A Clockwork Orange – OC Weekly

Posted Oct. 19, 6:20 p.m.

A CLOCKWORK EXCLUSIVE!
Through our intimate sources — in your face, Judy and Libby (sitting in a tree, l-e-a-k-i-n-g!) — Clockwork has obtained this exclusive booking photo of Tom DeLay. We also have it on good authority that for his last meal, DeLay's ordered Ronnie Earle's liver served alongside fava beans and washed down with a nice chianti.

NO ROOM AT THE INN
You know, Clockwork was just thinking about this today as we did our, ahem, morning business, which also involves a quick scan of the metro fish wraps. There were all these biz section stories about a robust economy and how it was producing an office-space shortage in Orange County and blah blah blah. And that's when it occurred to us: when is the average worker gonna get a little sumptin' sumptin' for all this economic robustness. It seems to us that hiring is still pretty much frozen, more work is being heaped on those fortunate enough not to get pink slipped and raises? Don't know about you, but we don't know anyone who's received a raise since BEFORE 9/11.

Come to think of it, 9/11 is STILL being cited as the reason for no raises. Heck, that was — lessee, carry the 2, subtract 8, divide by three — well, let's just say math was never Clockwork's best subject (and fuck you right back at whoever just said “Writing, neither.” Oh, we've got ears on the back of our head, mister!)

Attention, people, this about companies, companies that are doing better. And, here in California, not only are the workers under attack, but many of their jobs are going overseas and, when it comes to public employee unions, Arnie's fixin' to wipe 'em off the map.

Whew, good thing the cost of living has been in steady decline.

PSYCH!

Nope, dem bills just getting worse and worse. Anyone who lives in Orange County lives on plastic to keep with the Fletcher Joneses, and not only is that debt compounding along with the outrageous interest, Congress, backed by one of Chris Cox's final suck ups to his financial overlords before he fled to the SEC, where he'll rule over them (okay, we just spewed our Big Gulp over that one, too), the House has made it damn near impossible for the average worker to protect credit-card balances through bankruptcy — a mechanism that remains intact for Corporate America, naturally.

It's enough to make you start selling your sock collection on eBay. Good thing we ain't getting hit by higher housing costs.

DOUBLE PSYCH!!!

Jeez, you really are a rube.

USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate (killer frat parties!) released a study Oct. 20 that shows Orange County rents rising 3.5 percent this year, resulting in rates of about $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, $1,500 for a two-bedroom and $2,000 for a three-bedroom unit.

Irvine has the highest rates of all the county's submarkets, with the average rent for a three-bedroom unit placed at $2,058 a month. The same size unit is $1,494 in Anaheim.

“Apartment occupancies are at all-time highs in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties because of a steady stream of young professionals and …

Here it comes…

… Latin and Asian immigrants…

BOO-YAH!!!

… who cannot afford the average home, along with relocated executives who choose not to get locked into a mortgage,” says Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast.

Hey, why rent, people?

Uh, perhaps because the median price of an Orange County home has jumped more than 13 percent to $617,000?

Survey says: DING! DING! DINGGGG!!!

Ah, well, at least all those companies are making out like gangbusters.

UN-PSYCH…

But isn't that really what it's all about?

THIS IS HOW THEY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
About 20 percent of the soldiers who served in Iraq and 12 percent of those in Afghanistan returned home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a preliminary study published in the July 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The report by Colonel Charles W. Hoge, M.D., the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute, found that there is a clear correlation between combat experience and the prevalence of PTSD. Basically, the more often a soldier was involved in combat, got shot at, killed an enemy combatant, was directly involved in the death of an innocent, saw or handled corpses or witnessed colleagues getting killed or seriously wounded, the more prevalent the PTSD symptoms.

But while Dr. Hoge's study found the number of soldiers suffering from PTSD is high, a majority of veterans are not seeking treatment. Ninety-five percent of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been shot at, and the average soldier engages in two firefights a day, but only 40 percent of returning soldiers acknowledged that they need mental health care, and only 26 percent were actually receiving care.

