Monday, March 12, 2007

You gotta love that "plague of despair"


THAT'S RIGHT. We've been up sh*t creek, sans paddle, since December of '96, when the original "Board Majority" took charge. The Accreditors call it our "plague of despair." Really, they do. (Plagues then and now.)



UNFAMILIAR with the three-ring Cirque de Dismay that is the South Orange County Community College District? You might want to read:

Trustee Fuentes' Spanish Adventure: yes, bigshot Republican Tom Fuentes stirs up a hornets' nest. Spain, he says, has "abandoned" our fighting men and women! Therefore, no Study Abroad trips to Spain! Shit hits fan.

IVC faculty prohibited from discussing the war: yes, it's true. April 2003. We're not making this up!

Trustee Frogue invites Holocaust deniers to campus: The board thinks that's just swell, and, despite warnings, gives Frogue the green light. The excrement really hit the fan that time! Overnight, Saddleback became the college that invites crackpots and lunatics (and maybe Nazis, too)!


Is Trustee Frogue a Holocaust denier?: apparently so. See the evidence.

Hangin' with bigwig Republicans while Nazis hide in bushes: local GOP consigliere Mike Schroeder embraces the Frogue recall. Everybody who's anybody was at this event—Loretta, Bob—and Nazis too!

Bauer's court victory: the district ruthlessly tries to shut down a faculty critic—but the federal court says "nope" plus "what were you people thinkin'?" Lots of bad press. What a board!

"Liberal busybodies!": Libertarian Don Wagner pulls the colleges out of the American Library Association! More bad press.


The Howard Hilton: one of the great harebrained schemes of all time. Wagner, Mathur, and Gensler hope to build a Hilton Hotel (w/ lake) at Irvine Valley College! The plan goes "poof" among never-ending whoops of ridiculosity.

The Board's unlikely secret allies!: in 1998, a faculty union finances the successful trustee bids of two conservative Republicans. (And those two are still here!) Only in South Orange County!

Check out the UFOs!: we witness a flying Fuentes; plus mold pie.

"Kill it & Grill it" and other FUENTEIAN titles: Tom Fuentes is into publishing—publishing anti-intellectual crap, that is.

The replacement Clock Tower adventure: a popular favorite. Chunk, Reb, and Red have some fun with news of the demolition of our beloved Clock Tower.


Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...