Joan Rivers, especially before the plastic surgery, was nowhere near as unattractive as she claimed to be in her comedy routines — as can be seen in this game imitation she tried of Candice Bergen. I KID! I KID!
Joan Rivers’s popularity increased substantially over the past 30 days, culminating in today’s funeral. And she certainly earned a lot of the praise that she’s received, as a feminist trailblazer (albeit a troubled one) in the world of stand-up comedy and hosting late-night shows. But how quickly do we have to forget this story, published on August 8 of this year?
The actress and TV host launched an angry tirade, claiming that they ‘started’ the war with Israel and those who had voted for Hamas were “very stupid people who don’t even own a pencil.”
When she was told that around 2,000 Palestinians had died in the conflict she replied: “Oh my god” Tell that to the people in Hiroshima.
“Good. Good. When you declare war, you declare war. They started it. We now don’t count who’s dead.
“You’re dead, you deserve to be dead. Don’t you dare make me feel bad about that.”
I’m sad to see a gifted performer die. I’m sadder still that her last splash in public, prior to her going into her coma, was what it was. One is supposed to say no ill of the dead, but she obviously didn’t follow that rule herself — and it’s a little too soon to pretend that that projectile vomit of callousness didn’t occur.
Or maybe her death is a good prompt to forget it — just like no one will dare to talk about Jane Fonda’s ill-fated trip to Vietnam on the day of her funeral, wherever it comes, because she’ll be dead and one ought not, of course, speak ill of the dead.
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After mourning James Fowley and Steven Sotloff, and paying respects to their families, It is not enough to say f*** ISIS/ISIL/ISSA, or whatever they are called.
President Obama is going to address this week how to confront the threat of the “Islamic State”. A view about the context of this conflict is presented in this article :
http://www.thenation.com/blog/181487/fatal-flaw-american-foreign-policy
Somebody pretending to speak for the “United Choirs of Brea” (which sponsors the Brea Show Choirs, about which I’ve written here extensively, and which is almost certainly not involved in posting it here), sent me this little love letter in one of the recent posts about Webster Guillory. I don’t like suppressing people’s attacks, unless (as another one of this genre recently did) they attack my clients or my family, so I’m going to let this one in — although I’ve moved it to this Weekend Open Thread to blunt its apparent intent of diverting a discussion about a serious issue.
I’ll post it as is, and then I’ll comment on it. All I’ll say here is that we get anonymous attacks about others often here, in a similar spirit — and the fear of being on the receiving end this maltreatment is one of the things that keeps people out of participating in local politics. So you really should see it to understand behind-the-scenes politics in OC.
The style, more than rudimentary research (most remembering what I’ve written), and local knowledge of Breat exhibited here suggests to me that this may be the work of the now-suspended posted “nameless,” who, has also either posted as or shared an IP address with “KenLaysNotDead” and “carpetbagger,” possibly among others. But it could easily be someone else — and it doesn’t much matter.
I should say first that I’ve never received anything of this tone from the Brea Choirs themselves, which are not only one of the best such organizations in the country (and one of four or so, another being Los Alamitos (and Cypress came close) that could call themselves national champions this past year. It’s a classy organization led by a fantastic and talented teacher, Dave Willert, for whom I wish nothing but huge success — and if everyone in Orange County went to one of their shows this school year, then everyone would be that much happier. Show Choir is most probably famous these days from the series “Glee,” although in real life it is less salacious and less fantasy-like.
My youngest daughter participated in two choirs last year, the introductory girls’ choir Tiffany’s and the advanced girls’ choir Spellbound and she served as apparently a very much in demand “tech” for the advanced mixed choir, Masquerade. It, including the season-culminating (and victorious) trip to Chicago was one of the best experiences of her life so far — and she has learned a great deal about much more than music alone.
With program registration, bus fare, and the special trip to Chicago — she skipped a second trip to New York for lack of funds — the total bill was, as I recall, around $2000. Between our payments and fundraising opportunities (the latter generously arranged for those in the choir by one of the parents), I think that we were ultimately able to cover about $1200 of that. I still owe them $800, which I still expect to pay.
