My colleague R. Scott Moxley recently wrote of the shitstorm kicked up after The Amazing Race had contestants visiting Vietnam watch a pro-communist musical show, recite a pro-communist poem and then gather at an anti-American military site in Hanoi. If there was increased interest (and ratings?) heading into Sunday night's airing of the CBS reality show, viewers discovered right after the final 60 Minutes stopwatch tick that producers were apologizing.

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The Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously Tuesday for a resolution that discourages official visits to Orange County's seat from communist Vietnam. They were supported by residents of Little Saigon and the surrounding Orange County Vietnamese community, but Register commenters greeted the news pretty tamely, other than the rote contrast with the way Mexicians entered this country. Deeper into the bowels of the Internet proved more fruitful for commentary.

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Over the weekend, the annual Tet Parade in Little Saigon happened as scheduled, and the LGBT folks who planned to peacefully protested, as scheduled. Not there was basically every politician in Orange County, with the exception of state Assemblyman Tom Daly (who at least stopped to acknowledge the LGBT folks), former state assemblyman and current Rancho Santiago Community College District trustee Jose Solorio (who did the first radical act of his life and actually joined the protesters--way to let out your inner Chicano!), members of the Westminster City Council--as well as homophobic Vietnamese politicians such as Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen.

That was the focus of my "Orange County Line" commentary yesterday for KCRW-FM 89.9.

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Nguyen: Fighting the good fight

See the end of this post for an update...

ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 5, 3:32 P.M.: Tonight, the Garden Grove Unified School District board of trustees is scheduled to vote on whether they'll allow organizers of this weekend's Tet Parade to use a district bus and driver, a bus in which school trustees sit and wave to the masses. Usually, this is a gimme, given the Tet Parade is such an important part of Little Saigon cultural life, and Garden Grove's proximity to it. And it's such a formality that the motion to approve is part of the consent calendar.

However, board member Bao Nguyen will not only ask that the motion be pulled off the consent calendar to for discussion, and not only vote no, but will also urge his fellow trustees to vote no and to not participate unless some things change. See, the Tet Parade this year is causing national controversy this year because organizers don't want LGBT Vietnamese to march in the parade, and Nguyen--someone that the Weekly has known for over a decade, and by far the most ethical, humanistic politician Orange County has ever seen--will not stand for Know Nothings of any kind.

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A man visiting his girlfriend at a Little Saigon community center this morning got into an argument with her, whipped out a six-inch hunting knife and stabbed her twice in the abdomen, resulting in the 37-year-old having to undergo surgery at a local hospital that lists her in stable condition, according to Garden Grove Police. Trinh Nguyen, also 37, of Huntington Beach, was later booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder.

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Piracy focus

Dish Network is asking a federal judge in Orange County to grant it summary judgment against a Little Saigon man who allegedly operated a satellite piracy website and order him to pay $6,376,600 in damages.More »

Thankfully, we've come to a point in our Orange County lives that being racist against Vietnamese is not only looked down upon, but considered plain dumb (anti-Mexican hatred on the other hand...). But there was a time from the 1980s up until the late 1990s when Vietnamese were even more despised than Mexicans, when the old gabacho guard of Garden Grove, Westminster, and SanTana were more than happy to rant about gooks and slopeheads in public--and especially to said Vietnamese refugees.

Don't believe me? Check out this prank phone call that a friend just forwarded me purported to have been recorded in the 1980s. It involves a Vietnamese man calling some old gabacho asking if he'd be cool with changing the name of Garden Grove to "New Saigon." The gaba, of course, gets furious and starts spewing all sorts of anti-Vietnamese crap--HILARIOUS.

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Two journalists at Nguoi Viet Daily News, the country's oldest and most respected Vietnamese newspaper, are suing a rival Little Saigon newspaper for publishing inflammatory accusations involving secret, foreign communist influence and sex.

Dat Huy Phan and Vinh Hoang claim that Hoang Duoc Thao (AKA Dao Nuong) and Saigon Nho weekly newspaper falsely accused them in a July 28, 2012, article of being communist agents running the newspaper at the direction of Vietnam's government in Hanoi.

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Moon's 2012 mug shot

Either Orange County's Hyun Su Moon suffers severe multiple personality disorders or is a serial crook embarrassing California's Three Strikes laws.

Moon apparently can't decide who he wants to be.

Is he Korean with a different name, Ji Su Moon?

Or is he a Vietnamese, Hoa Vinh Hoang?

Moon allegedly used those identities and after authorities found him in possession of a whopping 21 California driver's licenses earlier this year a federal grand jury indicted the 29-year-old Fountain Valley man, according to court records.

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Yes, the Paul-bots--the political Juggalos whose obsessive behavior manages to turn off reasonable people who might otherwise agree with their candidate--have certainly been busy. Not content simply to take over a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books or desperately demonstrate their relevance on the Yorba Linda overpass of the 57 freeway, they've been taking liberties with art. The result is an extremely artistic sign attached to a chain-link fence on Euclid Street in Garden Grove in Little Saigon.

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