Update on Paul Wagner’s death

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     Posted twenty minutes ago: you’ll want to read Erika I. Ritchie’s update, in the OC Reg, on the death of trustee Don Wagner’s son Paul. It's pretty clear that the kid had a heart of gold.
     The reason for his death remains undetermined.

Yard House vegges out; Chipotle goes natural; DtB is influential; Reagan ♥ unions!

     .

     1. VEGAN EARTH DAY. Today, the OC Weekly’s Matt Coker informs us that it’s gonna be “Vegan Earth Day” on the 27th of June in beauteous (and fountain-less) Fountain Valley. Actually, the occasion will be called “Southern California Summer-Fest.”

     2. FAKE IS GOOD. Meanwhile, the OC Reg’s Fast Food Maven today declares that "Fake meat use [is] on the rise in O.C./L.A." Actually, the article is a review of the Irvine-based “Yard House” chain (there's a YH at the Spectrum), which is adding 25 dishes to its menu, using gardein, “a brand of plant-based foods with the taste and texture of premium lean meat.”
     Is their food any good? According to the Maven:

I ordered the Spicy Thai Chicken Pizza … and the Chicken Enchilada Stack …, both with the gardein option. …[I]t did taste just like chicken. ¶ Besides a slight chewiness, I wouldn’t have known that the “meat” of my dishes wasn’t meat at all.

The Maven thinks the prices are high. Yeah, but this stuff is cruelty free (I think). That makes it very, very cool indeed.

     3. DISSENT IS #2: BNN has ranked DtB the 2nd most influential political blog in California. It's hard to believe, I know. (The "Orange Juice" blog is #1. Liberal OC is #3. )Check out the graph below.


     4. CHIPOTLE MOVES CLOSER TO EXCLUSIVE USE OF NATURALLY RAISED BEEF. A local blogger just sent me this press release issued by the Chipotle Mexican Grill chain:

     Chipotle Mexican Grill, the national chain of burrito restaurants, announced today that all of the beef it uses in its barbacoa, a spicy shredded beef, is now naturally raised, bringing its total of naturally raised beef to nearly 23 million pounds, including both steak and barbacoa. The increased supply allows all California Chipotle restaurants to now serve 100% naturally raised barbacoa and steak. The move solidifies Chipotle as the largest restaurant seller of naturally raised meat and underscores its commitment to serving Food with Integrity.
     In all, Chipotle expects to serve more than 75 million pounds of naturally raised meat in 2010, including all of its pork, more than 80% of its chicken, and 85% of its beef. All of its naturally raised meat comes from animals that are raised in a humane way, never given antibiotics or added hormones, and fed a pure vegetarian diet....

     5. REAGAN WASN'T HOSTILE TO UNIONS. Norberto Santana, Jr. of Voice of OC just posted a great little piece about whether Ronald Reagan would be acceptable to contemporary union-bashing Republicans: Who Brought Public Employee Unions To California?
     Plenty of Republican pols daily insist that the Dems (and Jerry Brown in particular) brought public employee unions to California.

     The upshot? They're flat wrong. It was Reagan.

     6. MILLER TIME COMING TO END? Today, Red County’s Chip Hanlon draws attention to a poll indicating that Rep. Gary Miller might be toast: Upset in the Making?. The poll was conducted by Phil Liberatore, Miller’s opponent. So who knows. But sending Sneaky Pete packing would be SO good. Hanlon calls Miller a "turd." Very succinct.

Scholarships established in Paul Wagner's name

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     The district (SOCCCD) has sent an email message to the district community regarding the untimely death of trustee Don Wagner’s son Paul.
     The message is from the Deputy Chancellor Gary Poertner.
     In his message, Poertner notes that “This is a particularly difficult time for Don, his wife Megan, and daughters Stephanie and Kate. Although Don has been receiving support from family and friends, the thoughts and prayers of all of us in the district community would be appreciated.”
     (Is this suggesting that we should leave the family in peace for now? Thoughts and prayers are good. Feel free to express appropriate sentiments here at DtB.)
     Evidently, Irvine Valley College “has established a scholarship in Paul's name. Donations have already started to come in and are appreciated.”
     VC Poertner later wrote that “Saddleback College had also decided to establish a scholarship in Paul’s name.”
     It seems to me that making a donation to one of these scholarships would be a great way to honor Paul's memory and support the Wagner family. I think I'll do that.

* * * * *

     Unrelated: Also this morning, denizens of Irvine Valley College received this curious email message:

Dear Colleagues,

     On Friday a letter was sent to a number of IVC students regarding possible improper use of a limited number of student credit cards and personal information. We have taken this step to notify students so they can remain watchful and report any suspicious activity or suspected identify theft to the proper law enforcement authorities.
     The Irvine Valley College Police Department in conjunction with the Irvine Police Department are currently conducting an investigation....

Sheesh. What's this about?

* * * * *

BTW: last Friday's big "Broadway" shindig at IVC came off well and was a success. So I've been assured by three people who attended. It is not known yet how much the Foundation netted.

