RIVERSIDE – With two colleagues prepared to vote against the measure, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone on Tuesday temporarily withdrew his proposed ban on protests that target and take place in front of homes. Stone said that, in consultation with county lawyers, he will try to tweak the ordinance so it lets protesters picket residences for what he considers legitimate purposes, such as when they are home to sex offenders, without trespassing on the constitutional right to free speech. Legal experts, ...

The Church of Scientology's concerns about protesters outside their Gilman Hot Springs base led Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone to seek and gain approval Tuesday for county restrictions on picketing in residential neighborhoods. Only Supervisor Bob Buster voted against the ordinance, which forbids demonstrators from coming within 300 feet of a home they are targeting in unincorporated Riverside County. Buster said a 300-foot buffer would effectively quash demonstrations outside residences. He said the ordinance threatens free-speech rights. Stone said that protesters ...

I had never been this close to a real cobra before. As it rose up and spread its hood, I could feel my hackles raise and a primordial fear tickle some primitive level of my brain. The handler said we were perfectly safe, but even so, I didn’t want to get too close to the thing. [...]

Scientology’s International Base is located on the sloping foothills at the north end of California’s San Jacinto Valley, about ninety miles east of Los Angeles. When I first moved there in 1989, the valley was still mostly a rural farming community – sheep still grazed on fields near the Base. But the area was being rapidly taken over by LA’s "Inland Empire" suburbs, spreading out east from Riverside like a virus. Nearby Moreno Valley had already achieved the dubious status of ...