Dissent the Blog

Friday, May 28, 1999

by Roy Bauer

No comments:

Craig and Glenn combat DtB with "forums"

"Arrrgh! Don't forget to

leave your name!"

¶ [Originally: "Bluto fashions a rude suggestion box" (10/9/12).]

* * *

¶ Years ago, we started hearing a fair amount of grumbling on campus about “the blog”—i.e., DtB. The peevish noise, which grew ever louder, was coming from, let’s say, “the top” of the college.

¶ (We also detected a failure on the part of these dyspeptic DtB detractors to distinguish between the blog's contributors, a civil lot, and some of the blog's commenters, a crew that can be crude and clueless. We do what we can to discourage crudity & cluelessness, but we also try to leave comments alone, that being necessary to maintaining a truly free forum. Nor should one overreact to such comments when an opportunity to counter them—with corrective comments—is readily available!)

¶ Eventually, beginning maybe a year or two ago, we started hearing about a plan by administration to counter the blog with some sort of college-sponsored forum.

¶ Really? Like an IVC blog? What fun!

¶ “Wow, that would be great,” we said. Mostly, we said that because it was plain to us that administration had grossly underestimated the difficulty of launching a successful forum.

¶ We waited and waited, but nothing seemed to materialize.

¶ “I guess they gave up on the idea,” we said, dejectedly.

A fine corrective

¶ Well, we were wrong. Administration did launch this “forum” thing, it’s just that nobody noticed or cared.

¶ Where is it? Well, for some time now, upon entering the Inside IVC portal of the new and improved IVC website, one can access an array of forums by pulling down menus on that page.

¶ For instance, upon moving one’s cursor onto “Committees, Councils, Senates, Task Forces, etc.,” 22 links appear, many of which open to sites with menus including “forums.” The Office of Instruction has a forum. So do the two senates. So does SPOBDC, the committee that makes the really big decisions about strategic planning and budgeting and such.

¶ So this, I suppose, was what they were talking about—the mythic anti-DtB. The “forum” idea turns out to be a dozen or so forums (or “fora”) buried in corners and crannies of the soulless and life-extinguishing architectonic of “Inside IVC.”

¶ BUST. But here’s the thing: sadly, this peculiar peppering of forum templates (for they are not really forums any more than an unused telephone is a conversation) appears to be a total BUST. Near as I can tell, nobody’s using these things to opine or carp or throw in their two cents. Nobody.

Accreditation forum posts: 0

¶ DELIGHTFUL “GUIDELINES.” Now, if you do venture into one of these sad forums, you’ll necessarily pass through an elaborate page of “Irvine Valley College Inside IVC Forum Guidelines.” In a mere 430 words(!), this document informs the prospective forum fulminator that

The Inside Irvine Valley College Forum is intended to provide the IVC community with a forum to share thoughts, ideas and experiences through discussions and postings. [My emphasis.] We welcome your questions, comments and concerns. We also hope this resource is a source of helpful information. Within the forum, you may share comments, ask and answer questions, discuss points of interest, and give general support to your IVC colleagues.

¶ OK. You’d think that’d be enough. But no. Then the page goes into the many “restrictions”:

• Discussion topics should stay focused on the items that are related to topics and issues related to College items. This is not a personal discussion forum.
• No strong, foul, or questionable language and all postings must be in made in English.
• No questionable, offensive, or sexual comments can be made. Absolutely no exceptions.
• No anonymous postings.
• ALWAYS be on your best internet behavior: courteous, professional and respectful of fellow members.

¶ Did the designers of this “forum” idea imagine that anyone would get past this gauntlet of peevitude? What were they thinking?

¶ But it doesn’t end there, nope. Next, one encounters “recommendations”:

The not-so-great communicator
¶ Be accurate.
Make sure that you have all the facts before you post. It's better to verify information with a source first, than to have to post a correction or retraction later. Cite and link to your sources whenever possible; after all, that's how you build community. If you make an error, correct it quickly and visibly. This will earn you respect in the online community.
¶ Be respectful.
¶ You are more likely to achieve your goals or sway others to your beliefs if you are constructive and respectful while discussing a bad experience or disagreeing with a concept or a person. Respect copyright and fair use. When posting, be mindful of the copyright and intellectual property rights of others and of the college. Protect your privacy. Your comments are visible to all. Never include your phone number, email address or other personal information in a post.

¶ Surely they’re done!

¶ But no:

¶ By posting any comments, links or other material on an IVC-sponsored web or social media sites, you give Irvine Valley College (IVC) the irrevocable right to reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create derivative works from, and otherwise use your submission for any purpose in any form and on any media. IVC reserves the right to remove any content.

¶ Oh good. Forum participants are entirely at administration's mercy. They get to exploit and edit what we write. They get to delete it. They get to mess with it. Gee, thanks. I'll give the Accreds your regards.

But it goes on! One is not to

1. Post material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, slanderous, hateful, or embarrassing to any other person or entity as determined by IVC in its sole discretion.
2. Post ads or solicitations of business.
3. Post the same note more than once ("spam").
4. Post chain letters or pyramid schemes.
5. Impersonate another person.
6. Allow any other person or entity to use your identification for posting or viewing comments.

¶ Then, of course, there’s that “I accept” button. If you don't press that, you don't get to opine.

¶ Here’s a list of the “forums” I found. They remind me of those ugly and utterly abandoned Soviet-era apartment buildings I saw last year in Gdansk, Poland (an otherwise lovely town). There they were, empty, ugly, impossible to explain—designed by people with great authority and not an ounce of humanity:

• Accreditation Forum
• AFTPC forum
• Civility forum
• Manager forum
• Academic Senate forum
• Distance Education Forum
• Classified Senate Forum
• College Council Forum
• Distance Education Forum
• SPOBDC forum
• SLO forum
• Technology Advisory Taskforce
• Office of Instruction forum -- Craig leaves just about the only post: “Are we on the right track in planning our 500 FTES (i.e. very, very small) summer session for 2012? Please post your thougts [sic] here. Thanks.”
So sad.
• Library forum -- Someone left this solitary post: “I am just testing this cool new forum.” —And, with that, the dream of IVC-sponsored cyber discussion came to an abysmal end.

From Dissent 57, February 14, 2001

[Years before Tom Fuentes decided to nix the “study abroad” trip to Santander, Spain, on the grounds that “Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women,” he pretty much did the same thing to the Cuba trip:]

COLD WARRIORS, HOT DAMN!

College's Cuba trip bothers trustees

EDUCATION: The study-abroad venture has been OKd by Saddleback College's president.

January 27, 2001

By MARLA JO FISHER

The Orange County Register

¶ MISSION VIEJO - Trustees are balking at the idea of a Saddleback College-sponsored study trip to Cuba, saying it would not be appropriate to allow students to go to a communist country with a record of human-rights violations, according to a student trustee who favors the trip.

¶ Trustees who criticized the Cuba trip in November approved a study visit to the People's Republic of China during the same meeting, student trustee Jason Wamhoff said.

¶ "The students want this trip," Wamhoff said Friday. "It is already full. And China has more human-rights violations than Cuba does."

¶ The trip would mark the first time that the South Orange County Community College District has organized a study-abroad program with the Caribbean island nation. Until early 1999, U.S. citizens were banned from traveling to Cuba because of politics, but cultural and educational exchanges are permitted.

¶ Dozens of colleges and universities, including Duke, Tulane and American universities, offer study-abroad programs in Cuba, but Saddleback would be the only community college locally to offer such a trip.

¶ California State University, Fullerton, has a faculty-student exchange program with the communist Republic of Vietnam.

¶ Saddleback's program was approved by Saddleback President Dixie Bullock and the district's acting chancellor before it was sent to the trustees.

¶ Bullock said she signed off on the trip because it had been approved by the college's Study Abroad Committee, even though she's not sure how she personally feels. She vetoed the same trip last year, because the college had not received permission from the U.S. Department of Treasury to qualify it as an educational trip. This year permission came through.

¶ "I still have mixed feelings about it, because I worked with Cuban refugees when I was in Texas," Bullock said. "But if a faculty member comes to me with a proposal that is done properly, approved up through the line and I don't have any specific objections, I'll approve it."

¶ The college district's written policy on study-abroad programs does not ban visits to communist countries, though it specifies that students should be fully apprised of any potential dangers.

¶ The proposed Saddleback trip, entirely funded through $2,250-per-student fees, would consist of a 10-day visit to Havana, where students would earn credit while they visit historical sites, attend concerts and discussions on topics such as the sugar industry, political affairs, international relations and health care.

¶ Two trustees — Tom Fuentes and Dorothy Fortune — were questioning the appropriateness of the trip, Wamhoff said. Neither returned phone calls Friday.

¶ Minutes from the November trustees meeting were unavailable because they have not yet been completed, a secretary in the district office said.

¶ Peter Sanchez, partner in Cuba Tours and Travel LLC, a Los Angeles-based company that organizes educational tours for colleges, agreed that the destination is controversial.

¶ "Cuba is a country with a lot of issues to deal with, but I think it's important for people to gain more understanding of the problems there," Sanchez said. "I think people-to-people contact is what will change things over there."

¶ Wamhoff said he hopes to recruit students to attend Monday's upcoming board meeting to support the trip.

¶ "The board is constantly talking about low enrollments, and here's a program that is an excellent attraction and an innovative study-abroad program. They should allow it," Wamhoff said.

College trustees reject Cuban trip

January 30, 2001

By MARLA JO FISHER and JOAN HANSEN

The Orange County Register

¶ MISSION VIEJO - Students at Saddleback College won't be going on a school-sponsored trip to Cuba after trustees voted 5-2 Monday to abort the first-ever study-abroad program to the island nation.

¶ "The liability to the district is enormous to send students to Cuba, whether we have insurance or the perfect tour operator or not," college trustee Dorothy Fortune said. "If there are any problems, they are going to sue us."

¶ About 15 students attended Monday's meeting of the South Orange County Community College District to ask the trustees to approve the program, which was reportedly so popular it was oversubscribed.

¶ The college received permission from the U.S. Treasury Department to travel to Cuba.

¶ Dozens of colleges, including Duke and Emory universities and other top-rated institutions have study programs in the communist country.

¶ But trustees rejected the plan, saying the United States has no embassy there, and criticizing the nation's attitudes toward Americans, politics and safety.

¶ "There's no true diplomatic representative," Fortune said. "The liability to their health and safety is real."

¶ Trustees David Lang and Marcia Milchiker voted to support the trip.

¶ As proposed, the trip would have been financed entirely through $2,250-per-student fees and included 10 days in Havana studying culture, history, politics and economics.

¶ It had been approved by the college's Study Abroad Committee and President Dixie Bullock.

¶ Trustees previously approved trips to other communist countries, including the People's Republic of China.

IRVINE WORLD NEWS

Letters to the editor, Feb. 8

Community colleges should promote trips to Cuba

¶ It is with disbelief that we read the reasons South Orange County Community College district trustee Tom Fuentes gave for voting against the students from Saddleback Community College going on a trip to Cuba.

¶ Although we have not yet had the opportunity to travel to Cuba, we have many friends who have been fortunate to make that trip. Some went with the Audubon Society, others with groups of journalists or educators or on a medical mission and some just on their own. Everyone of these friends have had nothing but raves for the country and her people.

¶ One friend, who just returned last November, went on and on about the hospital he visited and the high level of medical care that is offered. One couple had a baseball and a bat and went to a local park to play. Soon they were joined by Cuban children who played baseball with them.

¶ Much to our friends' delight these same children invited them into their parents' home for dinner and to even stay the night.

¶ Mr. Fuentes also produced a report from Rep. Christopher Cox's office that advises caution for U.S. citizens that travel to Cuba. Every Sunday in the Los Angeles Times Travel Section there is a column that lists the countries our government considers unsafe for its citizens to travel and we have yet to see Cuba listed.

¶ The fact that one of the other reasons given by board members is that Fidel Castro made derogatory remarks about President George W. Bush is really ridiculous. Our government is always making such remarks about Fidel Castro.

¶ In closing we both wish to thank board members David Lang and Marsha Milchiker for being open-minded. Ms. Milchiker's comment, "I think building bridges with the people is valuable to do," seems to be what a community college should be promoting.

--Angelo and Marilyn Vassos

LA? No Way?
College district blocks student trips to Los Angeles

OC Weekly, February 9 - 15, 2001

by Andrew Tonkovich [aka Red Emma]

¶ Hot on the heels of its recent vote to disallow a student trip to Cuba, South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) trustees on Monday night voted to block all student outings to Los Angeles County. "The trustees have serious concerns about allowing district-sponsored travel to Los Angeles," said a district spokesperson. "It’s far away and dangerous. Plus, students might get lost."

¶ In discussion of the recent controversial Cuba vote, trustees cited a report that "Fidel Castro made derogatory remarks about President George W. Bush." Later, in announcing the ban on Los Angeles field trips, conservative members of the board of trustees raised concerns about student health and safety during visits to the nearby metropolis.

¶ "It’s all about protecting our kids," said one.

¶ Recently elected trustee Tom Fuentes voiced concerns that students might not understand compact cars, sidewalks, mass transit or rent control.

¶ "These concerns are not political," said Fuentes, who is Orange County’s longtime Republican Party chairman.

¶ Indeed, some students at the district’s South County community colleges—Saddleback and Irvine Valley—have never visited Los Angeles, which is 50 miles north of Mission Viejo, the district’s administrative headquarters.

¶ "I’ve heard of it," said one Saddleback College student. "Isn’t that, like, where they had the riots?"

¶ Fuentes expressed legal concerns, noting judges in LA County had ruled in several federal suits brought against the SOCCCD, finding that trustees had violated student, faculty and staff rights. "The judges up there are unbelievable," complained Fuentes. "I’m not sure if they even recognize our laws. There may be jurisdictional, even diplomatic issues here. You can bet I’m going to consult with Chris on this one."

¶ Fuentes’ reference to Congressman Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) reflects his close relationship to the author of a widely discredited report on China’s security threat to the U.S. Cox contributed $5,000 to Fuentes’ election campaign, in which he replaced the retiring Steven J. Frogue, the target of two recall attempts.

¶ In explaining the LA travel ban, Fuentes cited Los Angeles as a Democratic Party stronghold. "I understand," he said, "that members of the LA City Council made derogatory remarks about President Bush. Some even suggested that he didn’t win the election and lacked the intellectual capacity to govern!" As the local GOP chieftain, Fuentes introduced then-candidate George W. Bush to audiences across the state. Many speculate that Fuentes expects a position in the Bush administration.

¶ Current district policy allows student visits to maquiladoras in Mexico, sweatshops in Indonesia and public executions in China. Indeed, the board had approved a recent study-abroad trip to the last country, the largest Communist nation in the world. Also, current policies permit students to organize field trips to agricultural fields in Orange County or to any number of restaurants and fast-food retailers employing underpaid and undocumented workers from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala and even Los Angeles. Some students have inquired about visiting Europe.

¶ "Yes, they are certainly free to go there," said a district spokesperson. "But what for? George Dubya hasn’t been there."

¶ Controversial board member Dorothy Fortune, who in the past has been a beneficiary of homophobic campaign literature, raised the issue of district liability. "If a student acts in any way offensive to the county of Los Angeles, the district would be potentially liable," she said. Asked what behavior this might include, Fortune, a longtime Democrat-turned-Republican, said that sometimes people’s actions can be misinterpreted.

¶ "You know," she said.

¶ Fortune discounted Cuba’s reputation for providing among the highest quality of free public health-care services in the hemisphere. "Oh, sure," she said. "And bring up Canada, too, why don’tcha?"

¶ Meanwhile, a district spokesperson—a different district spokesperson than the one referenced in the first paragraph of this story—denied rumors of a plan to sponsor an Irvine Valley-Saddleback College student tour of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz led by former board president and Holocaust revisionist Steven Frogue.

¶ "That would just be wrong," said the spokesperson (again, this is the second spokesperson, not the first one). "Wouldn’t it? Well, wouldn’t it?"

¶ Eager to move past the Cuba/LA controversy, trustees took the opportunity to announce their latest comprehensive initiatives, including:

•A program to coordinate critical thinking and reading programs with the Orange, Tustin and Newport-Mesa high school districts, where parents have recently lobbied to ban novels by Ken Kesey, Isabel Allende and David Guterson.
•The launching of a "Straight-Straight Alliance" organization to encourage traditional heterosexual dating among students.
•The Richard M. Nixon "Ethics in Government" certificate program.

--Andrew Tonkovich is an Irvine Valley College instructor.

2006: IVC bomb scare

February 8, 2006

t was mighty crazy at IVC today. On my way to class at 8:00 this morning, just as I walked past the front of the Administration Building (A100), I spotted two IVC cops staring down at a small canvas bag with tape wound around it. I joined them in silent downward staring. Then I said, "So what's this?" One cop said the object was mighty suspicious. He indicated that he might have to rope the area off.

¶ I went to my classroom, which was maybe one hundred feet from the "suspicious" object, and when class was over at 9:15, I found that an area fanning out maybe one hundred feet from the object was taped off with yellow emergency tape, including the entrance to the building in which I teach. I made my way to the other exit of the building. I crossed the edge of the A-quad over to A200, but I found that I couldn't use my usual entry into that building, owing to more yellow tape and another grumpy sugar-coated cop. I went around to another entrance.

¶ People were buzzin' about something, and I figured it was the suspicious object. I quickly typed a quiz for my 9:30 class—a Plato quiz! what could be more absurd?—and when I went to duplicate it (in the now-infamous Gensler Memorial Duplication Cubicle), an administrator told me that everybody had to evacuate the building. "Now," she added.

¶ Turns out, all four of the A-quad buildings were being evacuated. I went way around to nearly the flagpole/parking area, and I spotted an Andros F6A multi-mission mobile robot—the kind that bomb squads use. (See pic.)

¶ Just then, I ran into somebody who said they just saw the robot pick up the suspicious object—and drop it. Twice.

¶ "Jeez," I said.

