Sunday's local news highlights include:
Wearing out the delete button
Ron Campbell, a
Register investigative reporter who specializes in computer-assisted reporting, launched
the first part of his four-part Sunday series on immigration and the California economy. Grab your magnifying glasses, because–believe it or not–Campbell has included tiny print footnotes to his stories. Editor Ken Brusic added his own note that encourages online discussion among readers but cautions that “we will keep the conversation civil.” Feel sorry for the person assigned to delete all the anti-Mexican comments that are surely on the way.
The tacos made him do it
In today's LA Times, Mike Reicher reports that state Assembly candidate Allan Mansoor began his arduous transformation from right-wing jail deputy to right-wing Costa Mesa politician eight years ago because he believed taco trucks were ruining his “once-peaceful neighborhood.” So, there you have it: Something else terrible to blame on the Mexicans. Phu Nguyen, a businessman and Democrat, is campaigning against Mansoor.
My waffles were better the first time
Dena Bunis
writes her last Reg column as she departs the paper for a new job covering the health industry at
Congressional Quarterly. Given that she's largely pampered Orange County's congressional delegation (but especially the temperamental Dana Rohrabacher), it was no surprise that Bunis wants us to believe that “in many respects” politicians “get a bad rap.” Despite what you may think, they “truly got into the business to help people” and have sacrificed themselves financially for the rest of us. Excuse me while I go puke my Sunday brunch.
]
Sir, can you tell me why I ran you over?
Noberto Santana, Jr. at the Voice of OC
tells the tale of Kevin Halliburton who was run over on his motorcycle by an apparently inattentive sheriff's deputy in December 2009. Would deputies lie and attempt to make Halliburton the villain? Can you use Mike Carona's polished
head to check for food lodged between your teeth?
Misstep
Last Sunday I overlooked a Times profile of UC Irvine graduate Taryn Rose, the ambitious Vietnamese immigrant who has parlayed her orthopedics career into a highly profitable “fashionable, comfy” shoe design business hauling in millions of dollars in sales annually.
Arrogant Bastard
Larry Welborn gets his hands on the grand jury transcripts in case related to the death of Angel's pitcher Nick Adenhart and says that Andrew Thomas Gallo, the accused murderer, had been drinking alcohol–Arrogant Bastard, Newcastle, Amber Bock, Sam Adams and 1800 Tequila–for more than seven hours before the fatal Fullerton car crash. Reason for the drinking? To celebrate the arrival of a government welfare check,
reports Welborn. Also, Gallo, who lived in San Gabriel and had been drinking in West Covina, had no idea why he was in Fullerton that night. The trial is set to begin tomorrow.
Obama's charm offensive
The
Times reports that President Barack Obama has managed to offend almost everyone while in office. Citing Pew Research Center's polling, the
paper tracks how Obama's support has significantly dropped almost equally among single women, moderates, white men, Latinos, suburbanites, older voters and younger votes. His support has even waned among Black voters and self-identified liberals. Nice job!
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.