Against faith & other forms of irrationality: interview with Alan Sokal

Guardian UK has a fine 30-minute interview with Alan Sokal, the physicist and author most famous for his 1996 postmodernist hoax. Check it out: CLICK HERE. (Luddites: don't forget to click on the "play" button.)

Among the topics:

The hoax: parody of post-Modern science criticism
Postmodern writers vs. scientists & philosophers
The evidence-based way of thinking
The war on science (Bush)
Well-tested vs. cutting-edge science
Homeopathy & alternative medicines
Disregard for evidence: the Iraq war
Society’s deference to faith
The importance of evidence

The adventures of Sunny Girl

For animal lovers only.

Sunny Girl goes to the vet and she doesn't like it much.
(Technical problems have been overcome.)



Diagnosed with "nonspecific crapulence."

God and Man at SOCCCD

1. IN GOD THEY TRUST. As you know, the SOCCCD has been and will continue to be a tiny battleground of the “culture war” between Red Meat Republicans and most everyone else. For instance, our board is fond of prayer, and, often, there is no mistaking which God is being prayed to or invoked at the start of meetings of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees.

Naturally, some object to this practice. Below, I provide a brief (1:30) example of a plea to cease the practice of prayer at district functions:

The board meetings are held, of course, at a district building on the campus of Saddleback College, and thus in the city of Mission Viejo—among the safest cities in the country, or so says the FBI. It’s also mighty conservative.

Yesterday, the OC Register reported that

Mission Viejo may become the third Orange County city to approve displaying the national motto "In God We Trust" in City Hall. 

¶ The City Council will discuss placing the motto on the walls of the council chambers at its meeting Monday. … 

¶ Councilwoman Gail Reavis placed the item for discussion on the agenda. The move comes after the Cypress City Council voted Feb. 11 to display the phrase in their council chambers. Westminster City Council passed a similar ordinance last July and began displaying the words in their council chambers in January. 

¶ Reavis said displaying the motto would be a symbol of the city's character, and that she did not expect the issue to be controversial…. 

¶ Cypress Councilman Phil Luebben, who voted against the [Cypress] ordinance, said the motto does not represent all of the city's residents…. 

¶ Jacquie Sullivan is president of In God We Trust – America, an organization that encourages cities to publicly display the phrase, which was adopted by Congress as the national motto in 1956. She said the motto is meant to include all faiths, and that it is a sign of a city's patriotism. 

¶ "This is not a religious effort, it's a patriotic effort," she said.

Perfect! South County conservatives think back to 1956 to express their patriotism—which, evidently, is the same as their theism.

(See Ceremonial deism)

2. NEW ACCREDITATION-RESPONSE PROPOSAL. As you know, our effort to deal with our dire accreditation difficulties recently yielded the proposal of a district-wide Accreditation Advisory Panel.

Things change. The latest proposal—coming from the district? From Chancellor Mathur?—is a committee per college to include various district personnel and even a trustee—as well as some faculty.

Naturally, some have expressed skepticism about the new proposal. For instance, are enough faculty on these committees?

At a recent academic senate meeting, I noted that it is one thing to endeavor to address our problems (as identified by the accrediting agency) and it is quite another to write a report on our progress in addressing our problems. I worry that this proposal obliterates that distinction and is therefore muddled.

Perhaps when we hear the details of the proposal, my concerns will be assuaged or even shown to be erroneous. Could be. Hope so. Nothing’s been decided yet.

3. SHAME? On the 26th, Sean Hill of Liberal OC weighed in on IVC’s little flag controversy:

For the last ten years a 144-flag display has hung in the atrium of the student center of the Irvine Valley College without incident. However according to an article written by Marla Jo Fisher in yesterday’s Orange County Register school officials have removed the display after threats from radical anti-communist activists in the local Vietnamese community.

The display represented the flags of the nations of the world “in a gesture designed to symbolize the diversity of the college’s student body”. It was the fact that a flag depicting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was displayed that drew the ire of the activists. The activists threatened mass protests with busloads of protestors if the flag was not removed. Fearing this, school officials caved and removed the entire display.

Leading the charge for the radical activists were Van Tran allies Westminster Councilman Andy Quach and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen. Quach and Nguyen essentially threatened and coerced school officials by reminding them of what happened during the 1999 protests in Little Saigon over a shop owner displaying the Vietnam flag and a photo of Ho Chi Minh. During those protests some 50,000 people showed up and at times turned violent, going as far as attacking an American veteran of the Vietnam War who spoke in favor of the shop owners right to free speech.

It is time that this thuggery and intimidation by the radicals in Little Saigon comes to an end. These folks believe in the right of free speech. Theirs. They wrap themselves in the Constitution to protect their rights, and step on it when it comes to the rights and beliefs of the people who disagree with them. They left Vietnam in search of freedom and yet they act not too much different from those in charge of the country they fled.

Shame on Irvine Valley College officials for bowing to their threats and shame on those issuing those threats. If you believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression you must be willing to defend things that may be offensive to you. That is the beauty of America, or at least that used to be the beauty of America. Clearly we have allowed the threats of a radical mob to determine what can be said or expressed.