“A horde of illiterate, ignorant cretins” made more cretinous

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Have Canadian Law Schools Become 'Psychotic Kindergartens'? (Inside Higher Ed)

Canadian bloggers have been buzzing in the last week about a harsh critique of the country's law schools, which are compared to "psychotic kindergartens" in a journal article published by Robert Martin, a retired law professor at the University of Western Ontario. The article was published last year in the journal Interchange, but has only recently been the topic of debate. The article portrays law schools as politically correct and focused on obscure issues. Martin closes his piece by suggesting that Canada's law schools all be shut down and turned over to the homeless as a place to live – thus in Martin's view solving multiple social problems at the same time. The article is available only to subscribers of the journal, and while its focus is law schools, it isn't much more kind to the rest of the country's universities. "Each fall, a horde of illiterate, ignorant cretins enters Canada's universities. A few years later, they all move on, just as illiterate, just as ignorant and rather more cretinous, but now armed with bits of paper, which most of them are probably not able to read, called degrees," he writes. The Canadian legal blog SLAW features a defense of legal education in the country and criticism of Martin's views.

The Kids in the Hall

Accreditation: the ACCJC again in the crosshairs

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Angst for an Accreditor (Inside Higher Ed)

…The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges [ACCJC]…placed 41 (or 37 percent) of the 110 California community colleges on "sanction" from 2003 to 2008. A study of other regional accreditors in the United States shows that, during this same period, the percentage of their community colleges being sanctioned, or warned that their accreditation could be stripped, ranged from 0 to 6 percent….
     The unusually large number of penalties for California's community colleges prompted an array of interest groups from the institutions to form a task force last year to study the accreditor's actions; its recommendations covered a wide swath of issues but can be summed up as urging the commission to focus on institutional "improvement rather than compliance."
     Leaders of the accrediting commission largely rebutted the task force's findings, saying that the agency, in taking a tougher stance on institutional performance, is responding to increased pressure (from the federal government and elsewhere) to hold colleges accountable. … The dispute escalated last month when California's community college chancellor, Jack Scott, writing on behalf of the task force, complained to the U.S. Education Department that the ACCJC was not following its own bylaws in its process for selecting commissioners.
     The issue at the core of the California clash – whether accreditation is designed to stimulate change within a college, or assure accountability to external audiences – is a fundamental one in the increasingly agitated national debates over higher education accreditation. And the dispute is the latest sign of tensions between the government, the agencies and their member institutions.
. . .
     After submitting their written recommendations in October and meeting with a small group of commissioners shortly thereafter, task force members were initially told that they were not allowed to speak before the entire commission at their next meeting in January. When that decision was eventually reversed, Scott was given five minutes to sum up the task force’s findings, after which there was no public discussion.
     Weeks after the meeting, ACCJC officials wrote a detailed critique of the task force’s suggestions and largely considered the matter solved. But, in March, the task force again asked to meet with the commission, this time at its annual retreat. Receiving no response to their request, task force members took offense, and have sought some intervention from the federal government.
. . .

     Currently, the ACCJC levies only “public sanctions,” or three distinct warnings that an institution could lose its accreditation. With each “public sanction,” local news media generally write articles that some community college officials believe unfairly worry students and their parents, who may not know much about the accreditation process.
     By contrast, some regional accrediting bodies send informal letters to troubled institutions letting them know how they can reverse their fortunes before they come up for formal review again, essentially helping many save face while they privately correct potentially worrisome institutional issues.
. . .
     “Administrators are scared of asking questions [about the accreditation process] for fear that, when they’re up for evaluation, there will be some backlash putting their accreditation at risk,” said Ron Norton Reel, president of the Community College Association, a constituent faculty union of the National Education Association, and a task force member. “The spirit that exists right now is one of punishment. We would like that to change to one of accomplishment.”
. . .
     “Accreditation is higher education’s system of self-regulation,” wrote Lurelean B. Gaines and Barbara A. Beno, the accrediting body’s chair and president, respectively. “It is a peer review process and [colleges' accreditation liaison officers], as well as faculty, college administrative leaders and trustees have a professional obligation to read, seek to understand, and apply the standards to their own institutions.”
     Still, they argue that “it often seems to be the case that those individuals and institutions that most misunderstand accreditation are those who don’t take advantage of existing accreditation training activities.”
     Defending the ACCJC’s use of “public sanctions,” Gaines and Beno argue that when the commission made use of informal warnings, they did not carry much weight and were easy to dismiss.
     “The genie is out of the bottle on this issue,” they write. “The [ACCJC] moved to all public sanctions many years ago in response to pressures from the Department of Education. The increasing public, student and government interest in institutional quality has created a climate in which more information about accreditation decisions is demanded.… In this time of increased expectations of transparency, it is not in the best interest of higher education’s system of self-regulation to try to regain privacy or secrecy of accreditor actions on institutions."


. . .
     “The institutions are our members, and we communicate through their presidents and their accreditation liaison officers,” Beno said in an interview. “These third-party analyses are important, but they can’t supplant the view of the individual institutions. Also, I don’t think our response to the task force was dismissive. I thought it was quite sincere. I just think their work could have been done differently.”
     Scott vehemently disagrees with Beno, arguing that he cannot think of a more representative body than the task force and that any suggestions, no matter their source, should be welcome by the commission.
     “Other commissions, including [the Western Association of Schools and Colleges], let people voice themselves at meetings,” Scott said. “I just can’t understand their unwillingness to sit down and talk. They should say, ‘come on in.’ But, to put up a barrier and say that they’re not willing to listen to recommendations that are designed to improve the process, I just don’t understand.”….

