Yes, we came first, damn it. I shoulda done this post on July 11, but the time she slips away. Yes, 7-11 was the ten-year anniversary of this august and scabrous blog. As far as I can tell anyway, Art Pedroza‘s first 
published Orange Juice post was THIS one on July 11, 2003. The perpetually infuriating Pedroza (no, no, I will stay positive throughout this celebratory post) was still a Republican activist back then, tapped with the impossible task of making the OCGOP more welcoming to Latinos.
As much as we deride Art for his seemingly convenient about-faces through the decade, this first post of his shows two themes he’s never or rarely deviated from – a hostility to unions, particularly Project Labor Agreements, and a sticking up for Latinos against the nonstop Republican onslaughts – in this post, referring to Newport Beach councilman Dick Nichols’ notorious complaint that Mexicans were taking up too much grass in his town. (The post also shows Art’s love of facile labeling of people – here, “pro-business” and “anti-business,” and quite appropriately it includes CURT PRINGLE, whom we’ll be picking on later this week.)
This maiden OJ post came several months before the now-immeasurably discredited Matt “Jubal” Cunningham launched his Republican-centered OC Blog (which became “Red County,” which died last year.) AND about three years before the now-departed, reputed nice-guy, and execrable cartoonist Mike Lawson started the Liberal OC (still going “strong.”) Those were the three biggies of the OC Blogosphere this past decade.
What memories, huh? No? Let me jog them.
Sean Mill, Thomas Gordon, and Claudio Gallegos.
Remember these three Santa Ana characters? When I first discovered this blog around 2005 or 6, it was mainly them and Art. I loved that they were all so different politically, but equally feisty, sticking it to the man in Santa Ana and the OC, or at least it seemed that way. Claudio particularly had developed a body of work showing the anti-Latino racism in Costa Mesa, from then-mayor Allan Mansoor, his mentor the unabashed white supremacist Martin Millard, and their “Costa Mesa Improvers.” All the hundreds of posts of Mill, Gordon, and Gallegos have been vanished though (or I would link to them) in a recurring pattern – either a fit of pique or in Mill’s case political self-protection. Every time one of these guys deletes all their posts, I protest loudly feeling that we’re losing a bit more OC history. But who listens to me.
Larry Gilbert, and the Winships!
Remember Juice-Brother Larry? Cranky but likeable (when you met him) old Republican warrior against eminent domain? At least his body of work here is still available – 1420 damn posts, from 2006 until he left in disgust when I wrote my piece “Fuck September 11” on the tenth anniversary of that horrible attack. (Ah, that one pissed a lotta people off.) You don’t NEED to remember the odd, quaint Winships, the Corona Del Mar old-school Republican couple who also joined the blog in aught-six (here’s their 601 posts) – they are still with us, and good-naturedly affording us the periodic opportunity to “Comment Like the Winships!“
Sarah Spinosa and me!
If you can remember way back to 2008 – can you? Art’s webmaster and main co-blogger was the erratic “centrist” Sarah Michelle Spinosa, with her severe hard-on for the OC Weekly‘s Commie Girl. Her big body of work is also vanished, as with her inevitable blow-up with Art, she moved it to her own Centrist OC, which looks to be not so active now.
But that was the landscape when I joined, having first gotten Art’s and Claudio’s attention by fighting with them over whether it was appropriate to protest Loretta Sanchez over her continuing funding of the war in Iraq, and then fighting with Sarah over the chances of Debbie Cook to beat Dana Rohrabacher for Congress. It seemed like Blog Wars between us and Liberal OC and Red County were all the rage those days, so I contributed as best I could, by insulting EVERYBODY in “Can’t We All Just Get Along” and “What it takes to be a Blogger in the OC.”
Red Vixen and Terry Crowley!
As you all know I spent a lot of 2009 incarcerated, but while I was out and through a lot of early 2010, two dominating voices on the blog were: the anonymous Red Vixen – whom I still have never met or identified, and allegedly neither has Art (and pictured to the left as I still picture her) – and an old Republican friend of Art’s, Terry Crowley. My bestest ally, and my despicable nemesis! I miss ’em both. Remember Red and Terry?
Me and Red used to kick ass tag-teaming haters in the comment sections. And Terry, if you’ll remember, took a ferocious interest in me, repeatedly using the old 80’s routine “Hey Vern!” as an intro to demolish (in his mind) my liberal blather. He took a special and very dishonest interest in the destruction of ACORN that was going on then; he had an eccentric litany of names he’d call us liberals – “coffee filters,” “heavy breathers,” “carpet-munchers,” – and he was sure Obamacare would be defeated, the non-fact of which we rubbed in his face with “Remembering Terry Crowley.” Finally he made the mistake of jumping on the anti-immigrant bandwagon by creating a new “Raza Blanca” character, and me and Art both agreed to give him the heave-ho.
