The Fullerton Rag
The OC Weekly has named Anaheim blogger and longtime activist Duane Roberts as Best Gadfly of 2013. Gabriel San Ramon writes that Duane “knows the streets, knows how to pull public records, and knows how to raise holy hell without becoming a hypocrite.” To paraphrase Corinthians, but the greatest of these is not being a hypocrite. Duane’s sometimes (ok, most of the time) bombastic presence is a joy to see unleashed on the corrupt of this world, who might see him coming, but can prepare no defense against his rollicking righteousness. His opponents in the 2012 race for Anaheim City Council forums were taken apart like the stick dolls they were, and still are, for their specious double talk and ignorance of critical issues facing the city’s residents.
This year his new blog, the Anaheim Investigator effectively sidelined the venerable OC Human Relations Commission from having any further public part in what passed for discussions of police oversight in both Fullerton and Anaheim by revealing OCHR’s collusion with APD in the aftermath of public unrest following killings by APD officers. His blog posts are lamentably few and far between, but exhaustively researched, and accompanied by pdfs of supporting documents–we wonder why major news sites don’t do this in the internet age. Fear not, I hear that the Anaheim Investigator may see more activity soon…
Congratulations to you Duane, for remaining the uncompromising gadfly and excellent investigative journalist you are, and heaven help the hypocrites in your path.
I congratulate Duane and appreciate his many contributions, even when afterwards I have to pick shards of them out of my scalp. But please, let’s not kid ourselves about his having taken apart his City Council like stick dolls. He finished last out of nine. Two of those whom he took apart are now on Council. So while there in substantial value in what he does as a gadfly, it also has substantial limitations. We political activists have to see both the value and limits with clear eyes.
Bloviator: You’re just jealous that Duane has the respect of people who matter, while everyone considers you the biggest blogging joke since Matt Cunningham—but hey, at least you didn’t out sex-abuse victims!
Yo, “Mexican.” Stop coming around here unless you have something interesting and constructive to say.
Go back to your own stoopid blog, punk.
That was a telling comment, Gustavo. Who are “people who matter,” in your book?
Actually, I’m happy that people — too few, and not entirely unrelated to some of his own choices — respect Duane. We’re in different parties, but the better than Duane does the easier it is for me to help turn my own party to the left. (That is, to turn it in the direction that you’d apparently like it to go — if you were treating politics as a matter of critical policy rather than as a place to nurse and feed personal grudges.)
It’s also telling that your use of the word “everyone” seems largely limited to your small circle. I get more than enough positive feedback, from strangers as well as those I know, to know that your statement is wrong. The sad thing is that you, a journalist, don’t even care whether it’s true, so long as it makes for a good insult.
Grow up, Gustavo. Do the job you can do as a responsible adult — not a pre-teen.
District elections could take care of some of that problem.
I agree, Duane could be a beneficiary from “by elections.” But if it’s just “from elections,” as the Pringle Ring plans, the only way he’d win in West Anaheim is if the rest of the city, unfamiliar with him, chose him because he might be the only one running there who doesn’t have a Latino or perhaps Arabic name.
That result would pretty much peg the irony meter for good.
Good tribute, but you leave out what’s gotta be one of our favorite things about Duane – he is an Orange Juice blogger! His body of work (http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/author/duane-roberts/) stretches from 2009 to just last July, and even if me and Greg piss him off sometimes, as far as I know he’s still one of us.
Not sure who wrote the Weekly tribute, but they gave a totally wrong, Gustavo-like picture of him floating high above “two sides” of Anaheim, raining down wrath on both. No, it’s no insult to say he’s firmly and even extremely on one side, and the wrath he rains down is largely on those of HIS side that he feels are too compromised.
Lorri Galloway did tell me last year that Duane was her favorite candidate, as far as his positions and statements. If he can do something about that hysterical speaking style and hyena-like laugh (some kinda meds or meditation?) he may someday succeed electorally under a district system, and be Councilman Roberts, Mayor Roberts!
You piss him off “sometimes”; I piss him off more than that. (And vice versa.) And yet, on most issues, he’s an ally — and as a researcher and writer he’s an especially valuable one.
Vern: Duane’s on the side of truth, which definitely isn’t the side of your beloved Moreno. Don’t forget he trashed you and the Bloviator when you did Moreno’s dirty work by trashing Latino parents, because he sure as hell hasn’t.
yeah yeah whatever. trash trash trash…
in case anyone missed it: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/07/what-was-the-big-deal-about-some-principal-getting-transferred-from-one-anaheim-school-to-another/ The comments section is the best!
From such small seeds of Gustavo’s bullshit do mighty trees of Gustavo’s bullshit grow.
I got to know Duane when he ran at the last council election. I was impressed with his message, but it was painfully obvious that he was not to going to be elected. After the election, I became disappointed with his “uncompromising and pure” approach. He now seems to subscribe to the unfortunate notion that “activists trying to make it (Anaheim) into the latest Selma”.
These activists are the ones trying to reform the electoral system so that one of the outcomes is that people like Duane, without the financial means required in the current system, could be elected.
I have a birthday this week, my middle daughter asked me what I wanted (nothing.), but as I thought about it I said: “Get me an IP scrambler, so I can fuck with Greg Diamond”.