This leaves me to ask should Cuban-Americans be able to demand the removal of the Cuban flag because they don’t agree with the government there? What about Persian-Americans and the Iranian flag? Should we only allow the display of flags of countries we like? Should we ban the display of all flags except the American flag?

So what do you think?

A Masters degree in bullshit

From Bob Park’s What’s New:

A strong editorial in today’s issue of Nature warns that the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), which moved from San Diego to Dallas last year, has applied to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for the right to grant online master’s degrees in science education. An advisory board has recommended acceptance.

Founded by Henry Morris in 1972, the ICR regards the Bible as an inerrant source of scientific and historical fact. The Board had been expected to vote on the application in January, but requested additional information. The vote is now expected at the boards 24 April meeting.

Steven Weinberg, Physics Nobel 1979, who five years ago defended the rights of Texas school children to learn the natural laws that govern our existence (see), has urged the board to deny accreditation to the Creation Research Institute.

Every Texas scientist should do the same.

Drills, skulls, the DOE

●.....As you know, our new Accreditation difficulties stem, in part, from the DOE’s cracking down on our accrediting agency, WASC/ACCJC. With that in mind: From this morning’s Inside Higher Education: A Little Help From Its Friends?:

.....In the year and a half since the report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the U.S. Education Department has invested significant time and energy on pressuring accrediting agencies to prod colleges to more effectively measure and more transparently report the academic outcomes of their students. In many ways, the accreditation war has been at the center of the department’s effort to carry out the commission’s work.
.....Which has made it all the more frustrating to Secretary Margaret Spellings and her aides that Congress is poised to shut them down. Bills that both the House and Senate have passed to renew the Higher Education Act would bar the Education Department from promulgating federal rules to guide accrediting agencies on what and how they should assess colleges’ efforts to measure student learning. The measures would also make clear that colleges, rather than accreditors, have primary responsibility for setting standards for student learning.
.....College leaders, who last spring fought tooth and nail against the department’s efforts to impose a set of new regulations governing accreditation, lobbied Congress hard to limit the department’s work on accreditation. But department officials strenuously oppose the approach lawmakers have taken in the Higher Education Act legislation and have expressed their objections in many venues: interviews with reporters, White House letters outlining their problems with the legislation, and, most recently, a harshly worded op-ed in a Washington political newspaper in which Spellings lambasted for having been “persuaded to block the U.S. Department of Education from overseeing the quality of institutions of higher education by special interest forces determined to keep the accreditation process insular, clubby and accountable to no one but themselves.”
.....“While business leaders embrace the future, Congress is vigorously defending old structures and outdated practices in higher education at the behest of entrenched stakeholders who advocate the status quo,” Spellings wrote in the Politico.
.....Department officials have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade leading members of Congress to drop or soften their prohibition. As House and Senate lawmakers and staff begin work on a compromise version of the Higher Education Act legislation, they may get a little help from a friends — former members of the secretary’s higher education commission.
.....This month, Sara Martinez Tucker and Diane Auer Jones, respectively the department’s under secretary and assistant secretary for postsecondary education, held a conference call for former members of the Spellings Commission to, as a spokeswoman characterized it, update them on the department’s efforts to carry out the panel’s recommendations. The spokeswoman said that the department has done so occasionally, although she could not say when or how often.
.....By all accounts, department officials — who like all federal officials are barred contacting or encouraging others to lobby Congress — did not in any way encourage the participating members of the Spellings panel to urge lawmakers to reconsider their approach to the accreditation issue. According to several participants on the call, Tucker and Jones updated the members on a wide range of recent administration and Congressional initiatives, including the renewal of the Higher Education Act, and they did make clear that they were unhappy about the outcome of the accreditation issue.
.....“Sara said something like, ‘We’ve been beaten up on this accreditation issue,’ and she may have said that the department had been ‘emasculated’ or something to that effect,” said Richard K. Vedder, a commission member who is an economics professor at Ohio University.
.....Vedder and Charles Miller, who chaired the Spellings panel, insisted that department officials “did not in any form or fashion ask us” to advocate on the agency’s behalf, as Miller put it. But someone — Miller, Vedder and Arthur J. Rothkopf, another former commission member, all said it “may have been” them — asked Tucker whether there was anything the panel’s members might do.
.....“I may have initiated it,” said Rothkopf, a former Lafayette College president and now senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Some of us wondered, If we don’t like what the Congress is doing, maybe those of us who are commissioners could say, ‘We think this is going in the wrong direction.’ “
.....Vedder, who like Rothkopf describes himself as generally sympathetic to the department’s position on accreditation, said that Tucker responded along the lines of: “We are constrained by the law, we cannot lobby Congress. but you people can do whatever you want.”
.....And they just may, says Rothkopf, who notes that he is speaking as an individual capacity and not for the Chamber of Commerce. “I think that most commission members felt that the accreditation process was a way to get more outcomes out there, to give students and parents and the public more information. Congress’s approach would seem to cut the accreditors loose and cut the department loose. What Congress has done here runs counter to our recommendations and will make it harder to achieve the results we would like to achieve. It’s a possibility that some members of the commission will express their views.”….

● Also in IHE: Drill Terrifies Students:

.....Elizabeth City State University, in North Carolina, is offering counseling to students and faculty members after a mock safety drill in which someone pretended to be a killer and entered a classroom with a fake gun, The News & Observer reported. An e-mail and text message had alerted the campus to the drill, but there were not full details and many at Elizabeth City State apparently didn’t read the message. The unknowing professor whose class was the target of the fake drill said he was “prepared to die” as the events took place.

