Laiatu Latu, UCLA defense display dominance against Stanford

• October 22, 2023

While Ethan Garbers started at quarterback and Carson Steele scored three touchdowns and served as the focal point in the UCLA football team’s victory over Stanford, it was edge rusher Laiatu Latu and the Bruins’ defense that continued to display their dominance.

The defense allowed just 24 total rushing yards on 17 carries along with 268 passing yards and a touchdown against the Cardinal’s offense.

“I thought it was a good team win out there,” said UCLA coach Chip Kelly. “We generated a pass rush and made it difficult for their offense with that front of ours. It’s difficult to block so we kept them behind.”

Stanford quarterback Ashton Daniels was sacked four times by the Bruins, improving their average to 3.43 per game and sitting tied for eighth in the country.

Latu improved his sack total to 6.5 on the season, tied for ninth nationally, after bringing down Stanford quarterback Aston Daniels for a 3-yard loss on second-and-12 late in the second quarter.

The edge rusher has 17 sacks (10.5 in 2022) as a Bruin and ties Takkarist McKinley (2014-16), Neal Dellocono (1981-84), Karl Morgan (1979-82), Martin Moss (1978-81) and Manu Tuiasosopo (1975-78) for 13th on the program’s all-time career sacks list.

Latu needs four sacks to surpass Mark Walen (1982-85) to claim sole possession of 10th all-time.

The senior was named as an Associated Press Midseason All-American first-team defender last Wednesday.

Defensive lineman Gabriel Murphy produced a pair of sacks on third down that forced the Cardinal to punt in the first and third quarter respectively. Redshirt sophomore linebacker Carson Schwesinger also had his first career sack as a Bruin.

Kelly spoke highly of Alex Johnson during a pregame radio show interview and mentioned that the defensive back had been playing at an “All-American level” this season.

Johnson has also received midseason honors, being named to the Pro Football Focus midseason All-American first team. He currently leads the Pac-12 Conference with three interceptions.

While he didn’t improve his total Saturday night, he did finish among the Bruins’ tackling leaders with five. He also blocked Aidan Flintoft’s 20-yard punt attempt in the third quarter.

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“It was there all night,” Johnson said. “It was almost perfection. It should’ve been a clean block for a touchdown but we will take what we can get.”

Stanford was unsuccessful on all four fourth-down attempts against the Bruins. Cornerback Devin Kirkwood was responsible for one of those stops, forcing receiver Elic Ayomanor to fumble the ball after a 15-yard completion on fourth-and-5. Linebacker Oluwafemi Oladejo recovered the ball for the Bruins. It was the second recovery this season.

“I think our effort is consistent,” Johnson said. “If our effort is as consistent as it’s been then I think that will be the showcase that you see week in and week out.”

​ Orange County Register 

Crowds enjoy Silverado Days “shindig” in Buena Park

• October 22, 2023

Buena Park’s Silverado Days continues Sunday with entertainment and festivities filling Peak Park.

Already visitors have been enjoying contests such as pie eating and cutest baby; they’ve been shopping the marketplace of crafts and local businesses; and they’ve been thrilled by the carnival rides.

Community performers and bands have been entertaining the crowds throughout the three-day festival.

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Sunday opens with a 7 a.m. pancake breakfast and there is chili cookoff and classic car show.

The Buena Park Noon Lions Club hosts Silverado Days as a fundraiser for local charities. This is the event’s 67th year.

If you go

When: 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

Where: Peak Park, 7225 El Dorado Drive

Cost: Admission is free

Information: silveradodays.com

​ Orange County Register 

Illegal fireworks show in Santa Ana seen across Orange County

• October 22, 2023

Booms and explosions could be heard across Orange County on Saturday night after a large cache of fireworks were lit off in an industrial area in Santa Ana.

The pyrotechnic blasts were illegal, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Steve Concialdi said. The fireworks, which Santa Ana police said were set off in the vicinity of Birch Street and Central Avenue, could be seen or heard as far away as Huntington Beach and Aliso Viejo.