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And so, the number of veterans approved for PTSD compensation by the Veterans Administration is relatively small. The VA's response? Review approximately one-third of the cases of veterans who are receiving disability benefits for PTSD, with designs on eliminating them. Why? Because the VA all of a sudden fears it was too lenient in deciding which soldiers were eligible for those benefits. Americans at War contributor (forthcoming from Greenwood Press) and former college professor Gene C. Gerard floats this theory: the Bush administration, searching for more funds to keep its endless war funded, is putting the squeeze on the VA to reduce PTSD compensation. It also serves as a double whammy for Dubnuts, benefiting his PR campaign that casts this as a just, painless war with no lingering ramifications.

What's that, Mr. Orwell? War is peace? Stress is bliss? Horrific nightmares are pleasant daydreams?

Roger that!

Don't know about you all, but this puts in a new light those images of Dubnuts giving glowing support-our-troops speeches with rows of uniformed, future denied-PTSD benefits sufferers behind him.

INTHEBEGINNINGGODCREATEDTHEHEAVENANDEARTH
ANDTHEEARTHWASWITHOUTFORMANDVOID
ANDDARKNESSWASUPONTHEFACEOFTHEDEEP
ANDTHENSOMEOTHERSTUFF…THE END!
A Broadman N Holman Books flack pitched us on including in our upcoming holiday gift guide The HCSB Light Speed Bible, which purportedly “allows anyone with at least a seventh-grade reading ability to read every word of the entire Bible in 24 hours or less—with good comprehension.”

Yeah, probably with about as good a comprehension as all those Bible-thumpers out there, those self-proclaimed Bible scholars on the teevee, who routinely misunderestimate the works of Jesus Christ, who surely would have loved what Christian/Libertarian (?) radio host Neil Boortz out of Atlanta had to say about the poor the other day:

“Now, the Daily News in New York has a headline: 'Rich got terror tip.' Rich got terror tip. OK, let's get logical about this, folks. Let's play logic with this. This is as it should be. OK? If we are faced with disaster in this country — let me ask you this, OK? You just be logical. Get all of the emotion out of this. Get all of the emotion out of this. But if we are faced with a disaster in this country, which group do we want to save? The rich or the poor? Now, if you have time, save as many people as you can. But if you have to set some priorities, where do you go? The rich or the poor? OK? Who is a drag on society? The rich or the poor? Who provide the jobs out there? The rich or the poor? Who fuels — you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor?”

What's that, Geddy Lee?

“… and the meek shall inherrrrrrrit the Earth…”

So sorry. Continue, Neil:

“Now if you — all of a sudden, somebody walks up to you and says, 'Hey, Boortz listener. You're gonna have a — you have to make a choice. You're going to — we're gonna move you to another country. And you're just gonna have to make your way in this other country. We have a choice of two countries for you. In this country, people achieve a lot and they are wealthy because of their hard work. In this country, people don't achieve squat. They sit around all the time waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can't afford. They're uneducated. They can barely read. And the high point of their day is Entertainment Tonight on TV. Which country do you want to live in? The country of the high achievers, or the country of sheep, the country of followers?' You know what you're gonna do. I don't see what the big problem is. I just don't. I mean, if you — who do I want to save first? The rich. Save the poor first. Then, when every thing's over, where are you gonna go for a job? OK, hey, if I get a tin cup, can I sit next to you and sell pencils too?”

(You can listen to the whole sick twisted thing here.)

So, yes, read the Bible in a day. The publisher's flack claims this'll be a perfect gift-guide story when we couple The HCSB Light Speed Bible with a British cleric's just-released 100-minute Bible and Zondervan's upcoming 90-day Bible. Because today's busy families just don't have the time for the really big cosmic things anymore. But it's especially important that they set aside one day to swallow whole the Good Book or Holy Scriptures or whatever P.C. thing they call it these days because the publisher cites polls that show:

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*Only 42 percent of American adults know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount

(MLK???)

*A mere 35 percent of American adults can name the four Gospels

(Dopey, Sleepy, Happy and the Beaver?)