● From yesterday’s OC Reg: Saddleback College's Rapid Tech program makes industry partners:

.....Two days before last Thanksgiving, a young woman in the Sacramento area was in a horrific car accident that crushed the right side of her face. The next day, engineers at Saddleback College were building a large-scale model of her skull to send to surgeons at UC Davis Medical Center.
.....The skull was built by the college's National Center for Rapid Technologies, part of its Advanced Technology Center. The center has existed since 2005, but only last October did it receive a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation. It then assumed the name "RapidTech" and became the only center in the country that specializes in rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing, said Ed Tackett, the program's director.
.....Instead of starting with a large block of material and shaping it down, machines at the center build parts or prototypes from scratch − a much more efficient process, Tackett said.
.....The technology has existed since the late 1980s, but newer processes and materials have made the technology more economically viable. That means companies need engineers who know how to use it.
....."From an educational aspect, what (RapidTech) lets see is where the technology's going in the future, and it lets us develop coursework that will train the new generation of technicians and engineers," Tackett said.
.....Saddleback offers a certificate program in using the technology. It keeps the class size to about 10 – mostly because of the building's lack of physical space, which Tackett and his colleagues are hoping to change by finding a generous donor.
.....In addition to education, the center has also partnered with several companies, including Pixar, Ford, Honda and Boeing, by developing prototypes and specialty parts for new projects.
.....Tackett said as the technology progresses, Saddleback will lead the industry in the creation of new ways to utilize it. New jobs come from new technology, he said, and the manufacturing industry should focus on America's strengths – creativity and the ability to specialize – instead of trying to bring back mass-manufacturing jobs lost to outsourcing.
....."Let's be realistic about U.S. manufacturing: a lot of it has been moved offshore," he said. "We need to be progressive, not regressive about our manufacturing and our capabilities."

● From this morning’s New York Times: School Board to Pay in Jesus Prayer Suit

.....A Delaware school district has agreed to revise its policies on religion as part of a settlement with two Jewish families who had sued over the pervasiveness of Christian prayer and other religious activities in the schools.
.....One family said it was forced to leave its home in Georgetown because of an anti-Semitic backlash.
.....The settlement, which was approved Tuesday, includes payments to the families that both sides would not disclose. Although the settlement resolves many complaints in the suit, against the Indian River School District, the parties are proceeding with litigation over the school board practice of beginning its sessions with prayer....

The little Vietnamese flag story is out there

From Inside Higher Ed: 

“Irvine Valley College has removed the Vietnamese flag from an atrium display of flags from all over the world, in response to threats by Vietnamese immigrants in the area to hold a protest of what they view as an inappropriate honor for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, The Orange County Register reported. A spokeswoman said that the college was trying to be ‘considerate.’” 

See also: LA Times. The story’s on the AP wire. Saw it on MSNBC website, etc., yesterday. A brief video of IVC's SSC flag issue:

Communist flag vs. Republic flag

Some background on the Vietnamese Flag issue: From Wikipedia: the flag of the Republic of Vietnam (i.e., the flag of South Vietnam, pre-1975) and its importance to Vietnamese Americans:

• When a Vietnamese American video tape store owner displayed the communist [i.e., the current] flag in front of his store in Westminster, California in 1999, a month-long protest against it climaxed when 15,000 people held a candlelight vigil one night, sparking the Hi Tek Incident (Hi Tek was the name of the store).
• A faux pas by the United States Postal Service in using the current Vietnamese flag in a brochure to represent the Vietnamese American community that it serves cause some outrage among Vietnamese Americans and resulted in an apology.
• In 2004, some Vietnamese American students at the California State University, Fullerton threatened to walk out on their graduation ceremony to demand that the university use the former flag of South Vietnam as well as the current flag of Vietnam to represent its Vietnamese students. This resulted in the university scrapping all foreign flags for the ceremony.


• In 2006, Vietnamese American students at the College of Engineering, UTA [University of Texas, Arlington] requested that the university add this flag in addition to the communist flag as a part of its student diversity in the Hall of Flags, Nedderman Hall. After several weeks of protests from the Vietnamese-American community in the area, the president removed all the flags from display in its Hall of Flags.
• Prior to President George W. Bush's visit to Vietnam in 2006, the White House website briefly displayed this [i.e., the old Republic of Vietnam] flag before replacing it with the current flag of Vietnam.
• The lobbying efforts of Vietnamese Americans resulted in the state governments of California and Ohio to adopt it to symbolize Vietnamese Americans in 2006.


