A "well respected individual"

And he's oh so good,
And he's oh so fine,
And he's oh so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He's a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.

1. MR. POSTPONEMENT. I'm told that the trial concerning Cely Mora's discrimination civil suit against SOCCCD Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur has been postponed, so it's not next week after all. Postponements of trials are common. We'll let you know when a new date is set.

2. MR. RABBIT. Here's a snap of Mr. Rabbit. I spotted him today near IVC's Facilities & Maintenance office and then approached him. Despite his reputation for garrulousness, he had absolutely nothing to say.


3. MR. CONTROVERSY. Today's Lariat (that would be our two colleges' student newspaper) belatedly reports on Trustee Tom Fuentes' appointment to the Elections Assistance Commission (i.e., the EAC's Advisory Board). Interestingly, most of the article focuses on a "controversy" in Mr. Fuentes' past:

Fuentes was the center of attention during a 1988 election when he admitted to hiring, on behalf of he OC Republican Party, unarmed uniformed guards to be posted at 20 princincts in Hispanic neighborhoods in Santa Ana...Twenty years later Fuentes maintains that he didn't know the guards were to be uniformed, and that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.

He didn't know? He did nothing wrong? Oh good. I'm glad he made that clear.

Nevertheless,

Lawsuits were filed accusing Fuentes of voter intimidation and the district attorney, as well as the FBI, conducted investigations into the matter. One civil rights lawsuit was settled out of court and the investigations ultimately cleared Fuentes of any criminal wrongdoing.

Criminal or not, Fuentes lost his Orange Diocese gig over this little stunt.

Naturally, the agency to which Fuentes was appointed (by Mr. Bush) exists to make sure everyone has a chance to vote.

Um, so why would anybody want Fuentes on this commission? I mean, aren't they afraid he'll propose plastering "El Migre!" on ballots?

Paul DeGregorio, chairman of the EAC, said that he was confident in Fuentes's support of fair and accessible elections. "He is a well respected individual," DeGregorio said. "He made clear to me that he wants every voter to participate in our elections."

Oh good. As long as Tom made that clear.

See also Matt Coker's Tom Fuentes taking 2000 Florida vote nationwide? Scroll down to May 23

And:

Gustavo Arellano on TOM FUENTES

Anti-discrimination suit against CEO Mathur finally goes to trial next week

Back in June of 2001, then-IVC President Raghu Mathur, who currently serves as Chancellor of the SOCCCD, tweaked the hiring process for dean of health sciences, physical education and athletics at the college to get the underling he wanted—a twit he could control—and to avoid getting the underling he did not want, namely, Cely Mora, a strong and highly competent woman. (See Teachers, students protest athletic director’s transfer.) Long-time Mathur observers know that the former chemistry teacher tends not to get along with women, especially strong and competent women. (See Mathur vs. women.) As we reported nearly a year ago,

[In 2001,] then-IVC President Mathur hired a white guy from Virginia to be Dean of Health Sciences, PE, and Athletics at IVC. The guy didn't look like much, on paper or otherwise. That was bad enough, but he was chosen, by Mathur, over Cely Mora, a popular educator with a state-wide reputation for excellence in her field. According to the search committee, she was by far the superior candidate. But she's a woman, so Raghu decided to go with the guy with sh*tty paper. Plus the guy's name was "Rodney Poindexter." [The fellow turned out to be unstable.] People were plenty pissed off. Cely decided to take the matter to civil court. She sued Mathur personally for racial and gender discrimination. She had a strong case, as these kinds of cases go. But, to the amazement of many observers, the judge granted summary judgment in favor of [Mathur]; further, he ruled that she must pay Mathur's attorneys fees. The ruling was ridiculous, and so Cely appealed, and, in August of [2005], the appellate court unanimously decided that the original judge's granting of summary judgment in favor of Mathur was improper, as was his decision concerning attorneys fees.

(To see how well Mathur’s twitular white male turned out, see Complaints, suit filed against college dean.) Well, at long last, court is in session--or, rather, it will be soon! The trial--it's a jury trial--is set for next week, from Tuesday through Thursday, in Los Angeles. Today, several IVC faculty and at least one former administrator were given notices to appear (on the first day of trial, I'm told). Don’t know who else was summoned. Stay tuned.

TIMES 6-29-02

Now, was that so hard? At last, IVC's CECs are good to go

Well, as promised (late last week), today, the CECs were ready for classes, and they looked pretty sharp, too.


On Friday, the buildings were still surrounded by a sloppy chain-link fence, piles of dirt, and even mud holes. But, as you can see, somebody's been busy. Not bad.


Wayne (head of facilities), I have one word for you: plastics. Well, no, the word is: grass. My suggestion: try growin' some. Do it right here, around the CECs. People will like you for it. Trust me.

Don't forget to water.


Here's a gratuitous shot of the coffee cart. The campus is beautiful, isn't it?

Regarding the Probolsky of Others (Red Emma)

[We haven't heard from Red Emma for some time, but he's back with this humdinger. Red doesn't make things easy, so I just wanted to remind you that: * Adam Probolsky was involved in Tom Fuentes' "coronation"--i.e., his ascent to the Board--back in 2000. He's one of Mike Schroeder's "lieutenants." Fleischman's another one. Think cigars, backrooms. (See Six degrees of Fuentes Nation.) * Debsy and Paco may be Socialists, but they really are cats, too--as in feline critters. Those two ate my homework.]

Item: Susan Sontag, radical iconoclastic American public intellectual is attacked by rightists for equating American “democracy” to the Soviet gulag system (see below). Item: Months later, American democracy, as practiced by the Bush Gang is revealed to be using the actual, physical, brick-and-mortar former Soviet bloc network of secret prisons (gulag) to hold detainees in “Old Europe” (Rumsfeld), as Poland, for instance, which denies it, almost like some perverse old Polish joke.

