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TALK OF POOP AND PEE-PEE MAKES SOME PEOPLE SLEEPY
As a political candidate whose foremost issue is the sexy topic of upgrading and repairing sewers, storm drains, and wastewater treatment facilities, I applaud your cover story (Dave Wielenga's “Flush Twice—It's a Long Way to Huntington Beach,” May 10). The sewage plume is simply the largest bit of evidence that we need to end the blame game and finger pointing and get down to some serious business about cleanup, upgrading and . . . yes, eyelids are drooping. But this is important stuff. Certainly the Weekly thinks so. And I'm glad. Keep up the good fight. (Zzzzzzz.)
Bill Orton
Seal Beach MATTHEWS AND JAGGER: LIKE NAILS ON CHALKBOARD
I watched the Rolling Stones' PBS performance from the “Bridges to Babylon” tour a few years back and enjoyed it until this annoyingly grating singer dueted tediously with Mick Jagger on “Wild Horses.” I thought, “What in God's name could have prompted the Stones to invite onstage this nails-on-chalkboard singer?” The name of this singer was Dave Matthews. Allen Trautloff's piece was spot-on (“The Whine, the Howl,” May 10)! I savored it. I savored it knowing how Matthews' fans would be as annoyed reading it as I was annoyed listening to Matthews massacre a classic Stones song.
Mark Murphy
Corona del Mar
It wasn't the Mr. Hankey-like, corn-studded fecal cover but rather the superb Allen Trautloff review of Dave Matthews that brought a sense of completion to my year here in South OC and provided a proper sendoff. On the heels of Jim Washburn's insightful response (Letters, “Sometimes an SUV Is Just an SUV,” May 3), these two pieces define much that is wrong with OC. But it is with regrets that I am NorCal-bound, ever-pondering what the pages of OC Weekly will address in the coming weeks. I will sorely miss my Thursday ritual.
Pete Steinmetz
Mission Viejo FATHER'S DAY
I have seen the stellar 36-year career of my father, Superior Court Judge James O. Perez, take an unfair pummeling in the press, with a few exceptions (R. Scott Moxley's “Judicial Whopper,” May 17). Finally, the truth is told! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Your article hit the mark.
Joe T. Perez
Deputy Public Defender THANKFUL FOR PASCO . . .
I was taken aback when I read how Stan Oftelie used the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society as examples of the sentiments against the proposed airport at El Toro (Mark Petracca's “Over the Edge,” May 3). I disagree, however, with Petracca's condemning the messenger. We should be grateful to LA Times reporter Jean Pasco for exposing the pro-airport forces for what they are—not just insensitive and offensive, but clueless—and why they lost.
Hanna Hill
via e-mail
Mark Petracca responds: Ah, yes, the innocent-messenger defense. Pasco is no innocent. She didn't present Oftelie's opinion of South County voters as an outrageous slander. Indeed, she told her readers that the man comparing the South County anti-airport movement to the Klan was something of a scholar—”an armchair historian of Orange County,” she called him. Even if Pasco was simply the dutiful messenger, where the heck were theTimes' editors?
BIRTHDAY CARD
Hi, Rich Kane! Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I've been very busy recruiting (“No Cake for Adolf,” April 26)!
As you can see, this is a picture of the cake we had at our celebration. . . . Hitler had his cake, AND we ate it, too!
Hail victory,
Aryan Nations-California AND NOW . . . A SMART GUY
I haven't read the Brecht Yearbook refutation of John Fuegi's massive biography, Brecht and Company, cited by Professor Robert Cohen in his rebuttal of my review (Letters, May 10). While my follow-up search for the specific journal issue came up empty-handed, I have, however, read Fuegi's book cover to cover and find its arguments that Brecht stole his mistresses' work convincing. Even a dunce reading Brecht's various plays could see they weren't written by the same person. I would have welcomed evidence disproving the book, but Cohen doesn't supply any, so I assume he hasn't read it. But then it doesn't sound like he's read the refutation he namedrops, either: the wording of his letter is similar to an online description of the book, suggesting he cribbed his info from the Internet. Failing to back up his arguments, Cohen just circles the wagons—like many of the Brecht scholars before him—adding nothing to the debate except the same old accusations and indignation.
Dave Barton
Deep inside theWeekly
