You young'uns don't remember this, but the Orange County Register began life as the Santa Ana Register, and was named that until about the 1960s. Its focus was on SanTana, and because it was the biggest city in the county, it eventually became the de facto paper in the region, and slowly bought out its daily competition, whose names are their sole legacy in the current Reg's throwaway rags (Anaheim Bulletin, Fullerton News-Tribune, Placentia Courier, etc.).

But in Reg owner Aaron Kushner's eternal push to turn back the clock to the 1950s, the paper is returning the Santa Ana Register name as a standalone weekly.

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*Corrected since original publication to reflect the affiliation of the writer who covered the Santa Ana gathering.

Members of the sizable Cambodian population in Orange County and Long Beach have a problem with state voter guides printed in the language most are familiar with, Khmer:

The guides are too complex.

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Who the hell sends out a press release at 11:37 p.m.? Only fools who want to lessen the news, of course. But that's how business goes in the Santa Ana Unified School District, and that's how I found out that superintendent Thelma Melendez de SanTana is abruptly retiring after a little more than two years on the job.

She'll have company in the army of the dispossessed: Yesterday, a source revealed that the prez of the school employees' union, Duane Lundquist, faces a recall from the folks he represents.

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Slutwalk in Ottawa

This Sunday at noon, Orange County will host its first SlutWalk at the Yost Theater in SanTana. The event will feature guest speakers opening discussion about relevant issues such as sexual violence and abuse within communities, followed by a march downtown.

SlutWalk is a worldwide protest movement that has gained momentum in recent years for its active criticism of rape culture, victim blaming, and slut-shaming through protests and dialogue. It aims to not only raise awareness of these topics and their tragic consequences, but to reclaim the word 'slut' with a positive connotation, to embolden women as agents of their own physical appearance in the public sphere, without worry of appearing too promiscuous, thus subject to assault.

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By Gabriel San Román

This past Saturday, within walking distance of people hopping from restaurants to bars in downtown SanTana, about sixty people gathered for a night forum on gentrification at El Centro Cultural de Mexico. Even with the special tax on downtown businesses known as the PBID now dismantled after much anger vented at City Hall, the debate surrounding gentrification (or aburgesamiento, which sounds like Spanglish for "hamburger") remains. It's not going anywhere, even though empty store fronts like El Paso Shoes on Calle Cuatro are. Concerns, on the other hand, can't be displaced so easily.

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Wikimedia Commons

Don't believe the hipsters: the true throbbing center of SanTana life is the corner of Bristol Street and McFadden Avenue. This is where wabs flock to whenever the Mexican soccer team wins a big game (which, nowadays, ain't often). This is where a massive shopping plaza hosts a Northgate González market, the county's best corn tortillas in La Flor de Mexicali, and a hell of a Bristol Food Court. And due to the area's massive parking lot, this also becomes Ground Zero every Easter weekend--but especially Easter evening--for one of the largest public-street, non-permitted cruising festivals in Southern California.

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I have a lot of friends who work at the Santa Ana Unified School District, and I'm friendly with new-ish superintendent Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, but the goings-on of the district remind me more and more of Springfield Elementary in The Simpsons, what with lettuce being tossed out, wacky teachers, out-of-control kids (oh, the stories people tell me that they, of course, will never go on the record with and which school officials will never verify), and now this: district workers are being put on a severe hiring and spending spree due to a massive budget limbo caused by--take your pick--Hollywood, Sacramento, DC, or district lunacy.
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For years, the Fiesta Twin Theatre on Fourth Street in downtown SanTana has shown English-language films in Spanish and Spanish-language films in Spanish.

But there's a new film programmer coming to the cinemas--direct from El Long Beach--to fulfill indie-, student- and LGBT-movie dreams.

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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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