What has happened in the new, international carceral empire run by the US military goes beyond even the notorious procedures enshrined in France's Devil's Island and Soviet Russia's Gulag (sic) system, which in the case of the French penal island had, first, both trials and sentences, and in the case of the Russian prison empire a charge of some kind and a sentence for a specific number of years. Endless war permits the option of endless incarceration—without charges, without the release of prisoners' names or any access to family members and lawyers, without trials, without sentences. Those held in the extra-legal American penal empire are "detainees"; "prisoners," a newly obsolete word, might suggest that they have the rights accorded by international law and the laws of all civilized countries. This endless "war on terror" inevitably leads to the demonizing and dehumanizing of anyone declared by the Bush administration to be a possible terrorist: a definition that is not up for debate. An interminable war inevitably suggests the appropriateness of interminable detention.

You’ll note that Red doesn’t really even know how to use that whole journalistic “item” thing, but sure likes talking and writing this way to impress the two Socialist cats, Eugene Victor Debs and Paco Ignacio Taibo (“Debsy” and “Paco” to you, pal). Anyway, the Rebel Girl had been cheering herself up lately by threatening to make a bumper sticker vindicating, celebrating, lionizing the late Ms. Sontag, said proposed and hypothetical sticker to read something like (well, exactly like) “SUSAN SONTAG was RIGHT: A gulag is a gulag is a gulag,” this to both gloat uselessly (but righteously) and to evoke Ms. Gertrude Stein (pass the brownies, please), not to mention piss off, or more likely just confuse and bewilder the rest of the mini-van driving mothers and fathers who insist on pasting, no, not some hopeful opposition to our Permanent War, but instead those dumb cartoon stick-figure stickers of their emaciated kids, with names underneath—their real names, presumably—immediately adjacent the license plate so that child molesters can just look up the DMV information and track down their addresses and kidnap them. But I digress, or spin out of control, paranoically. See, I’m as security-conscious as the next citizen, which means that my mind wanders, willy-nilly, which is wrong, very wrong, considering it has to arrive one hour early just to stand in line to be searched, take its shoes off and dispose of shampoo and conditioner, all so that Jeb can be the next president. Carceral, by the way, means “belonging to a prison.” I plan to use the word frequently. Anyway, faithful husband and fellow traveler that I am, I went ahead and made the sticker up for the Rebellious One, who was too busy prepping for what would become the Most Terrible Week, and therefore unable to follow through on stickerizing for the sake of historical revisionism. I delivered my modest gift of devotion and solidarity in time for Bastille Day and Woody Guthrie’s birthday (nice bit of symmetry and serendipity, that), and reconsidered the following from Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, which I recommend.

"To speak of reality becoming a spectacle...universalizes the viewing habits of a small, educated population living in the rich part of the world...."

It seems to me Sontag is saying that economic privilege and political power leads to a critical misunderstanding, a too-easy misperception of the world as that endless television commercial/war which, yes, is offered to us nightly. (Read the Situationists, people, and now! Hurry! Start with Guy Debord’s The Revolution of Everyday Life). Life is indeed a spectacle, a tragic-comic self-referential construction, but only, argues Sontag, for those who have created it, or been complicit in its creation, or sort of know it but will not confront it, as in those unfailingly ironic but not very funny sitcoms which real-life people start aping in what passes for real life, “yadda, yadda, yadda.” That makes it easy for the privileged to play at life instead of actually live it. Which reminds me that after the election of Bush the first time, then the second time, the baby and the two Socialist cats and I had to listen over and over again to Rebel Girl play Dylan’s “Desolation Row” (speaking of The Spectacle), and since the lyrics to that won’t fit on a 3 x 8 inch sticker, I offer them here instead: They’re selling postcards from the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Yes, we dwell in a circus. No, this should not be an excuse to put on a red nose and leap from a ladder into a bucket of shallow water, or make jokes about how dumb Bush is (he isn’t) or complain, unceasingly about the selfish, awful people who seem to support him, but mostly just don’t know anything. To regard the pain of others is to regard the power one has. For example, the power to connect, to listen, to ask. Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked me how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? Did I hear, for instance, that Adam Probolsky’s law firm or political consulting machine or polling outfit (see Probolsky Research) or whatever variety of spectacular (sic) firm it is was running a campaign by pissed-off property rights-loving homeowners in San Clemente? Why, yes, I did. It was on the show for airheads, with the big Air Talker himself, Mr. Larry, on KPCC (Air Talk) on the morning of Thursday, August 17, the week before the Most Terrible Week. Larry’s guests on the weekly Orange County news and analysis roundup were William Lobdell, staff writer, editor of OC LA Times; Steven Greenhut, OC Register senior editorial writer and columnist, and, finally, Gustavo (“Ask a Mexican”) Arrelano, staffer of the OC Weekly. After recounting the amusing story about the Capistrano Unified School District, whose offices were raided, documents and a computer seized, as part of an investigation of closed-session meetings, links to contractors and to see how somebody from our Board is connected (okay, I made that up, but stranger things happen, and I’ll bet you right now that somehow the former chair of the OC GOP is involved, yup, you bet), I heard one of the reporters describe the CUSD superintendent as “A strongman supported by a rubber-stamped board.” My ears perked right up when I heard that phrase—can’t imagine why. Anyway, if that wasn’t enough, the city council of San Clemente passed a law that limits or bans the further construction of more vertical development in the Shorecliffs neighborhood. I listened to the goof from the Register opine on how un-American that is, but then heard him say that “a group of residents has organized and hired Adam Probolsky, and they are going to referend the law.” All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Dissent readers will recognize Mr. P’s name as a lieutenant of the former GOP Chair and a board member of the IVC Foundation, to which he was appointed because he is, well, a lieutenant of the former GOP Chair, and so on as in one of those annoying Escher drawings. But I still hadn’t figured him out, so I followed the link from the home page to that of a “another Probolsky family company,” which turns out to be Metal Grip Fastener Distribution. I immediately ordered the Tom Fuentes Special: Zinc Carriage Bolts, Grade 5, Fully Threaded. They’re delicious. Sontag writes: “In a modern life—a life in which there is a superfluity of things to which we are invited to pay attention—it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad.” I embrace the impulse, always eager to feel as bad as possible, and further learn that Mr. P appears on a political blog called Flashreport, run by a guy name Fleischman. I read some of the posts, which are fun, if you think tearing the wings off of insects is fun, and who doesn’t? Fleischman accuses Democratic guber candidate Angelides of being supported by “socialists,” which made the two cats very happy. —Me, too, as the site includes a helpful link to an organization I actually belong to myself (along with Barbara Ehrenreich and Cornell West) called Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), founded by the great Michael Harrington, author of The Other America. Mr. Fleischman does not approve of DSA. He thinks the local OC public television station “scandal” has been ignored by the “watchdogs” at the Register, who have not been sufficiently rigorous in barking at community efforts to save public television station KOCE. Yet Mr. P also apparently admires Gertrude Stein. See the posting “Property rights are property rights are property rights,” which alludes to his representation of the property rights-lovin’ Shorecliffs folks. Mr. P’s blog postings also include photographs of the “hottest” lobbyists in Sacramento, all female, none Socialists, lots of boilerplate for Der Governator and his own Major Donor and Independent Expenditure Committee Campaign Statement (again, no Socialists). He doesn’t like Rob Reiner or public libraries, and thinks the wealthy are overtaxed. Right now I can’t read too good Don’t send me no more letters, no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row. I’ll admit that it might seem a long way from Sontag’s critique of the ubiquitous images of horror to the offices of a local political player, but I was pretty struck by the image garnered in that brief mention of Mr. P’s pro-development effort. Think about it. He wants to guarantee the rights of homeowners to build tall buildings so that they can rent out rooms by the sea, the view of which will then be obliterated by them and their neighbors so that nobody can see it. Sometimes you have to go out looking for the Spectacle. Sometimes it comes to you. I propose a new name for the Shorecliffs neighborhood: Barrio de Desolacion. RE