Silent films & 50s Sci-Fi

    I love the old silent films. Most of them have been lost, you know. Back when they were made, few imagined that people would value them someday, so they were often destroyed or lost or whatever.
     Today’s New York Times (Long-Lost Silent Films Return to America) notes the recent discovery of a trove of old silents, including one made by the great John Ford. They had been sent to New Zealand—evidently, there was an international market for American Westerns and such—and, back then, the company was too cheap to have them shipped back home. So there they were, stored some place, saved from destruction by stinginess.
     Somebody happened upon them a year or so ago, and, ever since, an effort has been under way to restore them.
     I guess I feel about old films the way I feel about old photographs. They seem like magical artifacts. The past itself seems magical to me—and sad. For some people, sadness can be a kind of special loveliness.

* * * * *

     When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching those paranoid sci-fi and horror movies of the 50s on TV, though I don't think I had any sense of that era until I became a teenager.
     Among the very best of the 50s sci-fi/horror movies was "The Thing" (1951), which was directed by the great Howard Hawks ("Red River"). If you've never seen it, check it out. The dialogue and acting are first-rate. And skip the 80s remake.



     I recall one sci-fi movie that really stayed with me. "The Cyclops" (1957). I don't think it was particularly good, but something about it struck home. I think I felt very badly for the disfigured giant, who had achieved that state owing to radiation ("mutations," you know) and a plane crash.

Never heard of her

Recommended

A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man 'Academy' on YouTube (Chronicle of Higher Education) ~ Mr. Khan has a vision of what colleges should be doing

The mural: apologies

See video

Terrible news

     I’m very sorry to tell you that the OC Register has reported that Don Wagner’s son is dead.

Assembly candidate's son found dead

IRVINE – Paul Wagner, 22 [correction: he was 20], son of community college trustee and Assembly candidate Don Wagner, was found dead in a car early Saturday morning, Wagner's campaign manager said….

     Use the link above to read the rest.
     Despite our differences, I’ve always liked Don.
     I just spoke with Rebel Girl. We are both truly stunned and horrified. Our thoughts are with Don and his family.
     I'm sure that everyone in the SOCCCD feels as we do.
     Good Lord.

Reaction:
Red County
Red County2
Orange Juice Blog


we're all with you, don  take care as well as you can

Thanks, Tom Fuentes: incestuous and Cronyistic South Orange County politics

     This video of a 2009 SOCCCD board meeting, featuring guest speaker Chriss Street (OC Treasurer), manifests the incestuous and cronyistic nature of South County (or, anyway, SOCCCD) politics.
     Treasurer Street is introduced by board president Don Wagner, who has long had his sights on the 70th AD seat—and who will later rely on board colleague (and former OC GOP chief) Tom Fuentes' advice and assistance in pursuit of that office (until the two have a nasty falling out later in the year). It is likely that Fuentes arranged to have his boy Street come and speak, thereby producing photo ops for his pals at the district.
     You can see Fuentes in the video. He's the scowling bald guy.
     Street is accompanied by his underling, Anna Bryson, who happens to sit on the notoriously anti-faculty Capistrano Unified School District Board—which gets both ideological and financial support from Education Alliance, a right-wing, anti-teachers union "back to basics" group (founded by Frank Ury, Mark Bucher and Jim Righeimer) on whose board Wagner sits. (EA's seed money was provided by Tom Fuentes' pal, Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who continues to support EA-affiliated school board members when he isn't pursuing his anti-gay and anti-evolution agenda.)

     Among the speakers here is trustee John Williams, who, no doubt with Fuentes' assistance, managed to become the OC Public Administrator/Guardian in 2003 (only to be blasted for inefficiency and cronyism by two scathing OC Grand Jury reports). Williams, as Public Administrator, immediately hired fellow-Republican and colleague Nancy Padberg, who can be seen here on the dais, along with Dave Lang, who is presently pursuing Street's office (with Fuentes' endorsement), now that Street lost that nasty Fruehauf lawsuit. No doubt the plan, at the time of this meeting, was to elect Lang to that office as soon as Street moved to some higher office. That's how Team Fuentes works.
     You can also spot SOCCCD Chancellor Raghu Mathur, for whom Fuentes recently attempted to finagle appointment as California's Secretary of Education (that was difficult, 'cause Arnold and Tom are enemies; the effort failed). Since Fuentes arrived on the board in 2000 (replacing resigning Holocaust denier and conspiracy nut Steve Frogue), Mathur has managed to get on all sorts of boards and commissions, including some unconnected to education, likely with the help of Fuentes. According to the district website,

At the national level, [Mathur] served on the American Association of Community Colleges Commission on Research, Technology and Emerging Trends. At the state level, he was appointed by the State Chancellor's Office to the Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Council. At the regional level, he is a member of the Orange County Workforce Investment Board and Orange County Treasury Oversight Committee. He was appointed for two years in a row to serve as Chair of the Orange County Business Council's Community College Working Group.

     On and on it goes. Fuentes is like an evil spider, weaving a web of slime, ever larger and stickier and more appalling.
     In this video: in his effort to block a raise for the faculty--he says they have 35-hour work weeks and get paid too much--Fuentes invited OC Treasurer Street to paint a gloomy picture of future tax revenues, upon which the SOCCCD depends.
    Wagner, Fuentes and other board members love to crow that the SOCCCD has raised no taxes through bonds. That's true, but because of the unusual amount of tax money diverted to the district owing to its reliance on local property taxes (this peculiar funding arrangement is called "basic aid"), the district has been swimming in dough (aka tax money) for years and thus has had no need to seek bonds.
     Wagner and his colleagues heroically refrained from seeking extra tax money through bonds in the way that a guy sitting on a sand dune heroically refrains from acquiring extra sand. Big freakin' deal.
     In the Fuentesphere, that sand guy gets a ceremony and a prize and then is paraded around as Mr. GOP "Hometown Hero."

