“Man in bushes stares down Bible reader”—and other OC stories

I’ve been busy, but, this morning, I got my chance to catch up on recent stories.

1. MAN IN BUSHES. This one’s my favorite. As you know, there’s nothing better than a good “man in bushes” story. This one, reported yesterday, even includes the Bible:

Wednesday's Blotter: Man in bushes stares down Bible reader

A caller [to Huntington Beach Police] said he was sitting in his truck parked in a parking lot on Gothard Street reading his Bible when he noticed a man hiding in some bushes. He said the man was "staring him down."

2. ASSHOLE & MERC GET SMASHED. Some guy in San Juan Capistrano tried to cross barriers and tracks to beat a train. He lost. He’s an asshole. But there’s something seriously goofy about this story:

Driver walks away with cuts after train strikes Mercedes-Benz

…[Allesandro] Sabatino tried to drive his car across the tracks … at Oso Road even though the barriers had already come down, said Lt. Hal Brotheim of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. About a mile away, a northbound Amtrak train had just left the San Juan Capistrano station. ¶ As the older model Mercedes crossed the tracks, the train rammed into it. ¶ "His vehicle was demolished," Brotheim said. ¶ Sabatino was transported to the trauma center at Mission Hospital. He was conscious at the time.

This just doesn’t add up. Sabatino starts to cross the tracks. Meanwhile, a mile away, the train starts toward him. You gotta figure it’ll take it 60 seconds—more like 90—to get to Sabatino.

—I know, I know. It depends on how you understand "train ... just left the ... station." In my family, "the other day" could mean a month ago. Maybe a family member wrote this story. Could be.

3. FULLERTON COLLEGE: THEY DIDN’T HAVE A “PLAN C.” Evidently, Fullerton College’s commencement was mucked up first by rain & thunder, then, apparently, by poor planning. Re the latter, you be the judge:

Fullerton College won't reschedule rained-out graduation

Fullerton College won't reschedule last week's rained-out commencement ceremonies, despite requests from disappointed students, the college president said today. 

¶ "If they want to be recognized and have the full celebration, they will be invited to participate in next year's ceremony," college President Kathie Hodge said. 

¶ Pouring rain and lightning from thunderstorms led college administrators to hastily switch the location of last Thursday's graduation ceremony from the Fullerton Union High School Stadium to the new College Center, where a reception has been planned to follow the event. 

¶ But the center wasn't big enough to hold all the people attending, leading to crowds and disappointment as some students sent their families home. 

¶ The replacement venue also didn't lend itself well to the planned speeches, which were hard to hear, including keynote speaker Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. And graduates didn't get to hear their names called nor walk up to a dais. … [Denise] Collins and other students complained that the college hadn't planned for the rain, even though it was forecast…. 

¶ College president Hodge said that officials had two backup plans, but they relied on a forecast that showed the rain clearing by the time of the ceremony. The thunderstorm, with lightning that made it unsafe to hold the ceremony outside, was an unwelcome last-minute surprise, she said. … 

¶ "People were able to pick up their diploma covers and pins, we had food for them and they could have their pictures taken," Hodge said. "It wasn't the best, but it did have elements of the ceremony."

4. SHE TAUGHT LAMBCHOP TO SING. This, too, was reported yesterday:

Emeritus teacher from Village named Saddleback Part Time Teacher of Year

At recent commencement exercises in Mission Viejo, Saddleback College announced that it had named 94-year-old Mildred Landecker its Part-Time Professor of the Year. … According to the college, her students, find her teaching style "inspiring" and enjoy her "wonderful sense of humor." 

¶ Landecker attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York City and earned both a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts degree from New York University. 

¶ She taught at the High School of Music and Art in New York for 30 years gave voice and piano lessons in her private studio at Carnegie Hall to celebrities like Shari Lewis, Hal Linden and Diahann Carroll.

