Swoop

AS YET ANOTHER rain storm passes through the Southland, some of the canyons hit by the fire are on a flash-flood watch, but no mandatory evacuations are expected this time around, not in Orange County.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service has a squadron of planes hydromulching the bejesus out of the hills in the canyons—to “stabilize” them.

Essentially, they're gluing things down using dive-bombers.

The Reb, who lives in Modjeska Canyon, called me today, inviting me to bring my camera and check it—i.e., the hydromulchery—out. So, taking a break from grading, I did.

The aerial H-mulching is all very cool, if you ask me, but a person (such as Reb) could easily get weirded out by all these noisy crop dusters buzzing so close to the ground and to homes. I mean, as soon as I arrived, without warning, a plane roared from behind a hill and commenced swooping and mulching right at me. I think Reb ran inside.

I could see the pilot as he flew by (see). Couldn't see his eyes. I think he was a Republican.

Check out my pics.

LATER, I WENT Christmas shopping, guided by an article I found today in the online version of OC Weekly: 25 TOYS FOR THOSE 25 AND OLDER.

The article is a slide show with mostly the kind of stuff you’d expect the Weekly to notice (e.g., a Hillary Clinton nut-cracker). But I did like three of the toys:

"#17 Holy Toast Bread Stamp: Who says ALL toast can't be holy?" —This is way cool, doncha think? Too bad I don't eat toast. But my friends do.

"#20 Nun Punching Puppet: Because no one messes with a nun." —I think Tom will like this. I can just see him wearing these things and going at it.

"#25 Periodic Table Tarot Cards: For those of us who can't decide whether to be into science or pseudo-science." —Unfortunately, I can give this one to nearly all of my friends. Most of 'em go to chiropractors or worse. I'll gift 'em. Then, I'll mock 'em.

ALSO APPEARING today in the Weekly is a nifty post by our pal Scott Moxley:

SCHROEDER LAW ENFORCEMENT EMPIRE AT STAKE TODAY:

Mike Schroeder will jump out of bed this morning in Corona del Mar, neatly hang his Darth Vader pajamas in the closet, shower, kneel at his USC football altar and don an expensive, natty suit befitting Orange County’s leading Republican strategist-slash-chiropractic insurance company king.


It’s a big day in Schroederdom. He’ll drive his jumbo-sized, black Hummer to the state court of appeal (COA) in Santa Ana in the hopes of teaching a onetime disciple a lesson: Don’t Mess with Mike. Schroeder—consigliere to both District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and Sheriff Michael S. Carona—wants the justices to toss First District Republican Supervisor Janet Nguyen from office.


…Schroeder claims the Registrar of Voters certified the wrong Nguyen as the winner (by just three votes) in last February’s special election. He says the Republican who finished second, Trung Nguyen, should be seated. Surely coincidentally to the merits of the case, Trung is, to put it bluntly, Schroeder’s boy. Janet, on the other hand, has had the audacity to show occasional independence from local GOP bosses like Schroeder.


…If the COA tosses Janet’s election, Schroeder—the reigning mastermind of OC insider games—will be in excellent position when his pal—the federally indicted Carona—leaves office prematurely. How? In his corner, he’d have three likely votes on the board of supes: Trung Nguyen, Pat Bates and Bill Campbell. That board majority gives Schroeder key influence over who will complete the remainder of Carona’s term at the county’s most powerful government agency.

So if you see Schroeder running excitedly into the COA building on Spurgeon this morning, it's not a pit stop. It's not even to distribute Mitt Romney For Prez brochures. Half of his law enforcement empire is at stake.

"The opportunity to do something bad"

.....ORANGE COUNTY is lots of things. Sometimes it's real. Sometimes, it’s odd.
.....Now, here’s an odd story. According to the OC Reg, “Deputies responded to a disturbance call at 8:10 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 10 from a residence in Coto de Caza. ¶ A woman said that her 15-year-old son was refusing to go to school. The youth punched a hole in the wall when his mother asked him to go to school. ¶ Deputies arrived at the home an hour later and took the boy to school.”
.....OK.

.....THE LA TIMES offers this peculiar story about “hoodies” at Capo Unified: Danger under the hood?:

.....The sweat shirts zip up through the hood to completely cover the face, becoming a mask and making it virtually impossible to tell who is underneath.
.....…They're fashion statements to some, but to administrators in Orange County's Capistrano Unified School District, there's danger lurking under the hood. All six high schools last week banned hoodies from campus.
.....…School administrators say the problem is that someone could hide behind the mask. "There is no way to identify who kids are," said Tom Ressler, principal at Capistrano Valley High. "Generally, we don't think that is a good thing. It gives kids the opportunity to do something bad."
.....…Sergio Magana, 17, a Capistrano Valley senior, bought two masked hoodies after he saw some of his favorite hip-hop artists, including Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, sporting them.
....."They bring the style and we roll with it," Magana said.
.....One friend owns the same-style hoodie West wore, with a skeleton on the sweat shirt and a skull on the hood, he said.
.....…Others feel the hoodies are a fashion faux pas.
....."From a girl's point of view, they're ugly," said Lisa Harlow, 16, a sophomore. "Nobody wants to see a skeleton running around."….

.....WHILST LECTURING on Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) recently, I mentioned that, according to the FBI, Irvine is the 14th safest city in the country. I speculated that Irvine had dropped to 14th owing to our new Performing Arts Center and it’s “assault on the senses.” I also mentioned “all the hookers.”
.....Surely I’m joking! Hookers in Irvine?
.....Why, allegedly, yes! According to the OC Reg (Women plead not guilty to prostitution in Irvine apartment), Irvine is a seething cauldron of illicit & unsafe sex.
.....Well, no, but the city does sport at least two alleged hookers (who, btw, kept lots of alleged condoms in their alleged refrigerator).
.....One of the women “is accused of having a cell phone with the phone number listed on a Craigslist.org ad for ‘hottie Asian girls waiting for you.’ The ad promised a ‘good time’ for one hour between 11 a.m. and 2 a.m. for ‘160 roses.’”

.....THINGS REMAIN DICEY in our fire-ravaged canyons. According to the Reg, “A storm that was expected to bring light rain has intensified, leading the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood watch for the Orange County canyons and foothills that burned during the October wildfires. ¶ The watch will go into effect at 2 p.m. and will likely last until Wednesday morning as the region gets drenched with an inch or more of rain, forecasters say.”
.....The Reg provides a link to the notorious Modjeska Canyon webcam. Check it out.