CM PRESS # 353

Anaheim resident and Return to Reason Daily Pilot director of news and online Tony Dodero has a self-serving column in the Return to Reason Daily Pilot today in which Tony tells readers that it doesn't much matter if those who are reporting on Costa Mesa actually live here or far away. LINK

Tony is apparently responding to the CM PRESS's columns about Fullerton resident and Return to Reason Daily Pilot managing editor Brady Rhoades' stupid comments about Paularino Park (located not in Anaheim or Fullerton, but in Costa Mesa).

Well, Tony, here's why it matters.

If one actually lives in the city that one is reporting on, one is less likely to make the kind of stupid mistakes that Rhoades made in his recent blog about Paularino Park.

Instead of knowing the facts about the park, Rhoades just seemed to parrot the comments from another guy who has an agenda and whose comments are wrong. Here's the LINK to CM PRESS # 351 about this.

And, Tony, you say that it's more important that the employees of the Return to Reason Daily Pilot have "connections" than where they live.

So, who over there is connected to what's really going on? The paper is full of Return to Reason members and sympathizers and illegal alien friendly lefties whose biases seem to blind them to reality and causes them to think in something less than a straight line. You think they have connections?

Their connections are to the charities and other lefties. They just hear the same psycho-babble and kumbaya all the time at whine and jeez meets.

The Return to Reason Daily Pilot has been trying to use its connections to elect its fellow travellers to the Costa Mesa City Council for years and has expressed corporate surprise each time the Improvers elect candidates.

"Oh, my gosh, how did that happen?!" seems to be the response we've been seeing from the Return to Reason Daily Pilot after the last several elections.

First, the Improvers helped Chris Steel get elected when all you connected folks said he was unelectable. Then they helped Allan Mansoor get elected. Then Eric Bever. Then Wendy Leece.

The Return to Reason Daily Pilot can't have too many connections if it couldn't see those wins coming down the pike. Or, maybe it's just a brain deficit over there.

If you had been reading the CM PRESS, you would have had a clue.

Some might say that the Improvers always seem to be ten steps ahead of you folks at the Return to Reason Daily Pilot. Maybe it's because they actually live in Costa Mesa.

By the way, Tony, why didn't you mention that you live in Anaheim in your column?

And, Tony, when several people were shot in drive-by shootings in Costa Mesa last year, in separate incidents, the CM PRESS was there in each incident--before the ambulances arrived. We interviewed people on the scene and learned what was really going on, unfiltered by others. You were probably in Anaheim.

You see, Tony, lots of things go on in Costa Mesa when the Return to Reason Daily Pilot closes for the day and while you and Rhoades are back in your homes in faraway Anaheim and Fullerton.

Tony also tells readers in his column today that it doesn't matter that new reporter Alan Blank comes from a family of Return to Reasoners. Why, Blank is unbiased, says Tony. Sure he is. So, why did Blank write a puff piece about Humberto Caspa and his new book?

According to an email I received from Yvette Cabrera at the OC REGISTER, Caspa wrote the following nonsence in his book:

"Since most users of Paularino Park were ethnic minorities, and because Millard is known for having deep-seated prejudices against anyone who is not White, he asked for a mandatory prohibition that would have virtually denied access to the
park for Latinos and U.S. Latinos (sic)."

The above statement makes three different and separate false assertions of fact and attempts to establish, in a reader's mind, a motive based on views I do not have.

Let me diagram it for you:

1. "Since most users of Paularino Park were ethnic minorities"---False. Caspa doesn't live in the Mesa North neighborhood where Paularino Park is located and neither the city nor anyone else, that I am aware of, keeps a count of who uses the park either as a function of just the raw number of people, or broken down by race/ethnicity. However, since I live near the park and see it several times a day (and have for many years), I'm confident in saying that, based on my on-the-ground observations, most users were not, and still are not, ethnic minorities. However, ethnic minorities do use the park.

2. "and because Millard is known for having deep-seated prejudices against anyone who is not white"---False. I do not have deep-seated prejudices against anyone who is not white. Anyone who thinks this, is either misinformed or has an agenda or both. I know what's in my mind. In fact, I'm the one that asked that the City adopt JFK's dictum about not using tax money in ways that discriminate based on race or ethnicity.