“I thought I was hearing artillery fire and/or Godzilla’s footsteps,” one person wrote on Reddit.

“Whoa I’m in HB and this is wild. It was louder than the air show… I saw what looked like fireworks in the sky tho?” wrote another.

No injuries were reported.

A 5-minute video shared on YouTube titled “Pyromaniac Takeover” showed a group of people lighting off several different devices on an empty street before a flurry of fireworks burst into the sky, followed by thick plumes of white smoke and a series of bangs, booms, and whistles.

The video was removed on Sunday. But another one could be seen on TikTok.

Another video recorded in the area shows remnants of leftover fireworks, smoke, and small fires lining a street in Santa Ana. The driver filming the video appears to be caught up in the blast after a firework erupts right next to his car.

random huge fireworks were going off in #OrangeCounty CA and I decided to find the origin of it and stupidly drove through it pic.twitter.com/fKsqBFsqZw

— James Lee (@jlsupreme) October 22, 2023

At least 40 people gathered in the area to watch what appeared to be an orchestrated, illegal fireworks show, a security guard at the cannabis dispensary 420 Central said. Several food trucks stationed next door had their windows shattered from the shockwaves.

Tensions grew after police arrived around 11:30 p.m. and chased a car out of the area. Afterward, the security guard said, several people started throwing fireworks at him and said fireballs were going off in his direction. He asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns.

Details on the number of fireworks set off or whether there were any arrests were not immediately available.

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​ Orange County Register 

What has happened to Caleb Williams and USC’s vaunted offense?

• October 22, 2023

There were no tears, this time.

Another critical game against Utah ended in defeat, another USC team outcoached and outlasted, and this time Caleb Williams seemed all but drained of emotion. Remaining on the bench, postgame, as Utah stormed the field, the rest of his teammates slowly making their way to the tunnel, their quarterback sighing and staring into a void of nothing in particular. Giving, on the FOX broadcast, a resigned handshake to center and fellow captain Justin Dedich.

Reality had set in, cruel and unforgiving. Bleak. This was a man who has been universally renowned as a leader since the day Williams stepped foot on Gonzaga College High’s campus, since calming the nerves of running back Jaden Knowles in their first extended stretch of playing time at Oklahoma. Who had spoken to his USC teammates, before this pivotal season, about the importance and opportunity of creating a legacy so grand their name could walk into rooms they were never present within.

“You can’t go win a championship by yourself … it’s a whole 110 players that’s immortal with you,” Williams said in August.

But immortality, in the span of a drubbing in South Bend and a heartbreaking 34-32 loss to Utah at the Coliseum, has slipped away. No team in this current era of the College Football Playoff has ever made the tournament with two losses. USC is out of contention for a national championship; a road to a Pac-12 championship doesn’t look much easier, with back-to-back games against Washington and Oregon coming up.

And the rumor mill, slowly building steam across the past couple weeks, will now be chugging steadily across the final few weeks of USC’s season. Emmanuel Acho suggested in a now-viral tweet that Williams should consider sitting out the rest of the season to preserve his health for the league, massively amplifying a take that’d been whispered in corners of social media. Noise around Williams’ potential to pass up the NFL for a third season of college has built, ever since father Carl suggested in an early-September GQ profile that his son could return to USC if they didn’t feel he’d be landing in a good situation with a pro team.

“In a perfect world, yeah, would every single player, staff member, everybody in your program be so hyper-focused that they don’t hear noise on the outside or outside expectations or all of that?” coach Lincoln Riley said postgame, Williams absent from the postgame presser. “But that’s probably not reality, either.”

Noise has built, correspondingly, as Williams has noticeably seemed just off the past couple weeks.

On Saturday, with 8 yards to strike paydirt and down eight with less than four minutes to go, Williams took a snap out of the shotgun, faked a handoff as pressure bore down, and reared up to fire to Kyron Hudson in the corner of the end zone.

The ball slipped out of his hands.

It was the confounding climax of arguably the worst stretch of Williams’ collegiate life as a passer: largely slowed against Arizona, seeming to force a couple throws-turned-picks against Notre Dame and going without a touchdown pass Saturday for the first time in his USC career. Across formations with increased presence in the secondary – Utah giving seven different defensive backs over 30 snaps Saturday — standard drop-backs haven’t generated much over the past couple weeks, and Williams has missed on a number of throws after a near-flawless start.

Against Utah, Williams threw for just 115 yards on 22 attempts on plays without a run-pass option, according to Pro Football Focus; almost the same as his metrics the previous week, throwing for 127 on 23 attempts on drop-backs. Outside of a nifty Zachariah Branch end-around touchdown in the first quarter, USC’s offense looked unimaginative on Saturday when compared to Utah’s deployment of breakout two-way star Sione Vaki.

“I’ve had, I think, an OK track record in calling plays,” Riley said postgame. “Confident in my ability and our ability to do that, but we’ve got to be better for each other.”

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Riley insisted on Tuesday the tape from Notre Dame showed wide-open receivers running amok, but it’s clear USC is having trouble utilizing its skill players against strong defensive units — as evidenced by Riley giving some key third-quarter playing time to long-dormant freshmen Duce Robinson and Makai Lemon.

Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington, who had 112 yards on Saturday, have been the only consistent big-play threats in the Trojans’ wide-receiver room; Arizona transfer Dorian Singer continues to be largely an afterthought, Branch had just two touches Saturday, and running back MarShawn Lloyd was churning before a costly third-quarter fumble.

“To play really good and be successful, you’ve gotta be really sharp,” Riley said postgame. “And at times, we were really sharp and at times we were not. So obviously gotta play better there.”

​ Orange County Register 

Life can be peaceful without hearing aids. Or maybe not

• October 22, 2023

I have got to find my hearing aids. They’re missing, not lost. The difference is that I have a better chance of finding them if they’re just missing. Lost … they might forever stay lost. You know, like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, they might be banished to Neverland.

My hearing aids will probably cost just a shade under $3,000 — and that’s just my cost. Thank God I have insurance.

I’m getting tired of hearing just bits and pieces of conversations, if I hear them at all. On Sunday, our vicar at St. George’s said that I did a beautiful reading, and I did a knee-jerk type of reply — “And you did a wonderful sermon.” And I’m sure it was because the Rev. Pat’s sermons are always very good.

I’m trying to fake that I’m hearing what other people are saying to me by nodding occasionally and smiling a lot. But I live in fear that someday someone will be saying, “And it was such a tragic loss because the whole house burnt down.” Or “And the death was so tragic.” And there I’ll be smiling like I love fires or doom and gloom.

I was at a Publishing Club meeting recently talking with Nancy Brown, the club’s president, when she reminded me to get my nametag. So I walked out to the sign-in table, and the only words that came out clearly to me were “strip search.” Again, a knee-jerk reply, “Oh, me, me … I volunteer. I’ll do it.” Everyone at the table laughed, so I think you can see that they’re a fun bunch of people. I heartily recommend that you check out the club sometime.

Lucy has finally figured it all out. If she needs to go out, she starts by wagging her tail, and I get the drift. But if I’m not looking, she starts barking extremely loudly. She turns up the volume a lot. So now it’s “bark, bark, bark … dang it, woman … let me out!”

About the only good thing about not having my hearing aids is that life is very peaceful, because I hear only about 20% of it. Hopefully, it’s the important bits.

“What’s that you say? You’re going to retire? I thought you were already retired.”

“Oh, oh, my house is on fire. That makes a lot more sense.”

Oops, guess I’d better go and do something about that.

Diane Duray is a Laguna Woods Village resident. Contact her at [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

In-N-Out Burger’s 75th anniversary kicks off in Pomona

• October 22, 2023

Fast food and racing car fans descended on Pomona on Sunday, Oct. 22, for a 12-hour festival marking the 75th anniversary of In-N-Out Burger.

It took place at the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip, which is on the grounds of the Fairplex.

