Wednesday, June 01, 2005 | First a mea culpa. Last week, I chided a city councilwoman only to have her chide me right back pointing out that my criticism was off base. I’m a tad embarrassed, but glad to learn that Donna Frye didn’t sell out to political expediency after all.
I had said she gave in to pressure when she voted to rescind a previous measure which would have ended the city’s involvement in the cross on Mt. Soledad. Surely, I thought, let that thing die. The city is zillions in debt and has enough problems as it is. They ought not continue to pursue what’s been determined to be an unconstitutional act.
Almost immediately an e-mail from the surfer girl landed in the old dumpster. It contained a copy of the provisions of the petition promulgated by a claque of true believers, those guys who idolize Roger Hedgecock so much they are probably violating the first commandment.
The petition contained the following: “(if the city) fails to reconsider the act within the prescribed time frame, the Council shall adopt a resolution of intention to submit the matter to the voters at a special election and direct the City Attorney to prepare an ordinance calling a special election placing the matter on the ballot.”
Frye was gracious in explaining that her vote was to keep yet another proposition from being automatically triggered.
Not so gracious was Hedgecock whose name also appeared in the article a time or so. The day after my opinion piece (and it’s merely my opinion) appeared, Roger opened his program with a long diatribe against me. He even claimed not to know who Dipsey Dumpster was.
Gee whiz, after all I did to make him famous, too! I spent all sorts of time on the old Hudson and Bauer program talking about him. Then, in this Web site, I wrote about some of the silly things he had done. As he did with Jim McElroy, the lawyer suing the city to remove the cross, he threw me off his radio show once. I wrote about that for Navy Times.
Some of my articles were by me, some by my pseudonym.
I’m guessing Roger doesn’t like to have his own feet held to the fire. He was so ticked I was afraid he would challenge me to a duel. That would have been terrible because I misplaced my sword. It’s the military sword I sometimes wore during the 22 years, 9 months, and 11 days I spent protecting his right to insult me and everything else he doesn’t understand.
There’s lots he doesn’t understand, the Constitution for starters. You have to wonder if he even heard of it while in law school. In his diatribe, he reiterated his contention that the cross doesn’t violate the establishment clause. That would have been a surprise to the judges on the Ninth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. They determined, “. . . even if the property were donated and the cross designated a National War Memorial the presence of the cross would violate the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
That was part of a unanimous decision in last year’s case of Buono v. Norton and had to do with a national memorial in the Mojave Desert. The Supreme Court refused even to hear the case. It is the law of the land.
Roger did proclaim he agreed with me that he and his claque were true believers. Where we part company is that I don’t believe his beliefs should be binding on me. I also think true believers ought to recognize and obey the law just like the rest of us. They could start by refusing to beat the dead horse they’ve been walloping to no avail for 16 years.
Finally to the many readers who caught this faux pas: “. . . Mike Aguirre asked for a show of hands from those who would still support removing the cross even if they knew it was unconstitutional.”
Yeah, I should have said retaining.
Now, I’m going to stop apologizing before it gets to be a habit and I have to tell Roger I’m sorry.
Dipsey also writes under his pseudonym Keith Taylor. Both can be reached at