The infamous Hi Tek incident, 1999

“They are our enemies,” said the trustee

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: How Offensive Can a Trustee Be?:

.....Nationwide, colleges have been bolstering their programs in Arabic and the study of the Middle East, responding to growing student interest and awareness that Americans benefit from better understanding the region. At the College of the Siskiyous, in California, such a plan prompted a tirade of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments from a trustee, disturbing many on the campus. The trustee is refusing to apologize or resign.
.....The community college is planning to offer its first credit courses ever in both Arabic and Middle Eastern history. At a board meeting last month, the additional courses were included among the “consent” items for the board — non-controversial items that are typically approved collectively at the start of a board meeting, unless a board member objects.
.....Dorris Wood, the board member, objected last month, with the following comments: “When I look at this proposed class, my one thought is that we know all we need to know about the Arabs and Islam. They are our enemies: pure and simple.... They have declared war on the United States and are committed to our destruction.... When our schools fail the citizens of this great country by undermining the basic principles of democracy and support the sworn enemies we will fail completely.... Study history and understand how the Muslims have over the centuries invaded other countries and forced their religion by killing, plundering, and ravaging... Now they are invading Christian countries of the world from inside, one method being through our schools and universities.... If you want to give yourselves to Islam, you have the right and freedom to do that. But don’t give my country to them.”
.....The statement didn’t sway the board and the courses were approved, but the fact that a trustee would describe Arabs and Muslims in this way (without any distinctions among Arabs and Muslims, who are not monolithic in their views) stunned those at the meeting, and many who heard of the comments later.
.....Concern over the statements prompted the college president, Dave Pelham, to meet with Wood and then to apologize to everyone associated with the college for her statements. In an e-mail he sent to students and professors, Pelham said that after talking with Wood, he had a better understanding of her perspective. “She raises the concern that the impact of religion in the development of our country is not dealt with in the same manner as it is when we teach courses about other cultures. In other words, her argument is that the impact of Christianity in the formation of the United States does not receive the same focus in our American history classes as the impact that Islam had in the development of the Middle East will receive in the proposed course on Middle Eastern history. Regardless of your opinion on this issue, it is a valid concern for discussion/debate.”
.....However, Pelham continued in language that is unusually harsh for a president (even one who happens to soon be leaving for another position) to use about one of his board members. He said that her comments on Arabs and Islam as “enemies” demonstrated a “logical fallacy has been used many times throughout history to marginalize, isolate, and in extreme cases, eliminate large groups of people.”
.....He continued: “As logically flawed as I find these remarks in the abstract, I am incensed by the fact that they classify members of our own staff, faculty, student body and community with the terrorists that attacked this country on 9/11. These people love and support our country AND are of Arab descent and/or follow Islam. It is to these members of our campus and community that I offer my most sincere apology. They deserve better treatment, especially at an institution of higher education.”
.....Wood did not respond to messages seeking her comment. But at this month’s board meeting, local press accounts said, she rebuked Pelham for having sent out his apology, saying that she is “an elected official, elected by the voters of Siskiyou County and not by the staff of the college.” She added, according to the Mount Shasta Record, that “when I speak about an item or an issue I am speaking on behalf of the public based on my judgment of that issue.”
.....Further, she told Pelham that he should not apologize on her behalf, saying “this is way beyond your authority.”
.....A coalition of student and faculty groups, including the Academic Senate and the Associated Student Body, presented a joint resolution asking Wood to resign immediately, saying that her comments violated the anti-bias rules of the college, and that her seeking to block new courses based on those views amounted to an infringement of academic freedom. Wood ignored the request.
.....Pelham said that Wood has indicated that she plans to run for re-election to the board this fall.
.....A spokeswoman for the Association of Community College Trustees said officials there could not comment on the situation because they have a policy of never commenting on anything said by a board member during a meeting.

Michael Scheuer on "the enemy":

More on the Vietnames flag protest

A brief video of IVC's SSC flag issue:

.....It turns out, OC Reg reporters read Dissent. Marlo Jo Fisher has been working on the “flag” story today, and, well, here it is:

Vietnamese flag removed at Irvine Valley College:

.....Irvine Valley College officials have removed a colorful flag display in the atrium of the student center here, after threats of a large-scale protest from the local expatriate Vietnamese community over the flag depicting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
.....The 144 miniature flags have hung from the second floor atrium for many years without controversy, in a gesture designed to symbolize the diversity of its student body.
.....On Thursday, college officials removed the display that has hung for a decade, in the wake of threats that busloads of protesters could arrive to disrupt the campus, if the Vietnamese flag were not removed.
....."We wanted to be considerate and represent the diverse population at IVC," campus spokeswoman Diane Oaks said Monday. "We are developing an alternate method of expression."
.....Westminster Councilman Andy Quash and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen said they met with college officials on Wednesday, after receiving calls from numerous constituents about the flag display.
....."We reminded them that in 1999, in the city of Westminster, that flag hung in a video store led to a 49-day protest peaking at 50,000 people," Quash said. "I'm sure the college hung the flag without realizing it is very provocative to certain students."
.....Nearly two months of protests in early 1999 were ignited after a video store owner put up a Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag and a poster of Ho Chi Minh in his window.
.....Thousands of protesters demonstrated between January and March over the issue, which led to court battles over the owner's right to display the symbols even though they were causing a public disturbance.
.....Nearly 5 percent of IVC's students are Vietnamese-American, Oaks said.
.....Nguyen said she had been contacted by several constituents, and she agreed with them that the flag should come down.
....."It's offensive because this flag represents a regime that is very dictatorial and does not respect human rights," Nguyen said. "It is not democratic, and that is why a lot of Vietnamese Americans are here as refugees. To see that being honored, well, millions of people lost their lives over that flag."
.....College officials decided to remove all the flags, instead of merely the Vietnamese one, because of safety concerns. Occasionally, she said, students will swipe the flags, and the college was concerned about the safety of students leaning over a second-floor atrium wall to filch them.
.....The flags, initially purchased a decade ago by the student government, are in storage, Oaks said.
.....Student government vice president Matthew Contorelli, 23, said no one had notified him that the flags were being removed, but he supported the decision in retrospect.
....."It's the best way to keep a peaceful environment," Contorelli said.
.....Downstairs, in the college cafeteria, biology student Robert Fuller said he hadn't noticed the flags missing, but he would have left them up.
....."It's sort of bland out there now, when it was so colorful before," Fuller said about the two-story gray atrium.