The event was a big production with a car show, car racing, live bands, an In-N-Out museum and plenty of burgers for sale.

It formally kicked off with a sky diver dropping onto the racetrack after a prayer of thanks and for peace in Israel by Sean Ellingson, husband of In-N-Out owner and president Lynsi Snyder.

“That’s my daughter!” said Mike Calmy as Kristi Calmy, a regional manager for In-N-Out in Las Vegas, sang the national anthem. He was wearing a 75th anniversary Hawaiian shirt and celebrating his own birthday at the event.

Lynsi Snyder’s grandparents Harry and Esther Synder opened the first In-N-Out on Friday, Oct. 22, 1948 in Baldwin Park. It was a drive-thru, which was an innovation at the time. Shortly after opening, Harry Snyder built a two-way intercom to take drivers’ orders before they reached the Snyders’ 10-by-10-foot stand, another innovation that changed the history of fast food.

Long lines formed at a tent housing the the In-N-Out company  store shortly after the gates opened around 10 a.m. There Mike Calmy’s Hawaiian shirt was selling for $64.95, just one item among dozens of T-shirts, hoodies and caps.

The grounds were also dotted with selfie stations where families with toddlers were getting their pictures taken for free postcards printed on the spot.

“Oh cool!” said Amy Treadway of Irvine, where In-N-Out is currently headquartered, as she and Brandon Treadway received an image of themselves in front of an In-N-Out neon sign.

Several attendees also came to the dragstrip for In-N-Out’s 70th anniversary. That event had a much bigger car show but fewer attractions, according Richard Arbiso of Upland, who was showing his 1955 Chevy.

“The 70th, you couldn’t walk by all the cars,” he said.

In-N-Out Burger obtained the naming rights to the Pomona Dragstrip last year. It is a meaningful place to Lynsi Snyder, as she writes in new book, “The In-N-Outs of In-N-Out.”

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Her late father Guy was a drag racing enthusiast, and Lynsi writes that the family held a celebration of life there after his death in 1999. She herself races and competed on the track in a Top Sportsman 1969 Chevelle hot rod last spring.

Proceeds from the book will go to the In-N-Out Foundation, which works to combat child abuse, and Slave 2 Nothing, a non-profit Snyder set up with her husband Sean Ellingson to fight substance abuse and human trafficking. The festival is also raising funds for those organizations through entry fees for a Battle of the Bands and a separately ticketed rock concert.

​ Orange County Register 

Random musings from the mind of a humorist

• October 22, 2023

There’s an expression regarding giving birth to one’s authentic self.

My birthing was laborious, bringing forth perhaps what you think you see is a plus-size babe, but that’s an optical illusion if you acknowledge that television makes one look 10 pounds heavier, and I have three TV’s.

So yes, I shot my scale, but they were blanks. You might resort to violence as well if your scale hid every morning.

Related subject: I am currently in peace negotiations between my mind and my body for a lasting thinness. We are meeting in the kitchen.

Lately, I’ve been pondering and meaning to ask this community: Is your smartphone smarter than you? Mine too!

There’s a gal named Siri living in mine, and she claimed to be my secretary. Until we went for couple’s counseling, we did not get along. Currently, however, she goes beyond what an executive position requires. And I’ve told her so. She is now hinting about a clothing allowance and a coffee maker as a Christmas bonus, and you know what? She deserves it.

Because I once ran a Progressive Single’s club here, I am constantly asked the secret about where seniors can find romance. I suggest a local pharmacy. Peek in a cutie pie’s cart. Does he have Gas X just like you have? Or the same brand of denture soak?

See? You already have common interests – which is the first pathway to romance, or at least an unusual one-night stand.

Do you know why bald men are sexy? It has to do with electricity having no place to go except … oops, I have said too much. Unless you show me your ID, I cannot give that information away.

To all of you, continue to dance with life and contribute to the world in so many ways with scars that are not always visible but remain nevertheless. I salute you all.

Bad day? Want to feel good instantly? Remember a time in your life when you were on top of the world filled with unending happiness. Picture that, each and every detail.

