On Mondays - Even The Gods Have Feet Of Clay! Plus Feet Of Clay Update!!

http://www2.dailynews.com/rickorlov/ci_3081299

Two of the brightest people I know today committed a hideous libel against my beloved Owens Valley today. One of them said it - and the other one (Rick Orlov of the Daily News)reported it:

One of the classic films about Los Angeles, "Chinatown," is about to become an educational tool.
The union representing some 10,000 city workers, Service Employees International Union Local 347, is putting together a forum Oct. 20 at its headquarters to open a discussion about the city's history and future.

The one thing that union business manager Julie Butcher promises is that there will be no sheep brought in to protest the city's taking of water from Northern California.

Northern California???

Excuse me.

There are many geographic areas of California you can use in describing Inyo County and the Owens Valley. There is locally used term - Eastern California, there is also the very apt phrase, Central California and should there only be a choice between Northern and Southern California, it would be Southern California. But in all the years I spent up there - not once did I ever hear it referred to as... Northern California.

Luckily I will be speaking before that film and will be able to correct this character assassination of the Owens Valley's good name.

UPDATE!

In response to the question in the comments section about the source of the phrase "Even Gods have feet of clay...:

"FEET OF CLAY -- a vulnerability; a failing or weakness. The image is from the Book of Daniel (2:31-40) (in the Bible) in which King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that Daniel describes and then interprets: 'Thou, O king, sawest, and, behold, a great image.This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.' The whole image then broke, and the pieces were carried away in the wind. Daniel's interpretation was that Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, a king of kings, but that after him would come a series of weaker kingdoms that would finally break up, like the image with feet of clay, and be replaced by the kingdom of God." From the "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).