A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Now accepting offers I can't refuse: MCOKER@OCWEEKLY.COM

Posted Oct. 11, 6:45 p.m.

TAKING CEMENT SHOE ORDERS NOW
Your favorite wind-up boy toy finds it quite curious, quite curious indeed, that the Great Park board has delayed a decision on selecting a master designer until January. Why, oh, why, you doth ask? One reason, apparently, according to this here fish wrap, is there is apparently a shortage of cement spurred by the competition for building materials brought on by -- oh, pick your latest natural disaster. This is very interesting, very interesting indeed, Batman, because remember how great tearing up the old El Toro Marine Corps Air Station runways was going to be, because we'd never run out of debris that could be easily converted into the cement needed to build the Great Park? That's what the anti-airport coalition kept yammerin as they sold Orange County dupes on the idea of abandoning a commercial airport there for a large park ringed with homes, office towers and the Statue of Larry Agran atop a Trojan Horse. (And we didn't even know he was an 'SC fan!)

So now, all of a sudden, said cement-makin' stuff is scarce. Have trucks from Hurricane Katrinaland been backing up to the old base and hauling away chunks of Ginzu'd runway? Of course not. Clockwork's best guess: Organized labor is behind all this. Oh, sure, it may just be Schwarzenegger ringing in our ears (which is why we've Ginzu'd off our ears), but we can just picture Fat Tony and the Boys showing up after hours in that yuppified wine cellar the Agranistas meet in, convincing them -- with various references to potential broken appendages -- that construction and the materials to do the same is going to be scarce, steeper and take longer than anticipated to put into place, if youse get my drift.

Oh, but don't worry about the cost, county taxpayers: the Agranistas are real good about burying that in so much bureaucratic paper shuffling that you needn't worry your pretty little heads over it.

Until the horse head shows up between your sheets.

A SORRY STATE
Speaking of Schwarzy, Da Gov may not be sorry for demonizing nurses, teachers, firefighters, Democrats, movie critics and, most especially, girlie men, but he has done the right thing and signed a bill by state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) that requires California to apologize for the unconstitutional deportation of United States citizens to Mexico in the 1930s. Senate Bill 670 authorizes the apology to be placed in an area of historical significance. According to the text:

The State of California apologizes to those individuals … for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights committed during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration [and] regrets the suffering and hardship those individuals and their families endured.

You think we can be assholes to Mexican Americans now? Well from 1929 to 1944, the federal and state governments unconstitutionally deported U.S. citizens to Mexico in order to open jobs during the Depression to, um, not so brown U.S. Citizens. About 2 million Americans, including 400,000 Californians, were unconstitutionally deported. It's estimated that 5,000 survivors of the illegal deportations currently live in California -- say, how'd they ever get back? -- and many of them still have to listen to shit from so-called "real" Americans that they go back where they came from, which is, of course, Pacoima.

LONDON CALLING
We just love the way our colleagues at London's Independent played the latest controversy to grip Newport Beach in their story Californian yachties driven barking mad by sea lion siege. Yachties! Unfortunately the version of reporter Andrew Gumbel's story that made it to our shores had all the Britness removed. Fortunately, we were able to add it back in:

In most Californian coastal resorts -- cheerio, rather, aye aye -- residents would kill for a regular glimpse of sea lions frolicking in the surf and barking with joy. In San Francisco and Monterey -- bangers and mash -- they are tourist attractions. But in the conservative yachting town of Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles, the residents -- lift your auto's bonny -- want to kill the sea lions.

All summer, the sea lions have been clustering around the yachting harbour, flopping on boats to sunbathe, vomiting and defecating wherever they please and barking so much some residents say they haven't had a decent night's sleep for months -- know what I mean, nudge nudge. A month ago, 18 sea lions piled on to a vintage yacht, built in 1910, and sank it, to the fury of the absentee owner -- albatross, get your bloody seabird here.

The boat owners have petitioned the Harbour Commission, and the Harbour Commission has petitioned the City Council, but to no avail; the animals -- Thatcher's a whore -- have been under special government protection -- on your majesty's secret service, the spy who loved me, Octopussy -- since they came close to extinction 30 years ago, and nobody is allowed to touch them.

Brilliant!

ROE, ROE, ROE YOUR BOAT
Orange County's National Organization for Women (NOW) and other pro-choice groups are recruiting activists for a planned Roe v. Wade demonstration on Jan. 22, 2006, in the Orange Circle. Training, education and entertainment are scheduled for 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., Oct. 15, at the Irvine Valley Water District offices, 15600 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine.