Friends, check out the Linda Ackerwoman campaign expense report at the California Secretary of State’s website.
We noticed this odd line item.
10/19/2009
ACKERMAN, DICK
OFFICE EXPENSES
$654.40
Ackerwoman’s campaign forked over $654 bucks to her husband under the crypric description of “office expenses.”
Heh heh. Never miss a trick.
Could Dick actually be charging his wife’s campaign for some sort of services rendered? Well, why not? She made a killing as a “consultant” on his campaigns, and what the Hell, turnabout is fair play, right? Too bad the campaign won’t turn a profit.
We do have to wonder what kind of total Dick will rack up by the time Ackerman, Inc. is done squeezing every drop out of lobbyists.
Remember this one? It seems that some enterprising Russians have been sharing this clip with their pals in Mockba. So we thought, what the heck! If it’s good enough for Ivan, it’s good enough for the voters of the 72nd District – to be reminded THAT ACKERMAN, INC. DOES NOT LIVE IN OUR DISTRICT! OH, NO. NOT EVEN CLOSE. THE WOMAN WHO WANTS TO REPRESENT NORTH ORANGE COUNTY IN THE STATE ASSEMBLY LIVES IN IRVINE, AND HAS DONE SO FOR TEN YEARS!
It’s time to bring an end to the carpetbagging campaign of Linda Ackerman. Please join Chris Norby in a precinct walk for his campaign for the 72nd Assembly District.
This race is an opportunity to send a reformer to Sacramento and to say “NO” to the business as usual politicians and special interest groups.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2009
10am-1pm
Meet at:
CHRIS NORBY’S HOME
216 N. YALE
FULLERTON
Morning refreshments will be provided. For further questions or to confirm your attendance, please call 714-937-1005.
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a consumate Sacramento insider who for years was part of the legislative problem, seems to have seen the light. Here he is testifying on legislative reform. He takes his fellow Dems to the woodshed and it ain’t pretty. But it is entertaining.
A new month, the same old weeping by the Fullerton Observer about how the good ol’ boys are keeping poor Pam Keller from her entitlement to be mayor when the next term starts. It’s not fair! Not fair!
(Ed. – Never a word about Keller’s dismal votes on massive projects or her unique working relationship with FSD/Fullerton Collaborative, but that’s another story.)
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the person who is entitled to be mayor is the council person who can get two other people on the council to vote for him. Pretty simple. Nothing else really matters.
The author of this indignant drivel lays out a conspiracy tale of events behind the scenes to keep a Democrat out of the presiding chair; and as usual the plot centers around Shawn Nelson, without whom the Observer would have a lot less to natter on about. Ironically the tangled web includes Observer favorite Don Bankhead and by necessity another Observer endorsement recipient – Dick Jones! Observer chickens coming home to roost? God, let’s hope so!
Politics might be going on. The horror! Of course despite the Observer trying to emphasize the ceremonial (i.e. non-political) aspects of the mayorship, the fact is it is a very coveted title when re-election time rolls around – as it does for Pam Keller, next year. Aha! Politics!
So is a scheme being worked out to elect somebody else mayor for 2010? Possibly. Quite likely, although since none of the supposed principles would be likely to talk to Sharon Kennedy about it, it seems much more likely to be a pure guess on her part. Our congressman Ed Royce loves to meddle in these affairs; to him it seems easier than simply turning on the light and opening the closet door to discover that there really is no monster in there. Just some mops and brooms.
And speaking of politics, maybe The Observer should quit endorsing Ed Royce puppets like the chowderhead Jones and focus on somebody who could actually be counted on to support Keller for mayor. Oh no! More politics.
We’ve made a pretty big deal on this blog about the use of brick veneer, specifically, the way our Redevelopment Agency has always insisted on slathering it on to stuff to try to give the false appearance of historic structure, or under the guise of matching what is supposed to be the building material par excellence of downtown Fullerton: red brick.
We thought it was about time to get an historical perspective on the uses of architectural veneer – particularly masonry veneer, and so we have once again called upon the good offices of Dr. Ralph E. Haldemann, Professor or Art History (Emeritus) at Otterbein College, and our adjunct Arts and Architecture Editor. Doc?
When you want to find out, go to the best...
The question of the role of veneers in architectural history is really quite fascinating, but requires an amount (admittedly minimal) of erudition. I will try to sum up some thoughts on the subject.