But damn, I miss Red Vixen. She was funny, and right on. And supposedly, a former Republican even. And on this blog from mid-2008 until the Liberal OC’s Dan C’s stalking drove her off.
Lawsuit, turnover to Vern
Putting it gently.. a lot of stuff Art and Sean wrote around aught-7, 8, 9, pissed off a lot of people and hurt a lot of feelings. So I think, when there developed a tug-of-war over some URL’s, and Art mischievously linked some of his enemies up to NAMBLA and hemorrhoid sites, his rivals at Liberal OC screamed like he was some pederast, sued him, and won (when he inexplicably refused to defend himself.) Very short version. This led to him selling YOURS TRULY this blog for TWO DOLLARS.
So since then … well, two years ago is not so much nostalgic. Unless you were part of the Occupy Orange County crowd like me and my new colleagues Greg Diamond and Inge. (Sorry all you other valued contributors to the blog, I’m only mentioning folks who have done over 100 posts.) We still like to think we are, and strive for, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, as Gustavo and everyone around here says these days, but WE SAID IT FIRST! In the OC, at least…
Has it only been 10 years? Sometimes it feels like 20! 😉
I stumbled upon Art’s blog not too long after he began posting and have watched it morph over the years, through all the in-fighting and the rancorous lawsuit with hundreds of comments posted on some entries, through the transition to Vern’s leadership.
I was a “loyal” reader – at least I visited it daily, sometimes more – until Vern’s ill-advised rant about 9/11/01. Since then I check the headlines and will read a piece if sufficiently provoked.
I think the OJ Blog, through all the various permutations, still provides a valuable forum and congratulate you all for continuing the tradition of controversy and for being OC’s “mosh pit”…
Congrats and thanks for your advocacy vis-a-vis the mom’s who have experienced the most horrific of tragedies.
Red Vixen was a douchebag liar.
Vern, just as you took over I took a sabbatical from the blogorama. It just seemed too crazy, constipated and self-serving.
Here’s one free opinion based on observation: blogs and bloggers that act as vehicles for political parties serve almost no useful purpose.
P.S. I liked Red Vixen.
I love Diamond, and i know I’m talking right in front of him, but I think that too often his first instinct is to make excuses for a Democratic elected. And I don’t think that should be the job of any journalist or blogger.
Ahhhmmm, how quick have I been to make excuses for duly registered Democrats Solorio, Daly, Correa, Brandman, Pulido, and others?
I’ll explain why I think that a Democrat elected is taking particular decision that I don’t like when it’s a fundamentally good Democrat — one who is trying to do their best to serve the public (rather than themselves) while staying elected in the most powerful politically hostile county in the country.
Where I differ from most of the commenters who are complaining is that I feel no need to prove my moral superiority to electeds in terms of my maintaining political consistency even at the cost — which for the good ones is a cost to the public more than a personal cost — of retaining office. It’s very easy to be part of a party or faction that never wins a goddamned thing. I don’t consider that sort of smug contemptuousness of the politically marginal to be morally superior at all. But that’s a big part of the OC political ethos — mostly because it’s easy.
Dark enough for you in this celebratory post?
Sorry for sloshing Grade A Poseidon effluvia into another thread, but…
Quirk’s opposition to something a lot of her core supporters abhor would have have cost her nothing at the polls.
From this we may infer:
1) She really likes the desal plan; or
2) She got some sort of promise of something or other and didn’t think anybody was watching; or
3) She didn’t have a damn clue what she was doing.
My guess is that it’s number three.
I do like the idea of politicians wearing some sort of political GPS device, but it would need to be capable of emitting a mild electrical shock.
“It’s very easy to be part of a party or faction that never wins a goddamned thing.”
That is incorrect.
“Quirk’s opposition to something a lot of her core supporters abhor would have have cost her nothing at the polls.”
That is incorrect. I think I’ve already explained why: “Jobs.”
“It’s very easy to be part of a party or faction that never wins a goddamned thing.”
You say it’s incorrect; I will explain what I mean.