*Less than half of American adults can name the first book of the Bible

(Trick question: it's “About the Author,” isn't it?)

*Only 35 percent of American adults know the country that ruled Jerusalem in the time of Jesus

(Jew Jersey?)

Since Clockwork's had it's snarky way with “bestselling author and religious scholar” William Proctor's invaluable tome, it's only fitting that we end with his website so all our heathen readers (you know who you are) can find his work and be saved, forever and ever, hallelujah and amen.
Beee-och!

SHOULDA SEEN THIS ONE COMING
Wayne Besen, the activist/author who rose to fame after photographing “ex-gay” poster boy John Paulk cruising in a gay bar in D.C., blogs about a New York socialite suing the Catholic Church for $5 million, claiming that a priest turned him into a sodomite.

J. David Enright IV, 51, says the Rev. Joseph Romano molested him as a 7-year-old boy at summer camp, and as a result he was unable to live as a suburban heterosexual.

The only thing more expected than this — and the copycat suits that will follow if this succeeds, perhaps even right here in our own priest-molestation scandalized Diocese of Orange — will be the Church's reaction:

“It's the gays fault that a priest molested a boy who turned gay because of a priest!”

DISS MISSED
You know how conservatives — REAL conservatives — have always had a problem with Dubnuts since, well, always? Okay, not all of them have had misgivings about him from the beginning, but his administration's out-of-control spending and mounting deficit did draw some conservative consternation well before his second stolen presidential election, as reported by that traitor Bob Novak (and passed along by your favorite Weekly).

Now the New York Times reports that Bruce Bartlett was just fired as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis after he supplied the Dallas-based conservative research group's president the manuscript of his forthcoming book, The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. For a sneak peak, check out Bartlett's recent Washington Times column titled “An Illusion Ripped Wide Open.” He makes the case that the Bush White House should not be surprised by the vehement conservative backlash to Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination.

“This revolt has been long in the making,” Bartlett writes. “What is surprising is that took so long to come into the open.” Among “the conservative list of grievances” against Bush:

*A vast expansion of education spending with little real reform.

*A weak immigration policy that has led to active, grass-roots hostility against the administration's guest-worker program.

*Explosive government spending during the Bush years. (Oh, for the days of Clintonia!)

*More government regulation on big business thanks to the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which Republicans rushed through Congress to deflect Enron-scandal criticism—but does nothing to prevent Enron-style abuses.

“Had George W. Bush demonstrated more fealty to conservative principles over the last five years, he might have gotten a pass on Miss Miers,” Bartlett writes. “But coming on top of all the big government initiatives he has supported, few in the conservative movement are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt any longer.”

As that man in the bad wig on NBC's The Apprentice says, “You're fired!”

And by “you” we mean the messenger, not Bush.

Posted Oct. 18, 5:20 p.m.
I'm soooo out of here.
SAY GOODNIGHT, DICK
A certain Sikorsky Sea King helicopter was burned into America's consciousness on Aug. 9, 1974, and now, as Joe Vargo reports in today's Riverside Press-Enterprise (sadly, you've got to register), March Field volunteers are restoring the Vietnam-era chopper that ferried Orange County favorite disgraced son Richard Nixon away from the White House one last time. Surely you recall the famous shot of the Dickster boarding the copter, his back stiff like a vampire balancing his cape, and then stopping just before the doorway, whipping around like he'd just thought of something, bending his stiff right arm in something between a wave and salute, and then sticking both upper limbs out in cognac-shaky peace signs as a goofy grin washed over his shame-ravaged face.

Ah, memories, sweet, sweet memories.
Ryan Scott has fun with
a famous image.
Courtesy Celebrity-Pics.net
But the weirdest thing of all is when you look at those famous shots, it appears Nixon's head was cut out of one photo and haphazardly slapped on another body. It's all out-of-proportion and shit, or as if The Nixon Noggin floated in a jar, like in that episode of Futurama, only to be shoved over the head of the real man making peace signs/flipping birds on the Tarmac.

