Gloomy, doomy Santa Ana Mountain communities

The OC Reg’s Science Dude reports that, according to the National Weather Service, “The cold North Pacific storm that’s streaking toward Southern California will drop 1 inch to 1.5 inches of rain by 8 a.m. Friday, with the heaviest precipitation falling in and around the burn areas of eastern Orange County….”


8:14 p.m.: Canyon residents under mandatory evacuation:

MODJESKA CANYON – Weary canyon residents, scarred by the recent wildfire and forced to leave their homes for 24 hours during a rainstorm last week, are now under a mandatory evacuation order again. ¶ The decision to make the evacuation mandatory was based on a National Weather Service forecast that the canyon areas will receive a minimum of 2 inches of rain tonight in a six-hour period….

On an even drearier note, I spotted Raghu P. Mathur at Irvine Valley College's Holiday party today, which, owing to his presence, was a shitty affair, judging by the faces of those who surrounded him. It was bleak, way bleak, I tell you.



Well, so it seemed to me, but I was only there for maybe one minute. No doubt the party was great in every other respect—even IF Tony was not allowed to roar up to the party on his Harley, wearin' his Santa suit.

I bet Mathur told Glenn: "You WILL have your holiday party in the Performing Arts Center. You will NOT have bikers. Or Bauers. Got it?"

I'm told that Mathur took that little poinsettia with him when he left. Could be somebody just made that up.


THE "POINSETTIA" EPISODE, 1998
FROM DISSENT 14, December, 1998:

...Late Thursday, the 10th, everyone seemed to be buzzing about President Mathur’s latest outrage. He had imposed himself on a lunch for classified employees at around noon. Each table held a lovely potted poinsettia. The idea was to give the thing to the classified employee who had been with the district the longest.

Since she had been with the district for nineteen (?) years, classified employee Linda X was identified as the recipient of the plant for her table. But the President—Mr. Raghu P. Mathur—put a stop to that. He announced that he had been with the district for nineteen and one half years, and so, as he left, to the astonishment of everyone, and despite his never having been a classified employee, he took the plant.

“Can you believe it!” people said. “Who does he think he is?” “What next!” Some among the classified staff who had witnessed the infamy offered suggestions as to where Raghu might plant his poinsettia. (Oh, how they hate him.) My inveterate commitment to peace and loveliness precludes saying more.

At about 2:30, I briefly visited a Burrito picnic out by the temporaries that had been arranged by students. Naturally, people were still buzzing about the purloined poinsettia. Then someone appeared holding two plants that he and others had purchased at Ralph’s—poinsettias, of course. A group of about ten faculty and staff—I was told to stay behind by my self-appointed handlers—took the plants and entered the Administration Building. As they walked past the President’s open door, they loudly hailed Linda X and presented her with the replacement plants. Everyone clapped and cheered. Then one of the group halted the applause. “No,” he said. “One clap.” [In those days, Mathur used to insist on what he called the "Orange County 'Clap'."]

Then, in unison, loudly: CLAP!

Again, smoke could be seen exiting Raghu’s riffraffian ears. —BB

"Scared to death" of the manipulative Nielsen

"The passion to be reckoned upon, is fear." —Hobbes

• From this morning's Frank Mickadeit column: Jeff Nielsen should have dealt long ago

…The new evidence would have refuted any defense claim that Nielsen had downloaded child porn inadvertently when searching legal gay-sex sites. "When you have newsgroups like, ' Sven's House of Teenage Lust,' that's unambiguous," coprosecutor Matt Lockhart noted. ¶ Lockhart says Nielsen's two former boyfriends "changed the whole case" by agreeing to testify and should be commended because they were "scared to death" of the manipulative Nielsen….

• This morning’s editorial in the OC Reg: [T]oxic atmosphere of local Republican politics:

…But in politics – and especially the nasty, scandal-plagued world of Orange County Republican politics these days – opponents reach for the long knives at any opportunity. And so, after Supervisor Janet Nguyen agreed to pay $5,000 in fines for illegal donations to her legal-defense fund after her three-vote election victory in February, her opponents came out swinging. ¶ Attorney Mike Schroeder, who represents losing candidate Trung Nguyen, told the news media that "This was an organized attempt to circumvent the law that they repeatedly lied about until they got caught." He was surprised by the low fine amount. Yet the Fair Political Practices Commission, which must still approve the settlement deal when it meets later this month, argued in its report, "In this case, the investigation did not produce sufficient evidence to support a finding that the violations were deliberate. In addition, all of the fundraising occurred after the election and no campaign statements were filed incorrectly as a result of this activity. The money was returned promptly when the mistake became apparent." ¶ … Ms. Nguyen's consultant, Dave Gilliard, told us that Mr. Schroeder "continues to appeal and appeal and appeal [the election verdict]," and is trying to harass Ms. Nguyen so that she cannot possibly win re-election. That is an increasingly common view. In a column in the latest Red County magazine, conservative political activist Mark Bucher writes about "a poison in our party," which he describes as the "practice by some Republicans to attack people personally, and destroy their lives if necessary, as a means to obtaining more power." His example: "Trung Nguyen and his lawyer, Mike Schroeder, are attempting to weaken Supervisor Janet Nguyen through personal attacks, accusations of criminal behavior and serial complaints and lawsuits. Their goal is to damage her politically and financially and thereby increase Trung's chances of winning the seat next year."….

Some Republicans? Tom Fuentes was among Trung Nguyen’s advisors. [Oops. I think I got my Nguyens mixed up. Fuentes advised Tan, not Trung. –CW]

• From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Presidential Politics and the Student Vote:

...On the presidential nomination question, Barack Obama and Rudolph Giuliani come out ahead, according to the “Fall 2007 Youth Survey on Politics and Public Service.” … ¶ Among likely young Democratic voters, Obama (38 percent) leads U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York (33 percent) by five percentage points, and both candidates are well ahead of former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina (7 percent). On college campuses, Obama’s margin is even wider. He’s at 44 percent to Clinton’s 23 percent. (Polling stopped a month ago.) Clinton edges Obama among those surveyed who are not currently at a four-year college and those who have never enrolled at any college…. ¶ [James Leach, a former Republican Congressman from Iowa] referred to data showing that more than one-third of the young people surveyed say the two parties are “doing such a poor job that a third major party is need.” Only 30 percent said that Democrats and Republicans are “adequately representing the American people.” Liberals were more likely to say a third party is needed than were conservatives. And while more than 70 percent of the entire cohort said elected officials don’t have the same priorities that they do, more than 6 in 10 said getting involved in politics is “honorable.”….