I’m not saying that third party advocates (of which I have been one at times) do not work valiantly and hard. Many do. However, when you eliminate the goal of actually putting better people in office, as opposed to “getting a vote exceeding the margin between the first and second-place candidates” or “getting 5% of the vote” or “getting 10%!!!”, you simplify your life greatly. And — and this is why I’m part of a reform major party faction rather than a third party — you’re often doing something that the worst political players are gleefully thankful to see you do so. (Hence, you may recall, major contributions from Republican donors to the Green Party a few years ago.)
You (that’s a generalized “you”) can maintain your belief in the utility of this approach by embracing the fiction that “there is no difference between the major party candidates.” Sometimes you’d have a point; Solorio-Nguyen will (if it happens) be a tough call in various respects, as many people found Correa-Kring and Brandman-Leos or Daly-JoJo Moreno. (Vern might see some or all of those as easy calls for the Republicans.) But sometimes you’d really have to stretch to hold that view. In the likely race between Quirk-Silva v. Young Lee, the Royce spawn, you’d have to dislocate most of your vertabrae to see no difference between them — even if Sharon completely supports Poseidon, which I don’t consider a foregone conclusion. When a Liz Warren or an Al Franken or even a simply Dem-caucus-affiliated Bernie Sanders screws up, it makes the job of the third-party advocate that much easier. Way too easy, in fact.
It’s the gleeful desire to take a single issue (or even a handful of them) and trash someone basically good (and, opposite of Daly, as progressive as one could get from their district) that I find self-indulgent and repugnant. And I have expressed my concerns about Poseidon to Sharon (through an intermediary or two) — both on the merits and the politics — over the past 24 hours. (Can anyone else here say that?)
So Zenger, what makes you suddenly so comfortable again, commenting under your own name? Does this mean I won’t be running into you at Supervisor meetings any more?
So it’s really all about party politics and party apologia.
Apparently Quirk’s problems start when she doesn’t have the marching orders from the Speaker’s office. And that’s pretty sad.
Vern, I just couldn’t resist the Quirk post from yesterday that somebody referred me to.
No you will not be seeing me at the Hall of Admin. Not just yet, anyway.
I believe that you just reduced my comment to:
“So it’s really all about party politics and party apologia.”
Can you read? Try again.
I just feel it’s UNSEEMLY for us, when a politician we like does something bad, to do any more or less than unequivocally condemn it …. and then maybe contact them to make sure they know.
They have paid staff to make excuses for them, and alas, we do not share in that lucre, friend.
“They have paid staff to make excuses for them, and alas, we do not share in that lucre, friend.”
Precisely. Once you start spinning for them you’ll never stop and you’ll end up being a worn out tool.
Do you really consider the question “why did Sharon Quirk-Silva sign that pro-Poseidon letter?” to be un-newsworthy?
“Why did this happen?” “What could we have reasonably done to prevent it?” “!hat could we do now to control or reverse the damage?” Those are about the only really useful questions to address. Most people here skip right to the last of those questions and presume that the answer is “oh, let’s trumpet our moral superiority to her” — which is more self-indulgent than helpful. One might even call it unseemly.
If you think that SQS is the moral equivalent of a Solorio or a Daly, then you might as well skip right to that step — but bear in mind that it is declaring defeat. If — as I do — you think that she isn’t in that category, then while it makes all of the critics feel warm and fuzzy inside it’s worse than pointless.
If she signed that letter because Labor convinced her that Poseidon was a reasonable step to take to provide medium-term construction jobs while providing a decent — not flawless, but decent (which in my opinion is far too mild a criticism of it) — source of water to the country, then does it deserve “unequivocal” condemnation?
And you say “yes it does.”
And I say well, do you have all of your arguments ready, at the tip of your tongue or fingertips, to rebut it? What would you say to Sharon on the merits of the issue in 50 words or less? What links to actual facts would you send her right now? If you can’t do a good job of both, you’re not prepared to do battle.
Go back and look (I forget whether it was here or on Facebook) to pretty much the first thing I said when I read about this: we have to marshal our facts and our arguments. How many volunteers are coming forward to help us with THAT?
Name-calling alone is easy and cheap. What would Gus Ayer do in this situation? It would be a hell of a lot more than that.
David, I think that if you’re going to throw out that sort of accusation you should know a hell of a lot more about me than you seem to.
Sharon shouldn’t have signed that letter. How’m I spinning now, bro?
I now know all about you. I am not your “bro.”
If you know all about me, then you know that I don’t give a damn.
This maiden OJ post came several months before the now-immeasurably discredited Matt “Jubal” Cunningham launched his Republican-centered OC Blog (which became “Red County,” which died last year.)