In pre-modern times the nature of building materials basically necessitated that structural materials were de facto finished materials as well – although historical exceptions are not uncommon: we know of course, that the Romans during the Imperial Era were fond of using stone veneers on brick buildings to dress them up. Such uses of marble veneer were often used in the Western Mediterranean basin countries in Romanesque and Italian/Venetian Gothic buildings.
The use of plaster cement or lime-based coatings on brick, especially non-fired brick, has an ancient lineage that reaches forward into the adobe buildings of California’s own Mission period; however neither this application nor the modern use of lath and plaster on studs can be considered a veneer.
Medieval Europe, particularly in the non-deforested climes of the north, saw a rise in timber construction in which the structural members were exposed and the interstitial areas filled with plastered wattling. Again, such fill even though non-structural, cannot rightly be called a veneer.
With the advent of structural iron and steel, fill materials in modern commercial architecture remained brick (for practical and fireproofing reasons). However, terra cotta facings with ceramic finishes attached to the underlying structure became the norm from the 1890s through the 1920s; the wide adoption of moderne styles in the 20s and 30s often replaced highly detailed terra cotta with simpler and smoother concrete and even ceramic tile finishes. These uses generally applied a finished masonry surface over an unfinished substrate of common brick. These are veneers.
It was really in American domestic architecture that brick veneers (almost exclusively brick) captured the imagination of a growing bourgeois sensibility. After the industrial age had ushered in standardized lumber, machine made nails and mass produced balloon-frame wood houses, a longing for the perceived hominess and historicity of brick set in. This was aided by several cultural American Colonial Revivals, particularly in the early 20th Century that coincided nicely with eras of vast suburban expansion. It was all mostly a real eastate come-on.
The use of phony brick surfaces continued unabated in the little cracker box houses of the ’50s and persists happily to this very day, particularly in subdivisions where an emotional attachment to American historical antecedents is being peddled.
The use of fake brick fronts in commercial areas followed the same suburban trajectory as the use of the material in domiciles. It too persits today, particularly where city fathers and chambers of commerce wish to deal out a conjured up historical image for their otherwise unremarkable and humble burgs.
Modern architectural theory held that this sort of use of non-structural masonry veneer is fundamentally non-truthful, meretricious and basically a middlebrow (or lower) affectation. And so it is! And yet the Robert Venturi school of Post-Modernists embraced such use for its exuberance, color and tactile properties, as well as potential (often ironical) historical connotations. However it must be said that when the historical connotation is wrong, or the deployment is meant to be deceptive or even slavish, a real aestheic problem exists; and can, if left uncontrolled, lead to real civic embarrassment.
It takes guts to align yourself with the ragtag group of truth-spewers known as Friends for Fullerton’s Future. If you’ve got the stuff, become a fan of FFFF on Facebook. Bonus commentary, extra snarky remarks and invitations to special events await you. So get over there and click “Become a Fan”!
UPDATE: And once you join, don’t forget to invite your friends!
At least they said they did. We will certainly forgive you if you have your doubts. The boys in The Van were given an extra allocation of medicinal mushrooms after their last supposed Ackerman phone call coup, and, well, that’s an ingredient that could produce almost any kind of weird hallucination.
Anyway, here’s what the Undercover Surveillance Unit claims to have captured. Make of it what you will.
(phone ringing)
Dick Jones: Ahhm a comin’ (heavy panting noises) Hello?
Dick Ackerman: (a grunt) Dick Ackerman here.
DJ: Dick! (wheezing sounds) Sorry, ah’m a little winded. Long way from the privvy.
DA: Quit talking and listen. That asshole Nygren did a poll. Roski’s pulling out. Two goddam miserable weeks left and that punk Roski’s pulling out on me. They’re all out to get me. No respect. Goddammit I’m Dick Ackerman. Okay, look, I’m outta dough. We’re outta dough. Linda’s outta dough. Hitting up all my Fullerton friends. Our Fullerton friends. Linda’s Fullerton friends.
DJ: A poll (wheezing and coughing). What kinda poll? (coughing)
DA: (several guttural noises) Don’t worry about that. Forget about it. I need some dough. We need some dough. Linda needs some dough. We gotta keep hitting that bastard Norby. Right up ’til the end. At the end. After the end (distinct snarling sound followed by an apparent bark).