The Truth is Out There or We Are Not Alone

It's true.

There are others like us out there and Rebel Girl, through her online rambles (ah, she remembers the days when she'd pack her rucksack and off to Europe she'd go with a train pass and Swiss army knife), has found them.

Listed below are some of the best blogs written by our comrades across the country and the world. They offer insight, affirmation and stimulation. Maybe they'll even inspire you to join us.

Burnt out adjunct
(title says it all)

Suburb Dad
(Or Confessions of a Community College Dean)

Educated and poor
(from the South, plus pics of chickens and kitty cats)

Probably Ed and Me
(new professor writes about it)

Office hours cancelled
(reports from the ivory trenches)

Professing mama
(teaching and motherhood)

Professor zero
(writing in memory of Paulo Freire)

Rate your students
(tee hee!)

Reassigned time
(the view from the Midwest)

Slaves of Academe
(academe, labour, society and culture from a tenure-track perch in a cold place)

Academic ladder
(Write your dissertation, get a job, get tenure! It's so easy!)

Check out their blogrolls and links and see what's out there.

The fake New York in the real OC?

Yesterday’s LA Times reported on Chapman University’s push to be a major film school. (See Fade In at Chapman University.) Evidently, CU has poured many tens of millions of dollars into the project. Some excerpts:

On Monday, film classes will begin in the Marion Knott Studios, a new $41-million, 76,000-square-foot building. School officials say it is one of the nation's most advanced film school facilities.

The facility features two soundstages, a 500-seat stadium-style movie theater with a digital projector, a three-camera high-definition television stage and a motion-capture stage. Two floors of pre- and post-production facilities include a production design lab, a foley stage for creating sound effects, and a hefty digital cinema server.
…..
"This is the most coherent, state-of-the-art facility anywhere in the country," said Dean Bob Bassett. "The students will have the tools they need when they go into the business."

Marty Capune, Newport Beach's film liaison, agreed: "It will put Orange County on the map as far as future filmmakers are concerned.

They’re even planning to build a 7.5-acre “back lot” that may include sets of New York City and Paris!

Maybe the SOCCCD should get in on the action. We could rent out ATEP as a set for post-apocalyptic wastelands—you know, dirt, sun, shacks and stuff. And Irvine Valley College could be a set for “goofy community colleges”—for movies like Evolution and the upcoming The Really Real OC.

This morning’s Times includes an interview of Southern California’s rock hero/poet (and Grammy winner) Dave Alvin, who’s performing today at the Sunset Junction Street Festival. (The Cramps will be there too. Too good!) Alvin’s promoting his new album, “West of the West.”

The interview ends with:

Q: "West of the West" seems like a tribute to California as much as to its songwriters.

A: It was a little love letter to the state, but an eyes wide open kind of love letter. "I love you, honey, but do something about your breath"—it's that kind of love letter.

Red Emma, Rebel Girl, and I saw Alvin and his band, The Guilty Men, at the Coach House on Friday. They were guilty all right. They killed.