¶ "Yeah. Jeez."

¶ Naturally, lots of students and faculty, et al., were gathering outside the zone of death, marked out by yellow tape and grumpy cops. I counted two cop cars, two fire engines, and I don't know what else, near the A100 flagpole area. I spotted Glenn running around saying important things. At one point, I spotted Dennis, too. He was talking to Glenn on a walkie-talkie. He kept shouting into the phone, "the Bullhorn? the Bullhorn?"

¶ I ran into somebody who said that, originally, "they" (the cops?) found the suspicious object in the conference room, just inside the entrance of A100. That must've been just before I ran into those cops. I guess "they" grabbed the object and just plopped it down, right there, in front of A100, creating a zone of death that included four buildings full of classrooms.

¶ I went to one of the tailgate parties—the one near the bookstore—and listened to rumors, jokes, and semi-official pronouncements. I heard that the Foundation committee had met in the conference room at 8:00 a.m., and, somehow, the object was found there in a "suspicious spot."

¶ What's that mean? Nobody seemed to know.

¶ I spotted Glenn again. Someone said that, right about when the Foundation people found the "object," the fire department had been called by someone who said there was a bomb on campus. When the cops learned of this, they decided to create the big yellow zone of death. (Turns out the "phone" story wasn't true.)

¶ Glenn told somebody (who told me) that we've got nothing to worry about, cuz he's set up a command post in the temporaries.

¶ That must've inspired broad smileage.

¶ By then, it was clear that my 9:30 class—and lots of other classes—would not be held this morning. I hadn't even met yet with my 9:30 group, and I wondered what they must be thinking. A few of my students found me and asked what all this craziness meant. "It means that our class is cancelled, I guess," I said. The students thrilled. They squealed and giggled. I nearly joined them.

¶ The crowds seemed to grow over time, and a festive spirit set in. Some people created little bomb discussion groups and wandered into the cafeteria. Others sat under trees, picnic-style, and wondered who would pull a "prank" like this. I heard a cop say, "the guy who did this, he better hope we don't catch 'im!" I nodded agreement, stupidly.

¶ It was like a carnival, a celebration. I saw somebody dance. A girl who looked like Britney Spears was wigglin' around in the parking lot. It was, well, beautiful. I do believe that today's IVC bomb party will go down as this generation's Woodstock.

¶ By 10:15, it was clear that this little "bomb scare" was seriously cutting into the teaching day. It seemed clear, too, that some students, upon hearing about the "bomb scare," planned to miss even classes held later in the day. They were enveloped in a fine "hooky" spirit, and who could blame them?

¶ About then, I spotted the OC Sheriff's Department bomb crew helping Mr. Robot into his van. The fire engines drove off, one sporting a big American flag. I saw a bus with a picture of Adam Carolla on it. "This is what you get after a year and a half of Junior College," screamed the ad.

¶ At 10:30, they sounded the "all-clear," and the fun was over. I hummed the Star-Spangled Banner in silence, as I watched people scatter and disappear.

ours later, President Roquemore sent everyone a fine memo, which included some of the photos displayed here. He wrote:

Colleagues:

¶ As you might have heard by now, the college evacuated the A-Quad this morning after an unattended and unusual looking bag was found in Room A-126 during a Foundation meeting. It appeared to be a canvas tote wrapped tightly with vinyl tape. Because of its suspicious appearance, IVCPD Chief Owen Kreza responded by calling the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad, which arrived around 9:30 a.m. to have a look at the object. The Bomb Squad x-rayed the bag using a remote-controlled robot before determining that there was no threat. The tote turned out to be filled with two bags of sand, which the Fire Department speculates might have been used by someone—perhaps one of our students—as a makeshift barbell. I am sure we are all relieved that it turned out to be nothing more than homemade exercise equipment. Incidentally, there is no truth to the rumor that a bomb threat had been called in to the college when the bag was found.

¶ I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to Owen and our campus police for their swift and very necessary response to the situation. And thanks also to Wayne Ward and the Facilities staff who worked jointly with him to set up a perimeter to control the crowd and traffic in and near the A-Quad. Job well done. I appreciate efforts of all who calmly and professionally came together during this time of crises to handle what had the potential of being a very serious matter.

¶ As I was leaving for home, I spotted the latest issue of the Lariat. Boy, those Lariat jokers are something else! How on earth did they manage to get this "bomb" scare story out so fast?

¶ They do such a good job, I decided to reproduce the Lariat's front page below. (Click on the image to make it bigger.)

Congressman Utt's racist remark

- Jan 13, 2012

¶ A bit of trivia for you. I happened upon a month-old copy of the Lariat today and I noticed a front-page article about renaming the Utt Library that did not appear in the online Lariat:

¶ The article is none too focused. It explains that some at Saddleback College (including Ana Maria Cobos) seek to change the Library's name, but it fails to explain the nature of the dissatisfaction with the present name: "James B. Utt Memorial Library." It does mention that Utt was a "conservative Republic [sic] Congressman." The subsequent paragraph begins with "However" and then refers to Dissent the Blog. Back in December, 2009 (and subsequently), DtB reported a curious factoid found in the OC Almanac. See below:

¶ Well, the Lariat article repeats that factoid without explaining its significance. We are supposed to guess, I suppose, that one might object to Utt's suggestion that "'a large contingent of barefooted Africans' might be training in Georgia as part of a UN military exercise to take over the U.S."

¶ That's objectionable all right.

¶ And that objection (one might suppose) constitutes grounds for seeking a new name for the library.

¶ Well, I won't mince words and I'm happy to be crystal clear. By the standards of our own time (and, I would suggest, by the standards of Utt's time), Utt's remark was racist. It was also paranoid and stunningly foolish.

¶ And that's a good reason to change the name of the library.

For more on Mr. Utt, see Utt the Nut

2001: corrupt hiring of bonkers administrator; Mathur's discrimination trial

• The Rodney Poindexter affair - OCTOBER 7, 2002 Mathur’s corrupt hiring of a "white male from Virginia"—and the disturbing sequel. Did Raghu Mathur 8-ball Celly Mora in dean hiring process because she was a non-white woman? Did he blow off hostile work environment/safety concerns in the case of Latina/women? Why did he refuse to hire outstanding female/minority candidates?
• Anti-discrimination suit against CEO Mathur finally goes to trial next week - AUGUST 28, 2006 - Mr. Goo is hit with lawsuit. Long-awaited trial about to begin, but accuser has heavy burden, establishing intent to discriminate

Mathur's witnesses were generally unimpressive

• The discrimination lawsuit: Mathur's "unauthorized baseball diamond" yarn - APRIL 24, 2007 - Mathur cites Mora's alleged subterranean pursuit of a baseball diamond as a reason to nix her; but evidence suggests that he was fully apprised of that pursuit.
• The Mathur discrimination trial: according to witnesses, in 1997, Mathur rejected a candidate because of her ethnicity - APRIL 25, 2007 - 1997 bio hire: stellar candidate sent up (to Mathur) along with minimally qualified candidate; Mathur hires the latter. Why? Mathur explains that he didn't want to seem to be biased toward a countryman—as it happens, the manifestly superior candidate was a non-white female from Sri Lanka! Bio people are devastated. Not isolated case. Faculty hemmed in by hiring constraints (unranked, multiple candidates sent up, etc.).

• MATHUR discrimination trial, day 3: courtroom titters - APRIL 27, 2007 - Pattern of hiring committee votes by faculty and administrators curious. The prob with Dean P, according to John L, was workplace violence, not fairness. Superiors were notified, but no action was taken. Investigation takes over a year, establishing that P was not qualified to administer.

• Discrimination trial: OPENING STATEMENTS - APRIL 28, 2007 - During the Spring of ’02, a particularly disturbing incident occurred: Poindexter screamed at and menaced a secretary—an event witnessed by others. The women in P's zone grew increasingly fearful, and, soon, they met with P only when accompanied by a male colleague. Defense, however, insists the suit is "personal."

• Cely Mora's stunning testimony - MAY 2, 2007 - Poindexter seemed to have a serious problem with women, often becoming agitated, threatening; complaints were filed, but no action was taken, not by Mathur or underling Roquemore.

Raghu Mathur as Phil Spector

• The lost reference: it was "very positive" - MAY 3, 2007 - during hiring process, the 3 references for Poindexter were lousy; Mathur asked P (and only P) for a 4th; it was "very positive," he says, but, evidently, it's been lost!
• Mathur: reference checks for Poindexter - MAY 3, 2007 - More damning details re reference checking for P during hiring process. One ref letter from a student, another from a basketball coach, another from former employer who could not recommend P without reservation! No letter from current employer (but evidence seeps in, and it is troubling)! No evidence of P's administrative experience or abilities. No evidence that Mathur's alleged fourth reference ever existed.
• The verdict is in - MAY 3, 2007 - Oh my. The reductio ad absurdum of the jury system.
• Get a baseball bat - MAY 4, 2007 - Mr. Goo does unseemly victory laps
• Coarse FUR & Mathur's inventiveness - MAY 5, 2007 - This is not the 1st time Mathur has claimed losing crucial documentation.
• Subdued - MAY 11, 2007 - Today’s special meeting of the District Leadership Council

Ted W, ex-Marine, defends Mora

2001: the Faculty Association's Not-so-sweet Charity

From Dissent 58, 5/16/01

By Chunk Wheeler [Roy Bauer]

Prof Robert Kopfstein called to say "thank you" to all who so generously donated goods, cash and time for the children of La Puerta de Fe orphanage in Baja. It was the most successful fund-raiser ever and the group was able to buy lots of fresh produce, meat and dairy items at the mercado in Tijuana. Dr. Kopfstein and others will be making a special trip to the orphanage on 12/5 to deliver Christmas stockings stuffed with toiletries and other small goodies. —11/19/98

As everyone knows, a while back, the faculty union replaced its infamous “leadership,” thereby thrusting itself headlong into a brave new world of competence and decency. Yes, the Reformers now dominate the Association, and the “Old Guard”—those ruthless schemers who brought us the “Board Majority” (1996), President Raghu P. Mathur (1997), Wagner/Padberg (1998), and even Tom Fuentes (2000)—have faded largely into the background, unionwise.

So gone are the days of quorum-less meetings, homophobic fliers, Neanderthal union board allies, missing bylaws, unexplained political spending, mysterious bank accounts, and illiterate and vituperative union newsletters. Of course, we continue to suffer under the Old Guard’s chief legacy: an odious board (worse than ever, and turning its sights now on a reduction of salaries and benefits) and a clueless/evil administration. But, down at the meeting hall at least, aside from occasional Old Guard moonings and brayings, things are pretty damn quiet.

Our extraordinarily galootinous past is fading from memory.

—OK, OK: the CTA is still pursuing an audit of the Old Guard’s books, so the past lingers. Unfortunately, Sherry and the gang consistently refuse to surrender crucial records to auditors. Plus the Polyestered One won’t let the new leadership or the CTA into some PAC bank accounts. But Lee Haggerty, the current Association president, has no love of controversy: once in a while, he even blathers about the need for “healing” and loveliness. So, mostly, with Lee in charge, the era of internal union discord is over, and, like Van the Man says, the healing has begun.

Sticky residue:

An exception, however, to the absence of sticky Old Guard residue is the Association’s continued support of an orphanage in Baja named “Puerta de Fe.” Over the years (see, e.g., SC Online Newsletter, 11/19/98), and even now, we hear from the likes of Lee “Droopy” Walker or “Baño” Bob Kopfstein, who occasionally trumpet their journeys down south with a fistful of Association dollars. The Reformers inherited this tradition—though, generally, only Old Guard types actually make the trek to Mexico—and, naturally, they have been hesitant to raise any questions about it. Nobody wants to appear to be against helping orphans.

Late in ’99, however, as part of a larger Reform effort to introduce accountability to union operations, members suggested that, really, Kopfstein and the other orphanage regulars oughta secure receipts for the food they buy in Tijuana. That’s all. Receipts. “It’s just good practice,” we said.

The Old Guardsters reacted to this benign suggestion with defensiveness and hostility. Curt “ET” McClendon immediately spammed everyone with a memo that called Reformers “petty, vindictive, cold, [and] selfish….” Unlike the Reformers, he wrote, the Old Guard “are completely in favor of Bob Kopfstein helping needy orphans” (11/11/99).

–In truth, so was everyone else, though some of us wondered if Bob and Lee were the right people to show up at a home full of youngsters, what with the risk of pants droppage and all.

Mostly, though, we were concerned about accountability. It never occurred to any of us to question the charity itself. (Please note, however, that some members have expressed the notion that the Association should support more than just the orphanage.)

But, in recent days, disturbing facts about Puerta de Fe and its one-time director have come to light. Read for yourself. You’ll be amazed.

Curt McClendon

Friday, May 4, 2001
Ending an 'Act of Revenge'

An O.C. man imprisoned in Mexico has been cleared of molestation charges. His accusers say they were coerced.

By H.G. REZA, SCOTT MARTELLE, [LA] Times Staff Writers

ENSENADA, Mexico-- A Mission Viejo man who served as a liaison between St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Laguna Niguel and a rural Mexican orphanage it supported was cleared of child molestation charges Thursday after spending 6 1/2 years in prison.

David Cathcart, 59, was declared not guilty after four boys who had claimed he lured them into sexual acts recanted….

Judge Marta Flores Trejo announced the ruling Thursday and asked government officials to conduct a formal investigation into the Puerta de Fe, or Door of Faith, orphanage and its director, Gabriel Diego Garcia….

(I’ve deleted the rest of the article.)

* * * * *

More:

In an article that appeared in the OC Register, Cathcart’s lawyer asserted that “Cathcart's defense at his original trial was inadequate….” According to Cathcart’s son, “evidence that would exonerate his father, such as plane-ticket stubs showing he was in New York at the time of the alleged molestations, was lost by Mexican law-enforcement officials.”

Another Times article explained that, when Cathcart first confronted Garcia back in ’94, Cathcart’s “suspicions were raised when [the] director…pulled up in a new Ford Bronco, while the orphanage seemed in need of repair.”

A more recent Times article explained that, according to the Mexican judge, her independent investigation of the orphanage “found evidence of widespread sexual abuse, including allegations that American visitors took children to empty rooms to molest them.” Said she, "There are adults from the U.S. who live there at the orphanage who have nothing to do with the orphanage. Nobody, including the director, could tell me why they were there.”

(See also “I’m ready to go,” Register, 5/4/01; “Family worries as wrongly jailed man faces hearing,” Times, 5/5/01; “Family worries about jailed OC man’s safety,” Register, 5/5/01; “OC man wrongly held in Mexico may soon be free,” Times, 5/12/01; and “Need recognizes no border,” Irvine World News, 12/7/00) Well, friends, here’s another fine mess…..

Ending an 'Act of Revenge' LA Times, 5/04/01

A Mission Viejo man who served as a liaison between St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Laguna Niguel and a rural Mexican orphanage it supported was cleared of child molestation charges Thursday after spending 6 1/2 years in prison.

David Cathcart, 59, was declared not guilty after four boys who had claimed he lured them into sexual acts recanted their accusations, saying they had been coerced into lying by the orphanage's director, Mexican authorities said.

Judge Marta Flores Trejo announced the ruling Thursday and asked government officials to conduct a formal investigation into the Puerta de Fe, or Door of Faith, orphanage and its director, Gabriel Diego Garcia.

"My bags are packed," Cathcart said in a jailhouse interview. "I'm ready to go."

Cathcart, however, was not immediately released. Prison officials three weeks ago charged him with drug possession after allegedly finding heroin in his cell in 1998, charges that Cathcart described as "trumped up."

"The drugs were planted in my cell," he said.

Cathcart, a Realtor, was convicted of sex crimes in 1994 based on the youths' statements. Cathcart maintained his innocence from the beginning and said Thursday he was accused after traveling to Ensenada to inspect the orphanage's financial books.

Flores said the coercion of the young witnesses appeared to be part of a pattern of abuse at the orphanage.

"All of these victims had [been abused], but each victim said that he had been previously raped by others, and not by Mr. Cathcart," the judge said. "Mr. Cathcart has said from the beginning that the allegations against him were an act of revenge. . . . The victims said they were coerced into making false allegations against Mr. Cathcart by Mr. Garcia."

In an interview, Garcia strongly denied that he asked the four boys to make false charges.

"I didn't make the accusations. The four boys made the accusations," said Garcia, who said his orphanage serves 82 youths. "I denounced Cathcart for what the boys said he did to them."

Flores said at least one of the witnesses, three of whom are now adults, recanted his story in her presence. The others retracted their accusations in affidavits…..

Early Saddleback College history: "faculty wives club"

• “Saddleback College Bonds Approved by Wide Margin,” LA Times, Apr. 10, 1968:

“Midway returns in the Saddleback Junior College District showed voters were approving a $9.5 million bond issue Tuesday night.”

• “Architects Get the Go-Ahead at Saddleback,” LA Times, May 17, 1968:
—“Trustees of Saddleback Junior College District have authorized architects to proceed with specifications for temporary classroom buildings for Saddleback College.”

• “Saddleback's Campus Construction Starts,” LA Times, May 25, 1968:
—“The brand of Saddleback College was added to those dating back to the area's ranching days when ground for the college's interim campus was broken by trustees in a ceremony...”

• “'Instant Campus' Takes Shape for Saddleback College,” June 21, 1968:
—“Transformation of a graded field into a college campus started Thursday with the assembling of the first steel classrooms for Saddleback College.”

• “Saddleback College Chief Rejects Offer of 3-Year Contract: College Head to Leave Post at Saddleback,” LA Times, June 26, 1968

• “Saddleback JC Picks New Superintendent,” LA Times, July 3, 1968:
—“Dr. Fred H. Bremer, 45, dean of instruction and vice president of Saddleback College, will become district superintendent and college president on Aug. 1.”

• “Saddleback Trustees Reject Bid for Delay on Dress Code,” LA Times, Oct. 15, 1968:
—“A student request that the dress code, particularly as it pertains to boys' long hair, be suspended until the new Saddleback College has a chance to form an Associated Student Body was turned down Monday night by the Board of Trustees.”