[

The same helicopter behind whoever it is also carted JFK, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford around, but this particular military ghettobird is so associated with the Dick that once March's museum folks are done sprucing it up, it'll go on display at the Richard Nixon Library N Burp Place in Yorba Linda in time for the 93rd anniversary of Dick's emergence from his mom's vagina on Jan. 9.

Among those the P-E's Vargo bumped into when the Sikorsky Sea King arrived at March Field was Seal Beach resident Gene Boyer, who piloted the copter for that fateful 12-minute trip that took Nixon and his family from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, where they hopped on the military plane that would return them to California, private life and much successful strategizing on returning Nixon into public view as a “statesman” many years later. Boyer recounted fighting back tears as Nixon boarded for the final time. “He stopped in the cockpit and thanked me for my service,” Boyer said. “When he saw the tears, he said 'Stop that.'”

That same day in '74, Hemet resident Dave Pirnie piloted the copter that took the Nixons from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to their home — and suddenly former Western White House — in San Clemente. Pirnie was also there when the Sea King came to March, Vargo reports.

By the time well-wishers singing “God Bless America” had met Nixon, his mood had turned sour, Pirnie recalled. “It was not pleasant,” he remembered. “He was mad at something, maybe because he lost his job. He didn't say thanks for the ride. It had to be a traumatic day for him.”

Couldn 't have happened to a more-deserving chap.

PODCAST OR PUDCAST?
Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva, who has a reputation for startling stupidity, will be there to usher in the brave new technological world at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, when the county hosts its first ever Podcast.

Silva, who is encouraging residents and especially economic and government students to attend, will seize on the occasion to broadcast, er, podcast “the misconceptions of governing Orange County, the importance of getting value for your money, and how saving money relates to public policy in Orange County.”

Huh? What? Is he done talking yet? Drifted off there for a second.

“I really want to set the record straight about a few things,” he continues in his press podrelease podpimping his podcast event, “and because the county now has the capacity to utilize newer technologies like Podcasting, streaming audio and video, the opportunity to serve more people is greatly increased.”

Now, Clockwork did not realize that there were “misconceptions” floating around out there about governing Orange County, or that anyone misunderstood “the importance of getting value for your money” — most especially with regards to the first municipality to file for bankruptcy just a tad over a decade ago, a disgrace that brought about huge budget cuts, massive layoffs and a nasty day of reckoning once all those loans and bonds that were taken out to balance the books comes in soon.

What? Are there noodniks running about suggesting that the county blow wads of taxpayer cash on more giveaways to rich developers, upward spiraling benefits packages for top-level county executives and more 24-carat golden parachutes for the bigwigs who retire/are fired/are indicted early?

Sheesh!

Oh, well, at least it's not like two lowly computer technicians in Orange County treasurer-tax collector John Moorlach's office have authority to wire billions of dollars in county taxpayer money anywhere in the world. Yeah, that'd be awesomely awesomely STUPID oversight of taxpayer dollars and public policy and . . . and . . . erm … check that. That IS happening in Orange County.

Don't worry, Jim; those same computer geeks are probably the ones making sure you'll come out looking halfway intelligent in your fancy schmancy Podcast.

AND AYN RAND, AYN RAND SO FAR AWAY
We get these little emailed invites from the Irvine-based Ayn Rand Institute, and they really do make for amusing reading when they bray on and on like that overweight tart who can't find her goddamn cigarettes at the corner of the Pierce Street Annex bar. Any resource extraction that does not involve environmental degradation, any tax-subsidized program for the needy or any foreign intrusion that does not involve blowing up babies and seizing that faraway land's vast booty as our own is considered evil incarnate by the randy Randians. So it is difficult, very difficult indeed, to admit we're whole heartedly behind the latest pest up their collective bum: the intelligent-design crowd. The institute has held symposiums blasting un-evolutioners locally, and now they're taking their act on the road, presenting Creationism in Camouflage: the 'Intelligent Design' Deception at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, in USC's SGM-123 (Seely G. Mudd) at 3620 McClintock, Los Angeles. Physicist and Ayn Rand Institute fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch will examine the similarities and differences between the intelligent-design movement and your garden variety nutball creationists, and show how the movement seeks to make itself more palatable to intellectuals and the general public by hiding its religious essence — just like Harriet Miers! The Randervolksen are stepping into this thankless battle, which surely must piss off some adherents to their rock-solid conservative economic and world views, “because today's academics — including the most passionate and vocal defenders of evolution — are incapable of answering its most fundamental arguments, the doors of our colleges and schools are ominously open to primitive mysticism masquerading as science.”