We’re not exactly the Wild Bunch, but there was this odd couple next to Red and Reb that kept buyin’ ‘em rounds of tequilla or something, so I got to see what happens when you pour serious liquor into these two (who weren’t driving). Well, Red just gets all quiet and small. Meanwhile, Reb eventually stands up and dances and yelps joyously. (Rebel Girl is butting in here because she has editing rights and power. Ahem. When Dave Alvin plays "Marie, Marie" (from the Blasters' days for those old enough to know) standing and yelping is pretty much mandatory, free rounds of tequila or not.) Eventually, the odd couple (not Red & Reb) walked over to the stage and got to within inches of the band. That gal had the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen on a woman. (I’ve memorized it.) Let’s just say that those two got amorous, although they did keep their pants on. I watched the second guitarist lookin’ down at them. He had no reaction whatsoever. Very cool. Meanwhile, a friend of mine shouted in my ear, “How come they’ve gotta play so loud!”

Cuz it feels good?

They say that the opening band--the Graceland Mafia--are from Silverado Canyon. Gosh, I've driven through that canyon a million times and I've never once seen a fat Elvis-impersonating rockabilly singer!

Don’t be a dope. Do yourself a favor and buy Alvin’s Romeo’s Escape or King of California (the 2nd one is acoustic, not electric).

3 year-old Sarah called me yesterday. She said, “Is your house clean?”

Apparently, she has a fear of vacuum cleaners, and she wanted to be sure I wouldn't be using one.

She came over with 2-year old Adam and their surly Dad, my little brother, who never asks questions. Here are some pics.

Irvine Valley College's CEC buildings ready for business

Yeah, the title says it all. We're glad.

On campus today, some of us were standing around, talking about the whole CEC fiasco. I heard someone ask, "So, is anybody ever gonna take responsibility for this massive f*ck up?"

Somebody uttered an emphatic "No." We all grunted. We stared silently at the scuffed-up linoleum floor in the A200 "faculty lounge"--a room that sports not one stick of furniture.

It's got a water cooler.

I checked out some of the new temporaries, and they look pretty sharp inside. They look fine on the outside too.

The landscaping needs some work, though. The bare dirt was bad enough, but I noticed that the CEC's now have their own little muddy pond. (See photo.) By Monday, it'll be fetid. I'm gonna stick a sign in it that says "Lake Chunk" and see if Glenn tries to fire me over it.

Late yesterday, Rebel Girl had some trouble with a belligerent student, and she had to call Security. It took Security about 15 minutes to arrive. How come it took so long?

Today, I checked out the location of the new Security office. It is located quite literally as far from the action on campus as it could possibly be--way past the tennis courts (I bet you didn't even know we had tennis courts!), well beyond the Red Light District (OK, I just made that up), and up against the south/east apartment buildings. I mean, no wonder it took 'em a quarter of an hour to get to the A-quad!

What kind of knucklehead would hide and/or exile the Security office?

24 (minutes)

It's 11:32 a.m. at Irvine Valley College...

What's this? For the first time in the twenty-seven year history of the college, students are actually using the A-quad!


Nobody notices.

...Meanwhile, over by the new (and unfinished) CEC portables, Dissent's crack investigative team is on the job...

CHUNK: "Look! Behind the new temporaries! It's a construction truck!"

REBEL GIRL: "It doesn't look like a construction truck. I mean, it's unmarked. This looks more like one of those, um, one of those--alien vans."

CHUNK: "You mean like in Men in Black or the X-Files? "

REBEL GIRL: "Yeah, exactly!"

...CHUNK & REB SKULK TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CEC BUILDINGS...

REB: (in a whisper:) "Hush! Get behind this bush! Do you see those two workers? I bet they're trying to fix the electricity for the portables!...Let's listen!"

1st WORKER: "Did you bring the wire thingy?"

2nd WORKER: "The wire thingy? I thought you brought it? Which wire thingy?"

1st WORKER: "Pendejo!"

2nd WORKER: "Do you hear buzzing? I hear buzzing. Don't you hear that buzzing?"

...SECONDS LATER...

CHUNK: "Look! The fence is sorta open! Let's go check out these new CEC shitboxes!"

REB: "No. We'll get in trouble!"

CHUNK: "How are we gonna get in trouble?"

Chunk walks through the opening in the chain-link fence and over to one of the rooms. Meanwhile, Reb, former Girl Scout, walks toward the parking lot and loiters nervously by a tree that is inexplicably wrapped in yellow security tape and accompanied by an empty plastic box.

She hears buzzing. It's coming from the roof of A300. She looks up at it.

Bees. Zillions of 'em.

Chunk checks out two of the new (and electricity-less) CEC rooms. He takes some snaps:



Suddenly, a shriek is heard from the nearby Humanities Center. Chunk and Reb run inside. They find a woman holding a picture and screaming at a student. "Like this! Like this!", she yells.


REB: "It's a writing conference. Let's leave 'em alone."

Reb and Chunk wander back out to the chain-link fence surrounding the new temporaries. They inspect a sign that they find there:


CHUNK: "This is the list of classes that had to be moved to other rooms this week. Have you noticed that most of the faculty on this list are in the School of Humanities & Languages or are otherwise on Raghu's Shit List?"

REB: "Well, duh."

Just then, the stink of formaldehyde wafts over the area (from A400, no doubt), causing a swift contagion of unattractive nose-scrunching and grimacing.

...Meanwhile, inside IVC's Student Services Building, underneath the "International Flag-o-Rama"...

Students stand in line, unaware that, if certain trustees have their way, the flags of Guatamala and Bosnia will soon house tiny security cameras that will secretly chronicle their every twitch and grumble.


...And over in the A200 Building...