5. IT WAS A SETUP! I suppose you heard about the Fullerton high school teacher who was “framed.”

Framed teacher: ‘It turned out better than I thought'

A history teacher arrested and then cleared in what authorities now describe as an elaborate gun-and-drugs setup said that his mood had swung from paranoia and fear to gratitude for the support he received. … ¶ Police arrested Abbott on Tuesday after finding an unloaded shotgun and marijuana in his Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton. Authorities now say Abbott was the victim of a plot to bring him down. ¶ Police have named Abbott's wife, Devon E. Abbott, and a male acquaintance of hers as persons of interest in the case….

6. KNOWING STUFF IS “ELITIST.” Author Susan Jacoby—recently interviewed by our own Red Emma (KPFK)—has a guest editorial in the NY Times:

Best Is the New Worst

PITY the poor word “elite,” which simply means “the best” as an adjective and “the best of a group” as a noun. What was once an accolade has turned poisonous in American public life over the past 40 years, as both the left and the right have twisted it into a code word meaning “not one of us.” But the newest and most ominous wrinkle in the denigration of all things elite is that the slur is being applied to knowledge itself. 

¶ Senator Hillary Clinton’s use of the phrase “elite opinion” to dismiss the near unanimous opposition of economists to her proposal for a gas tax holiday was a landmark in the use of elite to attack expertise supposedly beyond the comprehension of average Americans. One might as well say that there is no point in consulting musicians about music or ichthyologists about fish. … Conservative intellectuals who rose to prominence during the Reagan administration managed the neat trick of reversing the ’60s usage of “elite” by applying it as a slur to the left alone. “Elite,” often rendered in the plural, became synonymous with “limousine liberals” who opposed supposedly normative American values. That the right-wing intellectual establishment also constituted a powerful elite was somehow obscured. … All the older forms of elite-bashing have now devolved into a kind of aggressive denial of the threat to American democracy posed by public ignorance. … Another peculiar new use of “elitist” (often coupled with “Luddite”) is its application to any caveats about the Internet as a source of knowledge. After listening to one of my lectures, a college student told me that it was elitist to express alarm that one in four Americans, according to the National Constitution Center, cannot name any First Amendment rights or that 62 percent cannot name the three branches of government. “You don’t need to have that in your head,” the student said, “because you can just look it up on the Web.” 

¶ True, but how can an information-seeker know what to look for if he or she does not know that the Bill of Rights exists? … America was never imagined as a democracy of dumbness. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by an elite group of leaders, and although their dream was limited to white men, it held the seeds of a future in which anyone might aspire to the highest — let us say it out loud, elite — level of achievement.

7. EDITORIAL BLASTS FACTORY FARMING. From this morning’s New York Times . Check it out:
The Worst Way of Farming

"Love is Pwrful"

Summer is here and well, as loyal readers can tell, the DISSENTers have embraced it. Chunk will return home soon and you can expect the irreverent investigative coverage you love so much to resume. Until then, Rebel Girl offers what she can: her recent trip to the Guggenhim Gallery at Chapman University to see her little guy's artwork on display.
The little guy's work, titled "Love is Pwrful" (medium: crayon) was chosen for inclusion in Orange Unified's 13th Annual Exposition of the Arts. Mayors and trustees were present. The pledge was said and the anthem sung. Speeches were spoke and the need for arts in the schools was affirmed. It was all was very civic-like, under the big trees on the well-groomed campus. There was an illusion of plenty and no one spoke about the looming 10% budget cuts from Sacramento and how that would affect arts in the schools, let alone the threatened closing of the little school in the canyons.



The little guy was more interested in the work on the wall, the lemonade and, according to him, the best chocolate cookies in the world.

Love is, indeed, powerful.