This, by the way, is a video I posted of her and a friend of her performing in a rendition of the song “Alto’s Lament,” which still wows and delights me every time I see it:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/07/if-you-would-briefly-indulge-a-happy-parent-of-a-child-in-the-arts/
This year, she is participating in Tiffany’s (for which, if I recall correctly, we’ve so far paid about half of the fee); we did not have the money for her to participate in Spellbound. While Tiffany’s using one costume and travels a little, Spellbound uses several costumes and travels a lot — and I agree with United Choirs of Brea that it simply is not fair to make other parents pay for her costume and such. If they thought that her being part of the advanced choir was worth it for their choir’s benefit — she’s a great singer and a superb comedian — then I’d be happy if they decided to cover her despite our financial situation, but I don’t begrudge their not doing so.
For my daughter, it’s a life lesson in focusing on being thrilled with being part of such a program without letting the disappointment in not participating it more extensively. It’s a hard life lesson, but a valuable one.) Like by far most of the families, we can’t afford the $4000 or more per year that full participation in the Choirs would cost — more than her older sister is charged for tuition at CSUF — and we are part of the largest social class in OC that is in the same boat. “Embrace the suck,” they say — but this doesn’t actually suck.
The point of the post, of course, is not to get me to show up to a car wash, but to make it harder for me to continue blogging. (Yes, that’s how stupid some of my critics in OC are — they actually think that something like that would work. This is why I really do love being an activist in OC — the corrupt powers that be have gone so long being essentially unchallenged that they no longer have “game” — meaning that a little effort can have a whole lot of impact. Of course, on the downside, one has to put up with anonymous posters trying to humiliate one’s daughter in public — but that’s a small price to pay.)
It is likely that, if I didn’t blog, I would much more easily be able to cover the costs of her participation in this program — and perhaps the voice lessons we’d love for her to have and plenty more besides. I do this because others who could do it as well, with few exceptions such as my friend Vern, don’t. And it needs to be done. OC media needs the boost.
The Voice of OC, and OC Weekly, and the other countywide blogs and the local blogs, and the Times and Pilot, and the better journalists from the Orange Lady herself are part of the solution, but I think that we’re a part of it. The Guillory coverage from the past couple of days, which several hundreds of you have read despite the low number of comments — are an example of what I can produce here, thanks to Vern, that just won’t appear elsewhere. OC needs waking up. Even as a parent who loves his children something fierce, that my family responsibility does not completely outweigh my civic responsibility — as dearly as people who don’t want public challenges wish it did.
But the real reason that I haven’t been able to pay the fees has nothing to do with blogging per se: it’s that I’ve forgone most of what would normally have been my income in order to work for CATER, the Anaheim watchdog group established by Cynthia Ward and Brian Chuchua with my help and based on my willingness to defer payment as much as possible for as long as need be. We’ve been working for a year now — our anniversary just passed, in fact — and during that time I’ve taken home less than $10,000. Cynthia, who does some of the most impressive and high-quality research for us, has taken home … well, less than zero, as she’s given without taking.
CATER is involved in three cases right now (two in Anaheim, one out of the area that addresses similar issues) with another one (or maybe two) on the way soon. The time I’ve put into them would be about half of a normal full-time work year. If we win, CATER (and I) may or may not take home fees — although we have made clear that unlike the highly compensated officials of the City of Anaheim, we are not interested in soaking the taxpayer for all we can get.
CATER has already been successful, as shown by the almost seizure that the Anaheim City Council had on Tuesday night when they realized that their shifting around $2.5 million from the Anaheim Housing Authority to the City to pay for a loan to the “Successor Agency” was not clearly entirely legal — they’ve done it plenty of times before, but apparently never thought to check before, largely because they never expected to be challenged on it. (I had spoken during comments asking that the items in question be pulled from the agenda because it looked hinky and Chuchua and I wanted to understand what was going on — but CATER had no intention of suing over it.) A Council that is more careful about following the law is a GOOD thing.
What about otherwise? Well, when you read that Arte Moreno is suddenly talking about sharing parking revenue from the Stadium Lot with the city — THAT’S BECAUSE OF US. Moreno, a shrewd businessman of endless appetite, does not do things like that out of the kindness of his heart, because he’s forced to. In this case, forced by us. We expect that our intervention in the stadium negotiations may eventually save the city tens or hundreds of millions — without particularly hurting Moreno, because we have some ideas about that too. (It may hurt Curt Pringle like a 2×4 to the shorts not to make lots of middleman money that he has expected — but that’s not our concern.)