A young woman suddenly starts vomiting violently. An instructor runs around for help. She finds two faculty with cell phones. They think.

They don't know who to call.

"Food poisoning, probably," says one instructor.

"Yeah," says the other. "Probably."

11:56 a.m.

“It’s just awfully coincidental”

In this morning’s New York Times:

Evolution major vanishes from approved federal list

Some excerpts:

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.

The omission is inadvertent, said Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. “There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.”

Another spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, said evolutionary biology would be restored to the list, but as of last night it was still missing.

If a major is not on the list, students in that major cannot get grants unless they declare another major, said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.…

That the omission occurred at all is worrying scientists concerned about threats to the teaching of evolution.

One of them, Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, said he learned about it from someone at the Department of Education, who got in touch with him after his essay on the necessity of teaching evolution appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 15. Dr. Krauss would not name his source, who he said was concerned about being publicly identified as having drawn attention to the matter….

Dr. Krauss said the omission would be “of great concern” if evolutionary biology had been singled out for removal, or if the change had been made without consulting with experts on biology….

Scientists who knew about the omission also said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing, given the furor over challenges by the religious right to the teaching of evolution in public schools. “It’s just awfully coincidental,” said Steven W. Rissing, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University….

Now is the time

"The sun can play tricks
with your eyes on the highway.
The moon can lay sideways
'till the ocean stands still.
But a person can't tell
his best friend he loves him,
'till time has stopped breathing,
you're alone on the hill."

I don't know if Alan Cohen listened to John Prine, practitioner of hillbilly blues, country rock, and newgrass ballads, but my old friend John Smith did and I have spent much of today listening to Prine sing, on old tapes, shiny CDs, and crackly vinyl and mourning both men, Alan dead today and John dead this summer.

Alan and my old friend John were men of the same generation, I suspect. John, son of career military man, was born in 1942, spent the '60s working with the Peace Corp and in various social and political movements – which is where I met him, in the movement still, some 20 years later, in Santa Monica. In Santa Monica, he founded a runaway shelter for youth, coordinated the city's personnel department and was arrested countless times with me and others in demonstrations that drew attention to a range of issues from nuclear testing to homelessness. When he died, this past summer in Arcata, his home of the past decade, he was young—64.

I joked with Alan just yesterday, on the first day of school, that I had actually spent much of Sunday night with his video. I raised my brows somewhat suggestively. Alan smiled, his eyes doing that crinkly, twinkly thing that I liked. Alan, in case you don't know, is a star in the IVC Blackboard Tutorials for faculty. And yes, on Sunday, feeling inspired by the new year, I thought I might begin to tackle Blackboard. I failed in my effort to learn Blackboard, but I did spend time appreciating Alan's success, admiring especially as I told him, his great headshot – dapper, classy and smart. I learned, via the video, that Alan earned his BA in 1964, his doctorate in 1974. I learned, that, unlike me, Alan could master Blackboard well enough to be the college leading man.

Death comes. We gulp. The air is more precious than ever. Our lungs. Our heart. It all comes back to us, what it means, how it works. There is never enough time it seems to say or do what we should and that is the special sharp grief that survivors possess.

Now is the time, a wise friend reminded me early this summer, when my mother-in-law, in round three of ovarian cancer, went into hospice, for my husband to tell his mother what he wanted her to know. We knew she was dying and that knowledge was a difficult gift, but a valuable one. But too often, we don't know that death is coming.

Alan, a biologist, perhaps had a better, deeper understanding of death. I know that my friend John had. When I listen to Prine sing his irreverent life-affirming death song, "Please Don't Bury Me," in which he imagines his own death, I can see my friend John's smiling eyes. They had a similar twinkle-crinkle as Alan's – who knows? Maybe all men of that age have eyes that twinkle-crinkle like that. I hope so.

Still, as my friend reminded me this summer – now is the time. It is always the time. We need to tell each other what matters, that indeed, we matter to each other.

— Rebel Girl

(Photo of Alan taken from IVC website.)

Yeah, but when will they be ready?

Well, now it's in the paper:

Classes start at IVC without portables.

Somebody must've called the Reg.

Faculty sure are pissed off.

Again, I want to emphasize that lots of folks--including administrators, classified employees, faculty--worked hard yesterday overcoming a difficult and unexpected situation.

Indications are that the the CEC portables will be ready by Monday, next week.

Abject finger-pointage

1. THEY MONITORED THE SITUATION. OK, so today’s the first day of the semester, which is bad enough, but then, at about 7:15 this morning, I get this peevish call from The Rebellious One.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“You won’t believe this! G*d d***it! Jesus ******* ******!” she said (more or less).

The Reb’s the chair of her department. Turns out the CEC temporaries that her department depends on weren’t ready. She and her colleagues had students, but no classrooms. She was seriously screwed.

We’ve chronicled the sorry state of the CEC shitboxes on these pages. Thankfully, a while back, the board granted “basic aid” funds for replacement shitboxes. Great! So when the spring semester ended, the old temps were summarily knocked down. We smiled. “Things are lookin’ up!” We stomped upon the wreckage.

But then nothing happened. “What gives?” we said. Then, finally, just a couple of weeks ago, workers put up the new temps in a big hurry. But they didn’t finish ‘em.

That brings me to last week. Assurances were being thrown around by administration that the new temporaries would be ready to go by Monday. “We’re on top of it!” they said.

Well, we’ve heard that before.


The thing that irks everybody is that administration had a whole goddam summer to put up these buildings. How come they were built at the last minute?

No doubt that’s somebody else’s fault.

Plus, how can it be that nobody was informed that there might be a problem with the new buildings until the first day of classes?