Will Davy Doo Lang run up the middle and win the OC Treasurer's race?

Team Fuentes: Davy "Doo" Lang and Mike "Felon" Carona, at Irvine Valley College, smiling plasticly

     The Voice of OC’s Norberto Santana, Jr. posted today about the OC Treasurer’s race, which got seriously interesting three months ago, when Treasurer Chriss “Fraud Boy” Street got run down by a Fruehauf truck–in court.
     Back in 1994, Street and John Moorlach were just citizens, but they saw that abysmal hinkytude was afoot in OC’s investment pool, which proceeded to circle the drain and leave everybody bewildered and annoyed.
     Good times, man. I recall a colleague of mine dropped by the house. What’s up?
     “We’re bankrupt,” he said.
     “Uh, what?”
     Soon thereafter, Mr. Moorlach became the OC Treasurer and Hometown Hero (almost, kinda). But then, after a few years, he moved on up to the Board of Supes, and so, naturally, his protégé, Chriss Street, became the new county bean counter. Then this nasty Fruehauf trucking fubar finally came into view (I guess Republicans don't read the paper), and, soon, Moorlach was struck with a hideous Street-sign: the scandal could end up making him look bad. Ohmygod!

     So, right away, he turned on a dime and became Street’s biggest enemy (this is called “character” in Orange County), and it's been interesting ever since, reaching a climax a few months ago, when the Fruehauf thing finally crashed and burned and left Street in the street, dead and owing somebody a truckload of cash.
     So that set up the race for the new and improved county bean counter between Moorlach’s handpicked filly, Shari Freidenrich, and Street’s pony pal, Keith Rodenhuis.
     –And, oh yeah, SOCCCD trustee Davy “Doo” Lang, who’s wanted this Treasurer gig since 2004 and who even sold out his friends and supporters at the district to get the Big Fuentes’ imprimatur.
     Yeah, but you know how Tom Fuentes is: he was then advising Street, who had the makings of a “star,” and so Davy Doo would just have to wait for his big chance til after that star had shone!
     Tom has a history of backing GOP talent (think "Mike Carona") that, just under the surface, looks seriously dodgy–but, in Tom's world, being actually decent or honest is even lower on the list of desiderata than, say, niceness.


     The star has fallen and so, up steps Davy Doo Lang, sporting, at long last, the Big Fuentes' hand on his shoulder:

     Hoping to run right up the middle is South County CPA David Lang, who has served as a community college trustee for the last decade.
. . .
     A poll conducted this week by Voice of OC/Probolsky Research showed that Freidenrich and Rodenhuis are in a virtual tie, with Lang in third. Freidenrich is at 16 percent, Rodenhuis at 15 percent and Lang is at about 7 percent.
     Yet the vast majority – 56 percent – of the electorate is still undecided.
. . .
… [C]andidate Lang might end up benefiting the most from this good relationship [between Moorloch and Street] gone bad. He is the best-financed candidate in the race, having lent himself $100,000 to fund a series of slate mailers, and calls his candidacy is [sic] a direct reaction to the battle of the protégés.

     Who knows? Prima facie, Lang looks like a chump, spending a hundred grand in a race in which he comes in third. But maybe Tom has finally lent him his famous crystal balls, and so Dave knows exactly what he’s doing–and that multi-bean investment will end up paying off dividends.
     It’s possible. I guess.

Arizona Determined to Ruin Rebel Girl's Summer

...and it's only the first week of June!

Take a look at this latest report:

Wonkette : Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White


It's true!

excerpt:

"Hard to find even the Gallows Humor in this story, so maybe we won’t even try. Maybe it’s time to admit that large chunks of America are in the hands of unreconstructed racists and vulgar idiots, and that the popular election of a black man as president just might’ve pushed these furious, economically doomed old white people into a final rage that is going to end very, very badly. Ready? Here you go: An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students to be changed to Caucasian skin."

From the New York Daily News:

     The mural flap comes amid growing tensions over Arizona's strict new immigration law that has drawn nationwide criticism and praise.
     The ranting of one city councilman seems to have revved up the controversy in the community.
     "Art is in the eye of the beholder, but I say [the mural] looks like graffiti in L.A.," Councilman Steve Blair said.
     "I am not a racist individual," Blair said on a radio show last month, "but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families — who I have been very good friends with for years — to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'
     The "black guy" in the mural is based on a student of Mexican descent, a school official said.

*
(photo from New York Daily News - Hinshaw/AP)




Blair defends himself

UPDATE: SCHOOL DISTRICT STANDS BY THE MURAL

Command performances

Did anyone go to this thang?

Give us a report!

