón blog Life at the Santiago Lofts) last Saturday at Jason's Downown, I never meant my little crusade to become personal--I just get a little nutty when it comes to Orange County history. Dunno who was behind the name change, but the ghosts of OC past salute you, loft dwellers. Everyone else: check out the area's ArtWalk every third Saturday of the month.

Over the weekend, Orange County Register columnist Gordon "Bootlicker" Dillow wrote some claptrap about the continuing controversy involving the proposed renaming of John Wayne Airport to something reflecting idiot Orange County television shows. But because the Reg is the Reg, that column isn't online despite it coming out yesterday...wait, I just found it after digging. Argh! Where were we? Ah, yes: in trying to find Dillow's most recent column, we stumbled upon a reminder of his one good cause over the years--urging veterans in 2002 to visit legendary cartoonist Bill Maudlin before he passed away in a Newport Beach retirement home. Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt of Bill Maudlin: A Life Up Front, in which Dillow is given prominent, rightful play for promoting Maudlin in his final days. The book is out today--buy it, and remember the old adage about blind pigs and truffles.

The Los Angeles Times ran an obituary today on Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Yorba Linda boy Richard Nixon. Per the obit, "He was forced to resign his Cabinet post in October 1976 after telling an obscene joke that was derogatory to blacks." The Times, in its ever-genteel ways, didn't even bother to hint at Butz's crack, but we at the Weekly give it to you in its entirety after the jump!

Good news and bad news with this month's edition of Esquire.

The good news is the cover, a simple shot of four Victoria's Secret models with little text to distract like most of the esteemed magazine's 2007 efforts. But horrible news comes that Esquire is ending its long-running annual "Dubious Achievements" awards feature.

The local angle, of course, is that the feature always included the above-picture of President (and Orange County boy) Richard Nixon with the caption "Why is this Man Laughing?" Godspeed, Dubious Achievements--and do ustedes Esquire folks mind putting more Victoria's Secret models flashing their thong tan lines in its place?

Tonight, SanTana officials hold yet another meeting for their much-vaunted, much-derided Renaissance Plan. A slew of different interests will attend, from loft dwellers who want to turn Orange County's largest city into another Aliso Viejo to activists who fear the Plan's gentrification purposes to those hell-raising boys at Orange Juice!. I won't be there, alas, busy as I am in Oakland doing...something. So I'll leave ustedes with what I hope everyone can universally deride: clueless hipsters.

Earlier this morning, Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle dedicated a star on the city's Walk of Stars to the Yorba family, descendants of José Antonio Yorba, one of Orange County's earliest non-Catholic Church landowners. Who cares? you say? Anaheim's Walk of Stars is just a shameless effort to piggyback on the success of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. True. But with the rewarding of a star to the Yorbas, the Anaheim history books get rewritten just a twee bit to suit Orange County's lords.

Anaheim burger titan Carl Karcher died on Friday (look for our obit in this Thursday's edition of your favorite fish wrapper), and how does the company he founded honor the man? By unveiling a stupid commercial for its breakfast burrito. Hey, pendejos: the long lines on the United States-Mexico border are those leaving Mexico, not entering. And those shots you used of long lines? Totally Tijuana. More importantly: BRING BACK THAT JUNIOR CHEESEBURGER WITH THE GOOD SAUCE YOU MADE BACK IN THE EARLY 1990s!!!!!!!!

Let's hope the Orange County Register offers a fuller obituary for Placentia resident Alfred Aguirre than the two-byline rush job they printed today. Reporters Eric Neff and Heather McRea covered the main facts--Aguirre was indeed Placentia's first Latino councilmember (and the third in Orange County) and was involved in desegregating the city's schools--but Alfred also played a crucial role in Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Villages in a Southern California County, 1900-1950, UC Irvine professor Gilbert Gonzalez's seminal history of Latino orange pickers in la naranja. Alfred is also the father of Superior Court Judge Frederick Aguirre and uncle to Placentia councilmember Joseph Aguirre. Que Dios lo bendiga, Alfred, and the Weekly's condolences to the Aguirre family. Listen to this interview of Alfred that appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition this past September.

*UPDATE: Just got a call from Aguirre's nephew--the Register reporters couldn't even get Alfred's wife's name right. Pendejos.

In The New Republic's recent critique of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's old wacky newsletters, there's one disturbing Orange County connection, according to author James Kirchick:

They frequently quoted Paul's "old colleague," Representative William Dannemeyer--who advocated quarantining people with AIDS--praising him for "speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby."

Dannemeyer did more than advocate quarantine, of course. He once compared Nelson Mandela to Willie Horton, read graphic homosexual acts on the floor of Congress, and infamously claimed that airborne spores caused AIDS, a disease he said was "God’s way of punishing gays." So why the hell would someone like Paul support such an idiot? And how do Paul supporters justify their support for a man who, at the very least published those Dannemeyer platitudes and at the very worst wrote them? Any thoughts, Allan Bartlett?

As impressive as the statue of John Wayne is at Santa Ana airport, I've always preferred the one of the Duke on horseback in front of the Larry Flynt building in Los Angeles. Some might say that having a conservative icon adorning the building of a notorious libertine is inappropriate; I say they're both American originals, straight-shooters in their own unique fashion.

But it turns out the statue being there has nothing to do with Flynt, who, according to the LA Times, thinks a 50-foot penis would be more appropriate. Wayne's effigy dates from the days when the building belonged to Great Western Savings and Loan.

And now the city of Newport Beach is trying to obtain the statue so it can be moved back to John Wayne country. Says the article:

Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau declined to elaborate on how the city hoped to land the statue.

"There's a possibility that it might not happen. The more publicity that's generated about it, that increases the odds of it not happening," Bludau said.

Oops. Maybe we shouldn't have said anything.

While researching my fall book on Orange County history, I've come across some fun facts. Did you know, for instance, that we had more than our share of sundown towns, those wonderful municipalities that didn't allow African-Americans to remain in town after dark? And that men in Orange boasted that no blacks were in their city after sunset well into the 1960s? And that Brea didn't allow blacks to live there during the 1920s and most likely had a sign near the city limits stating, ""Nigger: Don't let the sun go down on your back in this town"? All this information comes courtesy of James Loewen, author of the celebrated revisionist history Lies my Teacher Told Me and Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Surprise, surpise: His website lists more than a few Orange County cities--actually, almost every incorporated Orange County city prior to the 1950s housing boom. The best thing about the site? You can contribute your racist experiences. Contribute away!

Newsmax.com is the Fred Thompson of conservative websites--not as loony as WorldNetDaily, not as shrill as OC's own Hugh Hewitt, but nevertheless wacky. And if you can't tell by the boring stories on their website, just look at what they're offering people who subscribe to Newsmax Magazine: a free copy of John Wayne's infamous America, Why I Love Her.

"It was during the dark days of Watergate and the final, unsettling days of the Vietnam War, when actor John Wayne decided to speak out," a Newsmax.com hack excitedly wrote. "In America, Why I Love Her, John Wayne explained in a special recording why America – and Americans - are special and why this country must remain a great nation."

Never heard of this masterpiece? Oh, you're definitely missing out on the greatest Orange County album ever.