Illustration by Bob Aul This was in the editor's note for “A Killer's Attorney Looks Back” in the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace's May 10 “Letter From Yorba Linda”:
“Stephen B. Jones, a former aide to Richard Nixon and the trial attorney for Timothy McVeigh, prepared this article exclusively for nixonlibrary.org. In an interview last week with the Associated Press, Mr. Jones called his former client 'manipulative and cunning'.”
Wait a tick: Was he talking about Nixon or McVeigh?
MEA CULPA In the May 11 issue, Clockwork took the city of Corona to task for filing a claim against Caltrans alleging that traffic is damaging the cow town. We noted that this is part of Corona's fight to force the state to open toll lanes that run parallel to the 91 freeway to all drivers, yet it was that city's unbridled growth that necessitated the toll lanes in the first place. Well, on May 13—Mother's Day—instant traffic karma got us! And it knocked us right on the head! We were involved in a three-car collision on the 91 in—you guessed it—Corona. And though the California Highway Patrol and Corona Fire Department and auto-insurance companies and the guy in the Caddie behind us and everyone involved in the crash (including us) agreed we were at fault, we can't help but point a finger (one guess which one) at the bumper-to-bumper traffic we encountered both ways. We were forced to face this fact: our transportation overlords are obviously trying to squeeze 350,000 pounds of poop through a six-inch poop chute (or, more accurately, 350,000 cars through a six-lane highway). Hell, we witnessed five wrecks on Ma's Day—including our own. Fight on, Corona! Eat asphalt, Caltrans! Up yer arse with a red-hot poker, all you Orange County dickwads who think an international airport is this region's most pressing transportation need.
FADE TO BLACK It's apparently curtains for the Edwards family's control of the largest Orange County-based theater chain. Newport Beach's Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. was swallowed up by Denver's the Anschutz Corp., The Orange County Register reported on May 11. An industry analyst believes billionaire Qwest Communications and Los Angeles Kings owner Philip Anschutz shelled out $300 million to take over a majority of the bankrupt Edwards. And the Edwards family gets all the Goobers and Raisinettes they can shove down their pie holes!
DOING THE RIGHT THING The space filler you're drooling on right now wondered two years ago where the Libertarian Party of Orange County (LPOC) was when the city of Buena Park passed an ordinance that ordered landlords to evict tenants arrested—but not yet convicted—of drug and gang crimes. Some freedom fighters took the criticism to heart and have been keeping close tabs on local government bodies ever since. So when the Costa Mesa City Council was poised to pass a similar law on May 7, LPOC vice chairman Doug Scribner was there. Thanks to opposition he and others voiced, the council pulled the item for further study. In honor of the death last week of Clifton Keith Hillegass, we offer the council this Cliffs Notes version of the law: “Violates civil rights. Likely to drag city into expensive court battles. Kill now while you can.”
WE'LL HAVE A GAY OLD TIME Leave it to the South Coast Chorale to capitalize on all the ruckus over the study that just came out—pardon the pun—purporting that gays can be straightened out. “Gays Show They Can't Turn Straight” was the chorale's headline over its announcement for Out!, a musical by Steven Landau based on the coming-out stories of 23 lesbians and gays. It kicks off Gay Pride weekend on May 18 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.