Dancing with the Czars

—South Orange County Community College District Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur seen here on an upcoming special edition of ABC's hit series Dancing With the Stars.

According to some sources, this special installment of the popular program, which is already taped, is to be entitled "Dancing with bêtes noires."

Other sources insist that it will be called "Dancing That's Bizarre."

Sarah's birthday party

Me 'n' the Janster went to little Sarah's 5th B-Day party today. It was at some community park in Fountain Freakin' Valley. I didn't notice no fountains. No valley neither.

That's OC for you.

That's Sarah on the right with one of her little friends.

Sarah seems to be the "leader" type. But she's sweet, and way polite. You can see that in her face, cancha? She never howls or shrieks.

Here's her brother, Adam, who kept telling me that I was doing everything wrong. I think he's working through some issues that have nothing to do with me.

Sweet kid, though.

The party started with some "science experiments"—we missed that because we were late.

Sarah's very scientific. I keep buyin' her dinosaurs and shit. Got her a bug camera for Christmas. She's into optics.

Here's Sarah & friend checkin' out one of my new nieces. Man, they're pilin' up fast, those nieces. Can't keep 'em straight. This one's Natalie. Or maybe Catherine. I suggested that they put a mark on one of 'em to tell 'em apart.

Here's one of Sarah's cousins. I always take snaps of this sweet kid cuz of her laughing eyes.

Here's Sarah's "Chinese dragon" B-Day cake. Don't ask.

Sarah's holding forth and her friend is all ears.

Later, on my way home to the canyon, I drove through Rancho Santa Margarita. Took this shot through my windshield.

You can see Saddleback Mountain in the middle. See how it's wearing some clouds?

Not a bad day. Little kids are almost as good as puppies and kittens, if you ask me, and that's saying something. You know what I mean.

P.S.: I found this one up in a tree.

At one point, they lined the kids up against the wall à la Usual Suspects. Don't know why.

Friday evening in the Santa Ana Mountains

Peters Lake area (near Irvine Regional Park)

Peters Lake

Lambrose Canyon (just off Live Oak Canyon Rd.)

Writing instruction: “Hunches and intuition” vs. empirical evidence

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: How to Tell Whether Writing Instruction Works:

.....As writing program directors gathered Thursday at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association [MLA], many voiced confidence that their efforts are making a difference. But at one of the kickoff sessions for the meeting, many of these officials said they worried that views of their success were based more on hunches and intuition than solid evidence. That may be changing, however, as composition scholars described a range of projects designed to test the effectiveness of their efforts. Some said they see a shift in composition away from theory and toward more practical research on student learning and instructor strategies.
.....“For writing centers and programs, the dearth of empirical research is dangerous,” said Linda S. Bergmann, director of the Writing Lab at Purdue University. Too much of what writing instructors believe is based on “lore,” she said. At a time of political demands for assessment and commercial companies promising quick results if they take over tutoring services, writing instructors need evidence of what works, she said.
.....The research projects described at the meeting, in Chicago, are generally small scale, involving one or two campuses each. But those conducting them — and audience members — said there was a need for more such studies, and for efforts to enlarge and replicate some of those being conducted.
.....…Chris Anson, director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program at North Carolina State University, said that there were many reasons to support such research projects. Politically, he said, writing programs need to be able to defend their programs. But educationally, he said the reality is that research could find flaws in current practice. “We need to be ready to abandon cherished practices if they don’t work,” he said.
.....The projects discussed suggest “a reinvigoration of our research agenda,” Anson said, and that could ultimately get to what really matters, he said: Finding out “what really works and what doesn’t work.”

Product of intuition

Mike Huckabee proudly kills some little birds

IOWA:: "See, that's what happens if you get in my way," said the former Governor of Arkansas, pointing to the birds, some of them still writhing.

Gathering reporters around him, he asked, "Wanna watch me drink and drive?"

"I love this Middle America shit," he added. "Want me to shoot 'em again?"