There's another event (at Irvine Valley College) tonight. It's just the sort of thing that annoys some of President Roquemore's academic-minded detractors. Here's the announcement:

Irvine Valley College 25th Anniversary Celebration Kickoff


You're invited! We're going to be celebrating in style. On Friday evening, June 4, 2010, the PAC will be transformed into a glitzy New York City theatre off Times Square. At 6 PM you will walk up a red carpet into a glamorous lobby filled with twinkling lights and glittering stars, where you will be greeted with glasses of cold champagne and hot and cold appetizers served by professional waitstaff from Hyatt Regency Catering. You will wander through the lobby and adjacent tent sipping wine and signature "Laser" martinis from one of our three full service bars, eating gourmet small plates from our Little Italy pasta and California greens stations, schmoozing and listening to members of the IVC Jazz Ensemble playing some of their favorite musical selections.


There will be a variety of live and silent auction items to bid on, including fine art, wine and some fantastic travel opportunities. Then, at 8 PM, we will all move into the theatre for a fast-moving, razzle-dazzle salute to the hottest shows on Broadway, produced and directed by Professor Ron Manuel-Ellison and featuring IVC’s very own student performers, with a little help from some surprise alumni guests.


After the show, we will all move back to the tent and lobby area to sample gourmet Starbucks dessert coffees and teas and warm jumbo homestyle cookies at the Hyatt’s Afterglow Coffee Bar. Members of the Jazz Ensemble will again provide music and you will have a chance to have your photo snapped by a professional photographer with members of the “Broadway Stars” cast. Then, collect your auction items and call it a night or stay for the post-performance after-party.


Please save the date! This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity.


Sometimes, you'd swear this college is run by Republican fundraisers.

Our Founding Parental Units vs. defenders of the right and the normal

.

     In this morning’s OJ Blog, the reliably lurid Mr. Art Pedroza offers a typically insubstantial post that does little more than state that, among candidates, only his boy Steven Choi has any chance of winning the 70th AD seat here in beauteous and sunny Orange County, California. He has harsh words for Choi's competition in the race, including Don Wagner, whom Pedroza dismisses as "an obscure school board trustee."
     Pedroza, who describes Choi as “popular,” seems to be one of those people whose rhetoric makes no distinction between “You oughta lose” and “You’re gonna lose” and that designates anyone who loses as a “loser.”
     I have no idea whether Pedroza’s case for the imminent and overwhelming success of Mr. Choi holds water. Don’t much care.

* * * * *

     But one of Pedroza's designated "losers" is Don Wagner, who happens to be on the South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) board of trustees. Pedroza, who calls Don a "nutter," includes a Wagner campaign mailer. Upon an image of Don is written, “We need more faith in public life” and “Help defend Don from the attacks" (see above).

Who is the "attacker" here?
     Undoubtedly, in Don’s mind, I am one of those pesky attackers, for I am among a group of plaintiffs in “Westphal v. Wagner,” which asserts that SOCCCD has engaged in a pattern of actions, by trustees and other officials, that establish religion. The actions include religious invocations at the start of commencement ceremonies, scholarship awards ceremonies, etc.
     But just who is the “attacker” in this case? Don plainly views a routine imposition of religious invocations at a community college as the right and the normal. Occasionally, he even appeals to the supposed popularity of his view among South Orange Countians.
     So, in Don's mind, he represents the standard and the normal.
     Such a man inevitably regards anyone who would put a stop to those activities as a trouble-maker and a scoundrel. But one who reads and understands the “establishment” clause of the 1st Amendment, and who does not presuppose that the routine and normal are also the right, might well view Don as, if not the scoundrel, then the aggressor, for, despite our Constitution’s ban on the government’s establishing religion, Don and his pious friends, acting as the government, impose invocations and “Jesus saved our souls” messages on the community, students, and employees during SOCCCD events.
     Don is not alone in his failure to imagine that something else besides "faith" might be under attack here. Last week, the über-lurid Mr. Tom Fuentes, former boss of the OC GOP, was among the SOCCCD trustees who voted to reserve $2 million to continue to fight the "Westphal" complaint.
     Upon asserting his staunch support for this extraordinary expenditure (ultimately caused, of course, by the Bible-toting arrogance of people like him), Tom added, "I hope that we can go after those who have caused the district to spend this money...." Go after? (And go after how? He seemed to have in mind the winning of "repayment of ... attorney fees.” That's what he said. But I'm not so sure that's the only kind of "going after" he had in mind.)
     Clearly, in Tom's mind, as in Don's, this is a case of mere wrong-doers—"attackers"—coming down from the hills and into the peaceful village to violate the rights of the faithful. That these alleged invaders might have a legitimate grievance, or even an illegitimate grievance, does not occur to them. Scoundrels don't have grievances; they just have a desire to do evil.

* * * * *

     Don loves to say that people like me are attempting to prevent the faithful from praying and otherwise religionizing in “the public square.” But that’s nonsense. Don can pray there all he wants for all I care. The issue is whether he should be allowed to religionize there as an agent of the government. That’s all.
     Don also loves to ridicule the plaintiffs of this case, describing them as sensitive souls who seek not to have their "feelings hurt" by having to listen to prayers and such. (Yes, feelings really are silly things, aren’t they? I wonder if Don would experience any of those silly “feelings” if the government were to prevent him from praying at his church?)
     Listen. This ain’t rocket science. Our Founding Parental Units were aware of a particular kind of tyranny: the imposition of religion on people by that awesome force known as the government. These fine (and sometimes not-so-fine) Revolutionary Units long ago said “no” to that.
     And Don wants to say “yes.”
     I shall now await the utterly predictable.

