Bob Woodward

Did Bobby Hatfield Lose That Livin' Feelin' from Plot in Costa Mesa Suicide Bomber's Essay?

Confession time: Like many in the media, I looked at Kevin E. Harris blowing himself up, having covered his Costa Mesa house in foil to prevent the government from reading his mind and writing the gubment was also behind the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson, John Lennon and everyone who perished ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Edmund J. Finley and Tom J. Simmons, Santa Ana World War I Vets

Remember that controversy a couple of years ago, when the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report talking about the increase in white-power movements in the military, a report that conservatives immediately demonized to the point where the SPLC eventually had to backtrack on its findings even ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Burton Y. Neal, Yorba Linda Pastor

The First United Methodist Church in Yorba Linda has served the city's Methodists for 92 years now, and a good overview of it is in Yorba Linda: Its History, a book written in 1970. In it, author March Butz gives a thorough telling of the city's pioneer churches; with the Methodists, they first orga ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Eugene Edmund French and Harry E. Byerrum, Huntington Beach Mayor and Fullerton Parks Superindentent with Parks Named After Them

Do you ever really think about the names given to parks, specifically those named after people? Most of them are named after former city officials, whether mayors, councilmembers, pioneers, and the like. But Orange County being Orange County, you're going to have some parks named after Klan members, ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harvy A. Stryker, Famous Dentist

In the world of dentistry during the 1920s, Harvey A. Stryker of SanTana was a bit of a superstar. His articles on the science of orthodontics appeared in the International Journal of Orthodontia, Oral Surgery and Radiography, The Journal of the National Dental Association, and the American Journal ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Joe H. Royer, Fullerton Oil Baron, Namesake of Street

In the 1920, what wasn't orange groves in North County was oil derricks, speculators, or plain ol' wildcatters. One of the big players in those days was the Royer family, for whom Royer Avenue in Fullerton is named after (technically, it's named after his brother Max, but hold on...). Joe was the ma ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harry Ipsen and E.A. Long, Placentia Treasurer and Councilmember

Amazingly, for a city that was founded on apartheid, for a city that has the most severe Mason-Dixon line in Orange County, Placentia didn't have many Ku Klux Klan members during the 1920s.It wasn't as if the city's Mexicans and gabachos got along. In the 1930s, the city would explode with racial vi ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Emil Carlson, Brea Mayor/Fire Chief, Namesake of Street

Good news, pathetic fanboys: I just unearthed a treasure trove of papers that'll allow me to continue this series for couple more years! Yay!The problem with sussing out the OC pioneers from your average Klukker is that the master list only lists the names, addresses, and occupations of Klan members ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Jo Lowell, Santa Ana Rancher, Namesake of Street

Lowell Street in SanTana is one of those fascinating streets that skips across the city's various economic realities. It cuts through the muy muy neighborhoods of Washington Square and Floral Park (where, true to its exclusionary background, they call it Lowell Lane) and shady barrios, single family ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Lawrence A. Stevenson, Orange Councilmember

The surviving membership roster of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s isn't perfect. There are pages missing, not all the Klukkers have home addresses assigned to them, and some of the names are misspelled--which makes the mystery of finding out which local pioneer was Klan and which me ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Roscoe Gulick Hewitt, Former Chairman of the OC Republican Party Central Committee

"Child of father is man," goes that well-worn aphorism, and that was definitely the case for Roscoe Gulick Hewitt. He lived a good-enough life, finding a career as an agent for New York Life Insurance Company and being heavily involved with the Masons in SanTana, his hometown. His self-written biogr ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Oswald Richard Meissner, Brea Councilmember

All good things must eventually pass, and so it came to be that by the end of the 1920s, the power of the Ku Klux Klan in Brea was on the wane. They had a good run, having set up in 1922 as part of the original KKK in Orange County and weathering the jihad that District Attorney Alexander P. Nelson ... More >>

OC Weekly Nabs Seven Awards at LA Press Club Affair Honoring Woodward and Bernstein

Celebrities and reporters gathered Sunday night at the Millennium Biltmore's Crystal Ballroom in downtown Los Angeles for the 54th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards and OC Weekly staffers grabbed seven honors.Three of the Weekly's awards were for first place: Michelle Woo for Best Persona ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Maurice Enderle, County Assessor

I have a couple of tricks to do this series. Since I'm chained down to this desk, it's a bit difficult for me to dive into microfilm, but thankfully I'm enough of a nerd so that I have nearly every book about the history of Orange County--on a city, county, familial, regional, and national level--wr ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Stanley Edward Goode, Santa Ana Councilmember

You can call Stanley Edward Goode a member of SanTana's sleeper Klan cell. He was a member of the first OC iteration of the Invisible Empire, the one that issued death threats and was about to lynch a man if not for heroic district attorney Alexander P. Nelson. That first KKK supposedly disbanded in ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Albert Ore, La Habra Pastor

The dirtiest secret about the Ku Klux Klan in Orange County during the 1920s--more than all the councilmembers and trustees and city fathers put together--is that one of the most-represented professions among their ranks were ministers.You had virtually every Protestant denomination represented--Con ... More >>

OC Weekly Staffers Named Finalists For 2012 LA Press Club Journalism Awards

Los Angeles Press Club judges have named five members of the OC Weekly newsroom as finalists for the 54th SoCal Journalism Awards in categories that directly compete with The Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times.The recognition isn't new: Over the years, the Weekly has won more than a dozen ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Oliver N. Thornton and James Henry "Harry" Whitaker, Brea and Anaheim Postmasters