Campus crime rates have fallen—for violent crime too

Listening to some of our trustees—especially former cop John Williams—one might get the idea that violent crime is on the rise at American colleges and universities. (See Williams' remarks last week: trustee report; 1:44 into the video.)

Not so.

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: “Campus Crime Rates Fell From ‘94 to ‘04”:

The tragic killings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have focused unprecedented attention on campus crime. But a special report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics last week — updating data more than a decade old — found long-term declines in campus crime rates at four-year institutions, and also substantial evidence for the professionalization of campus security forces.

Campus crime rates at four-year college and universities fell 9 percent for violent crimes and 30 percent for property crimes, between 1994 and 2004, the report found. The total in 2004, the bureau said, was 62 reports of serious violent crime and 1,625 reports of serious property crime per 100,000 students. Crime rates were significantly higher at private colleges than at public institutions, the report found….

Perhaps Mr. Williams should consider the possibility that he is exaggerating the threat of campus violence owing to its being more "available" in his thinking:

Essentially the [availability] heuristic operates on the notion that "if you can think of it, it must be important." Media coverage can help fuel a person's example bias with widespread and extensive coverage of unusual events, such as airline accidents, and less coverage of more routine, less sensational events, such as car accidents. For example, when asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death, people tend to rate more "newsworthy" events as more likely because they can more readily recall an example from memory. In fact, people often rate the chance of death by plane crash higher than the chance by car crash, and death by natural disaster as probable only because these unusual events are more often reported than more common causes of death. In actuality, death from car accidents is much more common than airline accidents. Additional rare forms of death are also seen as more common than they really are because of their inherent drama such as shark attacks, and lightning.... (Wikipedia: the availability heuristic)

It's frustrating, dealing with trustees (you know the ones) who are opposed to intellectualism and science. You can't reason with them. If you try, you'll be dismissed as being "pointy-headed" and unrealistic.

Trustees: take some logic. Hey, Mr. Probolsky took an "intro to phil" class, and he's much improved! Ain'cha noticed?

The Mathur watch

.....OCCASIONALLY, I Google “Raghu Mathur,” for the Chancellor is indeed a fascinating fellow. Here's what I came across this morning.

1. Teaming Mathurian women

.....Did you know that Raghu maintains an association with the California Women’s Leadership Association (CWLA)? It’s essentially a club for Republican women who seek power. (See its website.)
.....CWLA has a “statement of belief,” which comprises the usual conservative/libertarian stuff: smaller government, individual freedom, etc.
.....CWLA has goals, too:

The goals of this organization are to…demonstrate and develop the strengths women bring to the policy-making arena of problem solving skills, consensus building, and teaming; and [to] educate women to leverage power to attain specific goals, working within the system.

.....Teaming? Strengths women bring? Leveraging power? Sounds mighty retro-creepy, in an Ayn Rand sort of way.
.....Our man Raghu can be found—in photographs—at several points on the website: see him with OC District Attorney Tony Rackauckas; see him with OC Supervisor John Moorlach; see him with the OC Auditor-controller, Joe Shmo and County Corpse Boy John Williams.
.....Hey! How come there aren't any women in these pictures?

2. ARGOSY won't abide plagiarists

.....As you know, the Chancellor is proud of his association with Argosy University. I came across the fellow’s biography (on the district website) this morning. It explains that "Dr. Mathur serves as an Advisory Board Member for the School of Education at Argosy University where he also teaches courses in educational leadership to doctoral students.”
.....I decided to do a little research on Argosy. The for-profit university has 18 locations in 12 states. It seems to specialize in teaching Psychology, Business, and Education.
.....I came across this: according to Wikipedia, one or two years ago, one of Argosy’s faculty and its Director of Training (at its psychology campus in Chicago) screwed up bigtime. (The incident was fully reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. See also famous plagiarists.) Psychologist Bindu Ganga, who received her doctorate from Argosy, was accused of plagiarism by one of her students! According to the student, Ganga had quoted verbatim from Charles Ford's Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!—without attribution—in her Psych dissertation!
.....Says Wiki, “Initially, the school found ‘no merit’ in the accusations, and scolded the accuser, noting her accusation in her academic record.”
.....What happened next was very odd. Eventually, Argosy “recanted” and fired Professor Ganga. I guess they finally checked. Argosy also took back her doctorate.
.....According to Wiki, such actions are unprecedented in academia. Not so sure about that.
.....But get this: according to Wiki, “One year later, Argosy reinstated Ganga's Doctoral degree, but required the plagiarist to do a completely original Doctoral thesis.”
.....Boy, they sure do have high standards at Argosy.
.....No doubt that's why they hired our Raghu.

