.
(by Vern Nelson, editor, and Greg Diamond, associate editor.)
Appropriately enough, to honor our years of comments, almost no one around here will have any idea what this means.
July 2012 was the best month that Orange Juice Blog has had since the 2010 election (and its purchase by Vern from blog founder Art Pedroza.)
The week ending August 5 was the first one we’ve had during that time in which all seven days of the week had over 2000 page views; it was also the best week of the year that didn’t involve goosing them along with the “Willis Maneuver.” [That is, advertising stories on Craigslist with titles making them seem racier than they are.]
Today, August 12, 2012, was the day that we had our 100,000 comment (which was … this one from skallywag!) Comments do NOT come more pithy than that one – three simple words, “That is false.” One could barely hope for a better and more fitting distillation of OJB commentary. Thank you, Skallywag! (Although actually, it was true.)
Some time during the next few weeks, we are likely to celebrate another big website milestone — like the previous one, a “career achievement” that we are happy to share with the prodigal Pedroza — but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
We have also gone 15 days without an industrial accident, and longer than that without a sexual indiscretion.
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This morning editor Vern shared a cup of virtual coffee with departed blog founder Pedroza and departed, prolific contributor Larry Gilbert to discuss what they were most proud of accomplishing with the Orange Juice Blog. Some answers:
- The Santa Ana Unified School District Corruption thread (still going, minus “corruption” in the title) which has been an invaluable resource to teachers and staff in the district who have needed to whistleblow, share info, and just get things off their chest these last 6-7 years.
- Pedroza is proud of having helped get Carlos Bustamante “off of two commissions” even while we sounded the alarm about his over-the-top work behavior for YEARS before it finally sunk in to the lizard brain of the Supes and T-Rack.
- Pedroza is also proud of “having exposed the hypocrisy of Matt ‘Jubal’ Cunningham,” former Republican blogger who has been shamed into behind-the-scenes “consulting.” I say our pal Bushala deserves credit for the coup-de-gras on that – the exposure of Matt’s making bank on shilling for the liberal First Five Commission he had railed against as a “conservative blogger.”
- Speaking of Bushala, we were proud to be the junior partners, as cross-posters, of everything he’s accomplished in recent years in beautiful, tempestuous Fullerton.
- Larry Gilbert SHOULD be proud of recalling some really wasteful “RINOs” off his city’s council, but what he says he’s most proud of is exposing the GIGANTIC WASTE OF MONEY Mission Viejo spent a few years ago on their Rose Bowl Float, and shaming them – and other OC cities – into doing all their Rose Bowl Floats with volunteer labor and donations!
- Vern is most proud of all the following: Helping to stop the theft of the OC Fairgrounds by Schwarzenegger cronies and its sale to developers;
- Helping to recall the madcaps who were running the Capistrano Unified School Board two years ago and replace them with a bipartisan group of sane trustees;
- Helping to drive out Public Administrator/Guardian John Williams out of office WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE was ignoring his waste, cronyism and incompetence; and keeping the energy going until the equally culpable CEO Tom Mauk was gone.
- And we’re PRE-PROUD of keeping toll lanes off the 405, and everything we are GOING to help accomplish in Anaheim! ADELANTE!!!
Oh, and this just happens to be Pedroza’s birthday. As much as the guy pisses all of us off sometimes, this blog would not exist if not for him, so we gotta all say, as though to a half-mad grandpa, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ART PEDROZA!
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To the rest of you, Greg says: “Thank you for your readership. You make blogging fun.”
Vern is too pre-occupied to say anything right now. Oh. He says “Hi.” And he’s not pre-occupied, he is “verklempt.” But he doesn’t look that way.
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Nevertheless, as always, not everyone will be impressed with our accomplishments.
McKayla is not impressed with the warlocks of Qarth: "When you play the game of Orange County politics, you blog or you die."
We also welcome back to our Olympians, Aliso Viejo gymnasts or not, who have also had some recent accomplishments worth celebrating.
That is false!
(No, sorry — just had to say it.)
I can’t lay claim to much scandal-revealing in the less than a year I’ve been here, but I will say this: I love our comments section. With relatively few exceptions, we’ve got people here from across the political spectrum who can and usually do engage with one another substantively in a way that is worth reading. I benefit from reading and engaging with the comments of those to my right (skally, cook, the ‘Ships, TJlocalSA, Ryan Cantor, the Potstirrer on some issues, etc.) and to my left or whatever direction libertarian is (Duane Roberts, John Earl, GSR, the Jekyll-and-Hyde-like Double Eye, on some issues anon) as well as those with whom I generally agree (Anonster, Demagogue, Inge, anon the rest of the time, noclib1, Gericault, Don McCanne, that Vern guy, etc.) It’s really a strong group of writers on all sides.