• “Reagan Dedicates Saddleback, Cites Need for Viewpoint,” LA Times, Oct. 16, 1968:
—“Gov. Reagan told students at the dedication of Saddleback College Tuesday, ‘You are brighter than we were at your age, you are better informed and even healthier’ and ‘we owe you the right to want a purpose, a cause, a banner to follow.’”

• “Long Hair Ban Sets Tone: No-Nonsense Image Marks Saddleback JC’s First Year,” LA Times, Dec. 1, 1968:
—“Saddleback College is only two months old but already it has a reputation as a nononsense campus.”

• “Saddleback to Have More Than 1 Campus,” LA Times, Jan. 22, 1969:
—“Saddleback Junior College District eventually will have a second campus, trustees have decided, but the site won't be selected for three to five years.”

• “Saddleback Adopts highest JC Salary Schedule in State,” LA Times, April 16, 1969:
—“Saddleback College District has adopted a teachers' salary schedule which makes it the highest paying district in the state, at least $5,000—at top of scale—above any other junior college schedule in the county.”

• “Wives Plan Fantasy for Funds,” LA Times, May 23, 1969:
—“Astrologers are predicting good fortune for Saddleback College Faculty Wives as they plan their first major fund-raising event Saturday at the Revere House.

• “Permanent campus to open,” LA Times, June 27, 1969:
—“Saddleback College is on the move again—for the third time since its inception.”

• “College Trustees Slate Meeting,” LA Times, June 30, 1969:
— New trustee officers to be elected “Wednesday.” The meeting was in Crown Valley School. Since last July, Collins had been board pres., Backus had been VP, and Brannon had been clerk.

• “Dress Code Amended: Hair Below Eyebrows is Out at Saddleback College,” LA Times, July 4, 1969:
—“Saddleback College, the only junior college in Orange County with a dress code, is amending its regulations on men's hair styles to make them more specific.”

• “Tea Will Greet Faculty Wives,” LA Times, Aug. 28, 1969

• “College Adopts Speaker Policy,” LA Times, Sep. 17, 1969:
— According to the trustees’ new policy, programs open to the public must get pre-approval from the Board. Programs limited to student units (departments, classes, etc.) must get prior approval of the superintendent.

• “Trustees Maintain Dress Code, Say Economics Dictate Move,” LA Times, Oct. 29, 1969:
—“Saddleback College's no-nonsense image will continue, partly as a matter of economics.”

• “Student Editors Stir Concern—and Reaction,” LA Times, Dec. 7, 1969:
—Tells of new policy by Saddleback College board that governs the student paper, Lariat. The faculty advisor (who is also head of campus PR) is supposed to delete anything he judges not to be in good taste. Students cry "censorship."

Math/Science 1970

• “Avoid Complacency, Chancellor Urges,” LA Times, July 1, 1970:
— The chancellor of the CA Community Colleges warned during a speech to Saddleback College graduates that “complacency and lack of consideration of student rights” could lead to disorder on campus. He was alluding to the trustees’ restrictive dress code for students, which forbade long hair on men. The trustees also acted to deny students a “free speech area” on campus.

Remember Pam Zanelli?

Welcome to the OC

¶ I thought I smelled a rat, and I was right. (See Remember Zanelli?)

¶ I did a little more looking into Pam Zanelli’s background and discovered something very interesting.

¶ First, a little review. Denizens of the SOCCCD will remember Pam Zanelli as the notorious political consultant, hired by the corrupt Old Guard (the secretive leadership of the SOCCCD’s faculty union) back in 1996, in a desperate effort to get its slate of “fiscal conservatives” elected onto the board. (Once elected, the new board would reward the union with a contract giving leadership an array of goodies.)

¶ Zanelli, a Democrat, had advised the group that benefits for same-sex partners was a “hot-button issue” among local Neanderthals—er, Republicans. And so union leadership, exhibiting a startling lack of principle, sent Republican households the infamous red “same-sex” flier, which relied on distortions, misrepresentations, and (of course) homophobia to persuade voters to vote against the opposing slate (called PIE), led by Dave Lang.

¶ The flier worked (only Lang prevailed over a union candidate, viz., Davis). By December of 1996, the union had its majority on the board. The era of the notorious "board majority" (at first John Williams, Steve Frogue, Dorothy Fortune, and Teddi Lorch; after the election of '98, Williams, Frogue, Fortune, Nancy Padberg, and Don Wagner) commenced. Everything went to hell, and fast.

¶ In 1997, despite the obvious conflict of interest, the board hired Zanelli as their chief PR flak. They kept her for two or three years, but she somehow inspired the enmity of Padberg or Fortune (not sure), and so she got canned.

¶ Recently, I noted that she had previously worked for Paul Carpenter, a corrupt local (and state) politician associated with “Dick and Doc”—Dick O’Neill and Dr. Louis Cella—the infamous campaign finance partnership that essentially “bought” the OC Board of Supervisors in the 1970s—Orange County’s most dramatic era of corruption.

¶ Paul Carpenter had also been involved (in 1969 or 1970) in Ronald Caspers’ ruthless campaign to discredit Republican Supervisor Alton Allen. Like Carpenter, Ron Caspers was among D&D’s stable of politicians. (It seems likely that the effort to target Allen was directed by Fred Harber on behalf of D&D.)

¶ And, of course, throughout this period, Tom Fuentes was Ron Caspers’ right-hand man.

* * *

Caspers' left-hand man

¶ ZANELLI AND CELLA. Today, I did more digging and discovered that Zanelli was much closer (in some sense) to the Dick and Doc operation than I had thought. She actually worked for Louis Cella in one of his hospitals!

¶ Lemme explain. In January of 1979, Republican Harriett Wieder had just been elected as Orange County’s first female Supervisor. She had replaced Laurence Schmit, a Republican who had been among O’Neill and Cella’s stable of hinky pols. (He somehow managed to avoid the attention of OC DA—and Republican—Cecil Hicks, who vigorously pursued anti-corruption prosecution at the time.)

¶ On Jan 18, 1979, the Times (“New Supervisor Has 5 Women on Staff of 7”) listed and described Wieder’s new staff:

¶ —Mrs. Zanelli, 32, of Santa Ana, who handled press relations in Mrs. Wieder’s campaign and is one of three Democrats on the Republican supervisor’s staff.

¶ Mrs. Zanelli … has worked in the campaigns or offices of Rep. Jerry Patterson (D-Santa Ana), state Sen Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress) and Assemblyman Chet Wray (D-Westminster).

¶ She also did political publicity work for former Democratic financier Dr. Louis J. Cella Jr., receiving $5,400 from one of Cella’s hospitals in 1974. Cella is serving a federal prison term for income tax evasion and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from two Orange County hospitals.

¶ “I was one of the people who didn’t know what Cella was doing,” Mrs. Zanelli said. Mrs. Wieder said she was “totally unaware” of Mrs. Zanelli’s work for Cella. “I brought Pam on because she is great on research,” the supervisor said.

¶ She will handle publicity and appointments to commissions for Mrs. Wieder.

—John P. Erskine, 27, of Huntington Beach, the only holdover aide from Mrs. Wieder’s predecessor, Laurence Schmit….

¶ I’ve talked to reporters who were there in 1974. One described how Cella’s hospitals would have large wings devoted to political activity—nothing medical went on there.

¶ “There was all this printing equipment there," said one reporter. "It was strange.”

¶ Evidently not so strange to Pam Zanelli!

¶ By September of the same year (1979), Zanelli left Wieder “to do political consulting work…” (LA Times, Sep. 16, 1979). (I should note that Zanelli seemed to be back working with Supervisor Wieder again in the late 80s.)

¶ A bit after her 1979 exodus from Wieder’s crew, Zanelli pops up in connection with Governor Jerry Brown (who was known to be friendly with campaign contributor Cella). In 1981, the LA Times (“Visit linked to possible senate bid," Feb 28, 1981) reported about a recent “little-known” visit by Brown to Orange County. At the time, Democrats grumbled that Brown hadn’t given OC enough attention, and so a group of Democrats, including Pam Zanelli, organized a wine-and-cheese party at the Huntington Beach home of somebody named Francis Malloy. Lots of wealthy Dems and Repubs were invited.

¶ According to the Times, “Among those who attended were business executives and developers invited by Frank Michelena, a well-known Orange County lobbyist.”

¶ Frank Michelena?

¶ THE MICHELENA MAN. Michelena’s name is one that pops up throughout OC’s (shady) history going back more than forty years. He was a notorious “lobbyist,” someone who was hired to get a firm close to people, including public officials, who decided who'd get lucrative contracts. (We've mentioned Mr. Michelena's "generous" ways previously: 1976: Tom Fuentes, lobbyist, deputy.)

¶ —Kinda like Lyle Overby and, um, Tom Fuentes.

¶ Now, as it turns out, Michelena worked with Tom Fuentes during the latter’s formative years as a political apparatchik/consultant/gopher.

¶ According to former OC GOP chairman Tom Rogers, in about 1970,

¶ Caspers hired a young graduate of Chapman College ... to serve on this staff. As Casper’s assistant, Tom Fuentes … worked diligently to convince Republicans that Caspers was not what many party regulars feared, an unscrupulous opportunist who had no permanent loyalty to any political party. Fuentes was aided in his duties by the ubiquitous Frank Michelena. Michelena, a lobbyist with a checkered career, was notorious in the field of political influence. (Agents' Orange, 2000)

¶ Rogers obviously has a low regard of Mr. Michelena—and, I think, of Mr. Fuentes.

¶ At one point, he identifies three (roughly defined) eras of “machine” politics in Orange County.

¶ The first, which arose in the 60s, was dominated by Democrats and involved O’Neill, Cella (a nominal Republican), and Fred Harber, among others. But that machine slowly transformed into a “hybrid” that embraced both Democrats (like Harber and Robert Battin) and Republicans (like Caspers and Schmit). In this second “machine,” says Rogers, the “emphasis shifted from political philosophy to corporate profits.”

¶ Rogers identifies Ron Caspers, Tom Fuentes, and Frank Michelena as central to this disturbing political contraption.

¶ (According to R, there’s a third machine that Rogers associates with the “Cave Men”: a group of religious right Republicans who are focused on defending incumbents who share their right-wing philosophy. Dana Rohrabacher and Curt Pringle [the latter a close associate of Tom Fuentes], he says, are key to this third “machine.”)

* * *

Tom

¶ So there we have it. First, Pam Zanelli was part of Dr. Louis Cella's operation, at least in the narrow business sense, back in 1974. It is possible, I suppose, that she "didn't know what Cella was doing." But it is highly unlikely, I think.

¶ Zanelli was not new to politics at the time. In 1975, she was among 15 women chosen to serve on the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women.

¶ Second, she worked under Paul Carpenter, though I don't know when. Already in 1969, Carpenter was one of Dick and Doc's soldiers, and perhaps that suggests that Zanelli worked for Carpenter during the same era in which she worked for Cella. (Carpenter was based in Cypress, as was Fred Harber, who had been the City Manager.)

¶ Carpenter was dirty. According to Rogers, he played a part in the stunning shenanigans that caused Alton Allen's loss of his Supervisorial seat. It is reasonable to suppose that he participated in similar activities in subsequent years, the years of the rise of Cella and O'Neill's influence (which peaked at about 1975).

¶ At any rate, by the 80s, Carpenter, always a sly character, was caught selling votes in Sacramento. When he died in 2002, the Times described his spectacular fall as a public servant:

¶ ...[H]is maverick behavior led to trouble in 1986 when, during his successful campaign for the Board of Equalization, he became a target of an FBI sting in which federal agents surreptitiously contributed money to lawmakers in exchange for legislative favors.

¶ Convicted in 1990 of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy for accepting $20,000 from a fictitious shrimp fishery, Carpenter got off on a technicality when a federal appeals court ruled that the jury had not been properly instructed. But he was forced to leave public office.

¶ In a separate case three years later, a jury convicted him on 11 counts of obstruction of justice and money laundering....

¶ "I was arrogant," Carpenter admitted to a Times reporter in 1993 during the trial, in which he was accused of illegally funneling $78,000 to [Sen. Alan] Robbins through a Santa Monica public relations firm.

¶ Shortly before he was to be sentenced, Carpenter fled to Costa Rica, saying he was seeking "a more adventuristic" treatment for the prostate cancer that doctors had predicted would kill him within two years. He wrote in a note to the judge: "I find my drive for survival stronger than my sense of obligation to your legal system."

¶ His drive for survival didn't keep him and a friend from entering—and winning—a national bridge tournament in the Central American nation.

¶ Tracked down less than a year later by U.S. officials, Carpenter spent several months in a Costa Rican jail before being returned to California for sentencing.
¶ With his cancer in remission, Carpenter was sentenced in 1995 to seven years in federal prison. After his release from prison in 1999, Carpenter settled in seclusion in San Antonio ... in 1986.

¶ It is possible, of course, that Zanelli worked for this guy and had no idea that he was mighty hinky.

¶ Yeah. She's either clueless or hinky. Take your pick.

¶ Third—and least compelling, I suppose—she seemed to know and work with Frank Michelena, who was part of the highly Nixonian Team Caspers along with Fuentes and Harber. That's worth mentioning, I guess. Or maybe not.

¶ Ah, the SOCCCD saga! It just gets better and better, doesn't it?

[Note to self: among those who gave to Alton Allen during the 1970 campaign: Donald Bren, assistant to Allen, John Killefer, Frank Michelena--$500 each. Raub Bein Frost: $350. Beckman, Segerstrom, and Graham gave $250. Among Supe. Baker's contributors were Bren and Michelena. Zitnik gave to Wilcoxen. Times, 7/8/70. Looks like Michelena soon switched horses to Caspers. Derek McWhinney gaver to Caspers in 1970! Oddly, so did Old Guard's Athalie Clark.]

UPDATE: PAM'S HUBBY, JEFF

¶ At some point, Pam married one Jeff Zanelli—presumably by 1975, since she was using his name by then. They later divorced, but I don’t know when.
¶ Jeff Zanelli was/is in the same business—political consulting. His name comes up in Democratic politics starting in the early 60s.
¶ Jeff, like Pam, was in some sense employed by Dr. Louis Cella. According to a 1975 Times article about Louis Cella’s criminal trial(s) (“Subpoena Quashed in Investigation of Cella,” Dec. 9, 1975),

¶ The federal grand jury is investigating alleged federal income tax evasion by Cella and two hospitals in which he is a major owner….

¶ Cella … allegedly obtained money from the two hospitals by causing checks to be issued on the basis of phony invoices for nonexistent supply orders. ¶ He allegedly also caused the hospitals to pay some of the political campaign costs and some persons who worked on campaigns.

¶ Testifying before the federal grand jury Monday were Jerry Zanelli, staff director of the State Senate Democratic Caucus and administrative aide to Sen. David Roberti (D-Hollywood). Hospital sources said Zanelli has been paid more than $20,000 by the two hospitals.

¶ In 1982, Zanelli was still working for Roberti. In a Times article about the dishonest tactics routinely employed by the Newport Beach consulting firm Butcher-Forde, we’re told that Roberti sent his man Zanelli to help with the mailers for two other Democratic candidates, including State Sen. Alex Garcia, who sent mailers that falsely claimed a big endorsement, and Al Serrato, who sent mailers that were arguably racist :

¶ …[T]here is a continuing dispute involving mailers sent out by the campaign of Al Serrato, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the new 32nd Senate District seat in Orange County. ¶ The mailers said that one of Serrato’s opponents “marched with Vietnamese in black pajamas,” had a “Vietnamese businessman” as a chief financial supporter, and considered “Indochinese refugees” a major campaign issue. … ¶ After the Orange County Democratic Party’s ethics committee had “condemned” the mailing as “blatantly racist,” Serrato publicly insisted that he did not authorize some of the language it contained. But [Arnold] Forde, of Butcher-Forde, responded that Serrato had “designed the piece himself” and that the firm had only handled its distribution.

¶ Later, a variety of sources suggested that Jerry Zanelli, an aide ordered by Roberti to assist both the Garcia and Serrato campaigns, was responsible. ¶ …Zanelli said that while he had provided the money for the piece in question and had been in touch with Forde about distribution, he had never so much as looked at the contents. (“Dirty Campaign Tactics Creating Alarm,” LA Times, Jun 14, 1982)

¶ Of course.

¶ You’ll recall that “Dick and Doc’s” (i.e., Richard O'Neill and Dr. Louis Cella's) political strategist, Fred Harber, was very close with Butcher-Forde and that Forde worked on Ron Caspers’ first political campaign (in 1970). Tom Fuentes managed that campaign. Later, Fuentes became Caspers’ chief aide and no doubt had many dealings with Harber, Butcher, and Forde.

The case of the sexually harassing painting (Ten years ago)

What I did on my summer vacation —Or: One thing all this misery is good for

by Rebel Girl

During the summer, Rebel Girl transforms herself from a meek and mild English Professor into a meek and mild mid-level* administrator at one of the country’s most prestigious writing conferences. She xeroxes, she collates, she answers phones, she picks up famous writers at the Reno airport, and she soothes the egos of nervous would-be writers far from home. Plus she stacks and unstacks those ubiquitous molded plastic chairs, a task that takes on Sisyphean dimensions as the summer wears on. But she’s happy. Really. The conference allows her to be a student again, to listen and to learn. In turn, her own writing (she hopes) strengthens and her teaching does as well. Each year, she returns from the High Sierra refreshed and ready to rock. [*RG became "high-level" years ago. Right now, she's working on a collection of writings on OC by well-known authors, et al. —RB]

From time to time during the summer, Rebel Girl finds herself sitting next to or standing near one or more leading literary luminaries. Yes, part of the writing conference scene is those parties you’ve no doubt heard about, the ones where writers gather and chat, dropping names, telling tales, comparing advances and editors. The wine flows and the metaphors do too.

