I don’t think that I can improve on this, so here goes:
The caption says: “Dia de Los Muertos dress made from recycled cups, plates, & plastic utensils!” I’ll believe them — and I also suspect that the gentleman is wearing plastic trash bags.
It should be noted that some commenters have expressed doubt that the gleaming white crockery and cutlery in question were actually used for food and drink consumption, and thus may not be appropriately designated “recycled.” I suppose that this would be a good time to review the concept of “too good to check.”
I also suppose that this might have better been saved for next Friday’s installment — but then you wouldn’t have this next week available to create your own versions of this “eat couture”! And anyway, we just couldn’t wait.
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about this or anything else you want within broad bounds of decorum and decency. The next Dearthwatch will probably come out next week unless someone else wants to step up and do it. Have a Happy Pre-Halloween week!
About Greg Diamond
Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too.
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)
His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)
For Matt Cunningham:
My reply to your piece lauding the Bigoted Buttkicker for her bigotry can be found somewhere in the following video. Watch it attentively through to the end.
By the way — why is the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce paying you to publish a piece attacking a politician on the transgender issue? And what does Councilmember Brandman think about that?
The moralizing is pretty bad, but when he starts jabbering about intellectual honesty you know the whole thing is meant as parody.
‘Tis not parody.
(THAT, though, was parody.)
Well played!
note to self: never even think of locking horns with Greg, he remembers every butt….and butthead
No, no. You must be wrong!
Here’s an actual dollop from his Holiness:
“I am sure there are people of goodwill who support “marriage equality” but are shocked and dismayed by this bill and its implications. They shouldn’t be. When a human institution as ancient and basic as marriage can be quickly re-defined into something it has never been, it isn’t a big step to legislatively obliterate the distinction between boys and girls.”
My God! That is hilarious! Brilliant! The only bit missing was people marrying their dogs!
Haysu Christo! Whatrewe gonna do with all those extra urinals!
Today you object to segregating boys and girls, tomorrow you’ll want to breed sharks with bonobos.
Then you won’t be laughing so much, would you?
I thought it was horses.
“… it isn’t a big step to legislatively obliterate the distinction between boys and girls.”
Matt thinks that this is a penis-elimination law? Well, no wonder he’s upset!
Ummm, Dumb asses.
Greg was trying to promote Dia de Los Muertos in Santa Ana and Art Walk at Studio Del Sotano in the Santora Building. Pull your heads out Pronto!
Absolutely! Everyone except me should go to Dia de Los Muertos in Santa Ana and Art Walk at Studio Del Sotano in the Santora Building this afternoon at 4:30! (I have to work this afternoon and evening and tomorrow because blogging ate up too much time this week.)
That’s not Alicia is it? In the pic with all that muerto bling?
I highly doubt it.
Greg are you making jokes about Occupy Santa Ana Anniversary Photo being Dia De Los muertos?
Because Dia De los Muertos and Artwalk are next weekend. Get some rest.
Uhhhh — I took your comment to mean otherwise. OK.
Greg, I am expecting you and Vern to join us in Santa Ana at 4:30. You got the Memo.
during high school, there were many times when i found myself in the woman’s bathroom or locker room…good thing i had an escort
Good news! Under this new law, you’d still be hauled off to juvie (or whatever), because you wouldn’t have been formally evaluated as legitimate having a female gender identity, which under this law is not the sort of thing that you get to claim comes and goes fleetingly and at will.
So you’d still face harsh consequences for your peeping tomism. It would be more like “The Wicker Man” than “White Chicks.”
yes, they would come and then they would go (i am so sorry, but i just could not resist that sweet softball of a pitch)
Over at the Voice, our own Big Box has been having a really good debate with Beelzebub on the topic of district elections. 1, I don’t know why Beelzebub never comments here – and I would know if he did, no matter what name he used. 2. I get the feeling Big Box is less intimidated over there; maybe he thinks we’d all beat him up for not being pro-districting. But they both make very interesting and good points, and they should be over here, where people will read them. Here’s a bit of both:
Beelzebub: Good. For years the leaders of Anaheim have promoted the cheap labor and all those $5 mow and trim specials. And they got exactly what they ordered. Slave labor. But now when all that cheap labor wants some political representation the city council wants to disenfranchise 54% of their population. heh. Sorry, boys and girls. It doesn’t work that way. You made your bed. Go lay in it. In fact, I hope latinos take over your entire city government. I do. I look forward to the day when there are 5 brown faces on your city council. That’ll learn ya! 🙂
and later:
When I was a kid and I wanted to cut your grass for $8 you told me that Jose does it for $5. I said “Fine. Let Jose do it. I don’t work that cheap.”
Now Jose’s children have grown up and want some political representation. And you tell them to go pound sand. Good luck with that in America. The wicked witch of the east is about to get a bucket of water dumped on her. 🙂
Big Box: “Good…..That’l learn ya”. Oh, will it?