If I have one disappointment in comments, it’s with the lack of female and minority voices here; that’s true of the political blogosphere as a whole, though. I hope that we will eventually improve in that respect.
We don’t have a whole lot of slander and insult remaining in our comments (although some conflict is inevitable in dealing with heated topics); more critically, we have an extremely small amount of “loud but dumb.” Among basically unmoderated blog commentary that spans the ideological spectrum, that’s pretty much unheard of. Look at the Register, look at the OC Weekly — look, for that matter, at the purely bloggy FFFF and even the staid Liberal OC — and compare their comments sections to ours. It’s night and day.
The nastiness and contentiousness kept me out of the OC political blogosphere for years. I’m still willing to fight when I have to, usually elsewhere — and I try to keep my cool and sense of humor when I do — but I’m happy that I rarely have to do so here. (And, before anyone else says so — yes, I can sometimes be an instigator when I think it’s warranted.)
That general comity in comments is not my personal contribution, obviously, but as a commenter and sub-editor I’ve tried to work towards it — and as someone with sweat equity in this blog, it’s one of the things of which I’m most proud. On to 200,000!
(Oh — and Happy Birthday, Art! Props to you for starting this ball rolling.)
greg,
regarding your major disappointment, how do you know that i am not a female minority who, like condi rice, has seen the light and gone over to the side of goodness and justice
You’ll note that I omitted your name from any list, willie. I recognize that you’re unclassifiable!
Aren’t you supposed to be at some ice cream social? You’re not being one of those people who slips off from the crowd to get back to your real life online (like me) I hope!
I’m going late, because I have to go from there to Rowland Heights to the health care thing. I’ve been doing law work in between posts. Taking off in a couple of minutes!
that is what my wife says
*Happy Birthday Art…….we still love you man!
*Chairman Vern;
Madagascar
http://www.timehall.com/distance/from_P2a6e
Distance from Ambalavao, Madagascar to other cities in kilometers, miles and … Madagascar – Ambatofinandrahana, Fri 21:34, 142 km, 88 miles, 77 nm, 354° N …
100,000th comment – I am honored.
Is there a prize? A gift certificate to Chick-Fil-A perhaps.
I vote for an honorary membership in The Atlas Society.
I shrug.
After all of your preaching on the virtues of individualism, you now want a free hand out ?
Get your own you rotten commie.
Yes, Chick-fil-A, sure — but while you’re there you have to kiss a man passionately for our story on it!
Quotations from Chairman Mao, becoming commonly known in the West as The Little Red Book. It is one of the most printed books in history @ over a billion.
So I will take notice when you get close to that.
This should not be interpreted as a comeback!…. but news and it shouldn’t be printed
You can celebrate one more event because Pedroza is essentially bipolar psychopath and any relationship with him cant last more than 6 month — he can’t handle the truth.
I have quit.
Today he erased my proof based on which I and Pulido (the good old days) have constructed proposition D “On ethics” and Alvarez used it to append her term limits.
Here is the truth:
http://ocsatire.com/council/petition1.pdf
http://ocsatire.com/council/petition2.pdf
You’re just NOW figuring out that Art Pedroza is morally bankrupt?
That says a lot about your judgement of character.
The Exile is Fiala, you know ….. judgement certainly does not aopply – as for character …. eh?
Congrats! This is the blog to see for news and commentary! Thank you for all you do.
No mention of all the people Pedroza libeled here over the years, the hundreds of deleted posts, or the lawsuit thing it’s like it never happened if it was deleted. Is the comment count based on where you are today or what it would have been if Pedroza and Mills comments and posts were still here? Sarah Michelle took all her posts too. Lame. Congrats on your lack of ethics.
Yeah, yeah, everyone knows all that. This doesn’t seem like the time or place. Maybe the Liberal OC or Red County can do an expose.
Hey “DICK” !!
I got news for you “dick” – ethics returned to this blog in a big way when Pedroza was shown the door and Vern took over.
I should know.
Hell Freezes OVER!!!
skallywag and I finally agree on something.
Congrats on the good numbers!
There’s nothing wrong with our being gracious in a celebration — partial credit where it’s due — but I’m glad for you to have had your say.
Yes, the figure includes only non-deleted comments; same thing for our total of posts.
Keep it up! The true voice of the media.
You guys are awesome
ET Snell
Clown Community Activist