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War College

Illustration by Bob AulABRAHAM. “AL.” AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL. ANTHRAX. AREA, COMPARATIVE. BAGHDAD. BLOOD. BUSH, GEORGE W. CASUALTIES. CHENEY, DICK. CHICKENHAWK. CLAREMONT. COLLATERAL DAMAGE. DOMESTIC POLICY. ESCHATOLOGY. EUROPE, OLD. FRANKS, TOMMY. FREE VERSE. FREEDOM FRIES. FRIENDLY FIRE. FUNDING, TERRORIST. GAS. HALABJA. HUMAN SHIELDS. IRAQ.ISRAEL.JIHAD.JUST WAR THEORY.KISSINGER, HENRY.KURDS.LANGLEY.McCAFFREY, BARRY.McVEIGH, TIMOTHY.MONEY.NATION BUILDING.NOBODY HOME.NOT IN OUR NAME (NION).NUCLEAR WEAPONS.NUMBERS. …

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Comic Timing

Illustration by Justin Ridge/www.justinridge.comFor those who believe art is energized when limitations—financial, technological, the Medicis—are imposed on it, I offer 12 rather haggard, thoroughly pleasant comic artists sitting early Sunday morning in a visual-arts classroom at Cal State Fullerton. They have been sitting here all morning as well as the night that proceeded it and …

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Electric Horsemen

Seven years ago, at a rodeo in the Anaheim Pond, a sorrel mare named Classic Velvet ran at full gallop—an estimated 35 mph—toward a chute she must have assumed was open. The horse was wrong. The chute's heavy metal rear gate was closed, and the horse smashed her head on it, crumpling to the ground …

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2002: Diary of a Mad Year

JANUARY 2Before the trial begins, novelist Sylvia Fleener settles for an undisclosed sum her lawsuit alleging that televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa plagiarized her work for the crappy Christ-o-rama flick The Omega Code. 4The much-loathed Tony Tavares resigns as overlord of the Anaheim Angels and Mighty Ducks. Arriving …

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Toxic Politics

Photo by Daniel C. TsangAt press time, DA Tony Rackauckas announced that ARCO agreed to pay just $8 million for leaks of the gasoline additive MTBE at scores of Orange County gas stations. The settlement was ridiculously low. In this story, investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley explains why Rackauckas settled for so little—and staked so …

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Diary of a Mad County

MONDAY, Dec. 2 After being served eviction papers today, Cal State Fullerton frat boyspunch holes in walls, pour paint on bathroom fixtures and generally trash their former animal house before vamoosing. Damage to the former Sigma Pi fourplex is estimated at $50,000. Chapter president Marvin Steele admits that he and other Pi-holes partied hearty in …

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Diary of a Mad County

SATURDAY, Nov. 23 About 150 protesters against America's upcoming war with Iraqtake their message to the people on the mean streets of South County. Of course, there are no people on the mean streets of South County this morning—being Saturday and, uh, South County—so motorists will have to do. The march starts at peacenik-y Soka …

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Inside Charlie Kaufman

So there's this screenwriter with a galloping case of writer's block, which he resolves by inserting himself and his problem into a story he's adapting for some big-time producers. That's the premise of Adaptation, but please don't leave the building yet. The movie is not another in the lengthening line of whiny screeds about gallant …

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