DJ: That Norby, boy, he’s a real troublemaker. A real Brutus. Et tu Brutus? (unattributable sputtering sounds)
DA: What?
DJ: Huh?
DA: (a series of staccato grunts) Shut up and listen. What can I put you down for? The limit, right?
DJ: Ahhumm. Well, ah ain’t gonna hide the fact, Dick. S’been a tough year. Reeeal tough! (two phlegmmycoughs)
DA: (a snarl) Why you ingrate, if it wasn’t for me you’d just be another loud-mouthed Rotarian. You’ve got more money than Croesus. Sell one of your thirteen cars and pony up, goddammit!
DJ: There was a poll? (more asthmatic wheezing)
DA: (a bark) Goddammit you jackass, forget about the poll! I’m putting you down for $1200. A guy’s coming up to Fullerton today to wash my car at Dolan’s place. I’ll send him over to pick up the check.
DJ: Norby. That sumbitch tried to stop our Redevelopment expansion. That’s a brilliant plan. He’s a trouble maker. And he’s buddies with Bushala. Suin’ his own city! Got a name fer boys like that back in Galveston: sumbitch.
DA: Yeah. I tried to shut up that punk too. Didn’t work. Everybody’s useless. Out to get me. Get us. Get Linda. (several low growling sounds) But forget about that.
DJ: (a long wheeze) Heh-heh, did ah ever tell ya about the Eye-talian family that used to run Galveston?
DA: What? Shut up and listen. My boy will be around for the check at ten or eleven. His names’s Mike. Or Matt. Or Milt. Something like that. Won’t do my tires right (a snarl).
DJ: Huh?
DA What?
DJ: There was a poll?
Unidentified Female Voice in Background: Dick, that white van is back behind the statue garden wall!
DA: Hell. Damn peacocks are gonna go off again. Okay. Get off the line you idiot. And write that check. Now.
Friends, have you noticed the sudden subsidence of big glossy mailers sent out by Ackerman, Inc. and Alliance for California’s Tomorrow (ACT) attacking Chris Norby? You know, the ones that take uncorroborated testimony from a disgruntled ex-County employee fired for misfeasance and turned into third person language to make it look like somebody was a witness to her bogus claims?
We were getting pieces almost everyday (sometimes two) ladled out of the Ackerwoman slop-bucket, but that has stopped. Even Ackerwoman’s obsequious press agent Martin Wisckol has noticed it – and actually tried to figure out why. The ACT has run out of money. The last dough they spent went to a poll – and no more money has come in since.
Possible poll results that look bad for Ackerwoman, plus the fact that the majority of permanent absentee voters who are voting have already mailed in their ballots may well mean that the investment value in Ackerwoman’s candidacy has been reassessed.
So, have Ed Roski, the Indian casinos, and the other anti-Norby interests finally given up on the Ackerwoman campaign? Wisckol asked Jim Nygren, the parasite who runs ACT. Nygren said he was told to keep quiet. Apparently Roski doesn’t care for idle chatter.
Here’s an e-mail we received from a Sunny Hills High school student that raises some good questions about the lack of communication betweenHigh School District and the NOCCCD and why FJC requires that people pay to park when nobody is using the facility.
This past Friday night, I went to the Sunny Hills vs. Fullerton H.S. School football game at Fullerton High which happens to be right across the street from Fullerton Junior College which happens to have a parking structure right across the street from the high school’s stadium. I parked in that parking structure and ended up getting a parking ticket for not having a Fullerton College parking permit. I did not think that at this time (7:00-9:00pm) on a Friday night anyone would be checking for the parking permit because of the event that was going on at the stadium. There were many cars parked in the structure who were apparently also going to the game that did not have a parking permits. The officer that gave me the ticket was named Officer Gonzalez, I believe.
Is Fullerton College really in that much of a budget crunch that they need to go out and give a bunch of high school students parking tickets to collect twenty seven dollars? If people didn’t park in this structure we would be parking in the residential areas to the north of the stadium which would bother the residents that live near the stadium. The group that issued the ticket is discouraging students from going to high school promoted events. Can’t someone from the High School District and the College figure out a responsible plan that would assure people can go to the football stadium, watch a football game and not get a parking ticket?
