Sunday, April 30, 2006

I don't get it


oke up this morning to a gloomy sky and a peevish cat.

After Meet the Press, etc., Sunny had had it with those lyin' Bush apologists, I guess, and so she lobbied for going outside to puke. I let her out.

I followed her outside, taking my camera with me. Here are a coupla snaps of the ridge above my house. Gloomy, man.

As I called Sunny in and walked back inside with her, I noticed a weird reflected image in my study window. Check it out. Who is that fellow? Creepy.



f you've been following the Sheriff Mike Carona saga, you know that his administration is almost as scandal-ridden as the President's. It seems like every week there's a new scandal.

So, this morning, the LA Times' Dana Parsons opined as follows:

One of Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona's election opponents suggests in so many words that the sheriff has hit rock bottom and should resign.

Ralph Martin called for the resignation after a photo in the alternative press OC Weekly [Dirty, Stupid, or Both] showed a Las Vegas strip club owner with his arm around the sheriff. A Nevada grand jury in 2005 characterized the strip club as a racketeering enterprise and indicted a shift manager but not the owner.

Martin may think the sheriff has lost it, but it looks to me as if Carona is having the time of his life as the county's top cop. Controversy follows controversy and allegation follows allegation, but he keeps on smiling. He's been accused of personal indiscretions and managerial shortcomings, and look what it's gotten him: an endorsement from the county's GOP Central Committee.

In another magical moment (and my personal favorite), a photo surfaced earlier of Carona next to a young woman wearing what apparently was his uniform jacket [Sex, Bribes and Jailhouse Scams]. She was identified as the Russian translator on his 2002 trip to Moscow. That photo also appeared in the Weekly, which seems to have become Carona's unofficial photo album site.

Young Russian translator wearing his clothing. A photo op with a strip club owner. In defending Carona a few months ago against naysayers in general, a former state GOP official said, "Mike is a very, very popular guy."
No doubt that former official was Mike Schroeder, one of Trustee Fuentes' best pals and the "most powerful man in the county." I'm not surprised that the pious-and-married-and-completely-outa-control Carona is popular among Fuenteans such as Schroeder. Being corrupt or ruthless seems to be a membership requirement for their little club.

A friend of mine--yet another Mike--has first-hand experience of some of Fuentes' crew's tactics. Remember proposition 187? Well, my Mike was involved in organizing protests during the anti-187 campaign. Those protests comprised lots of folks with connections to south of the border.

Remember how people got pissed off at those protesters? What set them off was especially one thing: their habit of waving Mexican flags. That really pushed people's buttons.


Well, Mike has often told the story of how he personally witnessed Fuentes' crew (Fuentes was county GOP chief at the time) amiably mingling among the protesters and passing out "free" Mexican flags! That's right. Mike did all he could to prevent the flag-waving, but, in the end, some of it ended up on the evening news.

Another friend is a player in local politics, and he has many contacts in the OC Sheriff's Department. He claims that it is a big open secret that Mr. Carona is a total hound. Using the department's copter for a tryst? Yeah, that's just standard operating procedure for Mikey the Hound. There's nobody over there who doesn't know that Mikey is the Bill Clinton of Sheriffs.

Can somebody explain to me how it is with these ultra-pious Republicans? They lie and cheat and scheme all day long, and then their eyes roll back in their head while they declare their love of God. They pray. They condemn gays and liberal busybodies and other forms of supposed atheistic scum. They champion morality and speak of love. They pray some more. Without missing a beat, they go back to cheating and scheming and lying and hating.

I don't get it. Do you get it? I don't get it.

Parsons notes that Carona managed to get the endorsement of the local GOP. What he doesn't say is that, at first, the local central committee voted not to endorse Carona. A month later, after much arm twisting (God only knows what they've got on some of these Repubs) and rule-bending by Schroeder and the Machine, the central committee reversed itself and endorsed Carona for Sheriff.

But how on earth can these people endorse a man who is so manifestly unsavory? Well, says, Parsons, if you ask 'em, they'll tell you that they're fair-minded people who are willing to give a guy the benefit of the doubt:

"We support incumbent Republicans, as a general rule," [party chief Scott] Baugh says. "That's what we're doing. That's not to say there wasn't some controversy and debate [before endorsing Carona]…. I think the body is giving him the benefit of the doubt and believe he's the best man for the job."
That strip-club owner? According to the Weekly, he's a mob associate. Those photos of Carona with the Russian cutey? Carona has not denied that they are genuine (i.e., undoctored). Hiring, and supporting many of the outrageous projects, of George Jaramillo (before he was canned)? Carona can hardly deny it. Screwing around? Again, no denial.

But none of this stuff matters to these pious GOPers. I don't get it. Do you get it? I don't get it.


SUNDAY EVENING:

My bro stopped by with his kids, Sarah and Adam. She's 3 years and 4 months. He's maybe 21 months. She already reads and he counts everything that can be counted and some things that can't. Took some snaps:


v

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...