Chunk on Alcatraz

.....We spent Thursday visiting Alcatraz. I recommend the trip highly, although I suspect that our experience was enhanced by the great weather. So be sure to order great weather before you book.
.....There are structures on the island that date to the California Gold Rush. (Neanderthals, that would be about 1849.) The ruins of the Warden's house are freakin' wonderful--a lovely garden flourishes inside and out.
.....The main prison block reminded me of nothing so much as a mall. The Mall of Orange in particular.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

.....Mike Carona, Irvine Valley College’s "Hometown Hero"—and occasional prayerful visitor—is in the news again. From this morning’s LA Times: Carona discussed 'cleansing' reserve deputy files:

.....Former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona talked to a former top assistant about "cleansing" the department's reserve-deputy files of information he did not want federal prosecutors to find, the government alleges in a court filing Thursday.
..... The filing came in response to U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford's request that prosecutors provide more specific details about one of the witness-tampering charges in Carona's upcoming corruption trial.
.....The court filing alleges Carona and former Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl discussed doctoring files from the department's reserve program.
..... Carona was indicted in October on charges he sold access to his office for cash and gifts and that he tampered with potential witnesses. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to prove his innocence at trial.
..... Haidl, who oversaw the reserve program, is expected to be a witness against Carona at his trial, now scheduled for Aug. 26.
..... Soon after taking office in 1999, Carona appointed scores of campaign donors as reserve deputies, issuing them badges and in some cases guns without background checks or training. The appointments escaped public scrutiny until 2005, when a Los Angeles Times article raised questions about whether Carona was handing out badges as political favors -- an allegation he steadfastly denied.
..... Over the years, several reserves with close ties to Carona have gotten caught misusing their credentials. In one of the most serious, Carona's longtime martial arts instructor was accused of flashing a gun and badge at members of a foursome playing ahead of him on a San Bernardino golf course. Raymond Yi was convicted earlier this month of making a criminal threat. He faces a potential sentence of up to three years in prison.
..... During the lengthy investigation of Carona's administration, federal authorities served the Sheriff's Department with a subpoena asking for original copies of all reserve records on file, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the request.
..... Federal prosecutors did not address in their filing whether Carona and Haidl actually tampered with the department's reserve program records, only that they discussed it. According to prosecutors, from March 17, 2004, through Aug. 13, 2007, Carona urged Haidl and others to "fabricate and conceal facts" from a federal grand jury.
..... The former sheriff's goal was to "keep the focus of the federal grand jury investigation off defendant Carona."
..... In addition, the documents allege, Carona encouraged Haidl to mislead the grand jury about "money, bribes and gifts," that Haidl allegedly provided to Carona.
..... Haidl, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges, secretly recorded conversations with Carona three times in the months leading to the sheriff's indictment, according to prosecutors.
..... Carona's attorney, Jeffrey Rawitz, said Haidl's credibility is in question because his sentence on the tax evasion charges will be based in part on his testimony at the Carona trial.
..... "Mr. Haidl has pleaded guilty and is facing significant prison time for his own criminal conduct. He's doing everything he can to reduce his sentence," Rawitz said. "Whether he's a credible witness will be a question for the jury to decide."

See also:

• Sheriff Mike Carona to be Honored at Irvine Valley College Foundation Awards Dinner
• [Sheriff] Spending time at Irvine Valley College
• ”It’s just a matter of time”

Some of Us Will Be Celebratin' This Saturday

You know where to find us! Congratulations again to IVC alum Brandon and his wonderful mother Beth!

(Cal's Greek Theater turns 100 this month.)

Thank God for Don Wagner

.....One of our readers wrote us about the recent Saddleback College scholarship event, suggesting (as others have) that, at the event (we were not present), board president Don Wagner made a political speech about prayer and that some donors were offended. That he made such a speech is clear from the video. Don't know about donors' reactions.
.....But the reader also claims that, at Tuesday's board meeting, during her report, Trustee Nancy Padberg described Wagner's scholarship speech as "political" and suggested that he should apologize for it.
.....Really? No need to wonder. All we have to do is wait for the video of Tuesday's board meeting (not yet available) to be posted at the district website. Then we'll know what Nancy said.
.....But is it true, as some have suggested, that some donors were offended by Don's remarks? Think I'll go back and listen carefully to what Don actually said. (See below.)

