It's our weekly look at things said about or from Orange County on the Interwebs:
Pedal Power Outage in Newport Beach An urban bicycling enthusiast sees a disconnect between Newport Beach shutting down the city's Bike Safety Committee the same week that another bike fatality was racked up. Danae Marie Miller, 22, of Newport Beach, is accused of killing bicyclist Amine Britel on San Joaquin Hills Road with her car. Miller was allegedly drunk; since 2005, when she was 17, she has racked up 15 to 17 traffic tickets for various infractions. Her driver's license was not suspended because she clears her record at traffic school.
]
Britel becoming the town's fourth bike fatality in two years just as the city killed the safety committee because of stepped-up enforcement against unsafe drivers drew sarcasm from the biking blogger: “Evidently, the recent crackdown on dangerous riders and drivers has solved all their safety problems, and local cyclists can now ride the city's streets without worry.” The post also notes the supposedly wealthy city that is erecting a new $131 million City Hall “can't afford to buy a single Share the Road sign. Let alone one that says Bikes May Use Full Lane.” (Biking in LA blog)
Hit and Racism It's obviously a bad week to be riding on two wheels in OC beach towns. A reader appeals to “The Dirty Army” to find the driver of a black Dodge Charger with tinted windows that knocked his friend off his motorcycle in Huntington Beach. The Charger drove off, and the friend wound up in ICU with a broken collar bone, broken C5 neck bone, broken ribs and bruised lungs. “Somebody out there HAS to know who this asshole is!!! Any information is appreciated! Oh, and the guy should really hope the cops find him first. . . . People around here are sick of the reputation our city has been getting lately, and it only makes us feel worse that LOSERS like this reside in our town.” Dirty Army commander Nik Richie astutely points out, “This is going to be tough considering every tool in Huntington Beach drives a Laguna Beach ride like that.” Later, commenter “Desperate” observes, “Anyone that drives a black Charger with tinted windows and blacked-out
rims is probably a nagger. If that is the case, then that driver is
automatically guilty. Skip the whole trial process. Let's do it the old-
fashioned way with a tree branch and some rope. It would be much easier
and less costly. Sh*t, I should run for governor!” Subsequent comments are actually worse. (The Dirty)
The Mouth of Your Roof “Prudy” Pennywise obviously has a different view of Huntington Beach after spending a weekend there with family. “I can't decide if I want to come home and aggressively jump into my work pile and ferociously make and conquer new goals or . . . not. Maybe I just want to move to Huntington Beach and collect seashells, take up the ukelele, and chase pigeons all day. It might be just as fulfilling. It might even be more fulfilling. What is the meaning of life, by the way? Is it 6-mile jogs and flax smoothies, or is it relaxation and double cheeseburgers? Because I could really get into either. Just point me in any direction, and obsession kicks in. But hang on. I'm starting to suspect the meaning of life is all of it: the double cheeseburger, the flax smoothie, the 6-mile jog and the beach-bum sloth.” Yeah, just remember if you do that shit around here, look out for black Dodge Chargers. (Prudence Pennywise blog)
Neo-Recon Mission Colonel W. Patrick Lang, U.S. Army retired, recalling an anti-Iraq invasion rally he and Col. David Hackworth led in 2003 to a stunned crowd in Plano, Texas, brought a response from someone who “ventured into deepest darkest Orange County (Ca.)” the previous year to hear Hackworth speak at a gathering of a couple of hundred people. “He was introduced by a Marine Corps Reserve Brigadier who, when introducing him, reviewed his military career and made a reference to how unlike all the aging anti-war hippies who were protesting against the upcoming invasion of Iraq he was.” Hackworth walked up to the mic, thanked the general for the introduction, and then “noted that he was also unlike the draft-dodgers who were about to drag the country into a senseless war. All eyes swung to the General, who sat facing the audience with a smile frozen on his face as he turned beet red.” (Turcopolier)
The Mouth of Your Roof Once homes are being built around here again, will their roofs have “smog-eating tiles”? KB Home of Los Angeles and Boral Roofing of Irvine hope so. The home-builder and roof-tile manufacturer are joining forces to offer the special roofs as an $800 extra on KB subdivisions, especially those going up in smoggy Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Under normal daylight, tiles containing titanium dioxide, a naturally occurring substance, breaks down the nitrogen oxides in the air into oxygen and nitrates, according to Boral eggheads. And when it rains, the roof's runoff apparently fertilizes your lawn! The South Coast Air Quality Management District is apparently monitoring the tiles, which have been incorporated into European home construction for about five years. Local buyers will have to look at the big picture for the savings. Rolling the $800 cost into a 30-year home mortgage at today's 5 percent interest rate means for about $5 per month, a homeowner can take one car off the road each year. And if your house is in HB, you know which make and model to remove. (Trading Markets)
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.