Further up Sh*t Creek

★★★★

     Don Wagner watch: According to the always-underwhelming Matt Cunningham (Red County), trustee Don Wagner’s two Republican opponents in his bid for the 70th AD are embroiled in a slugfest over who is the dirtier campaigner. While Steven Choi and Jerry Amante smash each other in the face and pelt one another with slime balls, Don is in the audience, quietly eating his extra-buttered popcorn.

     Gary Miller is a creep: Even Republicans are jumping on the anti-Gary Miller bandwagon since the news broke that the notoriously corrupt Congressman (my Congressman) has long embellished his military record. Unlike me, he does in fact have a military record. He was at Fort Ord for seven weeks in 1967 and then was medically discharged. (Reasons for the discharge have not been disclosed.) Nevertheless, Miller seems to have spread or permitted the misinformation that he served in the military “from 1967-1968.”
     As Allen Wilson of Red County explained yesterday, Miller has written such prattle as: “The leadership skills which I experienced in the U.S. Army allow me to take the lead on issues which promote a stronger defense.”
     That stuff about his experiences preparing him to promote defense is, of course, pure horseshit. I suppose it’s possible that Miller “experienced” leadership skills (what does that mean?) during those seven weeks at Fort Ord. I recall that my late brother Ray experienced leadership skills during his training immediately after Marine boot camp. He also broke his foot kicking one of the soldiers he was leading. Maybe Miller's leadership experience was getting kicked in the head by a guy like Ray?
     In his post yesterday, Orange Juice Blog’s Larry Gilbert noted Gary Miller’s participation in Monday’s Mission Viejo Memorial Day ceremony. Miller made the opening remarks.
     I wonder what the soldiers and veterans in the audience were thinking about this guy?

Miller visits a Hollywood set, plays soldier

     City Council Red Meat Tossage: Meanwhile, last night, the City Council of the sleepy Nixonian city of Yorba Linda voted 3-0 in favor of supporting Arizona’s SB1070. Two Councilpeople essentially walked out on the vote, judging it a distraction. That left the three bozos and their red meat.
     As OC Weekly’s Matt Coker explains, an effort to support SB1070 at the Villa Park City Council failed last week (4-1). But, earlier in May, Costa Mesa declared itself a "Rule of Law" city—though, according to the Mayor, that had nothing to do with ‘Zona. Sure.
     Santa Ana condemned SB 1070. So, there you go.

UPDATE: late this afternoon, the Voice of OC’s Tracy Wood provides a fuller account of the Yorba Linda City Council discussion and vote. It appears that the discussion was very heated.

     Uncle Miltie's legacy: The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that there’s faculty resistance—in the form of a petition—to an administrative plan to develop a “Milton Friedman” institute at the University of Chicago.
     In part, the faculty complaint is that administration is pushing through grand educational projects without consulting them (in academia, faculty, not administrators, are assumed to be the experts on curriculum and teaching) and that it is embracing “corporatization”:

     The establishment of a Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics without a vote of the full faculty is hardly the only action by the administration that the letter cites as objectionable. It also objects to the university's decision to allow the creation of a Confucius Institute—a language institute sponsored by the People's Republic of China—on the campus without the Faculty Senate's approval.
     The letter argues that the university has risked having its reputation used to "legitimate the spread" of such institutions, which have been cropping up at colleges in the United States and other nations around the world.
     Among other complaints, the letter alleges that the administrative staff has experienced "metastatic growth," that the administration has been interfering with academic matters at study-abroad programs, and that the administration has been withholding information on the budget and other matters from faculty governing bodies. It argues that the university has assumed "a business mentality, in which academic units are understood—even designed—to function as product lines and profit centers," and that power over academic matters is being shifted "to the donors whose favor the administrators court."

Another, lesser, problem concerns Professor Friedman and his legacy:

A faculty group formed to oppose the institute, the Committee for Open Research on Economy and Society, played a central role in the latest petition drive. The letter its leaders are submitting … characterizes Mr. Friedman as "among the most partisan, most polarizing figures in the history of this university," and says his name is associated with "his relentless championing of a free-market fundamentalism now largely discredited" and with "the services he rendered to brutally repressive regimes in Chile, China, and elsewhere."

     In a tiny parallel universe: Naturally, our problems at Irvine Valley College are not so grand, though they to some extent parallel these U of C issues. In the last year, some faculty have grown concerned that administration is pushing through educational programs without fully consulting faculty—i.e., the Academic Senate, which is the voice of faculty regarding academic matters. For instance, IVC administration pushed through a highly problematic off-campus teaching arrangement with Crean Lutheran South High School (DtB helped draw attention to those difficulties—though we never reported the most worrisome problems). Also, the administration has pushed through an “Early College” program at local high schools that, according to an Academic Senate inquiry (essentially, a poll of faculty who have taught in the program), is highly problematical.
     As a long-time member of the IVC senate, it is clear to me that, had faculty been in a position to reject these programs, they would have done so, and for the reasons that are now becoming clear. Administrators seem to have their eyes on the wrong balls.
     No doubt, in the Fall, we’ll be hearing lots more about that.
     Corporatization? Well, as you know, some of our clueless administrative leadership across the state and even in our district seem to embrace and even promote for-profit college operations such as the U of Phoenix and Argosy University. Recently, the State Chancellor for the community college system entered into an agreement with one such outfit, yielding much grumbling from faculty.
     Much of this for-profit instruction is scamular, you know. It verges on the fraudulescent. Know what I'm saying? Such instruction is expensive, and students often pay for it using government loans. In the end, many of these students get nowhere and end up with huge debt, and then the taxpayer is further up Shit Creek.
     Check out the ads in Saddleback College's student newspaper, the Lariat.