•• Just in case you haven't seen this slide show—concerning the early days of the MATHUR ERA—check it out. (Click on any image that interests you. It will enlarge. I especially like the Hugh Hewitt slide. Check it out.)

Potential disaster: we’re all in this together

.....As you know, our two colleges recently received letters from the Accrediting Commission (ACCJC). Each college was informed that it has been “out of compliance” with accrediting standards for longer than the two years allowed by the Department of Education. (It's been three years.)
.....Accordingly, each college must “completely” resolve “concerns” by October 15 of 2008—that's less than 8 months from now. (See IVC letter and Saddleback letter.)
.....The “concerns” are expressed in the following recommendations:

Irvine Valley College:

Rec 6: “The Board of Trustees cease involvement in college and district operations….”

Rec 7: “…define, …regularly evaluate, and continuously improve the…leadership roles and scopes of authority of…constituent groups…in…collegial decision-making processes.”

Rec 8: “[All groups]…come together and take measures to reduce the hostility, cynicism, despair, and fear….”

Saddleback College:

“College” Rec 3: “…develop…student learning outcomes….”

“District” Rec 5: “The Board of Trustees cease their involvement in college and district operations….” [SC Rec 5 is similar to IVC Rec 6 and essentially includes IVC Rec 7—“leadership roles…and scopes of authority”.]

“District” Rec 6: “[All groups]…come together and take measures to reduce the hostility, cynicism, despair, and fear….] [Essentially, this is the same as IVC Rec 8, but this recommendation specifies the need for “greater administrative stability and empowerment at the college….”]

.....Well, exactly no one wants the colleges to lose their accreditation.
.....Obviously, faculty, trustees, administrators, students, classified employees, et al.—we’re all in this together.
.....It is my intention to establish a forum to discuss how we might save ourselves from disaster. I do hope that members of the district community will write us to offer their sincere and thoughtful suggestions. —DtB

(I should add that, according to reliable sources, board President Don Wagner has expressed a sincere willingness and even enthusiasm for working together with faculty to deal with our accreditation predicament.)

Park Ranger Bob on leave; flags taken down

.....1. TALK ABOUT YOUR ADMINISTRATIVE INSTABILITY! This morning, Chancellor Mathur announced that ATEP Provost Bob Kopecky is "on leave." Irvine Valley College President Glenn Roquemore will take on Bob’s duties on an interim basis.
.....Something tells me that this "leave" is permanent.



.....2. COMPLAINT ABOUT DISPLAY OF VIETNAM FLAG. Last night, the college took down all those little flags of the world that hung from the 2nd floor atrium (is that what it’s called?) of IVC’s Student Services Center. Evidently, someone of Vietnamese descent took offense to the flag of Vietnam.


.....As you know, the current Vietnamese government is the same government that took over the country not long after we “declared victory” and left back in 1973. They're commies!
.....Either the offended person or some organization—I don’t have the details—threatened to bring in “busloads” of protesters unless the little flag was taken down.
.....Evidently, the college opted to defuse the situation by taking down all of the flags.
.....I’ll miss France especially.

.....UPDATE (2/25): as far as anyone knows, the flags were put up by student government more than a decade ago. I'm told that, indeed, an organization with a history of mobilizing large groups of protesters did threaten to bring busloads of very angry people to campus. Pres. Roquemore acted quickly and solicited advice/input, from, among others, government officials and the cabinet of the Academic Senate. For now at least, the flags are down and the specter of protests is removed. I'm not sure whether that action is intended as final. Naturally, some observers object to this kind of action, pointing to a "slippery slope" of acceding to unreasonable demands. Others emphasize that the objecting organization's intent with regard to protest entailed an unusually serious risk of violence.)


.....3. ONE SMALL STEP FOR FLORIDA. Today, Bob Park reports that “In approving new science standards, the state education board in Florida has for the first time ever used the word 'evolution.' That’s a huge step forward. At the last minute, Southern Baptists on the board insisted that 'evolution' be changed to 'the scientific theory of evolution.' That’s even better. Evolution is, after all, 'only a theory,' as is all of science. Florida teachers can now cite state standards as justification for teaching that science, unlike religion, is open to change as better information becomes available.”

Video highlights of Wednesday's board meeting

Of course, "highlights" is a relative term:

Hysteria
Appreciation
Charges of "patheticness"
Does Marcia say something "unbelievable"?

Board meeting: "Feeding at the trough"