Somebody’s f*ckin’ up bigtime.

Today, various administrators, faculty, and classified employees worked hard to redirect students to new rooms, and they did a great job. They deserve a lot of credit. But Jeez.

At about 3:30 this afternoon, President Roquemore sent out a memo about this “crisis.” He flat blamed the contractor. He took no responsibility at all.

But why did his crew wait until the very last minute to tell affected faculty and deans that they had no rooms? Well, says Rocky, it’s like this:

Last week it was becoming apparent that we could not trust that the electricity would be connected in time for Monday classes. Director of Facilities and Maintenance, Wayne Ward, ordered a back-up generator to provide the electricity if needed. The contractor assured us that we would be able to connect it to the buildings if needed. Wayne worked through the weekend to monitor the progress of the contractor. The contractor’s electrician did not show up over the weekend to install grounding rods that are required before electricity, for any source, can be applied to the building. This rendered the back-up generator useless. In addition, the contractor did not complete required ADA work and then let the crew off work today…On Sunday morning, Wayne informed me that the grounding rods would not be installed and that the generator could not be used.

This is unmitigated finger-pointage. To hear Glenn tell it, nobody at IVC is responsible. On the contrary, they did what they could to “monitor” progress. They deserve a prize, I guess.

At IVC, there’s lots of grumbling about the “old boys network” that seems always to protect managers who, in some cases, just don’t seem to know what they’re doing. Or worse. (More on that at another time.)

2. CAN I USE GLENN’S TIE? This morning, many instructors ran into yet another SNAFU that affected the classroom. I won’t describe it, cuz I’m not sure who’s responsible, and, for all that I know, the mistake is an uncharacteristic screw-up by a good employee. So forget I even mentioned it. I guess.

But I will mention that, when I visited the restroom this morning, upon washing my hands, I found that there were no paper towels. Had to use my shirt. Jeez. That sucks.

Happens all the time.

3. THE COPS ARE KEY-LESS. Some time after 11:00 this morning, a student popped into my office to tell me that a colleague of mine, Professor L of the English department, was locked out of his classroom and his whole class was sitting on the floor in the hallway like a bunch of hippies or something.

I ran over to B100 and learned that Professor L had called security to get the door unlocked. Guess what? Security didn’t have the key. The lock had been changed, but security (or whoever changes the locks) had failed to provid the dean or the cops with the new key!

Eventually, they got in the room. But c'mon!

4. HERNIATED DESKS. A year ago, we bought a big pile of new desks at IVC. Guess what? Already, the faux wood finish is peeling off of 'em. It's like paper. It's junk. How come we buy junk?


On the other hand, it sure was nice weather today. I'm surprised Glenn and crew didn't take credit for it.

Death in a Tenured Position

by REBEL GIRL
(with apologies to Amanda Cross, who would understand)

Chapter One: the Adventures of a Night Dean

Night was hitting the mat with a mighty thump, falling with a whine. Day doesn't give up easily in these, the last rounds of a brutal slugfest of one long hot Cali summer. The sun still flamed just beyond the rumble of the 405 freeway, where Mr. and Mrs. Sucker were driving home to their special place in hell. But nearby, the parking lots that ringed the local community college were full. The eucalyptus trees were turning into elegant blackened silhouettes, their long leaves like rags against the purpling blue sky.

A quick patrol of the hallways saw students slumped for the evening at their desks, instructors scribbling on the now ubiquitous white boards that had replaced the powdery chalkboards of the past. "Fallopian," wrote one teacher in green pen. "Capital," wrote another. "Writing has shape," declared the handwriting of a snowy-haired woman with steely eyes.

I should be in there, she thought. I am one of them.

But tonight she wasn't; tonight Kit Spark was Night Dean, with keys in her pocket, security numbers on a post-it note and nothing to do except keep the peace for three hours.

Could she do it? How hard could it be?

Brother, she was going to find out all too soon.

Meanwhile, she wondered: How many of those students remembered the orange groves where they now parked their cars? How many faculty remembered for that matter? Early on, still a fresh hire who knew only how to say yes, she once spent an afternoon in the groves with students, raising money by allowing people to pick their own oranges. The students didn't raise much money but they had fun. Late in the afternoon, a woman had driven up and asked if she could pick the orange blossoms. She'd be happy to pay she said. The fragrance reminded her of her childhood in Iran. She went off with armfuls and paid more money than the people who picked the fruit. That must have been ten years ago. Back then Kit looked like one of them – a young woman in blue jeans, squinting in the sunlight. Now, still in blue jeans, but wearing a black classic blazer, (she thought of the coat as her concession to meetings, as a kind of professional shield that she wielded.) Kit was who she was, no doubt about it. A middle-aged woman whose gray hair surprised her.

Kit exited one building and headed for another, the A-400 building where the bio teachers resided. She liked them. They were a resilient humorous bunch you could always depend on. Something about knowing how the body works gave them an edge up on everybody else. Besides, she liked the old stuff they kept around, the skeletons and bird nests, the fossils. She wished she had something like that in her classroom, but what would an English teacher do with old bones?

The quad was deserted except for some furtive smokers and equally furtive rabbits that hopped between the bushes and grass. The evening was warm. The students wore shorts, tank tops, sandals. September in Southern California. What was it her Midwestern aunt had called it? Indian summer.

Kit glanced up at the termite-ridden clock tower that loomed over the quad. It too would go the way of the orange groves soon, its square orange face, its blocky tinker toy design destined for the scrap heaps of the Inland Empire. Last year, the clock tower was the gathering place for dissent on the previously quiet campus as its platform faced the bare windows of office of the college president. But now the clock was doomed, festooned with plastic yellow tape that warned people away, and the nearby presidential windows were shrouded with drapery. Dissent had faded over time, over the summer.