Now Rebel Girl, for all her attitude in print, is, by nature, a shy girl. It’s true. Indeed, if Rebel Girl had followed another path, if she had lived the vida loca, the bruise-colored tattoo scrolling across her left shoulder blade might very well have read Shy Girl instead of English Major. But that’s another story.

At these soirées, Rebel Girl does her best to do very little, except perhaps, eat. Her goal is a low, well-fed, profile. Still, from time to time she is pressed to speak, to say something, anything, to the person standing next to her—just for the sake of simple cocktail party courtesy. In the past, this resulted in Rebel Girl telling people what they already know. Boring—boring to the particular guest, boring to Rebel Girl, an embarrassingly dull moment for everyone within ear shot. These people are writers, after all—Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book award nominees, former poet laureates. They care about language and content. So when Rebel Girl burbles something about the weather (Hot, isn’t it?) or, even worse, something about the writer or his or her work (Did you know an excerpt from The Joy Luck Club appears in a textbook I use for my composition class?), she feels the disappointment rise. People expect better.

This year, Rebel Girl vowed to do better. She vowed to be rude, to remain silent if necessary, anything to avoid hearing herself brightly observe the air temperature. I will not speak, she told herself, unless I can say something significantly engaging. After all, she’d 1istened in long enough to know what these folks really enjoyed was a good story, not a weather report.

So it happened that there she was, sipping a gin and tonic next to a writer whom Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times has called, “one of his generation’s most eloquent voices.” Rebel Girl nodded, she smiled, she sipped, but she said nothing. What could she say? “Just what does that Pulitzer Prize look like? Where do you keep it?”

Finally, Mr. Famous Writer said something. “I hear you teach at a community college,” he said in his gentle drawl. “What’s that like?”

She hesitated. She wanted to be careful. She sensed that her favorite subject, the sad level of literacy of the average student, however compelling, might not appeal to this gentleman of letters. Nor would course load or composition theory. What he really wanted, she reminded herself, was a story. A good story, one with characters and conflict, with something important at stake. She recalled the email she’d received just that morning from one of her colleagues. It detailed the latest outrages and included the text of recent news articles. The little college in the orange groves was still making headlines, even in the summer.

“Well....” she began. She described a painting that had hung innocently enough in the school office since she was hired, some seven years ago. Painted by an adjunct faculty member, the painting in question depicted two bathing suit clad women lounging in a shallow pool of water. She’d always thought the painting was about the effects of sunlight on water, the bodies providing a means to measure it. But what did she know? The new interim dean (—Interim dean number 2 by her count; did she mention that her district had been going through, uh, an administrative upheaval on par with President Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre?), a gentlemen with multiple degrees, including a J.D., had, after a few days of contemplation, ordered the painting taken down. It constituted potential sexual harassment, he declared. He didn’t know much about art but he was a lawyer and he knew sexual harassment when he saw it. To her credit, the school secretary refused to remove the painting. Interim Dean 2 did it himself.

The famous writer was incredulous. “The painting,” he repeated, to make sure he got it right, “was sexually harassing people?”

“Apparently so,” she said.

“Was the dean acting on a complaint?”

“Apparently not. Unless,” she added, to be fair, “it was his own.”

“Amazing,” he said.

She agreed. “But that’s not all that’s been taken down,” she went on. Rebel Girl elaborated on another story that had also reached her that morning. Faculty had until August 8th, to remove any material posted on their office doors, windows or painted surfaces within their offices. If faculty didn’t remove material by that date, the material would be removed for them.

“Is this also about sexual harassment?” asked Mr. Pulitzer Prize.

“No,” she said, “it’s about worker harassment and the First Amendment. It’s about what they try to get away with when they think no one’s looking.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“What we’ve been doing for the past two, three years,” Rebel Girl said. “Resist.”

“Tell me more,” the writer said, settling back into the easy chair. “Sounds like quite a story.”

The evening had just begun. There were so many stories to tell. The Purloined Poinsettia. The Michael Collins Piper Caper. The Clocktower Incident. The Case of the Homophobic Flyer. The Mystery of the Disappearing School Chairs. The Secret Life of George Kadar, Friend of Frogue and Fighter for White Power. The Jinx of the IVC Clap. The Crop Circles in the Orange Groves. —Oops, wrong story.

Dear Readers: Flash-forward a few years. Michiko Kakutani interviews the aforementioned author about his latest novel. “Your use of a community college as metaphor for the state of the union is magnificent,” she gushes. “It has everything: power-hungry politicans, Machiavellian administrators, conspiracy theorists, opportunistic players, phony populism—plus a plot that rivals Les Liasones Dangereux. At the beginning of the new millennium, your new novel sends a powerful message about the misguided priorities of America’s leaders. Tell me, where on earth did you get the idea?”

*Note: Not unlike Ronald Reagan’s latest biographer, Rebel Girl has taken some creative liberties in her dramatization of the preceding encounter. Still, its essence is true. It did happen. The characters, though unbelievable, are real. Rebel Girl, like myself, is a real person. Our pain, fellow workers, was indeed felt by one of the country’s leading authors, modest compensation for the neglect by much of our community. –RG

Saddleback College ain't no Concordia U, I guess

¶ This morning, I came across an article in the Concordia University (of Irvine) school newspaper, the Courier, regarding controversial San Juan Capistrano City Councilman and Saddleback College Political Science instructor Derek Reeve's departure from CU. (See Adjunct prof. no longer employed at Concordia; Concordia Courier, Oct. 11; by Stephen Puls, editor-in-chief.)

¶ As you know, Reeve has been accused of serial plagiarism but has denied the charge, despite overwhelming evidence that he did in fact present work that was written by others as if it were his own.

¶ Though it is nearly two weeks old, the article provides clarifying details concerning Reeve’s departure from Concordia that have not been reported in the (non-Concordia) press.

¶ (Note: the subsequent edition [Oct. 25] of the Courier makes no mention of the Reeve affair.)

¶ The article explains that “Reeve was serving as the instructor for both American Government and Comparative Political Systems [at Concordia] this fall. Doctors Adam Francisco and Daniel van Voorhis, Professors of History, will assume leadership of these classes for the remainder of the semester.”

¶ It reports (or opines) that “Concordia holds strong to its policy of academic honesty as a means to push students towards independent thinking and resourcefulness. It specifically states that students, as well as faculty, are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity, holding true to commands regarding honesty in Scripture.”

¶ Further, it quotes a statement released by Dr. Mary Scott, Provost: “The university expects all members of the campus community to follow accepted, legal policies in matters of academic honesty.” The Courier implies that Scott's statement was released re Reeve's departure in particular.

¶ Assuming the Concordia Courier is reporting accurately, it seems clear that Mr. Reeve’s adventures in plagiarism (or perhaps his refusal to acknowledge that his posting of others' writings as his own [on Patch] constituted plagiarism) are indeed the cause of his departure from Concordia.

¶ Reporter Stephen Puls also reports that “University policy regarding academic integrity is placed at the beginning of the syllabus for every course.”

¶ MEANWHILE, the evidence suggests that Saddleback College has taken no action with regard to Reeve's plagiarism, despite Reeve's apparent failure to understand the concept of plagiarism combined with his obligation, as an instructor at Saddleback, to uphold the college's prohibition against student plagiarism in his classes.

¶ His name continues to appear on the Schedule of Classes for the Spring semester. As far as I know, he continues to teach at Saddleback this (fall) semester.

¶ As far as I know, there is no truth whatsoever to the rumor that Saddleback College has issued a press release regarding the Reeve affair, declaring that “Saddleback College doesn’t really care if all members of the campus community follow accepted, legal policies in matters of academic honesty.”

Ask Miss Fortune!

From Dissent 34, 10/25/99

Dear Miss Fortune:

Enough already! I can handle mass protests in the streets of Belgrade and dissent at the university. I can handle attacks on my strange wife and good-for-nothing son. I can deal with NATO missiles and losing Kosovo. I can even endure international sanctions. But I will absolutely, positively not stand for further comparisons of me in the pages of the Dissent newspaper to that wannabe, Raghu P. Mathur!

—President-Slobodon Milosovic

Dear Slo:

At least you understood the comparison. I’m sorry. Really. Nobody deserves what you’ve had to endure. Please, please don’t sue us. By the way, are you aware of the fine Anger Management Counseling programs available through the SOCCCD Employee Assistance Program?

Dear Miss Fortune:

As a God-fearing Christian conservative, I’m writing to explain the difference between “religious” and “religious right.” Easy. If you’re not religious, you’re wrong. If you are religious, you’re right. See? Whenever I’m confused about this, I consult with the local Fine Arts guy who attends our church, which the rest of the week is a community college we’re arranging to buy and rename “Irvine Valley Calvary Chapel (inc.com.edu.)” We’ll have distance learning and corporate sponsors and fun pancake breakfasts and the gym will be perfect for Promisekeeper events. We have big plans for decorating the campus, too. Imagine: Thousands of tiny bright lights strung on all the campus buildings, visible to South County passersby from the 405 freeway. The Fine Arts guy says this is all okay because it’s not political, it’s religious. Right?

—Funda Mental

Dear Mental:

God bless you. It’s quite a vexing problem, isn’t it, balancing one’s theocratic impulse with undermining pluralistic secular public education? Myself, I’ve taken to wearing a small button on my lapel, which, writ in small faux gold letters, reads “WWRD?” Whenever I’m feeling confused about matters spiritual or political, I look at my special pin and wonder to myself: “What would Raghu do?” Just repeating this handy mantra makes me feel positive and upbeat, though, oddly, it causes people standing near me to pick up their phones and call their lawyers. For further amplification on spiritual themes, I call the Vice President of Student Services. Although, come to think of it, I know what he would do.

Hey Miss Fortune, You G*d**n *****!

I’m a guy who likes to make threats. Oh, boy, do I love to threaten people. Frighten. Scare. Intimidate. Gee, I use dirty, filthy, horrible language. Sometimes I use such awful, terrible, extraordinarily offensive filthy language that I can’t even read the stuff I write myself! I type it on the keyboard with one hand and have to cover my eyes with the other just so I don’t offend myself. Yes, that’s how awful it is. I’m so nasty that sometimes I e-mail people, sometimes I use the telephone, sometimes I write letters. There’s no method that I haven’t used to do my nasty, awful things. That’s really how horrible a bad, nasty guy I am. So, I was wondering: How can I get a copy of Dissent, ‘cuz my secretary’s cut off my supply?

—Anonymous

Dear Anonymous:

Just stop by Raghu’s office. I hear he’s got a secret file just full of ‘em.

Dear Miss Fortune:

I’m the illegally-appointed president of a small community college, thinking positively, bringing people together and spreading the One True Light. Lately, my flock seems upset about discovering my secret files on them and a couple of the arranged marriages are falling apart. A few dark panel trucks with “Accreditation Team” painted on them have just pulled up in front of A-100, but since I’ve had all the phones rerouted through PIO Joyce Kirk’s office (“We’re pleased about all the activities going on in the compound”), few of the Chosen Ones will even know. Besides, now that I’ve had my contract renewed, we can stay holed up here for two more years.

—The Appointed One

Dear Wacko:

I’m putting down the phone now. I have Glenn here with me. We’re going to walk, slowly, across the quad and make a swap. You’ll give us the files and the keys to the Greenhouse and we’ll give you Steve. Okay?

DISSENT 46, 3/6/00:

Dear Miss Fortune:

I pulled up the signs and headstones on the lawn. The President ordered me to put them back. Next, I mounted lock boxes on the bulletin boards, then took them down. Finally, I built a $3,000 storage room in the middle of a lobby where I was ordered to hide the photocopy machine, which used to sit in exactly the same place.

I feel oddly like Sisyphus, forced to drag the same stone up a hill, only to have it roll down again, except that I was ordered to mount a plaque on my stone and now I’m supposed to take it off. Will my existential suffering never end?

signed: Maintenance Staff

Dear Staff:

What, you didn’t hear? They’re renaming the library, “The Raghu P. Mathur School Book Depository.” The lawn will now be called the “Grassy Knoll.” I’ll be Jackie, Armando will be Abraham Zapruder. Later, Cedric will be Earl Warren.

Regarding Existentialism, I like to cheer myself up by reminding everybody that, despite the uniqueness and isolation of the individual in a hostile or indifferent universe, you can still get people’s attention by showing them your butt.

Dear Miss Fortune:

I’m flying back to the Fatherland this weekend, where I expect full and speedy recovery from brain damage I suffered while buying a raincoat in London. I understand there may be work for me at IVC.

signed: Augusto

Dear General:

Yes, I think we’ve got a place for you on our winning team. You’ll be a real “feather in our cap.” How does “Director-of-Student-Affairs-For-Life” suit you? With your people skills, talent at stifling dissent, and shiny jackboots, you’ll fit right in. It’ll be like Oktoberfest all year round. Plus, we’ve got one Trustee who’s a really big fan.

Dear Miss Fortune:

It’s me, again, the illegally-appointed president of a small community college, thinking positively, bringing people together and spreading the One True Light.

Meanwhile, the judge threw out my SLAPP suit and now I’ve spent my raise on lawyers’ fees. How can I get the district to cover my losses?

signed: Slapped

Dear Slapped:

I’d ask for another security stipend, but if that doesn’t work, how about this: sue yourself. As President, the district lawyers will be required to defend you. Clever, huh? You lose, you win. I’m sure there’s a down side, but it can’t be any worse than teaching your new pet pit bull “Stipey” how to distinguish the Kate Clark mannequin from the Wendy Phillips one.

Dear Miss Fortune:

I’m responsible for the financial records of the former Faculty Association PAC, which I kept for the longest time in a black box. Now they’re in a pretty red box with balloons and horsies painted on the side. When I wind the little handle, a funny tune plays and, after a while, a happy clown pops up and surprises me with a subpoena. What should I do?

signed: Surprised

Dear Surprised:

I’d put those nasty old records in an old F.A. ballot box, unmarked. That’s the last place anybody’d look.

Dear Miss Fortune:

I recall your brave position opposing “same-sex” marriage in the last trustees election, so maybe you can help me out. Should I vote for Prop 22 because I hate others or just because I hate myself? They’re not like us, are they?

signed: Anonymous

Dear Anonymous:

You sound kinda existential. Some of my best friends are existential. We had one living next door. Once I dated an existentialist, but I’d never let my daughter marry one. When faced with difficult moral choices, I find it best to follow the example of Raghu Mathur. In that spirit, I’m taking down your name, foolishly included in your return address, photocopying this letter, and handing it out to the whole Board. Federal law, my ass!

Dear Miss Fortune:

I’m so scared to join the union. Somebody might find out. I’m scared to write a letter to the editor because somebody might recognize my name. I’m scared to look a certain untenured Biology teacher in the eyes. And, now I’m being asked by colleagues to speak out like the rest of them at a special meeting on March 9. Help!

signed: Xavier Onassis

Dear Save:

Hey, I like your spirit! You tell your small group of disgruntled faculty colleagues to try showing up at that Thursday, March 9, special board meeting. Yeah, just try. You try and attend that meeting. We haven’t said where it is or what time, so you can try, all right. Hah!

—MISS FORTUNE

From Dissent 26, 5/3/99

Dear Miss Fortune:

Remember me? I am the illegally appointed president of a once-esteemed community college whose door is always open. While a teacher and I we were meditating on “divine intervention” and the oneness of all things at a recent IVC Prayer Breakfast, that very teacher (oddly, the only faculty member attending) asked questions of a spiritual nature. When, he wondered, is a faculty breakfast not a faculty breakfast? How can one reconcile with one’s enemies when one’s enemies will not eat flapjacks? And what is the sound of one IVC hand clapping?

—The Amazing Mathurini

Dear Amazing:

The answer to your spiritual questions is, as with all questions, distance learning. Learning from a distance, even of thirty or forty feet, elevates one’s perceptions, tunes one’s consciousness toward peace and away from divisiveness and eliminates anxieties about pesky Accrediting Teams and micromanagement. I therefore suggest you remove yourself to a great distance.

Dear Miss Fortune:

I’ve just chaired my last meeting of the Faculty Association. Whew! All those meetings without ever learning Roberts Rules of Order or the name of that damn orphanage. Now that I’ve got some free time, I had an etiquette question: Which of the union’s credit cards is the correct one to use when the lunch bill at La Ferme totals over a hundred dollars?

—Rather Be Shopping At Nordstrom

Dear Rather:

I am informed that, in an effort to make things easy for everybody, the orphanage’s name has been changed. It will now be called “Sherry and Bob’s Place.” Easy to remember, huh? All residents will, in an ecumenical electronic-virtual-distance-learning ceremony, be rechristened “Sherry” or “Bob” or, in some lucky cases, both. Regarding your use of the SOCCCD F.A. credit card, I think touchy financial matters are best left to the experts, but you might consider holding a community education seminar and invite, say, Charles Keating or Robert Citron.

Dear Miss Fortune:

As editor of the F.A. newsletter, I’m fond of poking fun at people who disagree with my unlikely anti-union positions. Can I be held legally responsible for sending out unauthorized mailings using F.A. letterhead at the expense of union members?

—El Rey

Dear El:

Unlike this lousy rag, your newsletter is the official organ of an organized local, authorized to perform collective bargaining. Oddly, the law frowns on poison pen articles and misrepresentations when they stray from the will of the members they putatively represent. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do something similar: say, send out a mailer exploiting South County voter fear and hatred of homosexuals. Capiche?

Dear Miss Fortune:

The Accrediting Committee arrives soon for its follow-up visit. As interim V.P., I’ve instructed everybody to look busy. Unfortunately, some spoilsports are insisting on meeting with the team. I’m wondering if now might be a good time to announce my plan for a week of Spring activities involving organized distraction and obsequiousness. Monday: President Appreciation Day. Tuesday: Distance Learning Up-Close. Wednesday: Geology is All In Your Head. Thursday: Tour of the President’s Poinsettia Garden. Friday: Health Awareness: The IVC Clap is not a Social Disease.