.....Sorry to be so late with this, but, what with cat boxes and such, well, I’ve got my priorities.
.....The meeting was supposed to start at 7:00, but the board seemed to be struggling with something intense in closed session, and so we waited. All indications are that the hot topic on the 3rd floor was ATEP.
.....Some time after 8:00, the trustees finally appeared.
.....No actions were announced, which surprised me.
.....Wagner’s invocation focused on the recent violence at Northern IU. During his board report, Williams, too, laid it on thick like he does: we’ve got to get off the dime and step up security on the campuses, he said.
.....Hysteria. Red meat tossage.
.....Wagner moved up the mysterious “Public Hearing” re ATEP. The Board is requesting “a waiver from the Board of Governors” of Education Codes. They made a resolution to that effect.
.....Naturally, these heroes of democracy made no effort whatsoever to explain what that all meant. Gosh, thanks. You’re doing a hell of a job. I considered raising my hand, but they had a cop up there, and I didn’t wanna get shot.
.....Then they turned to the night’s “discussion item”: technical education programs at the three campuses. Serban, Vurdien, and Justice did a good job with this, I suppose, given the “I’d rather be home watching Mythbusters” spirit that enveloped the building. Or just me. (Nope, not just me.) Rajen explained about rapid prototyping and some soldier’s skull. Briefly, we were riveted.
.....Sparks fly when trustees pull items from the consent calendar, but not so much this night. Mostly, Padberg (and Wagner) pulled items regarding expenses at ATEP.
.....One item concerned approval of “$226,00.00” (note the typo) for some consultants. Trustee FUENTES was very perturbed by this expense. He said:

It is a pathetic thing that local government has come to a point where one agency of local government…are put in a position…[when] this level of money has to be spent for consultants…to advocate a position to another element of government…there is something wrong with our system…this is an example of it…example of the trough at which consults feed… why we have the growth of government even at the local level….”

Somehow, one got the feeling that this discussion about consultants had everything to do with the discussion that had just occurred during closed session. The item passed. According to Fuentes, our “team” (i.e., Mathur and co.) needed the approval.
.....Later, during discussion of revised board policies, Padberg and others complained that, what with 15 or twenty policies passing under the noses per meeting, there was a danger of rubber-stamping. That was sorta interesting, I guess.
.....More later. Gotta go teach!

Wednesday's meeting of the board

This month’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees is set for tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 7:00. As near as I can tell, our new accreditation woes do not appear anywhere on the agenda.

What's up with that?

The board is, however, set to discuss the "hiring of relatives" in the district. Expect sparks to fly.

Wednesday's “discussion” item is

4.1 Saddleback College, Irvine Valley College and ATEP: Academic and Career Technical Education Programs

Among the “general action” items:

6.1 ATEP: Recess to Public Hearing: Waiver of Education Codes for the Development of the Advanced Technology and Education Park:
Conduct a public hearing to provide an opportunity for the public to comment on the subject of requesting a waiver from the Board of Governors.

6.2 ATEP: Resolution No. 08-04 Authorizing a Request for Waiver of Education Code Section 81360 et seq. and Education Code Section 81390 et seq. in Relation to the District’s Development of the Advanced Technology and Education Park.
Adopt resolution authorizing the submission of a waiver application to the Board of Governors.

6.3 SOCCCD: Institutional Membership: Association of Governing Board of Universities and Colleges
Approve membership in AGB for 2007-08. [This seems to be a hot-button issue for some board members.]

6.4 Irvine Valley College: Veteran’s Tribute Tower
Approve concept of the Veterans Tribute Tower to be constructed at Irvine Valley College. [You'll recall that they tore down IVC's original clock tower some time ago.]

6.6 SOCCCD: Board Policy Revision: BP 3100-Budget Preparation, BP 3101-Budget Management, BP 3101.5-Fiscal Management, BP 3105-Audits, BP 3200-Purchasing, BP 3200.1-Contracts, BP 3520-Refreshments and Meals at District Functions, BP 3600-Disposition of District Property, BP 4001-Personnel Use of Public Resources, BP 4000.5-Prohibition of Harassment and Discrimination, BP 4010-Commitment to Diversity, BP 4012-Academic Administrators and Classified Managers Personnel Files, BP 4021-Classified Managers, BP 4072-Domestic Partners, BP 4101.2-Number of Pay Installments for Academic Personnel, BP 4113-Parental Leave for Administrators and Classified Management Personnel, BP 5301-Course Repetition, BP 5405-Student Complaint Policy, BP 5600-Associate Degree Requirements, BP 5601-Certificate Programs, BP 5606-International Student Admissions
Accept for review and study.

Among the “reports”:

7.1 SOCCCD: Hiring of Relatives Report regarding hiring of relatives in the District.

This shit doesn't work, OK?

"There cannot be two kinds of medicine, conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work."

—The New England Journal of Medicine, 1998

.....On Fridays, I receive my weekly edition of What’s New?, written by physicist Bob Park.
.....Last Friday, Bob reported on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Evidently, a woman named Josephine Briggs has now replaced Stephen Straus as director of the organization. Writes Park, she “is expected to continue his policy of rigorous science.”
.....The skeptical and scientific-minded Park is a fan of the NCCAM. How come? Aren’t good critical thinkers foes of “alternative medicine”? Yup.
.....When Straus died seven months ago, Park reported:

[As the first director of the NCCAM, Straus’s] task was to turn the quack-dominated Office of Alternative Medicine [OAM], created by Congress, into a scientific center. He did it with grace, the only way possible, subjecting one quack cure after another to randomized double-blind tests, while enduring attacks from scientists who thought he moved too slowly. One after another all failed.

.....Wikipedia explains that

NCCAM was established in October 1991, as the Office of Alternative Medicine, which was re-established as NCCAM in October 1998. Its mission statement declares that it is "dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science; training complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) researchers; and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals."