That was a joke, but, I really did say it.
While I completely understand the reasoning (however over the top) the battle for Anaheim, I draw the line at the removal of the Principal, a subject that NOBODY here is intimately involved with and interference in such matters has proved to be incredibly destructive. (Look at Santa Ana). Again, if you would go after the infiltration of the SPECIFIC school by Calvary Chapel or the other group, perhaps your cause would have merit, but on that one you are just meddling and fucking up innocent peoples lives.
See, all I’d need to mess with Nameless is the time and the will to port all of his comments into cold storage.
Yeah, but there is no political UPSIDE to that!
Make NO MISTAKE, I have been relegated to the cold. That’s OK, I’ll pop my head out from time to time with a useless quip and a breathe of warm air.
Funny thing, like a bear in hibernation, nothing REALLY seems to change.
Congratulations Duane, you have drained more Federal Funds as a professional student than any other gadfly in the nation! Did you get a job yet or are you going to continue leaching off taxpayers for the rest of your life to support your bad habit?!
Vern, I vote that we ban this miscreant. Any other votes?
I vote for a three-way cage match with Fiala and Fitzgerald.
Second.
Hola, you silly old queens! Don’t forget to pickup your wigs and toys at the Halloween Club and Circus Books? Everybody knows Greg and Vern dress in drag this time of year. So get busy!
James, since you’re the one on good terms with the Pringle Ring, could you be the one to ask them to denounce you for your bigotry? Thanks.
That’s rather VOC’ish of you Greg.
I say let the miscreants run, just like we do in in Downtown Santa Ana, only our government calls it “vibrant”.
How was the rubber Chicken last night? I came away with a great Solorio andedote.
The vegetarian entree was quite good.
Despite his notoriety, Fitzgerald doesn’t belong in the same category. He still has some insightful and honest things to say — that are unfortunately almost completely lost when he’s indulging his fantasy that walking to the edge of bigotry (in his mind, without quite crossing it) helps his heartfelt causes at all. He just needs to have an epiphany — that his years of howling in the wind are finally starting to pay off in terms of public awareness of local corruption — or at least they will if he doesn’t shoot everyone else’s toes off along with his own — and then to change his approach accordingly.
Fiala, unlike Fitzgerald, isn’t just playing at being a pro wrestling dort of villain. Beneath his vile and bigoted posturing lies true vileness and bigotry. As for that punk Reade, he’s simply neither smart enough nor self-aware enough to be grouped with the others.
Ah, Greg. You misunderstand the value of the cage match!
Once they’re in, they all belong . . .
One big difference is, I think, Fiala and Reade are actually insane. So sometimes it feels pointless to mock them. Reade’s insanity, I sense, is drug-induced; Fiala’s may be as well, going back to a wild life in the 70’s.
“…a wild life in the 70′s”
Like the Festrunk brothers from Bratislava?
And yet Reade seems to be a respected commenter on Cunningham’s pathetic website.
Oh, right…
Greg Diamond tried to molest me while I was seated at the last city council meeting but the nice police officer pulled him away and detained him outside. Thank you for obeying police commands!
Yeah, I concur, this guy’s pretty valueless. Let’s make this the last one, Cunningham can have him.
I didn’t try to molest you, James. Now one might argue that that was only because the gerbil saw you and vomited — but, either way, I neither touched you nor gave you reasonable apprehension of doing so. I was also neither pulled away or detained. You can see it on the video.
(Vern, let me ban the cowardly defamer, pleeeeeeeeease!)
P.S. to James: I’ll be sporting and say what should be obvious. This is a trap and you’re falling into it.
Greg, I already said “I concur, let this be his last one.”
I hope you really don’t think he’s close to “the Pringle Ring.” He’s as embarrassing to them – much more actually – than Fitzgerald is to Tait. But he slavers over all authority, especially female. You should hear him kissing up to LoGal, who is totally against the Pringle Ring.
And he’s always whining that he’s being attacked or molested by somebody, so welcome to the club. And at WORST, it’ll be some kid moving his foot a little hoping James will trip. But there I go making fun of a crazy person again. He’s Reverend Cecil with a dark and damaged soul.
“I hope you really don’t think he’s close to “the Pringle Ring.” He’s as embarrassing to them.”
Really? I haven’t heard any of them disavowing him. I’ve heard a lot about Fitzgerald from them; little or nothing about the guy who is all over Matt Cunningham’s page. That’s a pretty conspicuous absence. No requests for Tait to condemn him from the podium. It’s like his brand of bigotry isn’t a problem for them.
Okay, I see what you’re getting at. Is there or has there been a group of speakers yet, challenging the Giveaway Four to denounce Reade? Sounds like a fun thing to do in between real issues.
It has come up, but not as systematically as it might.
And Fitzgerald, despite all his purposely offensive bluster, does have a real empathy and concern for the downtrodden and minorities and people who get the short end of the stick. He’s been one of the loudest voices insisting the next Anaheim police chief should be a Latino. I guess that’s why I still sometimes hang out with him.
Your right Vern, mocking James Robert Reade is pointless!
Some one recently advised me not to argue with the crazy dude outside the 7-11.