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As ol' Dan Rather used to spit it out: “Courage.”

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
It probably seems like decades ago to Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, who is now up to the brim of his fancy sheriff's hat in official skulduggery, but remember way back to Sept. 19, 2002, when he appeared on Larry King Live and was hailed as America's Sheriff for quickly capturing the killer of little Samantha Runnion? Carona can't be such a monster that he'd like to replay that sad tragedy, but he could sure use a boost of “You're America's Sheriff” talk right about now.
Erin Runnion meets and greets …
Meanwhile, the woman sitting next to him when he appeared with King, Samantha's mother Erin Runnion has been too busy criss-crossing the country to get caught up in Carona's travails. Having founded the Joyful Child Foundation, whose mission is “to unite and uplift our nation's communities in the protection and wonderment of all children,” Runnion has been out pushing the foundation's first initiative, Samantha's PRIDE, which addresses the specific needs of different communities' child-watch programs. Erin's latest trip took her to Michigan, as shown in these photos. Her foundation operates on an endowment funded through contributions, which are gladly accepted at:
…and speaks!
The Joyful Child Foundation – In Memory of Samantha Runnion
P.O. Box 12680
Westminster, CA 92685

Call (866) 7JOYFUL or (866) 756-9385 or email

IN*****@TH************.ORG

TRAIN KEPT A-ROLLIN'
Since Clockwork's obviously in a magnanimous mood, we're going to praise someone this fish wrap has not praised in quite some time, Larry Agran and his fellow Agranistas in Irvine, for being absolutely correct in their quest to have $121 million in light-rail funds that had been earmarked for a regional transportation project — the since mothballed CenterLine light-rail line — returned from to the City of Irvine from where those funds originated. As directed by city staff, the Irvine City Council voted to apply that $121 million to a new light-rail that will circle the Great Park and connect to the city's train station and Spectrum Center parking swamp.

Since it was a unanimous vote, guess we should praise the non-Agranistas, too.

County transportation officials have already allocated millions in other funds collected for the now-doomed CenterLine where the Weekly many moons ago suggested they belong: in improving our degrading county bus system and installing high-speed buses along certain routes. But since Irvine is the entity that applied for that particular $121 million, becoming the only local municipality to get that much cash from the state for such a project, the city is entitled to get it back. And if local residents feel a Great Park choo-choo would be an enormous waste of that $121 million, they have every right to run Agran and his gang out of City Hall, although we're pretty sure those bucks have to be used for light rail or they go back to the state.

Heck, it's not like the state could use that money back. Right, Arnold?

The exact route for the Great Park line, which is envisioned to run on an elevated track like a certain OC theme park's you-know-what, will be determined once the park's final design is chosen. The council also approved a search for $5 million and hefty change to pay for planning the rail line, which they hope to have a chuggin' along by 2012.

Posted Oct. 17, 11:45 a.m.
Pay up, Jack:
Dana (left) and Lucky Lou
THEY DO KNOW JACK
It's bad enough that indicted Congressman Tom DeLay has Orange County's Republican congressional delegation wrapped around his stink finger. And it's even worse that the firebrandiest members of that caucus — Dana Rohrabacher — has an oh-so-cozy relationship with DeLay's pal, fellow indictee and super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff (scroll down to “FOO Fighter”). Now come revelations that Abramoff has also been paying off Rohrabacher plaything/OC religious right wacko sound biter the Rev. Lou Sheldon.

