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WE KILL HIM
You guys really kill me. I guess to make it on your Scariest People list, all you really have to do is be successful. I refer most directly to your listing of Mark McGrath—No. 21, in case you lost count (“Orange County's 31 Scariest People,” Oct. 29). You beat the hell out of him for his crotch-thrusting moves and his—er . . . um, what's the word?—honesty? Mark might be a little too forthright for you folk who constantly try to find meaning in crappy bands with negative attitudes who look to book a bad gig at the Tiki Bar.
Sugar Ray was playing its songs more then 10 years ago in local bars and suffered through more than most bands on the scene go through now. The least you could do is show a little respect to a band that rode the waves of the local scene for years and finally succeeded at what they tried to do for a living. Sure, they don't have jobs at coffeehouses or tattoo parlors, but, hey, if getting bashed by the lowly OC Weekly is the price of success, what do you think the guys playing at the Tiki Bar tonight would take?
Paul Nordlund, via e-mail
Let's set the record straight about Raghu Mathur (No. 7). Three years ago, self-proclaimed elites—a small group of disgruntled Ph.D.s at Irvine Valley College—decided they were going to get even with Mathur and the board of trustees for some unfavorable college business decisions. They have taken a vow to shut down the college and have enlisted students to do their dirty work. This is very selfish, unprofessional and not in the best interests of the students and community. After their “Recall Frogue” effort [to recall trustee Steven J. Frogue] miserably failed, they couldn't even get their own radical trustees elected and all the while continue to threaten our accreditation every chance they get. The fact is after some reforms, we have more classes and sections offered and have more students than ever. Even those who protest (a group of 10) are not fleeing.
Marc A. Levinson, Aliso Viejo
Just as your “31 Scariest” issue came out, faculty at Irvine Valley College were finishing off a truly gruesome survey in preparation for a really spooky accrediting-team visit. The grisly results, released on Nov. 1, reveal that 88 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that “the college president provides effective leadership.” Scarier still, 90 percent disagreed with the statement “I can express my opinion about issues at the college without fear of retribution or retaliation.”
Roy Bauer, professor of philosophy, Irvine Valley College
At first, I was little annoyed by your article, mainly because of the untruths you said about what I do. You did get my name right—except for the spelling—and I am a spokesperson for Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which was established by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose abuses in the field of mental health. And we do hold psychiatrists accountable for their crimes.
Other than that, you were off 180 degrees on things such as who publishes materials for CCHR and definitely on my mystical powers to brainwash people. I was kind of flattered that I beat Laura Schlessinger and surprised to be beaten by Scooby Doo. I am not sure who or how anyone could think of Scooby Doo as scary. I guess one of your writers must have had a traumatic experience in childhood from watching Scooby Doo. I am sure that psychiatry in its DSM IV manual has a label to cover it and the proper psychotropic drug to handle “Scooby Doo Fear Syndrome.” Now that would be really scary. . . .
Jacki Panzik (No. 12), CCHR OC spokesperson
In making out your list of the scariest people in Orange County, how did you overlook the Weekly's own Rebecca Schoenkopf? She's smarter than 95 percent of the female population. No man—gay or straight—is safe from her predatory saloon prowling. And she believes she really is a commie girl. Sounds scary to me.
Wayne Valin, Santa Ana
Enjoyed, as always, your Scariest People list. In a la-la land of self-love, it is nice to have one list that puts things into universal perspective and arrogance in its place. But why were you so modest as not to include the OC Weekly staff as No. 32?
Michael Arnold Glueck, Newport Beach Editor's note: We did not include ourselves because we were afraid that when we saw what we had written about ourselves, we would hunt us down and kill us.
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Each time Sheriff Mike Carona (No. 8) issues a carry permit to a productive citizen, the investment portfolio of every street punk contracts. The incremental risk to me is perceptibly smaller than Warren Beatty demanding my paycheck be confiscated to finance street carnivals for the Officially Sad. And as for Laura Schlessinger (No. 16): one peep at her naughty nudies confirms she is skanky in the proudest liberal tradition of Kennedy grazing.
