Manufacturing Fear

In a surreal and tragic two weeks, Orange County's press relentlessly whipped up terror that Littleton-style school slaughter perpetrated by dark-side fuzzy-lipped gunboys brandishing heavy steel “could happen here” (even though none had) and then was blindsided by the county's first real school murders: a grisly massacre of preschoolers by a middle-aged man wielding a …

Pet Hell

Photo by Keith MayA grieving family once showed up at the Orange County Animal Shelter in Orange with a dead pet. It was a Sunday, and the shelter was closed to the public. They picked up the intercom at the front gate and spoke with a shelter worker inside about disposing of the body. A …

This Sister Oughta Be Famous

Photo by Jack GouldIf it wasn't for the gallbladder and the cows, Sister Mary Elizabeth might never have started the AIDS Education Global Information Service (AEGIS). The American Catholic nun runs “the largest HIV/AIDS Web site in the world” (www.aegis.com) from a room in her parents' San Juan Capistrano home. Founded as a bulletin-board service …

Beach Blanket Stinko

100,000 FLUSHESAs he does almost every morning, Corky went for a run along Aliso Beach on Jan. 7, 1997. After working up a sweat, he dove into the ocean for a swim several hundred yards north of where the mouth of Aliso Creek pours into Laguna Beach's emerald waters. “I jumped in, and it was …

The Stock Detective

On April 7, Bloomberg News (www.bloomberg.com) woke up to discover it had an evil twin on the Internet. That morning, someone had posted a site identical to the respected financial news service's, reporting that the Tustin high-tech company PairGain Technologies Inc. was being acquired by the Israeli company ECI Telecom Ltd. for $1.35 billion. Eager …

Live Like a God!

Photo by Jack GouldIn November 1997, local government officials and business executives gathered at the 18th annual Anaheim Prayer Breakfast and asked God to make Anaheim a “first-rate city.” They also ate sausage and eggs, bashed Bill and Hillary Clinton, and heard inspiring words from then-Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner. “This …

West Coast Wrap

Photo by Jeanne RiceIn September 1996, LA rap star Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas. Six months later, East Coast rapper Notorious B.I.G. was shot in his car in what many saw as retaliation for Shakur's death, the violent coda to a deadly feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers. On April …

Rebel Yell

On Sunday, millions of Mexicans went to the polls to vote in a national referendum sponsored by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), one of the last remaining guerrilla insurgencies in the western hemisphere. The official results of the so-called consulta were still unclear by press time, but the Mexican government has repeatedly promised …

Tip-Toe Thru the Bureau

Under the auspices of national security, J. Edgar Hoover's inexhaustible paranoia and treachery led the FBI to spy on the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Ernest Hemingway. UC Irvine professor Jon Wiener fought the agency for years to declassify its John Lennon files in the 1980s. The late FBI …