[

Indeed, Sheldon's prominent role in an Oct. 16 Washington Post piece on Abramoff's Christian-right tentacles delighted America Blog. Sheldon, the founder of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalitionthat's got a holy bug up its collective ass over The Gays, was among the right-wing, supposedly anti-gambling activists who received money from Abramoff client eLottery to push its $2 million pro-gambling campaign. Former Christian Coalition chief Ralph “Babyface” Reed and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist also got eLottery bucks as part of the crusade, the Post reports.

Abramoff reportedly called Sheldon Lucky Louie, but the Rev. is now — natch — distancing himself from Abramoff, saying he does not recall legislation eLottery paid him to oppose, nor does he remember the $25,000 check eLottery cut him.

“This is all tied to Jack?” Sheldon reportedly said. “I'm shocked out of my socks.”

After getting over the shock and putting on his socks in a box with a fox, the Suessical Sheldon goes on to say the TVC may have received eLottery funds to offset the cost of printing voter fliers. “I wasn't aware the money was coming from them [eLottery],” he says in the Post piece. “I don't think I ever saw the check. It came in, and we paid the bill for some of the printing.”
It all gets curiouser and curiouser when you consider how tight the Rev. is with Rohrabacher, who was there when the Abramoff-Norquist alliance was formed during the early Reagan years.

Abramoff and eLottery are not the only gambling pushers who've pushed mountains of cash to Rohrabacher and Sheldon. As the Weekly's R. Scott Moxley first reported in his June 26, 1998, cover story (which is not available in our cruddy online archives but you can see encapsulated here), Los Alamitos horse racing park owner Dr. Edward Allred has cut huge checks over the years to Sheldon, Rohrabacher and other right-wing candidates and causes. And those bastions of the GOP and Religious Right have gladly cashed them in — despite Allred's day job as one of California's most prolific abortion doctors.

ANGELS IN THE OUTHOUSE
Hopefully, umpire Doug Eddings' call, actually, his NON-CALL that turned the entire American League Championship series around, will infuriate the Angels enough this off-season that they'll make a stronger run next October just out of spite.

But, as convenient as it is to blame that non-call call for the team's swift demise, we must also admit the Halos have serious deficiencies that need immediate rectifying. The fact that the failure of the Angels previously vaunted bullpen and ability to manufacture runs is now being credited for their sad demise against the ChiSox exposes what was evident the last half of the season: without key players such as Bart Colon, John Lackey, Chone Figgins, Vladimir Guerrero, Scot Shields and Frankie Rodriguez, the Angels were just another below average team, wholly deserving of the Los Angeles before their name because they may as well have been those lame-ass Dodgers.

So, in the playoffs, with Colon falling to injury, Lackey getting rocked, Figgins and Guerrero disappearing, Shields getting overused and Rodriguez having to pitch in non-closer situations, it fell to the rest of the roster to make up the slack, and they were just, well, slackers. As Chicago starts selling World Series tickets like there's no tomorrow, here's hoping Los Angeles of Anaheim's guardian angel Arte Moreno creates a better tomorrow for OC's team by cracking open his wallet early and often to address team needs at third base, center field, designated hitter — and another strong arm or three couldn't hurt.

SUICIDE BY SPORTS
Matt Leinert, 'SC's celebrity quarterback by way of Mater Dei High School of Santa Ana and the vaunted flag football program at St. John the Baptist School of Costa Mesa, saved our life this weekend. Were it not for his last-second heroics in 'SC's thrilling victory over Notre Dame on Saturday, we'd have lost every sports contest we had a rooting interest in this weekend, which included the Angels ouster from the post season, the Raiders getting smoked by San Diego IN OAKLAND!!! and the Ducks falling 4-1 to the Minnesota Wild, despite goalie J.S. Giguere's previous dominance over that squad. Our Sweet Leos of the University of La Verne even lost their homecoming football game 35-7 to Cal Lu. Lutherans! Disgusting!