The rationale for changing electoral systems is supposed to be reform, not revenge, and the tone of your reply, besides being couched in stereotypes that those concerned would or should object to, were it not politically inconvenient, puts it firmly, like the lawsuit, with the latter. The major flaw in the “districting as panacea” argument, is that division and polarization in Anaheim is socioeconomic, not geographic, and districts are only a geographic solution, which makes little if any difference to well heeled political technicians, who can just as easily write several small checks as one large one. What is unarguably lost by ALL is voting control, with reduction to a single ballot. There are systems that avoid both this problem, and the socioeconomic vs geographic problem, without sacrificing ballot control, such as cumulative voting or ranked choice, but they have no “magic pill’ advertising, they require thought and work on the part of the electorate and were all but ignored by the “Citizens Commission” who, while they might have received some slight education from the few ‘experts’brought in, did NOTHING to develop objective criteria for RATING the various methods and therefore NOTHING to score them, and basicly settled for opinion collection of the ones they were appointed for bringing in the door with them. Watch the videos.The lawsuit settlement will make demographers, cartographers, (and certainly lawyers and the ACLU) rich, and Anaheim voters financially and politically poorer. And by the way, all my life, I have washed my own dishes and cut my own grass.
Beelzebub:
BBRW, I think you’re missing the point here. The argument is that Anaheim’s leadership has gone to extreme measures to disenfranchise 54% of the city’s population the majority of whom belong to the lower socioeconomic class. If you question that take the time to drive through Anaheim’s poor neighborhoods and observe who lives there. Then drive through the rich neighborhoods and observe who lives there. If you can’t draw a logical conclusion from that experience I can’t help you.
The local electoral system in Anaheim has been gamed to benefit the wealthy and upper class tier. This is not happenstance. It was designed that way. And most of the current white city council members are fighting tooth and nail to keep it that way. Fighting rightful change that would grant more political power to the underclass who certainly deserve it since they account for a large percent of Anaheim’s population.
I view this similarly to the old southern system that kept the poor folk down. It’s insidious and it’s the antithesis of what America is supposed to stand for. And for it to continue in 2013 is despicable and should be viewed with scorn.
And my previous comments were absolutely true – despite your attempt to divert my point. White Anaheim leaders attracted cheap latino labor into their city to benefit business. And they turned a blind eye to whether the labor was legal or illegal. And after years of engaging in this practice the latino population grew enormously, today accounting for more than half of the city’s residents. Yet there’s not even one latino on the Anaheim council. Why? Because the way the current system is designed it’s discouraged. Oh, I don’t believe there’s one council member from the lower socioeconomic class either. Do you know of one who was raised on the poor side of town?
“Political technicians” writing checks is a completely different matter. That’s another topic of discussion that needs to be addressed. But here we are basically discussing the disenfranchisement of 54% of Anaheim’s residents. And any which way you chalk it up, that’s wrong. It was wrong in Biloxi, Mississippi. And it’s wrong in Anaheim, California.
Big Box: Anaheim needs at least 3 (or whatever majority number with expanded dias) without ties to special interest funds, or the courage to vote beyond that, financial literacy, and critical thinking skills. The fallacy that they be all brown is as bad as if they be all white, or any combination in between. that should be a demographic coincidence, not a mandate. I believe that the ‘district as panacea’ advocates ,in grabbing at a solution with an easy implementation path (lawsuit with precedence vs building political skills and organization in their ‘constituency’), before thoroughly exploring ALL possible solutions AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES, are/will be forcing the whole city to learn a painful lesson that sacrificing MOST of their voting power is TOO HIGH a price to pay for a (marginally effective, at best) solution. Otherwise, where is the clear and convincing statistics to show that districting improves access and representation where it already exists? LA? The County BOS? The Legislature? The popular justification is bandwagon – “We are the only one of our size, etc. without it, so that must be our solution” The picture is FURTHER clouded by COMBINING dias size increase (talked about for decades) with districting, making it impossible to fairly attribute any success to the correct element. The present degree of socioeconomic power concentration rankles me as much or more than anyone, and the need for change is undeniable. But the small chance of reversal of an uncertain solution, if found wanting once imposed and the excess of those clamoring for Districting over those examining Districting, will be of little help when it is reduced to a YES /NO ballot question.
This MOSH PIT is a better place for continuing this debate, better than the staid pages of the distinguished Voice. Go….
I had the observation, that BBRW was not comfortable discussing his concerns about district elections here. Somehow we had this discussion before, when BBRW was posting as LV, and it is legitimate to maintain and express our differences. I still think that in an abstract, ideal situation, BBRW is right. However, in today’s circumstances, geographical, economics, the inadequate level of information/organization of many voters, plus the distorting influence of money in elections make necessary to try the district option, which is not a panacea but hopefully will level up the playing field.
I enjoy BzB’s VoC posts, and agree that his voice would be welcome here, as well as VoC (I would bet most OJB fans are also VoC fans?) I wasn’t saving my districting opinions for there, it just came up there. I might have already compared my response to “Districting” to the Abbot & Costello routine about ‘Niagara Falls’ ! Perhaps oversensitive since I live in Anaheim, I usually hope to bring more light than heat ,not always succeed. Have been fairly quiet here while studying something I ignored all my life- Baseball (and its finances!) Hope to have more to say/share about that soon, meanwhile for some interesting schadenfreude, Google ‘Miami Marlins Stadium’ – Has to be the poster child for crony capitalism welfare fiascos! I hope it keeps top spot for that award!