3. "he asked for a mandatory prohibition that would have virtually denied access to the park for Latinos and U.S. Latinos (sic)."---False. I was one of many in the neighborhood who asked that the City of Costa Mesa name Paularino Park a passive park to make the park safe for all users.

Soccer was specifically named as a problem by most of the residents because it was the only team sport that was then being played in the park and which endangered toddlers and others in the park. However, the neighborhood asked the city to ban all similar sports--baseball, football, etc., from the park. The neighborhood's request first went before the Parks and Recreation Commission where it received a unanimous vote to make the park passive. It then went to the City Council and received a majority vote to make it passive.

The request by the Mesa North community, and the subsequent action by the City of Costa Mesa, was based on health and safety concerns and related to actions that were dangerous in this small park, and had nothing at all to do with race or ethnicity. The park remains open to people of all races and ethnicities.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 193

IS IT TIME FOR THE DAILY PILOT TO BECOME A CHAPTER OF DENSA--THE LOW I.Q. SOCIETY?

Tony Dodero is the latest non-Costa Mesa resident and ink stained scribbler from the Return to Reason Daily Pilot to whine about Paularino Park being made safe for residents.

These people at the Pilot all seem to be cut from the same stupid cloth and they all do the bidding of Newport Beach resident Thomas H. Johnson who is the publisher of the Pilot and who is ultimately responsible for the tone of the newspaper. If you work for the paper you had better write what this guy wants or you'll be looking for a new job. And, finding jobs in the shrinking world of newspapers isn't easy these days.

It appears that Dodero just used his blather about Paularino Park as an excuse to launch one of the Pilot's regular attacks on anyone who tries to improve Costa Mesa in meaningful ways. Maybe Dodero is looking for a raise from Johnson.

Mayor Mansoor was Dodero's specific target today.

As usual, Dodero goes off into lala land with his column as he fails to address the real issues and doesn't even discuss why the Pilot didn't complain--as pointed out by Mayor Mansoor in the mayor's earlier column--when the residents near Tanager Park in Mesa Verde had basketball removed from that park.

As you may recall, when the residents who live near Tanager Park complained about noise from basketball being played in the park, the City quickly removed the basketball hoops. When it did so, there were no smears in the Pilot about racism or about how residents hate kids or how kids would now get fat or about how the government was stealing our freedoms. Nothing. Not a peep.

Why? Hmmmm. Let's play the Pilot's silly smear game for a moment, just to make the point. Our eyes narrow to slits and we lower our voice to a knowing whisper. "Pssst. Didja hear that the Pilot is institutionally racist? Pass it on.

"Psssst. Which group in the U.S. is most closely associated with basketball? Blacks. And, which people, according to some, mostly play soccer in our parks? Hispanics.

"So, could it be that the Pilot hates Blacks and loves Hispanics? Is that what this is about? Is that why the Pilot was silent about removing basketball hoops, but has been filling its pages with slack-jawed complaints about Paularino Park?

"And, why does the Pilot have no Blacks on staff, that we know about, while it does have Hispanics? Why are there columns about the "vibrant Hispanic community," but none about the "vibrant Black community," or even the "vibrant White or Asian communities?"

See how easy it is to smear? But, it's nonsense. The issue is about making parks safe and having them be used in appropriate ways so the greatest number of people can enjoy them.

And, speaking of appropriate uses for our parks, if we follow the Pilot's silly logic, we would allow anything in all parks. It's an absurd result. But, the Pilot is pretty absurd.

Consider: Would the folks at the Bark Park like soccer pickup games there? Would the folks playing soccer at the Farm Complex want people having picnics in the middle of their fields? Would the people at the Volcom Skate Park like model airplanes being flown there?

The truth is that all of our parks are different and they all have to be tailored for different needs and uses depending on a wide range of circumstances, including the wishes of the people who live near those parks.

Maybe if the Daily Pilot had more people working there who actually live in Costa Mesa the paper wouldn't be so out of touch with the community that it's supposed to be serving.

Duh!
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.