Allow me to provide your readers with a truthful history of OJ’s origin: back in 2003, OJ was an e-newsletter that Art sent out on a semi-regular basis. He mostly covered inside campaign tidbits regarding central OC, and archived his e-newsletter on Blogspot. I had never even heard of it until I was getting ready to launch OC Blog in June 2004, and by that time Orange Juice was dormant.
Orange Juice was not a true blogging endeavor — i.e. a persistent, continually update blog rather than a newsletter archive — until Art revived it in 2005. He was inspired, by his own admission, by the monstrous growth and popularity of OC Blog, the influence of which OJ has never come close to matching (that’s a simple statement of truth, not boastfulness).
I often promoted OJ on OC Blog; my belief was there were enough eyeballs to go around and a robust OC blogosphere was in everyone’s interest. Soon enough. Pedroza’s twisted personality and pathological need to be the center of attention manifested itself and he returned the favor by instigated his stupid blog wars (which I too often reciprocated) and launching his special brand of personal attacks. Pedroza decided his blog could only grow by tearing down other blogs, and he permanently poisoned the atmosphere of an OC blogosphere that had been characterized more by friendly, cooperative competition.
Whatever good points OJ has ever had, the fact remains there was no OC political blogosphere before OC Blog created it. OC Blog was, in every real sense that matters, Orange County’s first political blog. The truth is Orange Juice followed in OC Blog’s wake.
Ok… Now we sit and wait for Art (who’s just driving back from vacation) to argue with all that! 🙂
Fortunately for the rest of us (and unfortunately for Art and Matt), we couldn’t care less who was the first.
Forgive my enjoying the idea that the blog I own came first in this County, before Cunningham’s monstrosity, Just think of me as a big hairy ape banging my chest with a giant orange 10 in front of me.
Could you get Greg to Photoshop a Fedora onto the ape?
It would make it easier for us knuckle draggers to identify you.
Congrats, Vern….. Party like a ten year old!
YOU….. rubber sticks to glue, I’m glad I’m not like you!
I know you are.
Did Pedroza take his family to San Pedro for vacation again. Or the pricey timeshare he has in Carlsbad? When are you guys going to stop using the old photo of him. He is 120 lbs heavier today with several chins. But still smaller than Sean mill.
OK, get us a current photo. No, I mean a real current photo.
I agree with Matt in some respects here. To paraphrase Obama, I’m not against all blog wars, I’m against stupid blog wars.
I prefer Claudio’s comment, though.
“He was inspired, by his own admission, by the monstrous growth and popularity of OC Blog, the influence of which OJ has never come close to matching (that’s a simple statement of truth, not boastfulness).”
Oh, boy. Here we go.
Well, David (aka frequent OC Blog commenter “Red Peregrine”), it has the advantage of being true.
redperegrine
Thank you Vern for this post. Definitely have some good memories from my time on Orange Juice and made some good posts, there are also a few posts I do regret. Overall it was a good experience and feel some good was accomplished. One of particular note was when I posted of potential voter switching going on when it nearly happened to me. This caused an inquisitive reporters at the OC Register named Martin Wiskol and Norberto Santana to take a look and, well it went south for the GOP from there.
Some correction to Matt Cunningham’s comment. OJ’s resurrection in 2005. In fact, it was a debate on a yahoogroups that helped reboot THE JUICE. After the 2005 special election a debate broke out between Art(yes we were once friends) and myself on the recently defeated Parental Notification initiative on the Santa Ana Citizens Yahoogroups. One of the “usual suspects” emailed me personally asking that we take it elsewhere. I mentioned it to Art who mentioned he still had the blogspot account for Orange Juice and we thought it would be a good idea to resurrect it. We did and for about four months it was just us, then we began to expand and early additions were Thomas Gordon, Luis Rodriguez and Gila Jones. Sean Mill actually joined after the 2006 election around the same time as the Winships.
I like what you and Greg have done, I do believe you have restored this blog to it’s original glory. With bloggers like Cynthia Ward, this blog is realizing it’s potential. Good job and keep up the good work, you restored what one tore down.
One last correction, Dan did not stalk Red Vixen away, she was a liar and libeled Beth Krom’s dead son.
Ah, just like the good/bad old days, when the comment threads dissolved into school yard shouting matches. So much valuable intellect wasted on exchanges of venom… sigh…
Did it ever occur to you that this comments section might just be conceptual art?
Uh, no…. 😉
and he calls himself the “potstirrer.”