.....—“In the context of rigorous science.” That’s the crux.
.....Wikipedia explains that the NCCAM does have its critics:

Critics attest that despite the publicized intentions at its founding, NCCAM and its predecessor, the Office of Alternative Medicine, have spent more than $800 million on … research since 1991 but have neither succeeded in scientifically demonstrating the efficacy of a single alternative method nor declared any alternative medicine treatment effective.

.....Surprise, surprise!
.....As I recall, Park approves of NCCAM on the grounds that, though research on CAMs is arguably a total waste of time and money, the operation of NCCAM—i.e., its systematically putting CAMs to the test with scientific rigor—is the best way to teach the public what it otherwise will not learn.
.....And what’s that?
.....This shit doesn’t work. OK? It would be great if it did, but it doesn't.
.....Long live the NCCAM! Well, sorta.

Odd place

We live in such an odd place, really.

• Do local right-wing ministers (named “Wiley”) ask God to off their critics? Indeed they do. (See WILEY DRAKE: REVEREND OR AYATOLLAH?, Buena Park pastor again prays for critics' demise, God, justice and the infidels.)

• Do big newspapers utterly drop the ball on corruption in the County Sheriff’s Office and then refuse to acknowledge the droppage or the abysmal extent of said droppage? Again, indeed they do. (See REGISTER "DIDN'T HAVE THE GOODS" ON CARONA, Was media too slow in Carona case?.)

• Do public officials get paid a shitload of money for doing virtually nothing—or, worse, for doing a phenomenally shitty job? Indeed, they do. (See Some in public still angry about salary increase, Turd.)

• Great weather, though.

Nice day

Along Santiago Canyon Rd.

Sunny Girl

From Modjeska Grade

Stood on these rocks, lost my balance, fell down hard. Dropped my camera, too. On the rocks.

Lambrose Canyon Rd.

1-800-672-3888 (Red Emma)

by RED EMMA
.....AFTER a mass shooting, I always make a point of checking in with the National Rifle Association. Friday morning I went to its impressive website to look at what might be going on over at the propaganda organ of the weapons industry. You know, after five human people were killed at Northern Illinois University and a gay teen was murderized by another little kid with a handgun here in the Southland, at an Oxnard junior high.
.....The gun pimps seemed not to be addressing either killing at all. No, instead, the NRA’s “Top News Stories” were: Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program Reaches 21 Millionth Child, Deadline Approaches for NRA Youth Education Summit, and NRA Club University to Be Held in Austin, Texas.”
.....Wow. Stop the presses already. Oh, and guns don’t kill people. Mentally ill children kill people.
.....No mention either of the predictable, even necessary crime for which the NRA is directly (yes, directly) responsible in yet another case of students at a college killed by a mentally ill person or homophobe or misogynist or Regular Guy who found it easy enough to buy multiple weapons and bullets or find them in Dad’s closet or garage or wherever these assholes, all NRA supporters of course, keep their shit. No, instead, an attack on Rosie O’Donnell.
.....So, beyond checking in, I always make a point of actually calling the NRA’s toll free number. 1-800-672-3888.
.....“I am just calling,” I said on Friday morning, “to acknowledge the work of the NRA.” I paused here. (Red has done this before, because I am an asshole, so I kind of have it down. It’s fun, if you like this sort of thing, like tearing the wings off of flies or talking to Republicans.)
.....“Well, thank you sir,” said the minimum wage-paid stooge who sits in a call center somewhere in a “right-to-work” state.
.....“Yes,” I continued, “I wanted to thank you for your consistent and tireless work to get weapons into the hands of people who kill their wives, or students or little kids, especially women, and especially this week, at high schools, colleges and universities. I wanted to make sure that you know just how much I hold the NRA responsible for confusing the Second Amendment with the right to make weapons manufacturers wealthy and lobbying to challenge reasonable restrictions on purchase of handguns and for….”
.....And so on. You get it. The guy let me talk. In fact, I have never been hung up on. These are polite people, at least for a while. It’s my impression that the NRA doesn’t get many of these calls (damn shame, too) and that the Call Center phone op doesn’t quite know what to do. Finally he or she understands the rhetorical tack, as obvious as a sinking ship, and thanks me quickly and hangs up.
.....It’s all useless and petty, mean and pointless. It doesn’t make me feel better, but it makes me feel. Bad, too. Not as bad as must feel the useless public officials who can’t seem to follow the clumsy and obvious cause and effect of billions spent by this criminal outfit and the reliably, only completely predictable next shootings, which epidemiologists and doctors can see coming, not to mention law enforcement, Congress and anybody with a brain in their head. I like to cringe when the elected official makes a public statement, because it feels bad too. When the president of the college and the governor of the state offer that there’s not much we can do, except help the victims’ families and pray and develop, yes, better communications and safety mechanisms at public institutions, maybe install more phones. Yes, more phones. Phones. (Because there aren’t cell phones everywhere?) And never, ever point out the complicity of the Colt and Glock companies and their paid hustlers for the profiteers and fetishists of mechanical death made easy. No, so scared or coerced or bought off are they, so far, far away from what is most obvious and clear that they chalk it all up to fate or “a sign of the times we live in” (actual quote, heard on NPR) without reading the actual sign right there, which reads, clearly, written in blood, thank you, legible from anywhere in the world in any language, “National Rifle Association: Sponsor, Gun Violence.”

— RE

Andrew Tonkovich