Or had it?

Something caught her eye as Kit walked closer to the tower. A figure crouched in the shadows of the platform. She heard whispering, saw a beam of light flash on and off.

Just last Spring this section of campus had been cordoned off for hours when the college president found a suspicious package. The Bomb Squad was called. Students, staff and faculty were swept into the parking lot and kept there. A bomb-detecting robot seized the object and removed it to the special bomb-transportation truck. X-rays revealed no explosive device. The president's "bomb" was a sandbag, a leftover from a video production. Kit marveled at the man's suspicion, his paranoia. She thought his fear said more about him and his own predilection for violence then it did about his foes on the faculty and staff.

Kit glanced around for security, the friendly fellas packing heat who rode around the campus in a fleet of unlikely but swift golf carts, her backup. They were nowhere to be seen.

The night had officially fallen in the few minutes that had passed, a bit too quickly for the floodlights, still tuned to the length of a summer's day, to click on.

It was dark and Kit felt fear – not from the college president, a man she knew had driven home to his mansion in a gated community hours earlier, but an old fear, one that her Midwestern aunt, on the plains of Kansas, might have recognized.

(Be on the lookout for Chapter 2!)

Moving toward decency & common sense

[CORRECTION: The change in reassigned time that I reported earlier was incorrect. The RT per college went from 24 LHE to 36, not 36 to 48. Dang! That means that our colleges are still not in line with other local colleges.Sorry for the confusion.]

I’m sure that many of you have heard by now that, yesterday, Chancellor Mathur relented and granted a substantial increase in “reassigned time” for the senates. The Academic Senate of each college has gone from receiving a meager 24 LHE (lecture hour equivalents) to 36 LHE. However, to be in line with other local colleges, the number of hours must be increased by about 10.

(See Monday's board meeting for some of Bob Cosgrove’s informative graphics.)

Some background: the faculty in each of our colleges is represented by two bodies: (1) the Faculty Association (union)—in the case of contractual issues and (2) the Academic Senates—in the case of academic issues.

In recent years, these groups (along with other governance groups) have joined forces in an organized effort to oppose the damaging and unfortunate policies and practices of the SOCCCD Chancellor and Board. The two Academic Senates have worked especially closely.

As you know, this coalition has met with some success, as in the case of the OC Superior Court’s nullification of the Chancellor’s odious and illegally developed full-time faculty hiring policy. (See How rude are you!.)

Back in 1996, the Faculty Association, then controlled by a corrupt clique, employed outrageous tactics (see The infamous "same-sex" flier) to secure the victory of trustee candidates Frogue, Williams, and Fortune. The tactics were successful. The era of the Board Majority or Board Four commenced in December of ’96. (Teddi Lorch was the fourth FA-affiliated trustee.)

Naturally, the union “Old Guard” had the ear of the four. That's how it was possible for the manifestly incompetent and unsavory Raghu Mathur to snag an administrative position in 1997. (See 1994: Mathur censured for lying.)

One of trustee Fortune’s hobby horse’s was the elimination of “reassigned time” (RT), the device of releasing an instructor from teaching (in lecture hours [LHE]) for other important duties, such as chairing an academic department or a committee (Curriculum, etc.).

Anyone who is familiar with higher education is aware that RT (sometimes called “release time”) is utterly routine and viewed as essential in colleges and universities throughout the country.

Owing largely to Dot Fortune, and with the full support of the union Old Guard (see Hypocrisy unmatched), RT was abolished for all except union officers! From that point on, instructors who agreed to chair a department or committee (etc.) were compelled to do so on top of a full load of teaching. Obviously, in the case of some particularly demanding leadership roles, this undercut their effectiveness. The Academic Senates depended on RT to maintain a robust presence in “shared governance” or “collegial consultation.”

Over the years, various exceptions to the ban were granted on an ad hoc basis, but the board maintained a mindset such that the Academic Senates would never receive the level of support in RT that is routine throughout the community college system.

As a long-time IVC Academic Senate observer, I know that a series of IVC’s senate presidents have requested increases in RT, but to no avail.

Recently, in view of the important and taxing work that the senates were being asked to do, both college presidents recommended significant increases in senate RT. Predictably, the Chancellor refused to accept those recommendations.

A few months ago, spanking new SC senate president Bob Cosgrove started to pursue this problem vigorously. He and Brenda B collected data regarding the practices of other districts and colleges. In the meantime, Bob, IVC's Wendy G, and others directly addressed the board concerning the RT issue.

I recall Wendy's recent remarks before the board about the difficulty of a single mother teaching her classes while attending the meetings and doing the other work of a senate president. The situation is simply unworkable.

These appeals seemed to have some effect.

To make a long story short, as previously reported, on Monday night, Bob finally and fully presented the comparative data, and it was impressive.

Further, Bob drew a line in the sand: Unless adequate levels of RT were restored for senate officers (by Wednesday), Bob (and Margot L, SC senate secretary) would walk.

No doubt in part owing to that "threat"—and perhaps for other reasons—the Chancellor relented to a degree. The Academic Senates have had restored to them a level of reassigned time not seen since 1994. There's still a ways to go, of course.

P.S.: Today, Bob sent out an email to district faculty that reads in part:

At the August 16th [SC] Academic Senate meeting, the Senate approved the following motion unanimously:

“While the Saddleback College Academic Senate is committed to receiving 45 LHE per year reassigned time for work performed by its officers, the Senate accepts 36 LHE for the 2006-2007 with the stipulation that the officers of the Academic Senate perform only such work as can be completed with the current 18 LHE per semester. Furthermore, the Academic Senate will continue to work toward the goal of bringing the amount of reassigned time awarded its officers up to the level currently received by Academic Senates in comparable Orange County colleges in order to be in line with ‘best practices.’”

