Contact us via voice mail at (714) 825-8432, or by e-mail:
le*****@oc******.com
“>
le*****@oc******.com
. Or write to Letters to the Editor, OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627. Or fax: (714) 708-8410. Letters may be edited for clarity and length. All correspondence must include your home city or service provider and a daytime phone number.
AXIS COURSE WEDGY
You guys get all the great letters. Unlike those frighteningly nutty screeds that appear almost daily in the Register, yours (at least based on a reading of the ones you hold until the end of the year) are lovably nutty (“Bottom of the Mailbag,” Dec. 31).
While trying to figure out the letter from “Earthlib” (“feel like cat hunt on Supreme Court free roam etc.”—what the hell's that??), I decided to contribute something similar for next year's year-end issue, but with a method to my madness: take the simple phrase “Thank you, Orange County Weekly, for an entire year of reading pleasure” and scramble it Earthlib-style by looking up each word in my dictionary and then writing down the word that appears on the top of the same page: “Textbook yore, optic axis course wedgy, footsie Anaconda entropy Yazoo oddity ream plenum.”
Charles Hunt via e-mail
LOST HOUSE ON THE BLOCK
In “Bankruptcy? What Bankruptcy?!” (Dec. 3), you stated in the subsection “Last House at the End” that only the cities of Santa Ana and Irvine had held consolidated-plan public forums. In fact, the city of Costa Mesa has held not one but four separate forums for citizens to comment on the city's funding priorities. The city held its first public presentation at the Oct. 11, 1999, City Council study session. Following this presentation, the city held a three-hour evening community workshop on Nov. 9 and a one-and-a-half-hour community workshop at midday on Nov. 10. Press releases for both of these meetings were sent to all of the local press, including the Weekly. The city has also established a consolidated-plan hot line —(714) 754-4892—to allow those residents not able to attend one of the above meetings to provide comment. The hot line was also advertised in the press release.
Costa Mesa prides itself on its active citizen-participation policy and has made a concerted effort to open itself to public input at every stage of its preparation of the consolidated plan.
Alma Penalosa Housing and Community Development City of Costa Mesa Nick Schou applauds you: The statement that only Irvine and Santa Ana have held the public meetings required by HUD was based on a statement from a HUD official. I applaud the fact that Costa Mesa held the meetings it was supposed to hold, and I am sorry for the oversight.
IN SECURITY
Thanks for printing my letter to Irvine Valley College president Raghu Mathur offering my services as Security Consultant (“Not-So-Secret Service,” Dec. 24). Mathur has yet to contact me regarding a job interview, presumably planning to spend his $2,400 annual stipend on a pit bull and a home alarm.
Please note that our illegally appointed community-college president not only manufactured unsubstantiated stories about “threats” to him (later contradicted in his free-speech-case deposition) but somehow also persuaded the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees to spend taxpayer dollars on this assertion. The board voted unanimously to write him a big check.
Readers may be further interested, or merely amused, to note that the same board recently elected as its president and vice president two candidates who in the most recent election received the endorsement of the Christian Coalition.
You can't make this stuff up. Although, if you're Mathur, you can make it up and get paid for it.
On a happier note, I'm proud to report that our union local—purged of the anti-democratic, pro-management types who helped get this wacky board elected—is reorganizing to defend our district from Mathur and his cadre of “fiscal conservatives” who've tried to run our little college into the ground.
Andrew Tonkovich Instructor, Irvine Valley College
MAJOR WOODY FOR
LIMP BIZKIT
I am puzzled as to why Limp Bizkit made your crappiest-bands-of-the-year list and why the writer gave no explanation (“Not Another #%&@$* Year-End List,” Dec. 24). The people who review music in your magazine seem to rave about that crappy, dorky big-band/ swing music (I personally think it sucks) and detest Limp Bizkit, whose music/ image is angry, modern and successful and blends different styles. I have an opposing view: Limp Bizkit should be one of the best music acts of the year.
Agnah via e-mail Rich Kane responds: Zounds! You celebrated New Year's by huffing on cans of shaving cream in a 7-Eleven parking lot, right? If you'd ever actually bothered to read our paper (as opposed to having someone not nearly as retarded describe the pictures to you), you'd know that we hate retro-swing and always have. As for Limp Bizkit, I've gone off about their stinky selves too well in the past to bother regurgitating here, so I'll just pinpoint one word in your letter: “image,” which is what Limp Bizkit are all about. In today's dull, dreadful, dreck-filled world of “popular” rock, image is everything, my child. Substance, depth and true originality, meanwhile, are pretty much nil. Turns out that 5 million fans can be wrong.
