Ah, the joys of blogging....

My sweet wife and I returned home from a week-long, much-needed vacation during which, I confess, I did manage to stay in touch with the political goings-on by checking the local newspapers online - and by checking the local blogs to see who was ticked off about what.

Tonight, before retiring, I fed my online habit by visiting the Daily Pilot online to see what the world will be told in print on Sunday. There, as the banner headline, is an article by Copy Editor Matt Ballinger entitled "Campaign Superhighway" which features some local bloggers (yours truly included) and speculates about the impact we might be having on the current campaigns here in Costa Mesa.

Since my bargain basement blog tool doesn't provide me with "hot link" capability, you'll have to click on my Useful Links page over to the left and, once there, click on the link for the Daily Pilot to read the article. I think you'll find it interesting.

Among the other bloggers mentioned are Byron de Arakal, who publishes his Itchingpost.com blog and does so with great skill and precision. As mentioned in Ballinger's piece, Byron's the reason I wrote my first letter to the Pilot, so please feel free to blame him if you don't like what you read here.

Another blogger mentioned by Ballinger is the person who publishes Goat Hill Harper under the pseudonym of Not Foolya. No one is quite sure of the identity of this blogger. Some, myself included, speculate that it might be another well known, controversial, wild-eyed, prolific blogger who uses this site as an outlet for his creative efforts after having popped a couple valium. Since he uses a variety of identities when he responds to correspondence, I guess we'll never know unless he exposes himself - so to speak. I hope we do learn his identity, because some of his stuff is pretty good.

Speak of the Devil, the remaining subject of the article is a very controversial gadfly (to use Ballinger's term) who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor. This man, my own personal nominee for the Daily Pilot 103 (their list of most influential souls in our area) is, if nothing else, prolific. In fact, tonight - almost the instant this online article appeared - he fired off another blog entry to acknowledge it! Talk about quick on the draw! However, it must be noted that he apparently stuttered this evening, because his entry was posted twice, five minutes apart. Guess he wanted to be sure we saw it. As I've said many times in the past, this guy has never met a podium he wouldn't embrace - even one online.

There's no doubt in my mind about the influence that particular blog has on local politics. Ballinger's article quotes me as saying he's dangerous. I believe that to be the case. His racist views permeate everything he writes and, if you watch long enough, you can see how it forms the underpinning for most of his pronouncements at public forums, too. The campaigns of Mayor Mansoor and his campaign barnacle, Wendy Leece, reek of the stench of his personal philosophy. It's hard to get it out of your nostrils - kind of like when you run over a dead skunk on the road. Dangerous? Yeah, that's the right word.

I suppose one measure of the effectiveness of the blogs in question will occur on November 7th, when we find out whether the mayor and his running mate have managed to fool enough people with their anti-immigrant scare tactics to get elected.

So, I'm back... rested and ready for the home stretch. If recent postings are any indication, the next week is going to be very, very interesting in the wonderful world of Newport-Mesa Blogdom.

Keep reading, because I'm going to keep on writing and I'm sure all the others will, too. I suspect that, before the clock strikes midnight on November 7th, we all will have learned a little more about the candidates, their financing, their backers and those of us who try to influence opinion with the things we write. It promises to be a very entertaining week. Stay tuned.

Two weeks to go and the beat goes on.

Our young jailer/mayor found an opportunity to defend his ethnicity in a letter to the editor in the Orange County Register this weekend. Even though he had been only casually mentioned in an earlier letter involving another Orange County politician, Mansoor apparently felt it was important to defend his heritage. To the best of my knowledge, no one has made his ethnic background an issue in this election except him. Did I mention there are only two weeks until the election?

Then, this morning, his running buddy Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever, had a commentary published in the Daily Pilot which was captioned, "Setting the record straight on mayor". It's a diatribe criticizing the editors of the Daily Pilot for their endorsement of Bruce Garlich and Mike Scheafer as the two best choices for Costa Mesa City Council next month.

It's hard to know where to begin responding to Bever's pitiful offering, but here goes...

Bever's first lie is in his very first sentence when he says the following: " I completely expected that the Pilot would once again anoint two people for the Costa Mesa City Council who have no track record and no vision for fighting crime or beautifying the city." His pitiful characterization of Garlich and Scheafer as men who "have no track record and no vision" is pathetic. Both of these men have a clear record of dedication to this city in many ways over more than three decades. Bever's selective memory apparently allowed him to forget that he stepped aside to allow Scheafer to be appointed to the City Council not too long ago. Garlich has served this city with distinction as a planning commissioner - including a term as chairman. The Mansoor/Bever/Monahan majority re-appointed him to the planning commission.

Bever lays on the obfuscation by the shovel full in his second paragraph when he discounts the phrase used in the Daily Pilot endorsement, "fear, divisiveness and discord", blaming those characteristics on previous city councils. Well, any sober assessment of the past two years will reveal that the current council majority - led by Mansoor - has ripped this city apart with policies designed specifically to disenfranchise the Latino population and force them out of the city. You'll notice I didn't say "illegal Latino population" because it's clear to me that their plan is to expunge the entire Latino population from this city and have been marching down a path to do exactly that since they took power.

Bever bemoans the "much-maligned council majority" (of which he is a member) for the criticism being directed their way for their lack of support for law enforcement initiatives. Well, the record clearly shows that Mayor Mansoor has ignored his two chiefs of police on very important issues. So transparent are his actions that the Costa Mesa Police Association chose to endorse Garlich and Scheafer. It's incomprehensible to me how a man who has spent more than a dozen years as a deputy sheriff can be so completely oblivious to the requirements of local law enforcement. Perhaps he's spent so much time in the bowels of the Orange County jail that he's completely forgotten what real law enforcement is all about.

The list of Bever's misstatements and fabrications goes on and on. Perhaps the most amusing is his reference to "Bruce Garlich and his running mate, former Councilman Mike Scheafer". This flat out lie is amusing for a couple of reasons. First, both men are running independent campaigns. However, so many highly respected individuals and organizations support them that it could appear that they are running as a team. They are not. Each brings a different skill set to the table and either would make an excellent council member. In a perfect world, both will be elected on November 7th.

On the other hand, Wendy Leece professes that she is an "independent" candidate, yet has been stuck to Mansoor's fanny like a barnacle since the campaign started. She didn't even have a functioning web site until a week ago. In the meantime, Mansoor uses his to promote her candidacy, has loaned her $5,000 from his campaign and opens every public comment with a pitch to support her for council. That, my friends, is a running mate.

So, it's up to you, dear readers, to cut through the manure being shoveled by Mansoor, Bever and their personal publicity flack, the author of the CM Press, to see the real truth. It's up to you to understand that the Mansoor/Leece campaign is in a state of panic with two weeks left until the election. It will not surprise me one bit to see more lies, fabrications and dirty tricks in the next fourteen days.