Once more with the "new Raghu"

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."


The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog.

The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"


Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature."

—The Scorpion and the Frog

The first thing I noticed when I arrived this morning at Saddleback’s McKinney Theater for the CHANCELLOR’S OPENING SESSION was that the coffee was decaffeinated. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

I was a little late, and so when I entered the McKinney apiary, Raghu had already started buzzing. He wore one of his expensive suits plus one of those spiffy headset microphones. He seemed chirpy yet somehow vulnerable.

He was really trying. It was hard to watch.

Raghu introduced board president Dave “changer of men” Lang, who yammered about the need for a “discourse of disagreement in a non-threatening environment.” He did this while the chief source if fear in our particular environment—Chancellor Mathur—stood a few yards away, nodding.

It was perfectly absurd.

Raghu then announced that we were in for a “great treat,” namely, a singer accompanied by a pianist. Tustin’s Robbie Britt then mounted the stage and started singing the Star Spangled Banner, with an American flag projected on the screen behind him.

I was sitting up front—I could count his teeth. So I got the full sonic blast. This Britt fellow is obviously used to warbling in stadiums, cuz he boomed. Not only that, but he gesticulated extravagantly, as though he intended for his expressions to be seen even way out in the cheap seats.

When he finished with the SSB, he boomed forth Irving Berlin’s “America,” in which he added a spoken aside: “America, I love you, America.” I think maybe he’s in some kind of recovery program.

[For info about Britt, go to Robbie Britt Ministries. Among Britt's associates: Robert Shuller and "faith healer" Benny Hinn!]

The pianist, a lady in her seventies, twinkled at me. Meanwhile, Britt directed his singing to an empty spot on the stage to his right. I think one of those flag pins fell off him. I studied Britt's shoes.

When Britt finished, Raghu was clearly moved. “What a team and what a voice! So inspirational!” said Mr. Goo with evident sincerity.


Eventually, Raghu offered some “brief remarks,” in which he focused on two words in our latest mission statement: “diverse” and “dynamic.” For him, said Raghu, diversity is about ideas. Blah blah blah. Plus we must be dynamic. He blathered about “the kind of dynamism that comes from…change.”

The poor fellow was saying that change comes from change. He must have a doctorate or something.

dynamic: Characterized by continuous change

--American Heritage College Dictionary

Raghu trotted out the standard suspect factoids concerning the impact of our district on the county’s economy: citizens of the county get a 17% return on their investment; we generate “1.7 billion dollars” in income. And so on.

He asked President McCullough to stand up. “This is the person,” he explained, “who assists me in providing leadership at Saddleback College.” It was a motif. He said the same thing about President Roquemore and then Park Ranger Kopecky. His assistants.

I bet those guys were pissed. I mean, wasn’t Mr. Goo saying that he, Goo, and not they, provide the leadership around here?

Eventually, we heard from guest speaker Lucy Dunn, the President of the Orange County Business Council. (I looked her up. She’s an active Republican.) A lively and friendly speaker, she explained about the Business Council, which is a kind of meta-Chamber of Commerce.

She explained that Orange County is amazing, commerce-wise. The OC is comparable to the country of Ireland, evidently.

After Dunn finished, the new administrative hire, Andrea Serban, who is very funny, introduced Dr. Warren Johnston, who is also very funny. Johnston focused on the impact of cardiovascular disease, especially on women.

The fellow ended his often hilarious talk with a somewhat outré illustration of men’s lives before and after marriage. This consisted of a picture of a lion humping a lioness—followed by a picture of a lioness apparently intimidating her large but cowering mate. The crowd ate it up. I thought that I had died and gone to my parents' house.

Then we heard from Kathleen Rigol, a nutritionist/dietician who assists obese people before and after bariatric surgery. I think she said that, if you eat one of those "6 dollar burgers" at Karl's Jr., you're likely to die later in the day.

I wonder if she knows that that very burger is the OC Business Council's official nasch!

The crooner and his accompanist came back for two more songs, starting with Louis Armstrong’s “A Wonderful World.” Britt's singing reminded me of Paul Robeson’s, but his movements resembled those of a spasmatic gymnast. A couple of times, I thought he was gonna twirl right off the stage. He sure can sing, though.

Next came the awarding of pins for years of service. I’ve never understood this pin business. I mean, hangin’ around for X years isn’t an achievement, is it? Why not award pins for how many lunches we've eaten? Or how many cars we've owned? So when Raghu finally got to the crew of 20-year faculty, of which I am a member, I ducked out. Whew!

I noticed that Walter Floser was among the 25-year people: I watched him wander up to the stage. He seemed lost. I bet that, later, in the dark, he ate his pin.

Bob Myers got a standing O for his 35 years of service, as did the President of Saddleback College, Rich M. Jeez, people really like that guy. How come he isn’t the Chancellor?


Raghu’s largely successful OPENING SESSION then ended with a slide show that featured beautiful shots of nature marred by ridiculous “inspirational” slogans, including:

Plan for tomorrow
but live for today

And

Life is a drawing
without an eraser

These images were accompanied by a stirring pop song. I spotted Raghu grooving to the beat. In all honesty, I felt sorry for the guy. He can do no better than he does.

Listen, it’s clear that, once again, Raghu is attempting to be kinder and gentler. —Or less preachy. —Or less of a bastard. Or whatever.

But Raghu is what he is.

Like that scorpion.