Putting A Damper On Christmas

'TIS THE SEASON
I know some folks get depressed this time of the year. All the hub-bub of scurrying around buying presents, decorating every available surface with ornaments and faux foliage, the parties, etc. kind of gets to you. We lose track of what this season is really supposed to be all about. You know - "peace on earth, good will toward men" and all that stuff.

BLOGS TO BLAME!
This year it's been worse for me than others and I think I've discovered the reason. It's the darned blogs! Of course, it's my fault because I've allowed myself to become hooked on reading comment threads on our local newspaper of record, the Daily Pilot, and others.

ANONYMOUS GRINCHES
I'm depressed because it seems that, regardless the theme, some anonymous grinches will defile a wonderful communication tool and use the comment threads to criticize, demean, defame and slander folks. In a recent comment thread attached to an article about a long-time football coach at one of our high schools being fired, the more than five dozen comments shredded him, current and former players by name, parents and each other.

NO SUBJECT IS SPARED
Almost any article about education will typically end up with a long comment thread which can be guaranteed to be turned into an anti-illegal immigrant screed - even when those comments are completely irrelevant to the subject. When education articles discuss significant accomplishment at one of our local schools, comments will be posted twisting the accomplishment and attempting, again, to divert the praise for the accomplishment into a harangue about illegal immigration.

PETULANT POLITICIANS
I'm also disappointed and depressed that some of our local politicians - our young jailer/mayor and his buffoonish sidekick, the mayor pro tem, for example - use the comment threads as a forum to chide and criticize fellow council members. Sure, they can do it if they choose, but it certainly is a low-class move and pretty typical of them in everything they do. That's what we get when we elect small people to big jobs.

GUTLESS ANONYMOUS POSTERS (GAPS)
I'm depressed when I realize that the comment threads seem to be dominated by only a few people - some of whom certainly post under several anonymous names on the same thread. Much like stuffing the ballot box, this practice makes it appear that there is overwhelming support for his position. (I say "his" because I know who it is) My personal opinion is that no anonymous posts should be permitted. I mean, who knows where those comments are coming from? They could be from Irvine, Santa Ana or Rancho Cucamonga. It's my opinion that the Daily Pilot should hold the folks who post comments on their threads to the same standards that they do letters to the editor in the print edition, which requires signing your name and providing a telephone number for verification purposes. My pal, Byron de Arakal, has described these prolific anonymous posts as "graffiti", and he may be right.

MAY YOUR DAYS BE MERRY...
So, with just over a week until Christmas, I'll leave you to ponder those thoughts. And, in the spirit of the season, I'll leave you this time with the chorus from one of the classic Christmas songs of my youth - Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$":



We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And please buy our beer!



Bah! Humbug!

May Day And Where We Play

The May Day City Council meeting this evening was pretty darn routine. Those items on the agenda that may have promised some conflict were either continued or went smoothly.

However, during the debate of the distribution of the Community Development Block Grant funds to social service agencies - which the council voted unanimously to approve as recommended by the 3R Committee and the city staff - there was one predictable, unpleasant event. The Grinch showed up in the tired, old black shirt of Your Neighbor, The-Brain-Who-Ate-Costa-Mesa, and pushed the council to not fund any of the charities that "don't resemble Costa Mesa". To their credit, after this clown prattled on and on, they simply ignored his rhetoric. I found myself smiling!

You may recall that he "resigned" from the 3R Committee under fire last year. His presence was alluded to by one of the applicants for funds as he spoke about the experience last year. The speaker could have been more specific, but those of us paying attention knew exactly who he meant.

Next stop for this rabble rouser will undoubtedly be the public meeting to be held tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Mulitpurpose Room at Paularino School at 7:00 p.m. This is a result of Your Neighbor's constant drumbeat about the dangerous, rogue soccer players at "his" Paularino Park. Of course, we all know which demographic group he means - Latino men, trying to burn off some energy. The Paularino Park issue is simply a red herring - a smoke screen being used to create more discomfort among the Latinos in our city.

On the positive side about this guy, one of the web sites on which he's published his racist rants, National Vanguard, has gone belly-up! Yep, it's gone,finito . Seems the main man in charge has had recent personal problems of a legal nature so his tent was just folded up. Now Your Neighbor will just have to find another income source. BooHoo!

***

One of the items discussed tonight was the proposed "Neighbors to Neighbors" clean up of the Mission/Mendoza "slum". With that in mind, here's a quote from The Book Of Useless Information for you to contemplate: In Calcutta 79% of the population lives in one-room houses.