Pot calling the kettle black…..yeah, the comment threads at ABubbling Cauldron never dissolve into school yard shouting matches. I think that is more a condemnation of the “nature of the beast” than an accurate assessment of any particular URL where those things occur.
I like both of you guys, so be nice to each other.
Aw, Geoff and Greg are fine with each other. By the way, happy 46th anniversary to the Potstirrer! Who would recognize this young skinny cuss?
http://abubblingcauldron.blogspot.com/2013/08/thank-you-my-sweet-sue.html
Thanks, Vern… I’m one lucky old fella.
*Thanks Chairman Vern….you are real “gangsta” and we love you bunches. You have been right as much as you have been wrong. That is really amazing in itself. Yes, we have Arturo “The Magnificent” to thank for joining this rowdy group of thought provokers. De. Greg has really brough substantial heft to the OC Juice….and we commend him for that. The great variety of thoughs, bureaucrats, naysayers, dust bunnies and cockroaches that have commented throughout these years is pretty darn cool. No one can say, the OC Juice ever sings in harmony. Not our job, that is for sure. Times change, ideas change, new Presidents come along at the right time, values change (sometimes we are sorry for that!), (sometimes we are not sorry!). One thing is clear – problems in “The Great OC” seem here to stay. Is it wonderful that the OC in now being Federally Investigated? Come on now, that doesn’t happen all the time and we can’t wait to see who might be indicted. At any rate, just want to say how much we still love the old Arturo man. He has been through it….and still kicking after
taking a licking! We expect Lorenzo del Me Viejo to eventually grasp the concept that Facebook is a joke and re-join our band of slap happy political correspondents to the greater good in life. Maybe? Hey, as long as we have the Demogogue, Anon, Inge, Skally, even Stanley and the rest…..we will have discussions and they will actually be entertaining at times.
Thank you again Chairman Vern – great yoeman work indeed. You are out there and doing it and how much more could anyone ask for than to be considered a contemporary of this hearty band of individuals. We could have been a typical dysfunctional family, we could have had suffered from over praising each other..God knows we could have suffered even more from being “Plain Boring!”….so with great trepidation…we will say – “Certainly not! Not now! Not ever!” OK, is it time to Renew our Vows? We should probably find time to gather to hoist one for OCJuice….just let us know…
P.S. Potstirrer – where is Jack Wu and E.J. Cahn when we need them? “Shouting Matches”? Really……..hardly appropriate for a 10th Anniversay celebration…perhaps an Aluminum or Tin Pot – even some cheap diamond jewelry? Look into it…OK?
I tried to stir up some shit with SMS and TC – but they weren’t bitin’.
are you guys really that old
Happy Birthday!!!
I came across the OJB after attending the post-riot council meeting held at the Anaheim High School auditorium. It was my first time attending a council meeting and I was appalled by the callousness of Kris Murray and her allies in the council, except for Ms Galloway and a gentle man who stood alone showing compassion and respect for the people asking for changes in our city, Mayor Tait. I had read Gustavo’s piece Anaheim Tragic Kingdom, and then Vern’s account of the meeting I had attended. I found his approach interesting, in spite of using the term “fascist”, which it was too much for my taste. His offer to express opinions in his blog provided me an outlet to get involved and change what I think is wrong in our city.
When I told my librarian friend that a couple of my essays had been posted in the OJB, he asked me whether I knew about the background of this blog, as according to him, it did not have a good reputation, and he mentioned the name of Pedroza. I looked up Art Pedroza’s history and then I realized what my friend was talking about. I did not have to look too long ago, just looking at this current blog gave me an idea of his dubious politics,, like bashing gun safety advocates and comparing them with Hitler and Hugo Chavez. His endorsement of Duane Roberts was intriguing to me. If Gustavo is Libertarian, I hope that it is not the same type as Pedroza’s.
I like the new OJB, a diverse group of contributors and commenters, with a fairly decent level of civility in our disagreements. I miss though the viewpoint of Gabriel, and I wish that Ryan and Matt, and Boutwell, would post more often. Thanks Vern and Greg for keeping this forum available not only to exchange opinions, but also to offer solutions.
Ahh, the memories. Congrats Vern. You and Greg have moved the Juice to a much better place in the blogosphere. I have particularly enjoyed the coverage of the fiasco which is orchestrated by the convoluted actions of the Anaheim City Council.
We don’t always agree, but then again, we aren’t jack-booted faux-conservatives who march in lock-step to talking points from some mystery source.