If you are having difficulties at this time, perhaps in the future, just by imagining or remembering a joyful place for a moment and even a chuckle – this will help in lightening up.

Humorist Jan Marshall is a Laguna Woods Village resident. Contact her at [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

Is the sudden discovery by campus leaders of political neutrality and freedom of speech for real?

• October 22, 2023

In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, many colleges and universities seem to have suddenly rediscovered the value of free speech and academic freedom. 

After a terrible free-speech track record over the last decade, schools like Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Florida have now issued statements defending free expression. They have even proposed political neutrality as advocated by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, which notes that “the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”

I, along with my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), applaud those statements and principles. But it’s hard to believe many of these universities will stand behind them. Unfortunately, these look more like positions of political convenience rather than principle.

Forgive my cynicism, but I’ve seen this all before. I started working at FIRE a couple of weeks after the September 11 attacks, and spent my first few years defending the more than a dozen college professors targeted for their 9/11-related speech. University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill was targeted for saying 9/11 victims were “little Eichmanns” who had it coming. University of New Mexico Professor Richard Berthold was disciplined for saying, “Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote.” The speech was understandably unpopular, but it was protected — so we defended it.

These calls for punishment generally came from off-campus organizations, alumni, and donors of all political stripes. In response to this external threat, universities found the backbone — or more likely, the self-interest — to defend free speech and academic freedom, which led to a brief moment of renewed appreciation for free expression on campus. Realizing you could still run afoul of speech codes despite being on “the right side of history” will do that.

But this commitment proved to be short-lived, as schools soon returned to being embarrassingly permissive of censorship.

Over the last ten years the state of campus free speech, viewpoint diversity, and groupthink have all gotten much worse. As I detail in my new book, “The Canceling of the American Mind,” co-authored with Gen-Z journalist Rikki Schlott, more than 1,000 campaigns to get professors punished for their speech have occurred since 2013, and nearly 200 professors ended up being fired or forced out as a result. 

In recent years, we’ve seen NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines being shouted down and chased through the hallways by angry students at San Francisco State University; violent protests disrupting a talk by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at University of California, Davis; Dr. Carole Hooven targeted by administrators at Harvard for asserting that biological sex is real; and Ilya Shapiro suspended and investigated at Georgetown for a controversial tweet about President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee. 

Those are just a few examples, and they don’t inspire much confidence in American universities’ sudden recommitment to free expression.

A good case in point is Harvard. Despite President Claudine Gay’s recent statements affirming the value of tolerance and free speech, the university scored dead last in FIRE’s 2024 campus free-speech ranking due to its speech codes,  student opinion on the campus free speech climate, and its treatment of dissenting professors, students, and speakers. This means simple nods to free expression won’t be enough. Gay and other college administrators will have to walk the talk if they expect anyone to take them seriously.

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Given the events on campus the last two weeks, it seems clear that some university leaders — as well as students and faculty — were too afraid to disagree with professor and student activists who take for granted that the pro-Palestinian position, and even the pro-Hamas position, is the only acceptable one. Given the number of vociferous past statements regarding issues like Black Lives Matter or the war in Ukraine, the sudden silence of university presidents and professors who may be sympathetic to Israel as well as the seeming certainty of student activists that everyone should agree with their anti-Israel opinions, is itself the product of years of cancel culture and fear.

Despite my skepticism, I would love to see universities commit to political neutrality, defend academic freedom, and promote freedom of speech. If they encouraged tolerance for differing viewpoints, listening to people, giving the benefit of the doubt, maintaining an open mind, and acknowledging the possibility of being wrong, it would represent a significant and welcome shift from the recent past — especially at elite colleges

While I appreciate and encourage their newfound emphasis on freedom of speech, it will take years for universities to demonstrate a genuine change, given their history of inconsistency. Given what I’ve seen in my two decades doing this work, I suspect that they might contradict themselves again in just a few months. I truly hope to be proven wrong.

Greg Lukianoff is the president and CEO of FIRE and the co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution

​ Orange County Register