On one hand, it's rather bizarre to see the membership rolls of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s and see so many postal workers listed. You can find two below in the archives, and the subjects this week, Oliver N. Thornton of Brea and James Henry Whitaker of Anaheim, were postmasters ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Earl L. Matthews, Santa Ana Automotive Electrician Pioneer

One of the most exasperating things about doing this column is writing about these Klukkers but never finding any pictures of the pendejos. I can only think of one other instance in which I've featured a photo capturing the banality of evil that was the OC KKK--until today.I'm glad to report that we ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harold S. Twombly, Fullerton Rancher/Black Sheep of Prominent Family

The Twombly name is of some renown in Fullerton. Phillip Twombly served on the city council during the 1950s but is probably better known to JFK conspiracists for supposedly ordering that false documents be made for Lee Harvey Oswald, while George was a prominent beekeeper (earning a story in Collie ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Elvin A. Ames and Osborne Garber, Fullerton and Santa Ana High School Teachers

Oh, how we love to hate our public school teachers in Orange County, those indoctrinators of our young with radical ideas of feeling good about yourself, about learning about Cesar Chavez and Harvey Milk. Why can't it be like the good old days, goes conservative Orange County thought, those days whe ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Earl B. Tozier, Founder of Fullerton High School's Band

​Next year, the Fullerton High School band will celebrate its 90th anniversary. Today, it's a fine, multiculti group of kids, including more than a few Mexis who want to become rich and famous blowing the tuba. Given I'm not an Indian (I'm an Anaheim Colonist, and the cosmos take sick pleasure in ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Dr. Charles V. Doty, Santa Ana Dentist

​Not all Klan members are born raging racists, and that was definitely the case with Dr. Charles V. Doty, a longtime SanTana dentist still remembered in the older parts of the city. Doty was one of the OC brave who fought in World War I, and would later on belong to a group of SanTana civic leader ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Orrin M. Thompson, Fullerton Councilmember

​My sincere apology, gentle readers, for being unfair: I didn't previously list all the Fullerton councilmembers who were Klan members, who participated in the burning of crosses on the lawns of political opponents and jailed them for kicks.Last guy missing from the list? One Orrin M. Thompson.He ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Arnold F. Peek, Santa Ana Butcher

​When the Brave New Urbanists talk about the good old days of SanTana, the days before Mexicans destroyed the Golden City, they inevitably point to people like Arnold F. Peek. Like the Brave New Urbanists, he wasn't originally from the area, hailing instead from Kansas. Like the Brave New Urbanist ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Arthur E. Koepsel, Chair of the OC Republican Party Central Committee

​I'm not going to write TOO much about Arthur Koepsel here because...well, you'll read more this Thursday in our paper. But, of course, whenever it comes to the pioneers of Orange County, first we must consult their self-published bios as included in Samuel Armor's collection. So, let's hear it, A ... More >>

Tricky Dick Nixon Gay Talk in New Book Swatted Down by Loyalist John H. Taylor

Dick and Bebe​Dick & Bebe sittin' in a tree . . . A new book's assertion that Richard M. Nixon may have shared his Tricky Dickie with longtime pal Charles "Bebe" Rebozo lights up the blogosphere and media world. It also ticks off one of the 37th president's greatest local boosters. "Not true, ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Frederick Bastady, Buena Park Citrus Rancher/School Board Member

​Out in the Central Valley town of Lindsay, Bastady Ranches continues the family's century-long tradition of growing oranges. They've been there since 1955, since Emanuel Bastady moved the family business from Buena Park, a business he inherited from his uncle Frederick, a child of Swiss immigrant ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Alvin L. Hitchcock, Orange County Chief Deputy Clerk

​In the early 1920s, the Orange County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution forbidding any county employees from being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The supes had a serious problem on their hands, given that the sheriff at the time, Sam Jernigan, was a Klucker.The directive, of course, did lit ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: George W. Cullen, Brea Schools Clerk

​It's no surprise that many Klan members in Orange County were part of the educational system. From superintendents to school board members to trustees, those Kluckers wanted to do everything possible to ensure that White children weren't contaminated by their colored ilk--and that Mexis were educ ... More >>

Timothy Naftali, Nixon Library Chief, is Leaving

"One lie I corrected was this big."​Timothy Naftali, the George H.W. Bush biographer and respected historian the National Archives chose to run the Richard Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda after the disgraced 37th president's loyalists from a private foundation first built and operated the ... More >>

'The Real World': Midtown

Or 'Survivor'. Or '(Head for) The Hills.' As the industry panics, the NYT gets its own reality show

Remembering Watergate: A Conversation

Nixon Library

Deep Throat Dies

The famed and enigmatic anonymous source credited with grinding Richard Nixon's perfidious presidency to a halt, died yesterday in northern California. A career FBI director, W. Mark Felt Sr. confessed to being "Deep Throat" in 2005, after 30 years of denial. He was the man, he admitted, who walked ... More >>

Full of Itself and Not Half As Funny As It Thinks It Is, 'Hamlet 2' Is Simply Tragic

Diary of a Mad County

Jan. 3-Jan. 9

Odds and Ends

Well, it was quite a weekend in Washington D.C. In a previous post, Alex did a fine job of spelling out the facts in the case of ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Predator). The only thing that can be added is that Foley has now headed down a familiar path-- as Josh Marshall puts it: "Ahhh, once again, the l ... More >>

News

This Week in Teaching C.R.E.E.P.s a Lesson

OnDVD: All the President's Men: Special Edition

The NASCAR Nazi

Bush is creating an un-American America

Orange Countys Sexiest People

Bushies Order Takeout

2002: Diary of a Mad Year

Diary of a Mad County

There Really is a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!

Reporter David Brock says Republican activists commissioned him to ruin Larry Agran

Shut Up and Take It

Joan Didions insiders guide to the insiders