“.. we aren’t jack-booted faux-conservatives who march in lock-step to talking points from some mystery source.”
really ….. really?? … i mean f**king REALLY???!!!???
“but then again, we aren’t jack-booted faux-conservatives who march in lock-step to talking points from some mystery source.”
Yeah that holds a lot of value – coming from a guy who was a party to the frivolous “Jack Booted” lawsuit against THIS blog.
Chris, hangs on to the shred of credibility that he has, but that thread is MIGHTY thin.
The lawsuit was not against the OJB – it was against the previous proprietor of the blog.
Ummm…. as I remember, that was very much in doubt for a while. They were going after me at first too. And I was gonna fight. But Art wouldn’t fight.
It’s true of the judgment, in any event.
It’s been interesting, to say the least!
Vern, who would have thought this is where you would have ended up?
All the rest of the early cast of players, Larry, Terry, CWG, Luis….Miss you all, even if we disagreed!
It’s been interesting…that’s for sure!
sup dudes! just wanted to say I love this blog and I hope it sticks around. I’ve been lurking for the past few years now since I moved to NC, but I still enjoy reading about the old antics in OC.
Wow 10 years pretty crazy for sure. been when I see all those names mentioned I see a bunch of people who have deleted or altered my comments. And it still happens! I’ll never forget Sarah Michelle Spinoza and about five of her multiple persinanities came after me shh the memories. Well congrats chez vern I hope you have many more years here and leave my comments alone and keep a short leash on Greg diamond before he bored us all to death.
Be nice to my friends Jose, or I’ll change a couple of your letters and make your spelling even worse! (kidding)
I swear it’s not me it’s this new smart phone that has a mind of it’s own
Haha, some more nostalgia Jose … this WAS you, wasn’t it? http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/04/van-tran-calls-us-a-lying-leftwing-blog-that-lies/
Yes it was! Pretty funny. Silly communist van tran.
Vern,
One other person who briefly blogged here was Joe Shaw back in 2007.
Really? I did not know that. But I made a point of not mentioning anyone who didn’t do like at least 100 posts.
He definitely did not do over 100 posts, maybe about 20 at most, but he did do a few. Plus there were a few others who stopped in for a few posts and left, such as Chris Emami, Aria Ghafari, Dan Kalmick and some other Republican from HB whose name escapes me. Maybe this may be a project, go back and see who all blogged(at least one post and put a full list up.
Ah … Aria… that reminds me of a fun old post, from when we all had to switch from one blog format to another, and everything was getting screwed up and lost. I compared it to a treacherous Donner-party type hike…
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2008/05/the-great-blog-migration-of-08/
*Joe Shaw is still sneaky…..and just keeps getting elected and getting appointments on boards. Not bad.
Vern. Cranky? Who me? Thanks for anniversary reminder.
*Pappa Lorenzo, a wonderful Cameo Performance. You can now become the
Alfred Hitchcock of the OC Juice! You can step up and do a Tweeter piece every now and then too!
Nice to see Larry’s byline again… now, if you can just get some more words out of him… 😉
Vern. You missed one topic. My focus in trying to block the CA HSR with 2 dozen stories. We may have had our disagreements but I do not regret all the time I spent in researching and writing for the Juice. I guess I missed a few posts. I stopped counting after 900.
And my thanks go out to Art who had (and still has) a dream to offer the news without worrying about backlash from paid sponsors or local elected officials. The Juice was ahead of its time. Notice how we forced the Register beat writers to get on the Net to keep up with us. We broke stories or simply covered topics within minutes while the print media had to wait until the next day. Happy Anniversary to all of those who contributed posts including Sean Mill who was with Art before I joined the Juice team.
Well really if I was gonna be thorough, more than HSR I should have identified you with the city of Mission Viejo – you were our boy in MV, Juice Brother! And I believe you defeated that Rose Bowl Float, didn’t you?
MV watchdogs do not forget our Rose Parade $300,000 plus float. While we exposed this waste of taxpayer funds for five minutes of fame on our 20th birthday, during the recession, it does add to the reasons why voters should reject Frank Ury for BOS to replace Pat Bates. I personally challenged the council on that waste of money while he turned a deaf ear. Let’s not overlook the fact that Frank Ury was the only council member to vote to retain access to lifetime health care if he was reelected for a third term which did occur last Nov. Our former Treasurer said the value of that benefit averaged $250,000 for each of the three council members who could qualify if they achieved 3 terms. And he calls himself a conservative.
Interesting that Claudio & I both called Red Vixen out as a liar.