HOW’S THEIR TIMING? Fate dealt a good...

HOW’S THEIR TIMING? Fate dealt a good hand to Cypress in the county’s investment crisis. A report by Finance Director Richard Storey shows the city removed about a third of its $8.7 million in the investment pool a day before losses were revealed. . . . It wasn’t the pool’s health that bothered city officials. They just needed $2.9 million on Nov. 30 to pay city bills. “It was just because we needed the money,” says Storey.

RUGGED & BROKE: With national attention focused on what USA Today calls “Orange County’s blunder,” the usual assessments of the county were inevitable. Cable News Network says you can expect something different from a county that names its airport after John Wayne: “Orange County is rugged, rich, and Republican.” . . . Newsweek mentions the “palm-shaded battlefront.” And U.S. News headlined: “Trouble in Paradise.”

LEMONY MARKET? Joseph Wambaugh, who skewered the local elite in his 1990 novel “The Golden Orange,” doesn’t find the county crisis very funny. “I’m still trying to sell my house in Newport Beach. This is not helping a bit,” jokes Wambaugh. . . . In five years, his Linda Isle home has gone down in price from $3.3 million to $1.29 million. . . . “That’s bargain-basement time; now these clowns have to pull this,” he says. “The Golden Orange is a lemon right now.”

ELEPHANT WALK: If you like to keep track of local celebrities, check out the new movie “Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.” One of the stars is Tai, the elephant that’s a regular at the Santa Ana Zoo for children’s rides. . . . If you can’t wait for the Christmas Day movie opening, the zoo hosts a screening ($7) tonight at 7:30 at AMC/Main Place in Santa Ana.