—Shovel Boy

Dear Shovel Boy:

You sure know how to use that thing, dontcha? My only suggestion is that you engage the Trustees in your brilliant Machiavellian plan by adding golf, meditation or pancakes to the program.

—RED EMMA

From Dissent 53, 10/9/00

Dear Miss Fortune: I recently left a high-ranking eleven-year administrative position in Belgrade to spend more time with my family. Little Marko is making new friends here in Moscow and, gosh, Mirjana is already plotting to overthrow the darn government.

I’ve spent a few thoughtful days lately, considering how the decisions I made affected Serbians and running from angry mobs and two guys who say they’re from something called a War Crimes Tribunal. I understand the IVC Foundation is seeking a Director and I hope that you’ll consider me for the position.

Signed:

—Slobo M.

Dear Slobo: You’ll fit right in here. Some helpful hints toward securing this coveted position: Change your party affiliation. Enroll in classes at a prestige academic institution, say, Nova Southeastern University. Get yourself on the hiring committee. CC your CV to RM at IVC.

Dear Miss Fortune: I was staffing the Army recruitment table outside the Student Services building, talking to the UPS employment fellow and the nice lady from MasterCard, who was handing out free T-shirts to kids who signed up for a credit card.

We waved and threw brochures over to the Ye Olde Crafts Faire booth. There, a crew of tiny elves assembled handsome figurines of schnauzers dressed as clowns, these lovely statuettes made entirely out of Q-tips, yarn and rhinestones. Two nice young men from the Church of the Holy Townhouse Tabernacle came by, handing out Harvest Crusade literature. We were all havin’ such a great time.

Then, suddenly, a group of IVC faculty and students showed up with a card table and a flag. They said they were there to register voters. Well, I knew they were there to scare away all our business, crowd us out of our designated Free Speech area, and generally put a damper on our good time.

I’m trying to be all I can be, but these folks are treading all over my First Amendment rights. Right?

Signed:

—G.I. Joe

Dear Joe: When you’re right, you’re right. I thought I saw you out there, in those short brown pants. Gosh, I love a man in uniform. Speaking of which, have you ever seen Lee W in his Fife and Dumb Corps costume? It makes Miss F want to march to the beat of his big, bad bass drum. Regarding your particular problem, I’d report all suspicious voter activity directly to the district. They seem to have all kinds of Board Policies, just the thought of which gets Miss F Hot.

Dear Miss Fortune: I’m the Chancellor of a community college district up for his contract renewal. If my bosses win the election, I’m guaranteed employment. If they lose, I’ll have to find a new college. Any ideas?

Signed:

—Chance

Dear Chance: I’d try to do a mailing with a picture on it of Ronald Reagan riding a horse. Get the taxpayers to pay for it. Alternatively, you might hire the Blue Angels to fly overhead during the next trustees meeting, dropping brochures about free golf and homosexual teachers on the adoring crowds. Or they might crash, offering you an opportunity to foist blame on a small group of disgruntled pilots.

Dear Miss Fortune: It’s me again, the illegally-appointed president of a small community college, thinking positively, bringing people together and spreading the One True Light.

I was sitting in my comfy new chair just the other day, noting on the giant wall-sized graph on my office wall the history of ways my actions affected students. Raising my eyes from the floor, I saw a vision. There, on the wall, was Ronald Reagan’s horse. As if in a beautiful dream, I leaped up and mounted the handsome steed and rode off into the sunset.

Signed:

—Visionary

Dear Airy: Reviewing carefully the “Unusual Occurrence” reports forwarded to me by Campus Security, I note one involving a small man seen pushing a leather chair around in the A-100 Building at two in the morning hollering “Giddyup, Evil Empire” and “Whoa, Distance Learning.”

I’m prepared to ignore this episode if you can get another high-level administrator’s secretary to sign off on my recent request to officially rename the Clocktower Quad the “Miss Fortune Urban Park.”

Dear Miss Fortune: I’m confused. What’s all this about “same sex” benefits? I gotta tell you I just don’t see it. My husband and I have been having the same sex for thirty years. You know the problem: It’s all over in less time than it takes the SOCCCD Trustees to violate the Brown Act. I’ve chilled champagne, lit scented candles, put on sexy lingerie, even left copies of Board Policy 8000 lying open on his side of the bed. Nothing seems to work. Help.

Signed:

—Frustrated

Dear Fruss: Do what I do, honey. Send out some really filthy campaign literature. One thing that makes a fellow friskier than dirty pictures is dirty tricks. That and a handful of Dilantin. Well, no, actually, that makes you want to drop a bomb on Korea, but that kinda makes this sexy girl hot too.

Dear Miss Fortune: The Boy Scouts can’t take public money to discriminate. God-loving folk can’t pray at a public high school football game. And homosexuals, Jews, and Communists are taking over the SOCCCD Board of Trustees. I go to my weekly Rush Limbaugh meetings and ask my friends for advice. Everybody shakes their dittoheads and laments the passing of the good old days, when the head of the County GOP could run for a pissy little college district seat and win without having to spend $100,000.

When will things be the way they oughta be?

Signed:

—In Limbo

Dear Limbo: I don’t know what you’re complaining about. After my recent conversion, I’ve had to meet a whole new group of people at GOP meetings. I used to be a Democrat, albeit a Reagan Democrat, so people keep coming up to me looking for the Mark of the Beast. (FYI: I had it removed with laser therapy.)

Sadly, my new board allies aren’t buying it. As a test of my true allegiance, they’ve agreed to let me stay on the slate if I officially change my name on the ballot. Although I’ve spent a great deal of time developing voter trust in the good Fortune name, I’ve agreed. Note to SOCCCD district voters: Don’t ask, just please, please mark the box that now reads Dorothy Harvest Crusade. God bless.

—MF

Roy's music faves here

“Blue Moon” ~ Big Star, 1975
“Found Someone New” ~ Susan Tedeschi, 1998
“Ghosts of Princes in Towers” ~ Rich Kids, 1978
“Into the Woods” ~ My Morning Jacket, 2005
“The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” ~ Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, 2005
“Whizz Kid” ~ Mott the Hoople, 1973
"A New England" ~ Billy Bragg, 1985
"Baby Baby" ~ The Vibrators, 1977
"Blue Moon" ~ His Name is Alive, 1993
"Complete Control" ~ The Clash, 1977
"Crossroads" ~ Robert Johnson, 1936
"Don't Worry Baby" ~ The Beach Boys, 1964
"Draw Your Brakes" ~ Scotty, 1972
"Elenore" ~ The Turtles, 1968
"Fly Me To the Moon" ~ Frank Sinatra/Count Basie, 1964
"Honour Your Mother and Father" ~ Desmond Dekker, 1963
"I Had a Good Father and Mother" ~ Washington Phillips, 1929
"I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" ~ White Stripes, 2003
"I Say a Little Prayer" ~ Dionne Warwick, 1967
"I Want To Be Ready" ~ Tuskegee Institute Singers, 1916
"I Wonder" ~ The Gants, 1967
"I'm Straight" ~ The Modern Lovers, 1972
"It Won't Be Long" ~ Charley Patton, 1929
"Jeepster" ~ T-Rex, 1971
"Little Girl" ~ Syndicate of Sound, 1966
"Madame George" ~ Van Morrison, 1967
"Ramble Tamble" ~ Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970
"Rid of Me" ~ P.J. Harvey, 1993
"Rock Lobster" ~ The B-52s, 1978
"The Littlest Birds" ~ The Be Good Tanyas, 2005
"Victoria" ~ The Kinks, 1969
"Voodoo Child (Slight Return) ~ Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1970
"Watching and Waiting" ~ Moody Blues, 1969
"We Would Be Building" ~ John Fahey, 1968
"We'll Sing in the Sunshine" ~ Gayle Garnett, 1964
"When the Saints Go Marching In" ~ Sidney Bechet, 1951
"Where is My Mind?" ~ The Pixies, 1988
"Why Don't You Do Right?" ~ Peggy Lee, 1947
"You Were On My Mind" ~ We Five, 1965
"You Won't Have To Cry" ~ The Byrds, 1964
"Zig Zag Wanderer" ~ Captain Beefheart, 1967
“Ball and Biscuit” ~ White Stripes, 2003
“Lisa Says” ~ Velvet Underground, 1969
“Love Letters” ~ Ketty Lester, 1962

When the Faculty Association was the enemy

"Mmmmm. It's Time for Pie"

From Dissent, December, 1997.

¶ Last Monday, Julie, Steve, and I headed south, in separate cars, to attend the monthly Faculty Association [union] meeting (which is always held on the day of the regular board meeting). When I arrived at the usual meeting place, I found a note that said that, this time, we would gather at the San Juan Capistrano Marie Calendar’s. This gooey development made attending the meeting even less attractive than usual, but I didn’t want to abandon my stalwart friends, who, for all I knew, had already seen the note and headed for the Land of Pie. If so, they would surely appreciate the presence of another ‘Viner, and so I drove to Marie Calendar’s. When I arrived, I realized to my horror that Julie and Steve had bailed on the meeting, which made sense, ‘cuz, if you know Julie and Steve, they’re the sort who can get pretty peeved about unannounced location switcheroos.

¶ Despite the time—I was twenty minutes late—I was among the first to arrive at the House of Mucilage. I found Sherry and one or two others talking shop in a private room which comprised a long Last Supper-style table. Sherry, who sat in Judas’ chair, seemed surprised (horrified?) to see me. Nevertheless, she received me cordially, in a minimalist sort of way, and, for once, she gave me a copy of the agenda, etc. My gratitude was so great that a blushed, and the room was bathed in red light, though that could have been caused by the goddamn Christmas lights that someone had stapled to the wall.

¶ Others soon trailed in until about eight of us sat around the table, and, by then, the conversation became business-like. The discussion turned to the faculty evaluation procedures, a copy of which Sherry had distributed, and so I took the opportunity to draw everyone’s attention to section L, which seemed to forbid the critical comments that President Mathur had been adding to the evaluation forms of some of his faculty critics (e.g., me). Amazingly, several in attendance took my concern seriously, and they advised me to speak with Ken Woodward, who had not yet arrived.

¶ Soon, the proceedings seemed just like a meeting, and so, ever the stickler for detail, I asked, “Has the meeting begun?” Sherry said No. Nevertheless, my question seemed to cause her to declare that the meeting had now begun, which surprised me. I asked, politely, if we had a quorum, and, as she had done during a previous meeting, Sherry ignored me. Pete Espinoza, however, interrupted Sherry, saying, “I think this is important; the meetings of every organization I’ve ever belonged to start by determining whether there is a quorum,” or something to that effect. One or two others said they agreed. An unfamiliar woman then suggested that we simply hold an informal/unofficial meeting. The suggestion caused Sherry obvious pain; evidently, she expected to do some real business, despite the unhelpful Marie Calendar ambiance, which seems to shout, “Mmmm! It’s time for pie!”, and the switcheroo.

But it was clear to all that, though we had pie, we did not yet have a quorum. After a few others arrived, the quorum issue was raised again, and a discussion of quorum rules ensued. The discussion was odd, for opinion was very divided, and it was clear that, among this group, the quorum rules were at best unfamiliar. “Could it be that, previously, the Association has not attended to quorums during its meetings, despite its bylaws?”, I asked myself. A voice in my head said, simply, “Yup.”

¶ Initially, Sherry seemed unsure whether it was the presence of 2/3 or 1/2 of Rep. Council members that made a quorum, though she soon settled on the latter proportion. (In fact, as I discovered later, the “new” bylaws state that a majority of Rep. Council members constitutes a quorum.) Naturally, some of us attempted to determine the exact number of Rep. Council members (i.e., the number of division reps plus officers), but this, too, produced confusion and controversy, in part because some forgot that IVC is part of the SOCCCD. For instance, someone mentioned that some divisions are represented at each meeting by two reps. And yet, as Ray C noted, the bylaws clearly state that each division is to be accorded only one rep. I think someone said, “Whaddya know!”

In any case, we continued to try to determine the number of division reps. Then someone asked me, “Are you a division rep?”, and I responded, “I would be if the President would allow it.” This inspired Walt (?) to ask for clarification about my status. (You will recall that, though Steve and I were unanimously elected as reps by the FA members of our schools, during the April 28 union meeting, Sherry refused to recognize us as such. During a more recent meeting, I insisted on being recognized, which led to talk among some union regulars of some sort of accommodation.) In response, Sherry declared that we would not discuss that matter during this meeting. Then, inexplicably, the meeting proceeded.

¶ It seemed to me that the quorum issue had been left unresolved, for, though some members were under the impression that we were quorum-less, in fact, Sherry had made no clear decision on the matter. Eventually, Sherry declared that the meeting would now go into “closed session,” an occurrence that required that I leave the room, since I, as a non-division rep and non-officer, was not a member of the Rep. Council. Sharon Macmillan made a plea to allow me to remain, but Sherry was unresponsive. As I got up to leave, I reminded Sherry that this so-called “closed” meeting could not be official unless there were a quorum. Then I was told that the closed session would last no longer than fifteen minutes, and that someone would fetch me when it was over.

¶ I waited a little while, but it seemed to me that I had been put into an undignified situation, for I was sitting by myself, pie-less and disenfranchised, in Marie Calendar’s. I got the hell out of there.

TWO HOURS LATER, people began to assemble outside the SC conference room where the Board Meeting is usually held. The Board’s 5-7 closed session was running late, and so we were locked out until well after 7:00. Luckily, we were entertained by the delightful spectacle of students setting fire to their hair and stabbing themselves in the arm. We all hooted and applauded, which, along with the hair fires, kept us warm and toasty.

¶ The Board meeting commenced with the usual rites: the Pledge of Allegiance, a prayer, and the ritual burning of jello. (Is it just me, or are others also creeped out by doing the Pledge? I bet the Mafia has a Pledge of Allegiance.)

¶ New Board officers were elected. The result: Williams is now the President, etc.

¶ Some of the speakers during the “public comments” portion of the meeting were provocative. For instance, the Jewish Defense League showed up, and two of its members spoke in their usual vulgar manner. One of them simply hurled inelegant insults at Frogue for three solid minutes. The crowd embraced this fellow as it might embrace an undulating pile of banana slugs.

¶ But matters soon improved. The president of “Women For” (OC) spoke on behalf of Pauline Merry, a recent recipient of the organization’s “Woman of the Year” award and an even more recent object of the Board Majority’s displeasure. (Against expectations, no announcement concerning Dr. Merry’s fate was made that night.) Other speakers (Brenda B, et al.) spoke movingly against Frogue and the Board. As I kind of counterpoint to Raghu’s recent remarks (see above), I read some results of the recent IVC Accreditation Survey. (E.g., 67% of full-time IVC faculty disagreed with this statement: The college president fosters effective communication within the college community.)

¶ Student Shelly Riddle politely read the recently-ratified ASIVC resolution concerning the Board Majority. It stated, among other things, that the ASIVC are “outraged” concerning the Majority’s “reckless and unwarranted...reorganizational changes” and have “no confidence” in the Majority, who were individually named. More specifically, the resolution asserted that members of the majority had made statements to ASIVC that did not square with the facts, judging by information the students had acquired.

¶ As Shelly returned to her seat, Trustee Fortune proceeded to hector her concerning the source of the students’ information. Fortune’s inappropriate prosecutorial manner clearly upset Shelly, who nevertheless held her ground, stating repeatedly that the Board had been sent documents that cited the sources in question. Then Bill Hewitt, who had helped secure the information from the district, stood up to respond to Fortune’s challenges. Predictably, Bill was met with shouts from Williams and Fortune, who indicated that he was out of order. To his everlasting credit, Bill continued, undeterred. In the end, Fortune came across like a first-class Arschloch.

¶ The next and last speaker was Pourya Khademi, another ASIVC representative. He responded to Trustee Frogue’s recent remarks that seemed to dismiss student government (“those kids”) as illegitimate. Pourya made all the right points, and he made them terribly well.

¶ I know of several students who, in recognizing and responding to the incompetence and venality of the Board Majority and their friends, have grown tremendously as persons. Shelly and Pourya are among them. Perhaps they can serve as an example to faculty. —CW [RB]

1999: Wagner vs. Jane Fonda

Wagner vs. Hanoi Jane and the AAUW:

¶ Wagner has a history of attempting to end our colleges' associations with "liberal" or "leftist" professional organizations.
¶ Actually, it's a tradition among SOCCCD rightwingers that goes back to 1967.
¶ [Thirteen] years ago, long before his slam of the American Library Association, Wagner took aim at the American Association of University Women. I looked in old issues of our newsletter (Dissent), and I found the following transcripts. Note: at the time, Dorothy Fortune was president of the board.

Transcripts, July 26, 1999 Board Meeting

FORTUNE: Trustee Wagner?

WAGNER: A couple of comments.…

¶ The one item that gave me the most trouble is the numerous payouts to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which recently gave an award to Jane Fonda. Now, our chancellor served in Viet Nam-I don't know if he was there the same time Miss Fonda was in North Viet Nam, but I have a very serious problem with that organization and with us spending the tax money of residents of South Orange County to support such an organization. So I would like to make a motion…since apparently there is no time pressure here…that all payments to that organization be stricken from this agenda item and brought back to us with a report on why we belong, what benefit we feel we're getting out of that organization, and [we] can address it in particular. It may very well make some sense ultimately to pay these fees, but, uh, I would like to so amend item 20. [Someone seconds the motion. Perhaps Williams.]

. . . .

FORTUNE: I would like to comment on your motion. I'm a lapsed member of the AAUW, and, while you might not like their poster girl of the year, they have a wonderful magazine, they have wonderful activities, they're represented on all university campuses.

¶ They're annual fee seems to be $100. On the other hand, the Orange County Forum is here for $1,000, which--I don't know about that one. I understand your concern, but at the same time I think we need to have a little bit of openness. We don't have to agree with everything that an organization does….

[Trustee Milchiker moved to table the entire item. It was tabled.]….