[

CONFESSIONS OF A DIRTY MIND
You know, kiddies, way back in my day, we then-young collegians would stage panty raids. Now colleges are just giving nighties and naughties away! According to the brand-spankin' new version of the online Dissent — which rabbles many a rouse in the South Orange County Community College District covering Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges — classrooms are “outfitted” with torn underwear, bathrobes, and various other items of often intimate apparel. No, it's not to recreate a post-apocalyptic Victoria's Secret runway or recurring Clockwork dream sequence; it's so under-supplied teachers have rags for erasing “perennially dirty” white boards.

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that perverts are now lined up around the block at both colleges for chances to sniff the district's makeshift erasers.

WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE ELSE THINK OF THAT?
Environmental groups have come up with a novel solution to the traffic woes plaguing Orange and Riverside counties: Instead of extending toll roads, boring holes through mountains, slapping pavement over pristine Cleveland National Forest land, despoiling fresh-water creeks and threatening spectacular surf spots like Trestles, why not move the jobs Riverside County residents are driving to back to Riverside County?

It is, of course, so common sensical that no politician, bureaucrat or developer will ever give it one thought.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER
We don't have any rock-solid proof of this, but we're guessing that Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) was never raped by a priest. Otherwise, he surely would not have presented Assembly Concurrent Resolution 50 on Oct. 14 to Orange bishop Tod D. Brown and auxiliary bishop Dominic M. Luong. The act commends the papacy of Pope John Paul II, especially “the great strides he made for peace and human rights.” Unless, of course, it was the peace and human rights of those first victimized by buggering priests, and then a Church that actively shuffled rapists around to avoid prosecution and allow for sexual assaults on more children.

The resolution says Pope John Paul II “was a personal witness to many of the evils of our world” — except for those evils IN HIS OWN CHURCH!!!

“He promoted reconciliation and dialog” — except if you were a victim OF HIS OWN CHURCH!!!

Fan-fucking-tastic!

Posted Oct. 13 — HAPPY YOM KIPPUR!!! — after sundown (whoops?)
WE WUZ ROBBED!
Scale the Pond, no, Disneyland's Matterhorn, no-no, the pointy top of the Big A, and scream from the top of your lungs:

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, peoples, we — being the ANAHEIM Angels, Angels fans and true believers in truth, justice and the Armenian way — wuz robbed in the dark of night on the south side of Chicago. Not really surprising given the scads of other folks who are every day robbed on the south side of Chicago, where if youse goes down there youse better beware of a certain Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, but this time it was done in front of tens of thousands of eyewitnesses, on live television before millions of viewers, and countless more who saw the ESPN Sportscenter replays. What they saw was obvious:

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, Croce fans, in a fashion bolder than even the Bush White House could conceive. Okay, that's hyperbole. They have conceived, are conceiving and will continue to conceive much nastier ways to rob Americans of their freedoms, wealth, sanity, retirement, health, you name it. That was a horrible comparison. Sratch that. And while you're scratching that, try some ointment and think back to how:

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, gloppy Big A nacho breaths, by an umpiring crew so inept that you'd swear they work for FEMA. Hey, Brownie, what the hell are you doin' behind that mask? Shouldn't you be off judging Arabian horses or something? Oh, yeah, you got fired from doing that. Well, the real ump behind the plate Wednesday night should be standing behind Brownie in the unemployment line, because as everyone saw, he turned the other way when:

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, Crazy Glue sniffers, and you could just tell we wuz robbed by the very replay that's been shown more than the Zapruder film, by everyone in a red and white Angels uniform, by everyone in a black and white White Sox uniform, by especially White Sox catcher A.J. (as in Aye Justrobbedya) Pierzynski who ran to first even though HE knew the ball had never touched the ground, and most especially by Angel catcher Josh Paul, who would have tagged Pierzynski had he not got his glove under the low ball — as proved in the tape. Instead he — he being Paul — was like we in,