An old Chevy near Boo's house, down in the canyon.

Modjeska Canyon on a beautiful day

Headed over to Modjeska Canyon just before noon today. Took some pics. That green stuff off to the right is hydromulch. They dumped it all over these hills because of the fires.

These two are from up near Tucker Sanctuary.


A favorite tree.

Here's one of the lovely homes down in the canyon. That's Boo's car.

Next, headed home, over to Live Oak Canyon. Went up to the church and took this super-duper panorama shot. That's the top of Modjeska Canyon way over to the left. San Diego County way off to the right. Modjeska and Santiago Peaks are in the middle, more or less.


Limber Lou drew this for me. It's supposed to be me and a cat. Kind of a "rainbow" cat, said Lou.

I gave him a Rubik's Cube. "What's this?" he said.


"A puzzle." The Reb scrambled it for him, handed it back to 'im. He stared at it.

Tomorrow

Today

Soon

Soka suckered?

• I hate it when this happens. In today’s OC Register: Ex-Soka finance chief accused of embezzlement:

.....ALISO VIEJO – The former finance director of Soka University of America has been indicted on charges he embezzled $1.7 million from the private university over seven years, according to a federal indictment unsealed today.
.....Kiyoshi Hatanaka, 52, of Aliso Viejo had worked for a Big Seven accounting firm before becoming Soka's finance director in 1990, a university spokeswoman said.
.....He left his job in January 2006, spokeswoman Wendy Harder said, after allegations arose that he had created sham university accounts at a Los Angeles bank, moved money into the accounts, and then cashed $10,000 checks from them.
.....…Hatanaka came with Soka when it moved from Calabasas to open a 103-acre hilltop campus in Aliso Viejo. The university is affiliated with the largest Buddhist sect in Japan, but attracts students from the U.S. and around the world.
.....Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Kole said evidence showed Hatanaka gambled large sums of money during that period at casinos in Temecula and Las Vegas....

• This story is terribly sad. From the OC Reg: A lion caged by fire:

.....IRVINE LAKE - On a sunny day shortly after the Santiago fire, Lt. Daniel Sforza struggled with a life-and-death decision.
.....The 16-year California Fish and Game warden was lying on his belly at the entrance to a bamboo cave – responding to a report of a mountain lion acting strangely and seeking refuge inside.
.....…At the back of the cave, he observed a long, straight tail with a black tip. He was now sure it was a mountain lion. He crept in a little closer – less than 10 feet from the cat. It stirred. It was a light, tawny brown with a white muzzle and long whiskers. Its eyes glowed back at him in radiant amber.

A year before
.....In September 2006, "Female 44" was captured and collared at Camp Pendleton. She was 2, weighed 77 pounds and became part of a UC Davis Wildlife Health Center study....
.....Animals in the study are monitored by GPS collars….

On the move
.....According to data from her collar, Female 44 stayed at Camp Pendleton for 10 months, hunting deer and small rodents amid Marine training maneuvers. In May, she headed north. She followed the Santa Ana Mountains toward Los Angeles. Forty miles into her journey, she passed alongside the 91. ... She turned west, crossing the 241 toll road and skirting the urban fringe of Orange.
.....Hemmed in by cities, she sought out Irvine Ranch…. On Oct. 8, she passed next to Santiago Canyon Road, an area overrun by flames on Oct. 21, when the Santiago fire erupted.

Facing inferno
.....For the first two days of the wind-driven firestorm, she was safe in the woods a quarter mile north of Foothill Ranch. She'd avoided the worst of the flames but had no choice but to traverse hot coals on a painstaking journey to her home in Irvine Lake. Her pads were seared. It took her 17 days to cross the charred terrain toward the lake. There she sought refuge in the bamboo cave.