And if you’re not up to digging thru Google results, here’s a good, LONG article that touches on most of the high points-
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1207165/1/index.htm
Uh. oh- getting a craving for beer, hotdogs, and popcorn- hope I’m not turning into ……A SPORTS FAN! Nyah, enough beer and that will go away – Cheers!
And while I think of it, do we have any posters from the Lake Forest area, with more to share about the back story on the Herzog resignation? The VoC article wet my appetite for more info, but it’s all news to me!
Cool stuff you’re posting tonight.
We tend to be somewhat underrepresented from South OC, although that has not always been the case here. The Pot Stirrer (Geoff West) has been covering it at A Bubbling Cauldron, but I’d think that Irvine is close enough that one of our Irvine writers might be interested in writing about it.
Costa Mesa may be south of you, but it is not South OC.
Whatever happened to my old pal Larry Gilbert?
Larry left because I wrote a piece called “Fuck September 11” on the big ten-year anniversary of the
sacred eventattack.Lost a few friends with that piece, sigh… but it had to be written…. http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2011/09/fk-september-11/
Yeah, when me and Quirk-Silva were discussing Poseidon she repeatedly referred to HB as “south county.” Silly provincial northerners…
I mentioned Costa Mesa simply because Geoff West’s “A Bubbling Cauldron” is the only blog that I’ve seen covering it, despite its stated domain being Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. I don’t really consider Irvine to be South County either; that’s how tough I am!
Speaking of 9-11, I just spotted this, if of any interest-
http://news.yahoo.com/banksy-nytimes-op-ed-one-world-trade-162728695.html
BTW if ‘Banksy’ sounds familiar, the “Sirens of the Lambs” in the video back a while, was his creation.
OOPS! That WAS the Long article, but not the long article about the political and financing cons. THIS one covers the financing/politics/lies-
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2011-05-05/news/six-lies-about-the-marlins-stadium/
Hope you enjoy(?) both. (Not if you live in Miami!)
I like the VOC, and BzB’s comments overall. If one has the time, it is good to comments on different avenues, and the VOC is a good one. Somehow blogs allow us to discuss issues at a different pace and comfort level. At the OJB we tend to coalesce around ground common grounds in spite of our differences.
The exception so far is the absence of Demagogue, whose point of views I miss and I hope he comes back. I have not seen any Subcomandante Stanley comments lately at the VOC, has he been banned there as well?
No. You are wrong. It was a good deal for Miami! It’s called “the business of baseball.”
I’m sure you are leaving out all the wonderful intangibles – like civic pride and visitors coming in from the Everglades to watch a game.
If you don’t believe me talk to the expert – Dan C. He knows all about it.
BzB sure seems to know a lot about County government – real inside stuff. And he’s right about 99% of the time.
Howdy! Still excavating Google, and I stumbled across this- might be educational /interesting? I realize its from an Intergovernmental org., so may have a bias, but looks good as intro(?)
Anyway, FWIW-
http://www.californiacityfinance.com/FinancePrimer05.pdf
I am pretty sure Beezlebub has popped up here way back when…(people were not vilified for clever names). But if he were to post today, perhaps he would go by……….
Johnny Gomes!
Go Figure.
Probably exceeded my limit for posts this WOT, but once again, YouTube dropped something in my lap I thought might be appreciated, perhaps re last weeks abundant ear-flicking and nose tweaking, which hopefully STAYS in the rearview mirror! (?) and the point he makes is also why I like it here at OJB!
Nice – John Cleese, whom I just consider to be the best person in the world.
I heard tell of how he won an award once for the best humorist in Britain, or something – a big glass trophy – and he held it in his hands fondly, and said, “Thank you so much for this award … but I don’t really need it.” And let it fall on the ground where it smashed to smithereens.
Not sure if that was before or after he launched into the “Dead Parrot” soliloquy at Graham Chapman’s funeral.
Excellent! Playing this clip before certain political audiences, of course, could probably get one killed.
Does this relate to ‘Dearthwatch’? Sounds significant but I’m not cognizant enough (sounds better than ‘clueless’!)-
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-gone-dark-search-giant-142955454.html
It would only affect the Dearthwatch if it affects Alexa.com. I don’t know whether it does.
I assume open thread means say anything…..(Don’t worry Diamond, your safe).
For Junior, I heard that RSM’s victory over the Monarch’s was third topic following the Trinity League changes and……….Mater Dei wanting to change the field emblem on the fifty yard line and being shaken down by the city for such at Eddie West. According to my guy, in a hilarious quip, one city official quipped: “We could always use it for soccer”.
That made me think of you and your friends.
In other HS Sports news, I am headed over to Foothill to watch Wildcats (Brea) vs. Knights (Foothill) in Volleyball. I have a niece playing. But, mostly I wanted to hear the news (rumor) of the accused teacher backing out of the plea agreement set for tomorrow. That’s the one that caused so much excitement around here last summer.
Maybe she was innocent, that’s why it went all the way to pre-trial…..Fucking Tony R. wasting our tax dollars.