Al Schwartz, via e-mailAPESHIT
You act like you are so Orange County, but you continually give yourselves away as OC wannabes. In your recent Best of OC issue, for example, you made yet another snide remark about Planet of the Apes being filmed at UC Irvine (Oct. 22). This is the third time in the past year or so you've done this. Hello! Planet of the Apes (the classic 1968 Oscar-winning, all-star sci-fi film based on the best-selling French novel by Pierre Boulle about astronaut Charlton Heston being time-warped to a planet run by talking simians in the year 3978) was not filmed at UCI. Your pathetic attempts at sounding oh-so-hip and literate have only exposed how culturally bankrupt you really are. Your lack of basic research and factchecking and journalistic integrity, plus your decadent use of deception and disregard for the truth, is appalling. Let me repeat: Planet of the Apes was not filmed at UCI; Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was filmed at UCI. This 1973 low-budget sequel to Escape From the Planet of the Apes (the 1972 low-budget sequel to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which was the low-budget 1970 sequel to the original Planet of the Apes) was the schlocky creature feature starring Roddy McDowall (as the only remaining cast or crew member from the original film) leading an ape rebellion against the futuristic humans of 1992 North America, with UCI standing in for the 1970s version of the 1990s. The only thing cheesier than Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is its lower-budget 1974 sequel Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
Mistaking the classic Planet of the Apes for the inferior Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is like mistaking The Omega Man (another classic Heston sci-fi flick) for The Omega Code (another schlocky, low-budget film that originated in Orange County).
How can you call yourselves journalists? How can you call yourselves Orange Countians? How can you claim to be cultured or relevant?
Frankly, I expected better. I feel cheated and lied to, and I want my money back. You have lost my trust.
Joe Slevcove, San Clemente Dr. M. Hanky, chief simianologist in theWeekly's DataLab, responds: Your letter offers further evidence that at some point in the not-too-distant future, a race of super apes will overthrow their inferior human oppressors and impose one-world government. First, our Best of OC issue did not say thatPlanet of the Apes was filmed at UC Irvine; No. 983 said, “UCI no longer bears a resemblance to the set ofPlanet of the Apes.” (In No. 984, we wrote, “OC Board of Supervisors, on the other hand, bears a striking resemblance toPlanet of the Apes.”) Second,Planet of the Apes was indeed filmed at UC Irvine. Our source on that is the university, where we went to school and had to learn the drill: monkey movie filmed over there, dangerous radiation experiments over here, human embryos marketed way over there, mysterious system of tunnels down there, cadavers sold out the back door over there—that and a guy called “Marvin” in the school's PR office who spent the better part of an hour confirming this fact for us (shout out to you, Marvin!). Third, who can take seriously the opinions of someone who honestly believes thatConquest was a 1973 release (it was '72) or thatBattle was 1974 (it was '73)? You have lost our trust, and your free copy of theWeekly will henceforth be distributed to someone else. WEALTHCARE
I was disappointed by R. Scott Moxley's meandering treatise on the current health-care debate in Orange County (“We're Gonna Puke,” Oct. 29). Misinformation and a personal attack on Chris Cox are thinly resonating cover-ups for Moxley's obviously tired, outdated, neo-socialist views on health care. Here you have it: (1) “Criminals all have rights. Why don't patients?” Nice try, Moxley. Patients do have rights. A patient has the right to choose fee-for-service medical care or she can opt in for HMO coverage—and in many cases receive care funded by the state and federal government. If you want the right to sue your health-care provider, don't choose an HMO for coverage. What Moxley really wants is to give patients rights to choose any kind of health care, the rights to sue any care giver, and the rights for taxpayers like me to pay for it. (2) “They [OC Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce, Chris Cox, Gary Miller, Ron Packard] tried to stall an effort to allow patients to see medical specialists.” Please tell me what law is preventing any patient from seeing any medical specialist in Orange County? Again, it's the same theme: Moxley is proposing that any patient can see any medical specialist, and he wants me to pay for it. (3) “Cox, a millionaire who fiercely insists he is compassionate . . .” Okay, now try some personal attacks. I guess if your arguments are specious, then your next line of attack must be personal. Moxley's article is better titled “Massive Re-distribution of Wealth: The only way to promote health-care reform” or “Federal Government Control of Health Care: The road to reform.” His position represents nothing more in concept than shining a turd. Cox believes that government solutions and regulation to most problems we face are never faster, cheaper or better. He wants to provide the consumer with choices within some kind of market construct. Why? Because the market will always deliver these services to the biggest percentage of people for the lowest possible price and at the highest quality possible. The market is always a better means than government to provide goods and services to consumers—always.
John May, via e-mail R. Scott Moxley responds: Like Congressman Cox, May would have us believe that it's government bureaucrats—not insurance-company fat cats—who are destroying the doctor-patient relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. The debate over health care has not been chiefly about government involvement—Congress is involved by giving insurance companies unprecedented immunity from wrongdoing—but about how much the insurance industry is going to be able to get away with in the name of ever-increasing profits. Who is best to decide patient care? A physician or an $8-per-hour insurance-company employee at the distant end of a telephone line? Despite industry attempts to frame the public debate otherwise, no one is advocating that the government make medical diagnoses. As for the free-market-is-always-best line, fine. Again, nobody on the reform side is pushing for less competition. It is insurance-industry bosses who demand that the playing field continue to be tilted against consumers. A truly competitive system would allow wronged patients to go head-to-head in court against insurance-company lawyers.