Standoff at the cave
.....…With a few hours of daylight left and a remote location working in his favor, Sforza had the luxury of time. He hoped to scare her off. He threw rocks at the cave but she didn't stir.
.....As daylight faded, he ran out of options. From the entrance, he fired a 12-gauge shotgun with rubber bullets at her. She jumped a few times but stayed inside.
....."I was hoping she would run off and save herself," he said. "We're not in the business to kill mountain lions."
.....Sforza crawled back into the cave. The lion still hadn't moved. It was getting dark.
....."I wasn't comfortable leaving the animal in there," he said. "I could have left the scene and hoped everything was OK, but that would have been irresponsible."
.....…Sforza loaded the shotgun again, this time firing the killing shot. …"When I saw the condition, I realized I had put her out of her misery," Sforza said. "Her pads were gone. She only had three claws left. There would have been no way she could have taken down prey."....

• I hate when this happens, too. From the New York Times: I’m a Believer:

.....…In 2001, rumors started to hit the blogosphere that Antony Flew, a British philosopher born in 1923, had found God after six decades of atheism. At first Flew denied the reports. But in May 2004 he told a conference in New York that he had indeed changed his mind and become a believer. A flurry of online pundits debated the meaning of this shocking conversion.
.....Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese — of whom more later — Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Although Flew is not “the world’s most notorious atheist,” as the subtitle of “There Is a God” claims, and never was, even in his native Britain, he ought to count as quite a catch. Now retired from the University of Reading in Berkshire (he has also taught at Oxford and in Scotland, Canada and the United States), he is the author of several cogent and elegant works of philosophy, including accomplished critiques of religion. In many public debates he has vigorously made the case for unbelief. But I doubt thoughtful believers will welcome this volume. Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, it rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.
.....…Oddly, Flew seems to have turned into an American as well as a believer. His intellectual autobiography is written in the language of an Englishman of his generation and class; yet when he starts to lay out his case for God, he uses Americanisms like “beverages,” “vacation” and “candy.” It is possible that Flew decided to make some passages easier on the ears of American readers or that an editor has made trivial emendations for him. But it is striking how much of Flew’s method of argument, too, has changed from that in his earlier works, and how similar it now is to the abysmal intellectual standards displayed in Varghese’s appendix. In fact, Flew told The New York Times Magazine last month that the book “is really Roy’s doing.”….

At Jeanne's Shabe' Yalda (Solstice) party

Golden hour today at Peters Lake

A picture of me taken by the six-year old above. Sweet kid.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: The Floating World

A poem by the late poet, Siv Cedaring.

For the solstice.

For the year.

Some of us made it; some did not.

Still, here we are.


UKIYO-E

What explanation is given for the phosphorus light
That you, as boy, went out to catch
When summer dusk turned to night?
You caught the fireflies, put them in a jar,
Careful to let in some air,
Then you fed them dandelions, unsure
Of what such small and fleeting things
Need, and when
Their light grew dim, you
Let them go.

There is no explanation for the fire
That burns in our bodies
Or the desire that grows, again and again,
So that we must move toward each other
In the dark.
We have no wings.
We are ordinary people, doing ordinary things.
The story can be told on rice paper.
There is a lantern, a mountain, whatever
We can remember.

Hiroshige's landscape is so soft.
What child, woman, would not want to go out
Into that dark, and be caught,
And caught again, by you?
I want these pictures of the floating world
To go on, but when
The light begins to dim, catch me.
Give me whatever a child imagines
To keep me aglow, then
Let me go.

This is how we feel

SOME OF MY STUDENTS tell me that they “feel” that they should get an A. “I attended practically every class,” they say.

Some tell me that they “need” an A. I always stare back blankly. Then I ask one or two questions. I soon discover that these students feel that their “need” of an A is a reason that I should grant them one.

Sometimes, I think: "if this student's hair were on fire, would he/she do anything about it?"

THIS MORNING, the OC Register reported (OC feels more fit than rest of us) that “people [in Orange County] think they’re doing so well that improving their physical and financial fitness is not a top resolution for 2008.”

OK.

In a related story, the cast of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" feel that they are “lots smarter” than the casts of other reality shows that are based on the lives of stupid people.

Back to grading.