As for the Bonds case, the first of which is to be heard the week after next, we’ve not only stood up for the principle of the public’s right to vote on such expenditures (Cynthia and Brian are big Prop 13 fans — sort of the opposite of Kris Murray) but against overcharging the public by literally over $100 million without giving it notice.
Bear in mind that if our case against the bonds wasn’t strong, Citigroup (which stood to make an absolute mint off of the bonds) would have taken the risk of “self-insuring” against a negative result in the lawsuit. Instead, they walked away — an event so rare as to shock the bond industry — because our case was that solid legally, because Anaheim’s power brokers are THAT SLOPPY. The citizens — and the City — were getting ripped off in order to favor the investment bankers, the construction company, the middlemen, and a relatively paltry number of unionized construction workers (a paltry number generally being enough to buy off the Building Trades.)
I think that my by far mostly as-yet-unpaid time for this was worth the costs to me and my family — because that is what it means to be (rather than simply profess being) a patriot, and politically I descend from a long line of patriots.
The bill for this includes:
(1) my being booted from the Vice Chair position of the DPOC, because many prominent Democrats are aligned with the Anaheim City Council’s Jordan Brandman (and thus with Kris Murray, Lucille Kring, Curt Pringle, and others) and many others don’t see that they’re being had;
(2) until I recently got a decent settlement in a case, we weren’t able to petition for my grandson’s entry into the country to be with his mom, the Navy gal;
(3) I won’t even talk about our needed car repairs;
(4) I literally did not pay my rent, TWICE, to run against Tony Rackauckas and now Brett Barbre, two rotten public servants who desperately needed to be challenged;
(5) my wife has gotten a lot of sub-par gifts and not being taken out to dinner; and
(6) my youngest daughter hasn’t gotten to participate in her advanced show choir (and becomes a target of abuse for her and her father not “pulling their weight.”
Well, I hate to say it, but: that’s the sort of cost that a U.S. citizen ought to be willing to pay. This willingness to sacrifice for the greater good — even if it means occasional anonymous attacks by imbeciles — should be so standard as to not even require note. We expect our troops (including potentially my daughter) and our fire fighters — and increasingly our teachers and social workers, though I think decreasingly our police — to pay for social goods with their very lives. We can do without some luxuries — even ones that are earned, as with my youngest daughter’s case, with one’s talent and drive.
Now you may be wondering why I’m bothering to write a comment of this great length when it would have been easier just to delete the offensive comment entirely. Well, we’re not the only blog, or the only comments section, in town. Whoever that cowardly, screwed-up, self-satisfied miscreant is will surely public similar attacks elsewhere — as does Chumley of The Liberal OC, the kind of “Democrat” who regularly bashes me in blogs for not having as much disposable money as he does. (He should be happy that I answered his question about my rent check. Rent’s caught up now, Chumley!) And when that happens, I’ll just be able to refer them, pre-rebutted, here.
As for the author of the comment ported here: I’m surely not going to give you some sort of a Liam Neeson “I’m going to hunt you down, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you” warning — because I won’t. (I only believe in capital punishment for people who spread malware to personal computers and mobile phones. OK, I’m joking — but not by much.)
But if I ever do find out who you are, and happen to run into you in the presence of my youngest daughter, I may crook my thumb at you and tell her “that’s the one who wrote that thing trying to humiliate you for political gain.” And if she kicks your ass, as I suspect she would, I suspect that no jury in the world would convict her.
It has been 13 years since the twin towers and pentagon were attacked on 9-11.
And it’s been 41 years since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger imposed a coup on Chile, leading to the assassination of Salvador Allende and the Pinochet dictatorship, in which many more than 3,000 people died.
I know, I know: you don’t care what happened in Chile — and you think it’s in bad taste to bring it up on the tragedy’s shared anniversary date. And that sort of attitude is related to negative world opinion of U.S. in international relations — which largely reversed in our favor 13 years ago today. Sadly, that support was quickly squandered by those like you who thought that everyone should agree that the only grievances that objectively mattered in the world were ours.
Thanks for the history lesson.
You have my permission to go to one of those middle eastern countries and offer your head in reparations for what president Obama is doing today.