Summer's Here and the Time is Right

In case you haven't heard, California's schools are facing a 10% budget cut which will gut an already compromised and weakened system - once the best in the country.

One mother's reaction is to organize a march on Sacramento to, to quote journalist and blogger Celeste Fremon, "protest the latest draconian round of public education budget cuts. The idea was to get a bunch of press attention and, in so doing, hopefully goad/threaten/persuade/emotionally blackmail lawmakers into budget cutting somewhere other than education."

Where to cut?

Fremon has one suggestion:"(The early release of those 22,000 low-level, short-timer prisoners—a move on which Arnold back-pedaled—might be a good place to start.)"

I'm game.

I was a student in those pre-Proposition 13 years. I remember what it was like and I know that I am here in large part due to that well-funded public education.

Some may recognize the mother behind this rally as Sandra Tsing Loh, a So Cal radio personality and writer who comes into my life via KPCC, the Pasadena NPR affiliate.

Check out their website by clicking here. See what you can do. Do it. Pass the word.

"Heck of a meeting": Soliciting info about last night's board meeting

10:39 writes:

Meanwhile, back at our ranch, you missed a heck of a meeting. Two marathon public comments sessions -- one on Don Wagner's scholarship ceremony "invocation" and one on Carmen Dominguez's mysterious reassignment away from musical theatre. And the Board Reports are also not to be missed....

.....--To see Don's "scholarship ceremony" remarks, go to invocation.
.....Last night's meeting was the first in a long time not covered by your intrepid DtB reporter. (Tracy offers highlights of the meeting here.)
.....Anybody else have information about the meeting? Let us know. And thanks, 10:39. --CW

.....To view the board meeting, go to board videos. The May 27 video is not posted yet, but it should be soon.

Our Country: A Million Little Pieces

.....Rebel Girl takes a pause in her grading marathon to draw this parallel for y'all:

.....Two new books are out and the authors are already taking their victory laps and depositing their big bucks in the bank: disgraced fraudulent memoirist James Frey has his "novel," Bright Shiny Morning" and former White House Press secretary Scott McClellan has his own book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." You remember Scott McClellan - he was up there at the podium during the war, during Katrina, during Gitmo.

.....From the Washington Post:

.....Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."…McClellan, who resigned in April 2006, stops short of saying Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not "employing out-and-out deception."
.....But in a chapter titled "Selling the War," he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush "managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."
.....McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war, comes to a stark conclusion: "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

.....Rebel Girl would like to write more about this but she has work to do.
.....So all she wants to do is point out how these two men remind her of a recent student who, when caught plagiarizing, didn't hesitate to ask if he could re-write the plagiarized paper for credit and stood there smiling at her.
.....Rebel Girl, of course, answered no.
.....It seems that few said no to these two men who profit and continue to profit from lying to the public – and in McClellen's case, lying which led to the deaths and suffering of thousands.
.....Maybe, gasp, F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong: clearly there are second acts in American lives.
.....Look at them grin.

SEE: New York Times: White House reacts negatively

Today's adventures in and around Pacifica

Tiger Ann was her usual lovely self today. Here's TA through glass.

Here we find her in the bay window, sunning herself.

Sister Fannie collects neat old objects, like this terrific old wooden ruler that unfolds. I collect 'em too.

So, naturally, we went up the coast--to Rockaway Beach (see the pic)--to an antique shop. See my Chrysler 300?

Bought some goofy items. I'm puttin' that plastic finger up on our office door. Don't know about the rest. I like the bat lady a lot.


Drove down to San Gregorio, Neil Young's neck o' the woods. They've got a way cool General Store there.

"He tried to do his best, but he could not." (From "Tired Eyes.")

I do believe that my sis knows Peggy Young. Nice lady, apparently.