Dennis Hopper: "I mean, what are they gonna say when he's gone?"

*

I mean, what are they gonna say when he's gone? 'Cause he dies when it dies, when it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him? He was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans? He had wisdom? Bullshit, man! And am I gonna be the one that's gonna set them straight? Look at me! Look at me! Wrong! You!

*

When Rebel Girl lived on the Westside, she'd run into Dennis Hopper here and there, the same way she'd see Miles Davis or the occasional movie star. Truth be told, Red would recognize them first and point them out to her. Look, there's Goldie Hawn. Hopper was hard to look at, had that kind of nervous junkie energy, always moving. Once, drunk, he took to the stage at McCabe's on Pico and insisted on singing along with the acclaimed Irish folk group playing that night except he wanted to sing Mexican rancheras. So he did. He wasn't bad.

Rebel Girl liked Hopper best in Giant, when he played Bick Benedict's quiet son who develops a social conscience, becomes a doctor and marries the Mexican girl. Yeah.

*

More hot air from Congressman Gary Miller, GASBAG

.

     The OC Voice’s Norberto Santana, Jr. just posted about my amazingly corrupt Congressman, Gary Miller.
     In a story that appeared today in Harper’s Magazine, Ken Silverstein noted that Miller’s military service was very brief: from Sept. 7 to Oct. 30, 1967. That’s seven weeks.
     But, as Santana explains, there's a problem: for many years, “Miller's biography in congressional publications … has stated that he served in the Army from 1967 to 1968.” That sounds like two years. It doesn't sound like seven weeks.
     Confronted with Silverstein’s unwelcome factoid, Miller launched some oddly dubious damage control: “… Miller's press secretary clarified his military record in an email, stating ‘Congressman Miller volunteered to the U.S. Army and was Honorably Discharged due to medical reasons within a matter of months.’”
     Well, no. Not months. Weeks. Seven of 'em.
     Naturally, reporters have pursued the relevant military records to learn the nature of the "medical reasons" for Miller's discharge. But there’s a problem: “…finding documentation on Miller's time in the military is difficult. Even with social security numbers, dates and places of entry and separation, workers at the National Archives say they can't find Miller's records.”
     Santana notes—as we often have—that Miller is accustomed to controversy:

He's been involved in some hinky land transactions in his district and the congressional watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has repeatedly listed Miller as among the most corrupt members of Congress.

     Three years ago, our own Red Emma made a trip to Miller’s office to confront him about his views concerning the war and his failure to hold a forum to discuss the war with his constituents: Meeting with Congressman Gary Miller, GASBAG (April 12, 2007).
     Check it out. You'll enjoy Red's colorful and hilarious account.

We celebrate ourselves!

     Last Thursday, we marveled at Dissent the Blog's (DtB's) apparent "influence"—as measured by Blognetnews (BNN) and its complex and super-secret, proprietary "Influence Index."

     I was glad to learn that we were the 17th most influential political blog in California (by BNN's reckoning), but I knew that summer had arrived and thus we would begin to suck. That's because this blog tends to focus on our benighted district (SOCCCD), and information pretty much dries up in the district during the summer months.

     So, after commencement, DtB just started sucking, as usual. Hell, I started writing about wandering cows and their curt cowboys!

     But guess what? As of yesterday, post-cow, we're the ninth most influential political blog in the state (again, by BNN's reckoning)!
     WTF!

     Above is BNN's graph displaying Dissent the Blog's influence over the last ten weeks. We climbed out of oblivion on March 28, but then we tanked on May 9. Since then, we've climbed precipitously to our current lofty perch.

     Below is BNN's graph for Red County/OC. Once again, at least recently, we've kicked their rosy red bloggular butt.

     But how can this be? Red County has a stable of twenty or thirty "staunch" scribblers while DtB has only one or two, depending on the Reb's mood.
     And we're never staunch (I assume staunchitude has to do with the making of haughty and appalling grimaces).
     I don't believe our curiously elevated standing will last, but, for now, following time-honored American tradition, we celebrate ourselves and our astounding and epoch-shattering influence across the great state of California.
     Hail Dissent!

WHENCE INFLUENCE?

     On March 28, we experienced the beginning of a great spike in “influence” that lasted until April 4 (see graph above).
     What did we post? Well, on April 29th, we posted about curious discrepancies between County Public Administrator John Williams’ timesheets and the SOCCCD’s records of his junketeering. Could it be that this caught people’s attention? Who knows.
     Starting on the 30th, we had some fun, sometimes at Don Wagner's expense, with the Repubs brought to kinky nightclub story, and that produced another sustained spike. We posted about that here and here. I whipped up some flashy graphics. (See.)
     After a brief decline, we experienced another spike, starting on April 11, when I posted something with an arguably sexy/intriguing title: "Stop having sex" suggests typical OC Reg reader. My guess: people click on posts with such titles no matter how vacuous they are.
     Then, after a brief decline, we experienced another spike starting on April 25. That day, we posted about Tom Fuentes: Satan Boy is coming to frown. It sported a photo of Tom. You'd think that would repel readers!
     After five or so days, we experienced a steep decline in “influence” that lasted until May 9. Starting on May 9, we experienced a great and sustained spike that has persisted to the present (that's three weeks).
     So, what caused this spike? On the 9th, we posted about Don Wagner’s connections to the Tea Party movement: Just how strong is Don Wagner’s tea? Could it be that there’s wide interest (in some circles) in Wagner’s career? That's hard to believe. But maybe.
     Soon after, we posted something about the amazingly corrupt Congressman Gary Miller that had a snazzy title. In the subsequent weeks, we did post a lot about politics and pols that may be well known beyond South County.