The Replacement Clock Tower Incident 11/6/06

Clock tower 1.0

THIS MORNING, Irvine Valley College’s new “Clock Tower”—the long-awaited replacement of the venerable old Clock Tower (see above)—finally arrived.

It arrived by post, in a box, which the mail guy brought to President Glenn Roquemore’s office. Here's what happened next:

...Glenn greedily opens the little box. He pulls out the clock, separating it from the tissue paper. He holds it high and smiles.

“Kinda small, isn’t it?” says the mail guy.

Glenn sniffs. "Wayne got it. It's really well-made."

He places it flat on the pea green blotter atop his desk. He hovers above it. “It looks bigger there. Sort of.”

After a while, Glenn decides to go outside to "try it out." He enlists the mail guy, who looks confused.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” says Glenn, decisively. "It's time for me to take charge. C'mon!"

They take it out to the spot of the old Clock Tower. The mail guy climbs into the planter and plants the clock where he figures it oughta be.

It's about as noteworthy as a dirt clod.

"Looks like shit there," says the mail guy. "Total insignificant shit. If you want my opinion."

"Yeah," says Glenn. "It's supposed to be a real good clock." Glenn shakes his head.

After a while, he says: "How about on this thingy on the dingus that holds the light fixture dealy?" Glenn has the guy move it there. They step back and stare.

"OK, that looks worse," says the mail guy.

"Plus, the clock stopped."

Glenn stops to think. He thinks hard. The mail guy looks at his feet. A rabbit hops by and stops, unnoticed by the president and the mailman, to stare. He is wearing a vest and a pocketwatch. Yes, he is a white rabbit.

Glenn decides to put the Clock out near the library. They walk there and find a squarish light thingy by a planter; they put the Clock Tower on top of it; then they stare at it.

"That bird shit on that squarish thingy is a problem," says the mail guy. "It detracts."

"Yeah," says Glenn. "How'd that get there?"

"Birds."

They stare for a while. The mail guy fingers the bird crap.

Then Glenn says: "What about over there by that door?"

"What door?"

"I dunno. That door." Glenn puts it there himself, on the ground, by the door.

"Now it looks super small. I think it's getting smaller," says the mail guy.

"Yeah." Glenn thinks really hard now. He thinks for five whole minutes. Then he smiles.

Glenn next walks over to the parking lot. He puts the Clock Tower near a bend in the path. He stands back and squints at it.

"OK, now it looks like some kind of weird mushroom," says the mail guy. "I mean, that's if you want my opinion."

"Mushroom? Wait," said Glenn, "what's this?" His brow furrows and he kneels down and sure enough, there is a mushroom, right next to the new Clock Tower and, on top of the mushroom sits a caterpillar, a blue one smoking a long hookah.

The Caterpillar and Glenn look at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar takes the hookah out of his mouth, and addresses him in a languid, sleepy voice.

"Who are you?" says the Caterpillar.

This is not a particularly encouraging opening for a conversation. Clearly the insect has not seen the president's special parking space. Reserved for Glenn. Glenn replies, rather shyly, "I—I hardly know, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. It all started with this, this, Clock Tower." He points.

His finger shakes a little and he suddenly realizes the terrible toll that being college president has taken on him. He used to be so carefree and jolly, cruising along through life on any number of sporty conveyances, Seadoos and Cushmans and Vespas, when not shooting at small animals.

"What do you mean by that?" says the Caterpillar sternly. "Explain yourself!"

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid," replies Glenn, "because I'm not myself, you see."

"I don't see," says the Caterpillar.

"I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly," Glenn replies very politely, "for I can't understand it myself to begin with. It has something to do with, to do with, uh,…size."

The mail guy is clearly uncomfortable. He is an employee of the Postal Services, trained for all kinds of circumstances, but not this. He pushes his clipboard at Glenn. "If you could just sign here sir, well, that would be great. I have other deliveries. It's getting late."

The Caterpillar ignores the mail guy and turns his attention to Glenn. "What size do you want to be?" he asks. "Smaller? Bigger?"

"Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Glenn hastily responds. "it's not about me, it's about…" He nods toward the Clock Tower.

"You'll get used to it in time," says the Caterpillar; and he puts the hookah into his mouth and begins smoking again.

"I know I will, but others won't. They will see it as a symbol of…me."

After a minute or two the Caterpillar takes the hookah out of his mouth and yawns once or twice, and shakes himself. Then he gets down off the mushroom, and crawls away in the grass, merely remarking as he goes, "One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter."

"One side of what? The other side of what?" thinks Glenn to himself. And why is this big animal quoting the Jefferson Airplane? The mail guy has deserted him by this time and the students seem to be making a wide circle around the suited fellow kneeling next to the mushroom in the grass.

"Of the mushroom," says the Caterpillar, just as if Glenn has asked his question aloud; and in another moment he is out of sight, heading toward the coffee cart with a cloud of sweet smelling smoke trailing after.

Glenn remains looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it is perfectly round, he finds this a very difficult question. However, at last he stretches his arms round it as far as they will go, and breaks off a bit of the edge with each hand.

"And now which is which?'" he says to himself, and nibbles a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment he feels a violent blow underneath his chin: it has struck his foot!

But then he looks up at the new Clock Tower and smiles. Perfect, thinks Glenn. Now as soon as everyone takes a bite....

—CW—RG—RE

CLOCKTOWERWISE, SEE ALSO:

• The spirit of the clock tower - Apr 21 09
• How to replace a landmark - Oct 26 06
• His vision - Oct 3 06
• The Mystery of the Presidential Window Blind - Mar 11 06
• The "Clocktower" incident (Mathur to fire an insufficiently worshipful executive assistant?) - Sep 6 99

What can I say? I'm a huge Mira Sorvino fan

Right-wingers founded SOCCCD

● We at DtB have on occasion delved into the district’s formative years, revealing, for instance, its various early designations ("South Coast Junior College District") and the nature of its early controversies (long hair, dashed plans for library windows, rumors of hippie invasions, etc.).

● One name that comes up a lot in the record of our glorious past is "Hans Vogel," who, as far as I know, is still with us (he’d be about 90 years old now).

● Now, before I go on, I want to be clear that, for all that I know, Mr. Vogel is a really great guy. For instance, he may be a terrific father and husband and, oh, pet owner. We know that he's a war hero.

● We're only talking about his politics here. OK?

● The above "groundbreaking" photo can be found at the district website. The caption mentions Vogel among other members of the “charter board":

With the formation of the district, residents voted as their charter board: Alyn M. Brannon and Hans W. Vogel of Tustin; Louis J. Zitnick of Laguna Beach; Patrick J. Backus of Dana Point; and Michael T. Collins of Laguna Niguel. The first president-elect was Dr. Vogel who served four times as president during almost eight years on the board.

● Previously (see), I reported that Vogel had distinguished himself as an interpreter/interrogator during World War II while serving under Patton in Europe. (I recall that, on one occasion, trustee Don Wagner marveled at Vogel's wartime exploits.) After the war, Vogel became a noted college volleyball coach; he also wrote about and published some of his wartime experiences. (He's somewhat of a German scholar.) In the 50s, he left collegiate life behind in favor of opportunities in the construction industry. Much later, he returned to education at the K-12 level. (At one point, he was invited to join the CIA!)

● And he was active in local politics, especially in the 60s.

● We’ve long suspected that some of the district’s early movers and shakers were, oh, seriously conservative—evenNeanderthalic. Given some of Vogel's decisions and positions, we've wondered if he was anything like the stereotypical 60s South County right-wing loon.

● Some readers have come out of the woodwork, seeking to refute any such suggestion.

● Today, I happened upon a brief description of Vogel inTom Rogers’ book about Orange County politics, Agents’ Orange (2000). Rogers, an early (1962) admirer of notorious OC right-winger John Schmitz, was the chairman of the OC GOP from about 1969 until 1972, and he remained active in local politics at least until 2000 (he died six years ago). By the 1980s, owing to his fidelity to conservative principles and his determination to conserve the look and feel of rural OC, Rogers had become alienated from the GOP establishment in OC. He felt that the party had utterly sold out to big business interests, especially developers. Plainly, that is a just assessment.

● Here’s what Rogers says about Vogel:

Hans Vogel was one of the first county residents to become involved in conservative politics. As a local businessman and bookstore owner, Hans was able to gather a circle of friends and associates to informal discussion concerning many issues. He was an early supporter of [notorious John Bircher*] John Schmitz, but his most impressive accomplishments was to sponsor a book-signing event at his Tustin bookstore, featuring a rising star in GOP politics, Ronald Reagan who had written a book Where’s the Rest of Me? [1965] The event was a success by all standards, and really introduced the future governor to local conservatives who came away with a signed book and a determination to support Ronald Reagan in his political career.

Hans was also active in the County Republican Central Committee as publisher and editor of the Observer. [Elsewhere, Rogers explains that Vogel did an excellent job in that role. The Observer faded from the scene many years ago.]

● I suppose that answers our questions about Mr. Vogel, who, as far as I know, did not experience Rogers’ gradual disaffection with the local GOP. He was (and perhaps is) seriously right-wing. Remember: John Schmitz was a member of the John Birch Society (which eventually expelled him), which was very active in OC* during the 60s.

● According to the district website, Governor Reagan participated in the dedication of Saddleback College on October 15, 1968—and Vogel "was instrumental in securing the Governor's participation in the historical event."

● Ronald Reagan, of course, deserves a high position on any shitlist assembled by critics of development in Orange County. With regard to overdevelopment, surely one of the worst events in OC history was Governor Reagan’s appointment, in 1974, of Tom Riley to replace the deceasedRonald Caspers on the OC Board of Supervisors.

● "General" Riley was extremely pro-development.

● And the rest is history.

● By the way, originally, Reagan had indicated his intention of naming Tom Fuentes as Caspers’ replacement, but a residency rule nixed that plan. The disappointed Fuentes gave himself a big fund-raiser and then went to seminary instead.

● But it didn’t take.

"Prior to the dedication [10/15/68], Governor Reagan met with Board of Trustees, from left to right:
Allyn Brannon, Hans W. Vogel, Michael Collins, Patrick Backus,
Louis Zitnik and Superintendent Fred Bremer." (From district website.)

*The John Birch Society was much bothered by its reputation as a haven for extremists and, at some point, it purged itself of some noisy members who seemed to be anti-Semitic. John Schmitz was among these members. After losing his Congressional seat, Schmitz ran for President for theAmerican Independent Party, receiving about one and a half percent of the votes. Unfortunately, his later years were marked by a sordid scandal.

2003: IVC faculty ordered not to discuss the war

From April, 2003. The essay was originally entitled,

“Exploration… inappropriate”
OR: How many pinheads can dance at the head of a college?

By Chunk Wheeler [Roy Bauer]

March 27:

OK, so there I was in the lounge, fixin’ to go to the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate meeting, when Rebel Girl slips me a copy of a memo that had been sent to deans earlier that day by one Dennis White.

I read it. It said:

It has come to my attention that several faculty members have been discussing the current war within … their classrooms. We need to be sure that faculty do not explore this activity within … their classroom unless it can be demonstrated, to the satisfaction of this office, that such discussions are directly related to the approved instructional requirements … associated with those classes … College personnel are … encouraged to explore their views … outside … the classroom. Again, however, the exploration of those reviews [sic] within … the classroom is professionally inappropriate…

“Good Lord!” I said. “This memo is sayin’ that we can’t talk about the war in class unless we clear it with Dennis White first!”

The memo instructed deans to “advise…faculty and staff members of the position of this office.” That sounded pretty official.

Wow. We hadn’t seen anything like this since ’97, when then-President Mathur forbade discussion of district politics in the classroom (except for Poli Sci courses).

Nowadays, of course, Mathur is the Chancellor of the SOCCCD.

* * *

Meanwhile, at UCI, their Chancellor urged students and faculty to discuss the war in class and elsewhere, but always to “express themselves with civility and tolerance, and act in a peaceful, nonviolent manner.” College administrators around the country are encouraging polite and peaceful discussion of the war in class and elsewhere.

Not at IVC. There, “exploration” of the war in the classroom is “inappropriate.”

Thou beslubbering dismal-dreaming ratsbane!

Who is this “Dennis White” anyway? Why, he’s our dapper new VP of Instruction. I recall first meeting Dennis, last November, outside Saddleback’s Library 104, on the night of his appointment. He seemed like a nice guy, so I apprised him of the recent history of our district.

When I finished, he paused; he thunk; he assured me that he wouldn’t do anything indecent or illegal.

I said: “I hate to break it to you, but if you’re a decent guy, you’ll be gone within a year.”

A coupla weeks later, I saw White again at a Humanities department meeting, at which time he answered someone’s question by telling a story. To this largely feminist audience, he explained that, as a young man, he dropped out of high school and joined the military, whereupon he discovered the difference between officers and enlisted men, namely, the officers’ cars were better and the officers’ wives were “prettier.”

Eyebrows arched skyward.

White realized, he said, that the officers had sheepskins, and so he decided then and there to further his education. After his military stint, White, that seeker of spiffy cars and pretty women, snagged an A.A., then a B.A., then an M.A.

Maybe White noticed some community college administrators and their wives and cars. He went out an’ snagged some Education degrees, including a doctorate.

* * *

In early January, White showed up to his first IVC Academic Senate meeting, launching his practice of standin’ and speechifyin’. He referred to the turmoil that has beset our district. All that stuff, he said, amounted to mere “politics.”

Now, one can describe our district’s infamous disquietude in many ways. But White, standing before a group of faculty, chose to describe it as faculty “antagonizing” administrators and the board.

That such remarks plummeted to earth entirely escaped White’s consciousness. He closed by asking faculty to send him, via email, their “dreams.”

Soon thereafter, I emailed the fellow my dream that faculty be accorded their appropriate role in college and district governance. I outlined the unfortunate facts, shared governance-wise, about our district. I noted that our “turmoil” concerned substantive issues. I suggested that the culprits, turmoil-wise, were, not the faculty, but administrators and trustees.

In an email, White responded by warmly thanking me for my note and then accusing me of foully trying to draw him into my disagreements with administrators. He closed by alluding to his success at every institution where he has served.

Where’s that? Why, until January of this year, White has spent his administrative life at Antelope Valley College, in beauteous Lancaster, California, where, as Dean of Fine & Performing Arts, he presided over about 16 full-time instructors.

Thou impertinent fen-sucked horn-beast!

March 27: Immediately after my encounter with Rebel Girl, I headed for the Senate meeting with Mizz G, a senator. Along the way, I described White’s memo. She laughed. She asked if I was joking.

During the meeting, which White attended, the Senate Prez bemoaned the failure of junior faculty to participate in governance, owing to fear. He sought ways to overcome the problem. Some senators suggested that the fears are reasonable. Mizz G then cited White’s memo as the latest in a series of threats to faculty.

White defended his memo. His point, he said, was that faculty, except in some areas, shouldn’t be expressing their opinions about the war in the classroom.

Ted, a PE coach and Vietnam War vet, explained how discussions of the Iraq war can arise even in his courses. Others made reference to our “academic freedom.” That sounded pretty reasonable, but White was unmoved.

He commenced lecturing us about “history.” According to White, the Supreme Court has considered whether faculty have a right to academic freedom. According to the Supremes, said White, they don’t.

Thou puking dismal-dreaming dewberry!

Friday morning, I contacted my pal Marla Jo at the OC Register. “What’s up?” she asked.

On Saturday morning, an article appeared in that paper entitled, “Irvine Valley bans talk of war.” According to the article, “Faculty members at Irvine Valley College were banned this week from discussing the Iraqi war in classrooms, unless their course touches directly on the conflict….” According to the article, White says that he was responding to “student complaints.” He says he wanted to “protect” students from the “personal opinions” of faculty. He suggests that, in class, faculty should stick to their subjects.

Naturally, editors at the L.A. Times were plenty steamed that the lowly Reg had beaten them to this sexy bannage story, so, on Sunday, they scrambled to out-do their rival, interviewing just about everybody in Orange County.

That night, over a plate of GB’s wondrously excessive pasta, me ‘n’ Mizz G made predictions. “They’re gonna dig in their heels; you watch,” said G.

“Nope,” said I. “They’re not that stupid. They’ll back off.”

“Wanna bet?”

* * *

The Times article appeared the next morning. It covered the same ground as the Reg piece, but it also sported IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore’s seemingly equivocal attempts at damage control:

…[C]ollege President Glenn Roquemore said the memo was “not a ban” and that the college respects the faculty’s academic-freedom rights. Though Roquemore didn’t rule out any disciplinary action [!], the memo “doesn’t say you’re going to be disciplined and thrown out of your job,” he said. “The memo has little effect, it’s certainly not official, and it’s subject to further debate.”

Not official? Little effect? Academic-freedom rights? Having read that, I figured I’d won the bet.

But Rocky went on to explain—and apparently to endorse—what White “meant” to say:

“I believe [White’s] memo was really meant to say, ‘Please talk to me before you enter into a conversation with your students, unless it’s in the context of a political science class’”….

According to Rocky, therefore, unless an instructor teaches Political Science, he IS obliged to run things past White before talkin’ about the war.

Rocky did throw in the word “please.”

The Times also quoted staunch Mathurian apologist, and bowdlerizer extraordinaire, Ray Chandos, who sought to minimize the problem. Chandos “thought the memo was a case of ‘an administrator who received a complaint from a student, wrote a memo and hoped the situation would go away.’”

* * *

Also on that Monday, Reuters, the news service, ran a story entitled “California college war talk ban stirs debate.” There, White explains that the limits he imposed on discussion and opining in the classroom are “attempting not to limit academic freedom or limit discussion but to define a framework for the discussion….” Oh.

White went on to say:

War is very different to the people who are fighting and the people who are at home. I was just trying to make sure our faculty are sensitive to the type of students we have.’’

Which “type of students” do we have? The ones at home, right?

I don’t get it.

Perhaps White’s point is that the studentry comprise diverse groups, and we ought not to reason in class in a manner that offends one or some of these groups.

Does this mean we should avoid discussing natural selection and the problem of evil?

