THE BELL CURVE:

Some weeks ago, speaking at a dinner sponsored by the Airport Working Group, County Supervisor John Moorlach allowed as how I was “whipping up issues when there aren’t any.”

He was referring to a column I wrote urging that the people deeply concerned at the prospect of future growth of air traffic out of John Wayne Airport need to step up efforts to fight that growth long before the expiration of the current cap on capacity in 2015.

Like, we need to start right now. And when that extra effort begins to happen, it should be recognized and applauded.

So three cheers for the city councils of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, who are planning a joint meeting in the next few months to talk about funds to explore the alternatives to the inevitable pressures to expand JWA.

Costa Mesa sat out the campaign that brought us the Great Park instead of an airport at El Toro. And Newport Beach worried more about legal problems than taking on a bare-knuckle fight with Irvine.

But now they’re getting it right, even if Moorlach may consider it premature. Joint studies are a step forward, and that’s well and good for now, but it will never replace the muscle that comes from banding together with North County cities to apply political pressure wherever it is needed.

This is the Big One. If Newport-Mesa loses out to further expansion at JWA, the impact on our residential neighborhoods will be disastrous.

There are other issues between Newport Beach and Costa Mesa that need resolution, but they should not be allowed to interfere with the solid agreement on holding the line at JWA.

If you missed the Culture Clash at South Coast Repertory, you missed not only a hilarious evening of entertainment but a lesson on the therapeutic effect of laughter at oneself. Orange County took a pretty good drubbing from the stage, and the audience I shared loved it.

Culture Clash actor Richard Montoya caught that irreverent tone for me when he stopped in the middle of a monologue, squinted into the balcony and said: “I haven’t seen so many Latinos up there since the cleaning crew finished.”

Montoya came prowling into the lobby after the show and joined our little group in talk. He was looking, he said, for a conservative to see whether he or she found the jokes offensive. It had never before occurred to me that it would be hard to find a conservative in these parts, regardless of the purpose, but Montoya hadn’t yet found one who would admit it when we broke up.

Speaking of jokes reminds me of that letter published here last week complaining the Pilot is an “undisguised mouthpiece for the Republican Party.”

The letter went on to claim the Pilot blamed “every conceivable ill in the nation on the tax and spend liberals” while suggesting darkly that there would be no space in the Pilot for publishing balancing liberal views because they might upset “the Republican fat cats.”

All of this upset me deeply since I feel my liberal credentials are unimpeachable and were ignored.

By way of evidence I have a framed editorial from the Orange County Register that took issue with a lengthy piece I once wrote for Look Magazine called “America’s Kinkiest County.” The editorial referred to me five times as a “self-styled Liberal.” That inspired my oldest daughter, Patt, to make me a bumper sticker that reads “Beware, Self-Styled Liberal” and inspired her sister to send me a bumper sticker reading “Life Is a Plea Bargain.”

Both hang over my desk to remind me of my liberal responsibilities in a sea of conservatism.

I didn’t find much creative thinking in that front-page spread in the Pilot where locals described how they planned to use the “economic stimulus payment” that all of us who filed an income tax this year will allegedly receive very soon.

But creative thinking — especially about money — comes hard when food and gas prices are soaring with no relief in sight. Sharing our windfall with Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. eases some of the pain but falls way short of the elation at buying something frivolous you dreamed about and couldn’t afford — like an extra tankful of gas, a prime rib for Sunday dinner or parking at Dodger Stadium. Creative thinking.

I had to put down a brief feeling of guilt at taking money from a country with a national debt of $9 trillion that would gas up a whole fleet of SUVs for maybe a year.

But then common sense took over and said, hell, everybody else is cashing in, so I should just accept this largesse and put down the fantasy of multiplying it in Las Vegas.

I flirted with the idea that this would be an act of patriotism because I would then have more money to spend as our president has urged. But they don’t have any blackjack tables in the supermarket where I will probably end up spending most of my new money uncreatively — just as the people who gave those stodgy answers to the Pilot’s inquiring reporter.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.