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WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, skin-flute players, by an umpire who clearly called Pierzynski out to end the inning, something that was so obvious on the videotape that the umpiring crew members brought before Chicago Braut-breathed newsmen in the post-game press conference HAD TO LIE THROUGH THEIR SHIT-STAINED TEETH to deny what everyone saw — ball going into glove, ump calling the batter out, respective teams taking the field and going to the dugout. “We saw the same tape you all have and the ball changes direction,” said one ump sheepishly. SO THE FUCK WHAT!? As long as there is leather under it, that ball can orbit Neptune as far as we – we who wuz robbed – are concerned, and that does not matter anyway because the home plate ump called Pierzynski out, then Pierzynski ran anyway and — because he's more influential than the pope? And we mean the old nice one who finally died, not that relic they dust off and shove out there like a dancing bear who can no longer dance — the crew that couldn't see straight had their thumbs up their rectums, they decided to let him stay on first. “I never yelled him out,” ump Doug Eddings explained. YOU NEVER YELLED ONE MUTHAFUCKER OUT ALL NIGHT, DIP SHIT! I'm not out of order. You're out of order! The whole world is out of order because:

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Oh, we wuz robbed, Fox News viewers, in the worst crime to hit that ballpark since they secretly buried Jimmy Hoffa under the pitching mound, on a night freakified by a mysterious air of idiocy that rained down on this great land of ours. Saw a few seconds of Hannity — which is the most few seconds we've been able to stomach since, well, EVER! — just long enough to watch him play the video of the 64-year-old black man getting pummeled by the white cops in New Orleans, and ol' Sean, seeking validity from his guest, one of those ubiquitous prosecutorial blonde bimbots hyper-ventilating cable news shows trot out from their icy lairs, ol' Sean saying over and over, “This looks bad, right?” — and said prosecutorial blonde bimbot, sure of her role being there to defend the white cops, not sure if she's supposed to be agreeing with ol' Sean, but eventually getting the clue after he repeated “looks bad, huh?” the fifth or sixth time, and then Blondie finally saying, “Oh, yes, absolutely, it looks bad …” — which, of course, means ol' Sean's feigned repulsion was the actual setup for her to launch into her case: that what everyone was seeing was not what they were seeing because:

A) There's more to videotape than videotape;

2) Come on, does it really look that bad;

thirdly) We couldn't hear the audio – especially whatever it was the black man was saying with a slight smile on his face while pinned the wall by three sets of burly white arms, the obviously smart assy thing that graying buck was saying that obviously trigged one of those brave white heroes to punch the old man with such force that his head kept bouncing off the wall;

Quatro) Why all the fuss? It's not like they were using their nightsticks on gramps;

Jive 5 talkin') It's a black guy — hello, you have seen COPS, right? — and those were white officers of the law. Must we spell it out for you? Really? Okay, it all started 200 years ago, when all these slaves started getting real uppity…

One of those ubiquitous black defense attorneys — and not Johnnie Cochran, because he's dead, and that'd be creepy — tried to interrupt by noting there were also statements from eyewitnesses, WHITE eyewitnesses, who were sticking up for the old black guy, at which point, swear to flippin' God, ol' Sean cut him off and said, “Hey, hey, we don't want to hear what the eyewitnesses are saying.”

Did I die and go to Crazytown?

Yes indeedy, we live in a time where what you see — baseballs in Super SloMo going directly into catcher gloves; gentle black teens getting slammed into the hood of LAPD cruisers; grandfatherly black men in New Orleans getting the stuffing knocked out of them by younger, bigger, whiter policemen; unqualified cronies being introduced as the best Supreme Court nominees to be found in the land; innocent Iraqi babies getting all blowed up — is NOT what you get (to bastardize an old recurring line from The Flip Wilson Show; ask your favorite 64-year-old black grandpa what The Flip Wilson Show was, once he's done spitting the blood and teeth knocked out of his mouth by The Man, that is).

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And how do we know what you saw was not what you saw: because someone who represents the current incarnation of the Status Quo said so. Now shut the fuck up and play ball.

And when they say “play ball” they really mean “play ball.”

Or else.

Capiche?

Good!

Still …

WE WUZ ROBBED!

Matt Coker

OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.

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