White adds “that students at the community college, many of whom have relatives fighting in Iraq or families trapped there by Saddam Hussein, should not become a ‘captive audience’ to teachers.” He means, I suppose, that students should not be forced to listen to teachers’ opinions when those opinions offend them.

But aren’t there importantly different kinds of opinions? Some opinions are mere opinions, but others, including some that offend, are much more than that.

Isn’t that obvious?

* * *

According to the Reuters article, the American Association of University Professors “has had several reports of incidents across the country in which state officials or communities tried to curb war talk….” In each case, says an AAUP spokesman in the article, “administrators resisted public pressure to limit campus speech….”

In each case, that is, except ours.

The phenomenon of community pressures to limit professors’ speech about the war on campuses even made the front page of the New York Times (“Professors protest as students debate,” 4/5/03).

There, IVC gets a brief dishonorable mention.

Thou villainous rump-fed lout!

The Reg, Times, and Reuters articles incited a media frenzy-ette. By Monday afternoon, the TV people—Fox, KCBS, KMEX, etc.—descended upon our little college, spillin’ wires and has-been reporters all over the lawn. Faculty were invited onto radio talk shows (KABC’s Al Rantel). Al Jazeerah’s website (jazeerah.infoNews) ran the Times article under the title: “Neo-McCarthyism.” Saudi Arabia’s decidedly anti-Bush Arab News ran the article.

Meanwhile, NEAR (Network for Education and Academic Rights) weighed in, and the AAUP formed a special committee to monitor IVC. Academics from near and far (U of Redlands, Cal Arts, Riverside Community College, etc.) wrote to condemn White’s memo.

An administrator at Glendale Community College sent the Times article to faculty, adding that “Banning classroom discussions of the war and other controversial topics is not the way” to approach the phenomenon of students who are upset by discussions of the war.

* * *

Amidst all this, Dennis White issued a 2nd memo, in which he explains that he “strongly support[s] the concept of academic freedom.”

But what about his claim, made just four days earlier, that the Supremes say there ain’t no Academic Freedom? I guess Dennis forgot to mention that he disagrees with the jurists.

And how exactly does his “strong support” for Academic Freedom square with his muzzling of faculty?

According to White, a “faculty member had spoken his personal views on the war effort,” and this resulted in student tears. In an effort to “recognize” the “diversity of the student body,” which includes students of “Middle Eastern backgrounds,” White “issued guidelines,” he says, that attempt to “define the proper context of” discussions of the war.

How does a policy that muzzles speech recognize student diversity? What does the poor fellow mean?

What many of us at IVC wanted to know, of course, was whether White’s “guidelines” obliged us to secure White’s approval before discussing the war! We wanted clarification about this pre-approval business, and memo #2 sheds no light on that at all.

On the other hand, in the Times, Rocky seems to endorse pre-approval. Despite his guff about the memo not bein’ “official” an’ all, Rocky was, in truth, endorsing bannage and muzzlage.

Thou froward fat-kidneyed joithead!

In the article that appeared in Tuesday’s Chronicle of Higher Education online, Roquemore again denies that the memo is “a new official policy.” “This college certainly approves of discussions about war by faculty and their students,” he is quoted as saying.

He’s saying, of course, that faculty get to discuss the war all right, but not in the classroom.

According to the Chronicle article, White “stands by” his memo. He explains that it would be appropriate to discuss the war in a political science or a cultural anthropology class, but not in a mathematics class.

Now, what does it mean when a guy like Dennis White says he stands by his memo? That’s hard to say. Maybe he’s sayin’ that he’s hungry or that his feet hurt.

In the Chronicle article, White steps deeper into dictatorial doo-doo. According to White, even in “courses where the war is a reasonable topic for discussion, professors should refrain from stating their personal views.” Further, White’s concerns aren’t “limited to the war.” For instance, it would be “problematic,” he says, for a criminal-justice instructor to express his opinion about the death penalty.

In other words, in the classroom, opining in general is verboten.

Thou fobbing fool-born skainsmate!

To my amazement, the Times editorial that appeared on Tuesday largely supported White:

[A]t Irvine Valley College…, the administration issued a heavy-handed warning to professors to avoid spouting their views on the war during class and to stick to their approved lesson plans. Here, common sense largely favors the college’s administration. Faculty members can be forgiven for overreacting to the memo; the Coast Community College District [!] has a miserable record on free speech…Into a campus thus primed for a free-speech battle, …Dennis White dropped a poorly worded memo…The document…provoked immediate faculty cries to protect academic freedom. This time, though, campus administrators are within their rights.

On Thursday, the Irvine World News expressed a similar view, though it suggested that administrators and students over-reacted.

Meanwhile, at least one paper called White’s edict “un-American” (The Bakersfield Californian, 3/31/03).

OK, Bakersfield doesn’t count.

Thou errant half-faced nut-hook!

In an article appearing in the Irvine World News on Thursday, Roquemore suggests that the notion that White “banned all discussion about the war” resulted from “misinterpretations” of his memo. Contrary to critics, he suggests, faculty at IVC are free to express their opinions all over campus. It’s only in class, when they are teaching, that they gotta clam up about the war.

Rocky assumes, of course, that faculty interpret White’s memo as a ban on discussions of the war anywhere on campus. But no one interprets it that way. The faculty complaint is that the memo bans discussion of the war in class.

It is true, of course, that the media keep referring to White’s “ban on war talk.” But the reason that they do not bother to add “in the classroom” is that, when you think college, you think classroom.

Duh!

According to President Rocky, even when discussion of an issue is related to course content, “teachers have an obligation to present the various sides in a balanced manner….”

Does this mean that, in class, I may not suggest that the Holocaust occurred unless I also refer to the contrary view and arguments of Holocaust deniers? That’s absurd. Well-trained academics know that some “sides” are not worth presenting. Sometimes, from a logical point of view, only one “side” (e.g., “the Holocaust occurred,” “the earth is round”) is worth presenting.

Roquemore goes on to offer a sophistical understanding of opining. Offering an opinion, he suggests, is tantamount to “disseminating one’s personal sense of truth.”

Really? If a biology instructor offers her assessment of, say, punctuated equilibrium, she is offering an opinion. But only a lout would suppose that she is thereby merely disseminating her personal sense of truth!

Perhaps Rocky and his friends are thinking of the merest sort of opining—opining unencumbered by reasons. Or perhaps they object to opinions that are mere whims or matters of taste.

Is that what one intends when one judges a war to be right or wrong—the expression of one’s tastes or whims? Obviously not.

Or perhaps the Rockettes object, not to opining, but to forceful opining that muzzles disagreement.

If that is what they mean, then they should express their view more clearly. They ought not to say that “discussions of the war” and “opinions” are inappropriate in the classroom.

Thou jarring guts-griping pignut!

On Thursday, in yet another memo, Rocky attempted a clarification of White’s original ban. Here, he repeats White’s theme of the need for “sensitivity” to some students (those from the Middle East and those who have family serving in the military). According to Rocky, White’s purpose in the memo was only to “encourage faculty to use professional discretion in discussing the war in order to protect the integrity of the curricula and the students’ right to a course-related education.”

Upon reading this memo, Mr. B unearthed a nicely framed photograph of Richard Nixon and handed it to me, saying, “You’ve clearly won the bet; you’ve won the Nixon.”

I said, “I want this Nixon. I do. But I don’t get it. Haven’t I lost?”

Meanwhile, in his column for the Times, Dana Parsons came down firmly on the side of academic freedom.

What better place than a [college] to discuss something as vital as war and its inevitable global consequences?…Is there anything more important nowadays than the war in the Middle East? Its potential to affect so many aspects of American life…cuts across all disciplines. With the war on TV 24 hours a day, it’s unrealistic to expect students not to have it on their minds. Does that mean a week’s worth of chemistry lectures should be shelved to talk Iraq? Obviously not, but let’s trust our college instructors…to know how much is too much. Inevitably, some teachers will…rant and rave…but the students will survive it. At day’s end, they’ll at least have had their minds challenged, if not their patience…[T]hey’ll realize down the road that they were part of a great debate of the modern age. Those discussions aren’t likely to happen with Mom and Dad, and they’re not likely to happen on Friday night dates…At a time of war, the classroom is a great place to be.

That pretty much nails it.

Thou rank dread-bolted wagtail!

April 10: There I was at yet another Senate meeting, along with VPI Dennis White. Item 10 was White’s “bannage” memo.

When we got to that item, I spoke first. Addressing my comments to White, I noted that one can glean a philosophy about faculty classroom speech from White and Roquemore’s various memos and media interviews. I identified its elements.

I asked White if this philosophy has any standing in the operations of his office.

I then noted that the President had said that he was “investigating” cases in which faculty discussed the war in class, producing tears and whatnot. (I should have also mentioned that Roquemore “didn’t rule out any disciplinary action” in those cases.) I asked whether these faculty were being called in by administrators and whether the philosophy was being applied in their cases.

White answered that he could not talk about meetings between administrators and faculty regarding this issue, owing to confidentiality. He noted, however, that he was “satisified” with those meetings.

Regarding the status of his bannage philosophy, White said that there had been enough talk about it—it had been discussed all over the country—and he was not going to comment on it further.

To some, White’s remarks were unsatisfactory. One instructor suggested that it is “hogwash” to suppose that only Poli Sci instructors have occasion to discuss the war. Others also explained how reference to the war naturally occurs in their classes.

One instructor reported that White’s memo had a “chilling” effect on some instructors, who said they were now afraid to refer to the war in class at all. Another instructor suggested that Roquemore was trying to have it both ways: he seemed to agree with the memo and yet he also seemed to disown it.

Someone motioned that the Senate seek clarification about the administration’s policy regarding academic freedom, about faculty opining, and about discussion of the war in particular.

White then suggested that, if faculty ask for clarification, they might not like what they get.

That raised eyebrows. Some senators viewed White’s remark as a threat. (That they understood him in that spirit became clear later, in conversation.)

One instructor suggested that, as things stand, for all that she had been told, the bannage philosophy could be wielded against faculty now. It is better, she said, to be clear about the rules than to wonder whether one is somehow violating them.

The motion failed by one vote.

Thou yeasty boil-brained fustilarian!

On the 6th, the Times printed my response to their unfortunate editorial. A former student—he was a Marine at the time, he said—read it and then emailed me to express his anger and his support of Dennis White. According to this former student, I have chosen to defend “anti-American” professors who are “Saddam enablers.” He based this assessment of the professors on the fact that they are criticizing our President and the war. Evidently, in his mind, professors ought not to do that in the classroom.

I also heard from a UCI professor who included a quotation by Teddy Roosevelt that I rather like:

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Bully! —CW

[I CAME ACROSS THIS OLD MEMO THE OTHER DAY. CHECK IT OUT.]

Memo from IVC President Raghu Mathur to "all faculty" 4/2/98 [NO POLITICS IN CLASS]
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

To: All Faculty

I understand that some students have asked instructors to allow them to speak in their classes about campus political matters. In light of professional sense and matter [sic] of good practice, I would like to caution and advise all faculty to maintain the integrity of the classroom instruction [sic] by adhering to approved curriculum and course outlines of record for their day-to-day activities. It is not a good practice for faculty to allow campus politics to interfere with the educational interests of the students in the classroom. Discussion of political matters, for example, in political science classes is certainly appropriate. Students are welcome to use other forums and avenues to exercise their freedom of speech without interfering with educational interests of other students.

I appreciate very much your professional consideration of this matter. Thank you.

Raghu Mathur

President

Irvine Valley College

The many monikers of the SOCCCD

1. South Coast Junior College District

(during planning; district founded February 14, 1967)

Problems, real or imagined: "Um, what about inland? Ever hear of El Toro, Tustin, places like that?"

2. Saddleback Junior College District

(renamed during board meeting, March 13, 1967)

Problems, real or imagined: "They're not called 'junior' colleges anymore, cuz they do more than that."

3. Saddleback Community College District

(1970)

Problems, real or imagined: in 1979, the "north campus" is built in Irvine. By 1985 it becomes an independent college: Irvine Valley, and it's denizens take themselves awfully seriously. SCCD is now a two-college district.

So: "How come the district's named 'Saddleback' when only one college has that name?"

4. South Orange County Community College District

(1997)

Problems, real or imagined: "SOCCCD? Really? Maybe we should add some more Cs."

"Looks like this half-county ain't big enough for the both of us."

5. South Orange County Community College District

and

South Orange County Community College District North

(2020)

Problems, real or imagined: "El Toro Rd. is, and always has been, the borderline. Nowadays, students who wander across it are either eaten alive or their heads explode."

There's no Valley here

¶ WHAT VALLEY? Some of the wise guys here at Irvine Valley College can be depended upon to note that, despite the college’s name, there is no valley here. According to experts, they say, the college sits upon an “elongated plane” not a valley.

¶ I came across an old article about the “dedication” of our fair college that sheds a little light on the situation. In “Irvine Gets a ‘Valley’ at College Dedication” (Oct. 23, 1985), reporter Bill Billiter explained that the “5,200-student institution had been the northern branch of the Mission-Viejo based Saddleback College.” Now, he said, it was a “newly independent college.”

¶ The main speaker for the dedication was State Chancellor Joshua L. Smith, who joked about the college’s name:

¶ Smith … noted wryly that “Irvine Valley” created a valley “where none existed before,” adding: “Irvine Valley! ‘What valley?’ we all have been asked. Let’s face it, folks, Irvine Elongated Plane College just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

¶ “I’m told geologists have argued against the college’s name by pointing out that it is not located in a depressed plane. I say good. I’m delighted this college is not located in a depressed anything.

¶ “If the ‘sun’ can have a valley; if ‘dolls’ can have a valley; if even ‘the shadow of death’ can have a valley, then surely geologists cannot deny Irvine its own valley,” he observed.

¶ The audience laughed, we’re told. It was a hot, sunny day. Not a negative word was heard from the people passing by.

¶ The article goes on to explain:

¶ [“]Irvine Valley[”] was selected earlier this year as the new name for what had formerly been North Campus of Saddleback College. The name was a way of using Irvine, to please that city, while attempting not to offend Laguna Beach and Tustin, the other communities the college serves, according to officials familiar with the situation.

¶ OFFENDING TUSTIN.* The decision to build a north campus had been made by trustees in the early 70s. The way I heard it, the people of Tustin were very excited about the possibility of a campus in their city, and, at some point, land in the vicinity of what became the Tustin Marketplace was selected for that purpose. But then (according to the story), the Irvine Company decided to give away some land for the purpose of a community college right here on Irvine Center Drive (and Jeffrey), so the decision was made to build the campus there instead, a couple of miles to the south.

¶ The City of Tustin has been pissed ever since. It’s like Mayberry over there, so you can’t reason with ‘em.

¶ That’s the story. Don’t know how much of it is true, but surely some of it is (I got it from a reliable sort).

* * *

¶ I looked for an article that tells the story of the first appearance of the Irvine “campus.” I found “North Saddleback Campus: It’s Small, Has No Name, but a New College It Is” (LA Times, January 15, 1979), by Tom Fortune. It says

¶ It will start out the size of a junior high school. And it’s a long way from getting a name of its own.

¶ But students will begin taking classes next Monday at Orange County’s newest community college, known as the north campus of Saddleback College.

¶ College officials say they expect to enroll about 1,500 persons at the outset, many of them taking courses both at the new campus … and at Saddleback College (14 miles south in Mission Viejo).

¶ For a few years, the new school will be merely a satellite campus. No attendance boundaries will be drawn to separate it from Saddleback College. It will not have its own name or a football team.

. . .

¶ The plan is to develop the campus in 20-acre increments. Each new cluster is to have its own educational theme and central architectural focus.

. . .

¶ Only two of the three academic buildings in the first cluster will be ready for the start of classes next Monday. A late start on the science building … will delay its availability by a couple of months....

¶ During a press preview last week, the campus was still very much a construction site. The raw buildings were surrounded by mud. A workman was painting a door through which visitors entered.

Campus administrator Ed Hart had his full-time faculty there for introduction—all 11 of them.

. . .

¶ The buildings are of brick with mostly flat roofs. A clock tower is the focus of the central plaza. Lots of outside windows are intended to show off a business machines center and a reading and language lab and entice students inside.

. . .

¶ Greater things are ahead, promised District Supt. Robert Lombardi. He said the new campus probably will be one of the last community colleges built in the state….

¶ Eventually, of course, “attendance boundaries” were established. I do believe that El Toro Road is used to divide the district neatly in half.

¶ And, in 1985, the college did become independent and was indeed named—an unfortunate name, for a college, if you ask me. (“Not really correct, but close enough!” said the politician.)

¶ I’m not sure what Fortune meant by “educational themes” and “architectural focus” distinguishing the college’s “clusters.” It all looks kinda random to me. The campus does look good, however, and so I don’t mean to complain about its appearance.

¶ Those buildings were not made of brick, dude. The brick is veneer, like the fake wood on a Walmart office desk. Oh, how shitty it is to tear open the veneer and to behold the particle board beneath!

¶ Our leader, Pres. Glenn Roquemore (a protégé of Raghu F.U. Mathur), tore out the clock tower about ten years ago—supposedly cuz he and his predecessor (Mathur) had let it become rotten. (The Reb and I deftly liberated the hands of the clock. We occasionally break ‘em out and do performance art.) So the “central plaza” no longer has a focus, unless it’s that goofy sculpture smack dab in the middle.

¶ The science building? Well, that will soon be gutted and transformed into the new Humanities & Languages/Social & Behavioral Sciences building.

¶ Twenty years ago, owing to the high percentage of IVC instruction that occurs in that School, H&L was slated to get its own building. But then the odious Raghu Mathur happened (1997). Since his chief critics were among H&L faculty, Mathur, a petty sort, continually contrived to prevent the School from getting new facilities. Luckily, he finally got booted a couple of years ago cuz he had really pissed off trustee Don Wagner. (The initial story was that Mathur had deviously written to the Accred maven, Babs Beno, in an effort to get her to pressure the district not to create Accred committees that mixed faculty and trustees. Mathur had long presented trustees with a negative caricature of faculty and did not want his distortions refuted by trustees' exposure to reality.)

