New Feature! Madame Emma's Astrological Forecast (Red Emma)

By Red “Madame Blabatsky” Emma The Accreditor (March 21-April 19)

Your sign is the State Accreditation Team, all ten of them. It’s a group shot. Look, here you are, visiting Irvine Valley College. You are sensitive yet ineffectual. Your sign used to be the cadaver left in the elevator at the mortician’s college. That was a very bad sign, indeed. And it smelled funny. There is no cadaver in the elevator at Irvine Valley College, only a failure of shared governance, illegal behavior, incompetence, and bullying. And you, crowded into an elevator. You should probably just go ahead and accredit.

The Board Majority (April 20-May 20)

Your sign is the oversized custom-made podium. Walnut, or maybe oak. Big. Hard to see out from behind it. Hard to hear what people say about you, too. Especially at election time. The voters of South Orange County don’t pay much attention to education politics, except for the ones that do. Offer a prayer to distract them, or invite a fife and drum corps to the next meeting. Build a very big golf net. You are fiscal conservatives, after all, accountable to no one. Stay on your present course. Run for Assembly.

The Lang (May 21-June 21)

Your sign is the gavel. You are a sad, silly person with a funny mustache, willing to believe anything in order to pretend that your vote matters. The gavel is now up your ass, quite far, and you are beginning to notice a tiny bit of swelling. Still, you will get used to it, even perhaps seem to enjoy it. Yield to Tom Fuentes. Shift uncomfortably on your seat of power. Why not call for a vote? Try Preparation H.

The Nazi Wannabe (June 22-July 22)

Your sign is illegal in some Western European democracies, though every Boy Scout knows it’s really, really easy to draw. You’ll have plenty of fun promoting wacky Holocaust theories and stewing over the Grassy Knoll. Aliens are enrolling in classes, and they are not from Mexico. Somebody just like you should alert the media, the academy, the Warren Commission. Start now, immediately. Someday all of this hard intellectual work battling the Academy, the Martians, and the Illuminati will earn you a merit badge.

The Great Communicator (July 23-Aug 22)

Your sign is, of course, the Jelly Bean. Every day is a great day for rightwing historical revisionism. Hang some inspirational posters on a wall and call it art. Then cut funding for the arts. Thatta boy. Start an employee of the month parking spot. Name yourself Employee of the Month. Pat yourself on the back with a Xerox of your own hand. Invade a small country, or at least Laguna Woods, since they don’t like airports. Old people can’t defend themselves, and they may not even realize they have been rescued from a Soviet threat. It’s never too late to chop some wood.

The Mouse (Aug 23-Sept 22)

You live in high places, mostly the ceiling of the A200 building. Bad people want to remove you, but you are here to stay. Leave droppings where they are hard to get at. Find warmth in the fluorescent lights and cozy insulation of temporary modular classroom instruction facilities, which have been there for twenty-six years. Your home is your castle, strong little rodent. Long live you!

The Lawyer (Sept 23-Oct 23)

Your sign is blind justice. Apply for work at the district, defending the board and Chancellor. Pay is good, and you almost never win. Bill the taxpayers for all your pointless work. In depositions, act surprised about information your clients might have disclosed to you but failed to, even though you really are surprised, since they didn’t. Recommend anger management counseling as a way to settle shared governance conflict. Everybody is angry, especially at the people they are suing, but who are the same people that hired them. Maybe you are angry too. No, on second thought, it’s hard to be angry, especially with billables piling up higher than mouse turds in the ceiling.

The Diplomat (Oct 24-Nov 21)

Your sign is the bull—in the china shop. You’re looking out for our students, for our county, for America. Consultant, patriot, top-secret spy, you’re the one the Big Boys turn to when they need to leak some of that top-secret inside info on terrorists in Mission Viejo or Spain. And since you don’t have a real job, you’ll share that information, if for a price. It’s all about connections, baby, and you are him, El Gran Jefe. Viva to you, Senor, and let the tortilla chips fall where they may. Toro!

The Toady (Nov 22-Dec 21)

Your sign is, of course, the warty amphibian. You live to please the Diplomat, the Nazi and the rest. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim. Complete the project you’ve been putting off: toad gotta crawl around, eat some bugs, and hibernate. Your blood runs cold now, but your time will come. Wait patiently in the mud.

The Administrator (Dec 22-Jan 19)

You can hire and fire, or at least pretend to. Your sign is the Cushman, the golf cart. You are stealthy and electric. Be sure to recharge regularly. Who knows when the man at the top will need you? Remember that people cannot hear you coming. Use this to your advantage. This is a good week to hire a family member.

The Distance Learner (Jan 20-Feb 18)

Your signs, the TV screen and computer monitor, are off right now. The server is down. Who cares? You’ll transfer soon anyway, to the Nova-Phoenix Institute for Advanced GOP Management Oversight. Count up your online credits, and add a few. Who’s counting, anyway? Soon Raghu P. Mathur will be a U.S. Senator and your undergraduate years at IVC (or Harvard, or Yale) will be only a memory. Think big. Dream. Use white-out.

The Laser (Feb 19-Mar 20)

A beam, a bright light. Laser, you point the way for others, although occasionally burning out their retinas when used without protective goggles. Ouch, that smarts. You blaze a trail, beat a path, or at least treat acne scars and resurface the parking lot. Nothing can hold you back, laser, not even drops in enrollment, bomb squads removing bags of sand, millions in lost taxpayer dollars. You go, Laser!