     Naturally, identifying causes is a very tricky business. So I’m not sure these “correlations” tell us much.

Our long districtular nightmare will soon be over

     Well, it's June, and that means it's the last month of Raghu P. Mathur's reign (2002-2010) as chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District.
     If you include his equally celebrated reign as president of Irvine Valley College (1997-2002), we're talking thirteen years of abject reignery.
     To paraphrase President Ford, "our long districtular nightmare will soon be over." Well, no. Not until Fuentes is gone. But part of it will be over. The Mathur part. Unless he leaves some mystery deposits.
     I'm counting the days. The hours, even.
     Hey, believe it or not, we at DtB are as sentimental as the next guy—er, blog. And so we'll be posting remembrances, good wishes, equivoques, and denunciations for the Goo all month long.
     Unless we get tired of it. Then we'll stop.
     Join us!

     P.S.: I thought of something. Raghu, we're really gonna miss you when you're gone. You know what I mean. It just won't be the same!
     Thinking about that, it occurred to me that you should do something like Richard Nixon's "last press conference." Check it out:

Obscure summer factoids #1 & #2

     #1: Obscure factoid about trustee Tom Fuentes:
     He appeared in an episode of AMC’s “Biography” series devoted to the life of actor and hoofer Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett, Barnaby Jones).
     Ebsen, who lived in Orange County (Newport Beach), was well-known for his conservatism—and, of course, his curious gangliness and bizarre movement.
     In 1984, he helped defeat Nancy Kulp, his former “Beverly Hillbillies” costar, in her bid for Congress. He made radio ads in which he accused Kulp of being “too liberal” and of not understanding the issues.
     I bet that was Tom's idea.
     Reportedly, Kulp was dismayed. She died in 1991 at age 69. Ebsen died in 2003. He was 95.
     #2: Someone named “Tom Fuentes” wrote a comment to an article that appeared in The Hill about two weeks ago (see). Wrote Tom: “At 9.9% unemployment, do the American people want this name-calling from their President?”
     Does anyone remember that saying about the pot and the kettle?

[Robert Novak asked:] What do you call businesses that give contributions to both Republicans and Democrats? ''In Orange County,'' [Tom] Fuentes replied, ''we call those people whores.'' 

—Punditwatch

Yet another hellmouth: this one in Guatemala City

—Another besides Orange County.

Empathy

• Eroding Student Empathy (Inside Higher Ed)

College students today are not as empathetic as college students were in the 1980s and 1990s, according to an analysis by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. The study – based on an analysis of student surveys over a 30-year period – was presented last week at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. Students were categorized based on how the responded to statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" or "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

IHR provides a link:

• Empathy: College students don't have as much as they used to (U of Michigan news service)

…"We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research. "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait."
. . .
In a related but separate analysis, Konrath found that nationally representative samples of Americans see changes in other people's kindness and helpfulness over a similar time period.

"Many people see the current group of college students—sometimes called 'Generation Me'—as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry….

• Scholarship Will Go to Illegal-Immigrant Students (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Santa Ana College, a two-year institution in Southern California, is creating a $2,500 scholarship for illegal-immigrant students in memory of a former student who was killed in a highway accident in Maine last month, The Orange County Register reported. The scholarship will honor Tam Ngoc Tran, who was an illegal immigrant herself in pursuit of citizenship and had testified before Congress in favor of the Dream Act. She was a graduate student at Brown University at the time of her death.

The planned scholarship has drawn an outraged response from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, who threatened in a letter to the college's president to try to yank the institution's federal money. He called the scholarship "an affront to law-abiding citizens" that showed "a misguided set of priorities." In a news release, the college noted that the scholarship would be offered by the Santa Ana College Foundation, its separate fund-raising arm.

Red Emma in Orange Coast Magazine

The June issue of swanky Orange Coast magazine features an essay written by our own Red Emma. In it, Red reflects on the 2007 wildfires, community and our neighbors who rebuilt their home in the aftermath.


excerpt:

To live happily in the canyons below Santiago Peak, you have to really, really like oak trees. And olive trees, those hundred-year-old, out-of control giants that drop their scrawny, inedible fruit. You have to accept that well-intentioned newcomers will promise that they’ll finally harvest the olives, cure them, or set up a press and produce oil—but, of course, don’t. You curse the reckless drivers on Santiago Canyon Road and grow accustomed to junker cars, dead since the Nixon administration, parked under the olives and oaks. You have to care for your neighbors, even if you don’t like or even know them.

That’s life in a canyon, with its single road in and out.

And when disaster hits, as it did in October 2007, you find you have to know and appreciate and celebrate where you live, perhaps in ways that less rural residents cannot.

To read the rest, click here.