¶ In recent years, we’ve been promised a temporary “new” building. It is the remodel of the old “science” building (A400). "Gosh thanks," said H&L faculty, warily.

¶ For months, our School has been meeting with administration and architects to plan the building. At first, the plans looked pretty impressive. Gradually, they've been whittled down.

¶ By now, we just call it the “incredible shrinking building.” Cynicism and skepticism reigns supreme.

¶ *In late 1973, Tustin residents sought to move Tustin out of the Saddleback District and into the Santa Ana District—on the grounds that the distance to Saddleback College was too great for residents. The matter was taken to the Saddleback District trustees, who rejected the proposal. Tustin residents then sought the “petition” route: enough signatures were collected, and then the matter was taken up by the state. (See “Petition Asking District Shift Nears Goal,” LA Times, Nov 25, 1973.) The only other article about the matter I have found (“Tustin Bid for College Shift Suffers Setback,” LA Times, April 18, 1974) states that “The Orange County Committee on School District Organization has Recommended that Tustin remain in the Saddleback College attendance area and not be switched to the Santa Ana....” At present, parts of Tustin continue to be in the SOCCCD.

Original Board Wackos

¶ The district’s charter board of 1967 included “Alyn M. Brannon and Hans W. Vogel of Tustin; Louis J. Zitnick of Laguna Beach; Patrick J. Backus of Dana Point; and Michael T. Collins of Laguna Niguel.”

¶ Gosh, what were these people like? Inquiring minds wanna know (but they shudder to think).

¶ As we reported previously, Hans Vogel, who often presided over the board during his tenure (68-72), was an early supporter of notorious arch-conservative loon (and Bircher, until even they wouldn't have him) John Schmitz.

¶ He was also an early appreciator of Ronald Reagan, having invited the fellow, in 1965, to sleepy Tustin to speak with local Neanderthals. (Who knows; maybe Jimmy Utt showed up with his tin foil hat.) Reagan, you'll recall, first ran for public office—Governor—in 1966. Owing to his relationship with Reagan, Vogel later managed to secure the participation of the Governor for Saddleback's dedication (1968). Surely that makes Vogel the cat's meow, among Republicans, for whom Reagan is second only to Jesus in their affections.

¶ OK, so what about the other four? Well, I’ve done some quick 'n' dirty research—mostly on two of them: Louis Zitnik and Alyn M. Brannon. Turns out Zitnik became a small-time Laguna Beach politician. Brannon, however, is more interesting.

Louis J. Zitnik

¶ It appears that Mr. Zitnik was (and still is?) a resident of Laguna Beach. Obviously, he was a member of the SOCCCD charter board in the late 60s. By 1981, he was an incumbent on the Laguna Beach County Water District. A 1993 OC Register article quotes Zitnik, still a member of the LBCWD, as a fierce proponent of a 3-million-gallon reservoir, approval of which had long been delayed, possibly contributing to the enormity of the Laguna Beach wildfire.

¶ Laguna Beach now boasts a 5-million-gallon reservoir that is named after Zitnik. (Louis J. Zitnik Reservoir and Pump Station, Laguna Beach, CA) It is touted as crucial to fighting wildfires in the area.

¶ It was designed and built by RBF Consulting, Tom Fuentes’ employer from 1975 through 1994.

Alyn M. Brannon

1. I Googled "Alyn M. Brannon" and found a recent federal court case record the upshot of which is that someone by that very name pleaded guilty to failing to file his taxes (ten years ago), received probation, and requested a shortening of his probation. Evidently, that person has a prior criminal history ("the Defendant in this case has a prior criminal history and violated the conditions of his pretrial release while awaiting sentencing in this case"). For some reason, the feds took this case very seriously.

¶ But is this our “Alyn M. Brannon”?

¶ Incidentally, this tax-evading Brannon often finds/found it necessary to travel to Mexico, which, he argued, made his continuing probation burdensome. The court was unmoved.

This Brannon (age 77 in 2008, hence about age 37 in 1968) had lived in Oklahoma—remember that—but had moved to Arizona by the time of sentencing/appeal.

2. One Alyn M. Brannon, with apparent ties to a business in Tustin (recall that "our" Brannon lived in Tustin), was the operator of a Cessna that crashed in Louisiana, having departed from Oklahoma, in 2002 (See):

¶ On June 15, 2002, approximately 2150 central daylight time, a Cessna P210N airplane, N4720P, was substantially damaged after the right main landing gear collapsed during landing roll at the Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, Louisiana. The private pilot and his passenger were not injured. The airplane was registered to and operated by Tower Systems Inc., of Tustin, California. [Tower Systems is a computer software firm that sells a very widely used “methadone clinic” software.] Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a flight plan was not filed for the 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The flight departed the Shawnee Municipal Airport, Shawnee, Oklahoma, approximately 2030, and was destined for Shreveport.

¶ According to the pilot, while on approach to DTN, he lowered the landing gear, and the landing gear extended. However, the landing gear annunciator light (green), confirming the landing gear had extended and locked into position, failed to illuminate. By a visual check, the pilot confirmed the left main landing gear was extended, and the passenger confirmed the right main landing gear was extended. During a low approach over the runway, the tower controller performed a visual check of the nose landing gear, and the controller stated he was 90 percent positive the nose gear was extended. While landing on runway 32, the right main landing gear collapsed, the airplane veered to the right and came to rest upright off the right side of the runway.

¶ I found another record that indicates that there were no injuries in this incident and that the operator (Brannon) was not also the owner of the aircraft. The operator’s (i.e., Brannon’s) street address was 13422 Wheeler, Santa Ana.

Again, the departure city was Shawnee, Oklahoma. —So this is likely the tax evader above (how many Alyn M. Brannon's could Oklahoma have?)

¶ Now get this: there’s a record of an Alyn M. Brannon, a resident of Stateline, NV, owning a 1967 Piper. According to a FindTheData record of a report, in February of 1994, while operating that plane in the Lake Tahoe area, Mr. Brannon crashed, totaling the plane.

¶ There was one fatality.

¶ I have found another FindTheData report according to which one Alyn M. Brannon owns/owned a 1974 Grumman aircraft. Evidently, that Brannon lives/lived in Phoenix, AZ. I have also found a record of an Alyn M. Brannon, owning a Grumman, living in Zephyr Cover, NV.

3. Other records indicate that there is an 80-year-old Alyn M. Brannon (hence, 36 in 1968) who is possibly associated with addresses in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Tustin, and Arizona.

¶ You do the math. I think it is likely that these records concern one Alyn M. Brannon, and he's our Alyn M. Brannon.

¶ Gosh, such a guy.

¶ I have found little information on Patrick J. Backus. There appears to be an 80-year-old Patrick John Backus living in Dana Point. (He’d be about 36 years old in 1968.) I found a 1996 newpaper article that quotes a Patrick J. Backus, who was then principle of Orangethorpe Elementary School in Fullerton. He would have retired soon thereafter.

¶ I can find virtually nothing about Michael T. Collins of Laguna Niguel.

How accreditation works

¶ Here’s how accreditation works. Your college labors to compose a self-study that’s dutifully written according to the Clueless Educationist Style Sheet, which is guaranteed to produce prose that impresses Paranormal Fans and fifth graders but that sends all literate people into paroxysms of laughter or dismay. Then the Accreds show up, go off to dark corners, and talk to everybody, including every crank and jackass within miles; next, after shaking their heads and making glum academic faces, the Accreds go home and get bitch slapped awhile by Babs Beno. That process ultimately yields a report that slams the college for not having enough “student learning outcomes” imbedded in its “mission statement” or in the seats of the new Performing Arts/Soccer Center—or for a failure to pursue digital delivery rubrics and co-curricular, asynaptic assessments. –Something like that.

¶ Yeah, then the college gnashes its teeth and wails for like six months, spiraling into an institutional depression; next, it labors mightily (and earnestly) to compose a follow-up report, which ‘splains how the college is taking all the accreds’ semi-confused criticisms super-seriously and running “at least” fifteen new committees to ensure that everybody’s on board with the “process,” which yields “do tasks,” which, naturally, are ugly and unrecognizable as anything any sensible person would ever do. College leaders sign it with their own blood and collapse into another corner. More tears. Everybody frets, muttering, “remember Compton.”

¶ So, anyway, accreditation self-study and follow-up reports often end up being perverse and artificial monstrosities, full of Orwellian creepoid verbulosity plus profound self-deception—and a dollop of flat dishonesty. I mean, if the Accreds show up and say that you’ve got yourself a nasty “plague of despair,” then you don’t do something sensible, like fire the source of said despair—usually a Chancellor or President or Vice President (or Board, but you can’t fire those people). No. Not in Accred World. Instead, you set up a committee to concoct “rules of civility,” such as, “smile and say ‘howdy do’!” or “respect all others and honor their feelings, even if they’re psychotic, and then draw a hand and tape it to your back.” (Patting yourself on the back. Get it?) –Stuff like that.

¶ Yeah, and when the Accreds tag you for the hideously unhealthy relationship between groups A and B, but then things change and so A and B are now, like, dating or something—and, in the meantime, C grows to fear and loathe B, threatening districtular collapse.... –Well, in that case, you make up some crap about how you’re “taking vigorous steps” to get A and B together. But, natch, you just let the C and B vexation fester beyond all recognition, cuz it's not relevant to the present accredular demands.

¶ Yeah, that’s the ol’ accreditation do-si-do. It’s very processular. It’s, um, measurable and, uh, based on factoidal and empirical data (probably pulled out of somebody’s a**).

¶ With that in mind,

• If it were MY NEIGHBOR'S COOL BOXSTER, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were KEN KESEY'S BUS, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were MY BRO'S ULTRA-UTILITARIAN COROLLA, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were an old silver DUNE BUGGY, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were a SEXY RED FERRARI, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were a SLEEK AND AGILE TEN-SPEED BIKE, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were SOME PUNK KID HANGIN' IN THE LIBRARY, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

• If it were A PAIR OF SENNHEISER HD 800 HEADPHONES, a college’s accreditation report would probably look something like this:

ETC.

Teaching as a clean, well-lighted place

¶ Rebel Girl has taught Thursday nights at the college for almost all her nineteen years here: a fiction workshop which attracts the usual students looking for a few transferable credits and the unusual, those dedicated to a certain art, a craft: writing. Some already have degrees, some do not. Those students, those Thursday night regulars, who enroll again and again until forbidden by regulations, form bonds. Some of them become lifelong friends, and Rebel Girl follows them as they move on, continue to write, go to grad school, publish, fall in love, marry, fall out of love, have children, face one crisis or joy after another...

¶ One of those students died last week and Rebel Girl thought of him all this long cool rainy weekend which found her observing the end of Dia de Los Muertos in Santa Ana and tending her own altar at home, a little overcrowded this year by recent departures, none as heartbreaking as her student.

¶ Rebel Girl can still see his font choice: the old school typewriter block letters of a Courier style, his name, first and last, in the upper left corner and the story that followed it below, the shapes of the paragraphs, the openness of each word, sentence. She was never disappointed by the stories he wrote. They were always worth her time and everyone else's. Something was always at stake. The workshop always cared about his characters and what they would do. The workshop rooted for his characters even if they failed.

¶ And he, he always cared about the workshop's stories too. Not everyone does, but he did.

¶ Rebel Girl never saw the demons that his other friends have referred to in recent days. She thinks she didn't because when she saw him, when the student walked into the modest institutional college classroom, brightly lit and too chilly from the dark night outside and entered the workshop's clean well-lighted place, (a story he must have read with the workshop once, twice, perhaps three times), when he became not a stranger but a fellow writer, student, when the class made their own warmth around the tables they pushed together, when they sat there and read and listened, spoke and shared, what the class and Rebel Girl saw of him was perhaps him at his best, who he wanted to be. Any demons were left outside.

¶ Whenever he came into the room, joined the circle, he was welcomed, warmly, for who he was, for who he was with us. As Rebel Girl mourns him, she is comforted by remembering this. This is what she tells the other students as she sends emails, makes telephone calls. We were there for him. We always welcomed him. We saw what was good in him and told him so, again and again.

¶ Rebel Girl doesn't know where people came from before class or what they go home to. Sometimes she learns, sometimes she does not. She understands now that for this student there was pain, grief, an unbearable loss.

¶ In the Hemingway story, two waiters, one young, one old, observe an old man while they finish their night shift in a café. It is one of Hemingway's Spanish stories and the language moves smoothly between English and Spanish. The old man drinks too much. The old man, it is said, tried to kill himself. The younger waiter is impatient with the old man, the older waiter less so. At the end of the story, the old man shuffles off, the younger waiter goes home to his wife waiting in bed and the older waiter says farewell:

¶ "Good night," the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Ournada who art in nada, nadabe thy name thy kingdomnada thy will be nada innada as it is in nada. Give us this nadaour dailynada andnada us ournada as wenada ournadas andnada us not into nada but deliver us from nada;pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.

"What's yours?" asked the barman.

"Nada."

"Otro loco mas," said the barman and turned away.

"A little cup," said the waiter.

The barman poured it for him.

"The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished," the waiter said.

The barman looked at him but did not answer. It was too late at night for conversation.

"You want anothercopita?" the barman asked.

"No, thank you," said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted cafe was a very different thing. Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it.

Who Don Wagner represents

¶ Assemblyman—and former SOCCCD trustee—Don Wagner, and no one else, is announcing that “the Civil Justice Association of California [CJAC] has awarded him its Civil Justice Leadership Award for the 2011-2012 legislative session.”

¶ Sounds pretty impressive.

¶ Says Don, "I am honored to be receiving this prestigious award. It has been my goal as a legislator to ensure the civil justice system in California continues to be as fair as possible, and will continue to make sure future laws reflect that."

¶ Yeah, fairness. That's what Don's all about.

¶ OK, but what are the CJAC all about? Just who is this Civil Justice Association of California?

¶ Well, according to their website, here’s what they do: “CJAC works to reduce the excessive and unwarranted litigation that increases business and government expenses, discourages innovation, and drives up the cost of goods and services for all Californians.”

¶ And who are CJAC? No doubt they are folks who represent the little people--ordinary citizens who love innovation and prefer cheap goods and services.

¶ Well, no. According to the site, the CJAC board comprises the following:

Allstate Insurance Company, Altria Corporate Services, Inc., American Council of Engineering Companies, American Insurance Association, American International Group, Inc., Amgen, Inc., Anthem Blue Cross of California, Apple Computer, Inc., Association of California Insurance Companies, AT&T Inc., Bank of America, Bayer HealthCare, BP, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, California Apartment Association, California Association of Realtors, California Building Industry Association, CalChamber, California Farm Bureau Federation, California Hospital Association, California State Association of Counties, Caterpillar Inc., Chevron Corporation, CNA Insurance Companies, Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc., ExxonMobil Corporation, Farmers Insurance Group, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, Ford Motor Company, General Electric Company, Georgia-Pacific, GlaxoSmithKline, Greenberg Traurig, Hewlett-Packard Company, Intel Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, League of California Cities, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, LyondellBasell Industries, Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, Oracle Corporation, Pacific Life Insurance Company, Pfizer Inc., Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Sempra Energy, Shell Oil Company, Southern California Edison, State Farm Insurance Companies, The Accountants Coalition, The Dentists Insurance Company, The Doctors Company, The Dow Chemical Company, The Flanigan Law Firm, The Hartford, The Irvine Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, United Services Auto Association, Wells Fargo Bank

¶ Golly! That's a pretty comprehensive list of big business in this state. Clearly, if the CJAC were to have an accurately descriptive name, it would be something like "California Corporations that Hate to be Sued."

Tool

¶ "Fairness" my ass. CJAC comprises mostly the big and the powerful. They know how to get what they want. And what they want is profit and more profit.

¶ Don's their man, I guess. He's more their man than any other man is their man.

¶ I can just imagine the phone call:

CJAC: Hey, Don boy! How’d you like to be this year’s winner of our Civil Justice Leadership Award!

Don: Gosh, I dunno. If you give me that, I may as well wear a sign that says “tool of corporate America”!

CJAC: the people who’ll see it that way already know you’re a tool, Don! –Just kidding, boy!

Don: Yeah?

CJAC: Sure. Listen, the rubes back home will think it’s for real. That’s all that matters.

Don: OK, I'm your man. But tell me: how far down the list did you have to go?

CJAC: Hahahaha!

¶ According to Maplight, here were Don's top contributors in 2009-2010 (I couldn't find more recent data): see. (One contributor: Fieldstead.)

¶ You know who "Fieldstead" is, right? It's Howard Ahmanson, Jr. You remember him. Ahmanson's mentor thought that homosexuals should be stoned to death. Yeah. Ahmanson provided the start-up money for Tustin's Education Alliance, on whose board Don sits. He's pretty special.

Wikipedia notes that, in recent years, Ahmanson has labored to moderate his image:

Ahmanson is reported to have "never supported his mentor's calls for the death penalty for homosexuals"; instead, as the Orange County Register reported in 2004, he "no longer consider[s] [it] essential" to stone people who are deemed to have committed certain immoral acts. Ahmanson also told the Register, "It would still be a little hard to say that if one stumbled on a country that was doing that, that it is inherently immoral, to stone people for these things. But I don't think it's at all a necessity."

¶ He sounds like a swell guy. I'm not surprised that Don is his pal.

¶ See also VoteSmart & FollowTheMoney, where we learn that Glenn Roquemore and Bill Hewitt have contributed to Don’s campaigns. Also James Vogt, the key attorney for the SOCCCD in Westphal v. Wagner, IVC instructor Ron Ellison, the notorious Michael Schroeder, Richard Tait (Fuentes’ old boss), Steve Frogue, Marcia Milchiker, Todd Burnett, David Hunt of GKK Works, Bob Cosgrove, Bill Jay, and John Williams.

Friday, May 28, 1999

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