Fannie and I happened to watch The Aristocrats the other night. Bob Saget (of all people) was one of the standouts of that notorious film. Turns out that Saget often employs Fannie's Piano Player boy friend, who can often be found ticklin' the ivories at a dump down in Rockaway Beach.

It's a small world, boy.

SOCCCD board meeting tonight

.....—At the usual place (Health Sciences Building down at Saddleback College)
.....To view the agenda outline for tonight’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees, go to Board Agenda (outline).
.....Below, I’ve indicated possible points of interest that I found on the agenda outline:

CLOSED SESSION (5:00 p.m.)

Nothing remarkable.

OPEN SESSION (6:30 p.m.)

Discussion item:

Both colleges: Basic Skills/Student Success Initiative (reports)

On the consent calendar:

5.7 Destruction of Class 3 Disposable Records [?]

General action items:

6.1 Consolidated elections for members of governing boards—resolution [?]
6.4 ATEP concept plan and long range plan—accept for review and study
6.5 Board policy revision: …Domestic Partners

Weather Report: Let Freedom Ring (Rebel Girl)

~
The jacarandas are in bloom. Like most of us, the jacarandas are immigrants; the ones in bloom in southern California this time of year, the Jacaranda mimosifolia are from South America, Argentina and Bolivia to be exact. Rebel Girl doesn't remember seeing them when she was growing up in Los Angeles but then that spring in 1977 when she left home, age sixteen, suddenly they were everywhere. One grew in the slim strip of grass separating the sidewalk and the street in front of the house where she lived with four roommates. Rebel Girl thought the blooms were beautiful. She clipped the branches and put in them in a jar on the kitchen table. Now she looks for them each spring and remembers how, in 1992, they seemed especially brilliant, especially extravagant against the black backdrop of burnt-out neighborhoods of post-riot Los Angeles.

These are some shots around campus that Rebel Girl took last Tuesday, a week ago, before the apocalyptic mudslides that made her look down instead of up. The summer's Fourth of July banners were being put up along Jeffrey Road. On one side is the Statue of Liberty, on the other: Let Freedom Ring.

Later that evening, Rebel Girl joined Red Emma at a political fundraiser out by Irvine Lake. Ron Shepson is a Democratic challenger for the congressional seat held by Republican Gary Miller. That's draw enough in her book; the last time Miller ran, he was unopposed. For shame. Last night, former Ambassador Joe Wilson was there to stump for Shepson. You remember Wilson, aka Valerie Plame's husband, the author of the New York Times editorial, "What I Didn't Find in Africa" which documented his 2002 CIA investigation into whether Iraq had purchased or attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. Wilson concluded that the George W. Bush administration twisted intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat. You remember. It was some evening out there by the lake. Let freedom ring indeed.

To donate to Ron Shepson's campaign, see Rebel Girl. Shepson can use all the help he can get. (Look at that district! It stretches across three counties from Whittier to OC's canyons. Can someone spell jerrymander?)

Meanwhile, U. Utah Phillips, the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest, songwriter, storyteller and card-carrying mamber of the International Workers of the World (aka the Wobblies) passed away last Friday evening at his home in Nevada City, California at age 73.

Rebel Girl and Red have seen Utah in concert countless times and in January 2003, marched in the streets of San Francisco alongside him in the big anti-war protest, pushing the little guy in his stroller. The little guy is partial to Utah's train songs and hobo stories, but his parents, of course, like the labor sinaglongs and the love songs, the stories about Ammon Hennancy, Big Bill Haywood and Lucy Parsons. Utah's memorial is scheduled for this Sunday in Nevada City and the music is sure to be fine and heartfelt. Rebel Girl wishes she could be there.

“The governing board tended to interfere too much”

From yesterday’s San Diego Union-Tribune: Grand jury expected to urge community college ethics panel:

..... The [San Diego] county grand jury is expected to release a report tomorrow that will recommend an ethics committee establish and enforce an ethics code for local community colleges.
.....The report, obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune, recaps a series of recent controversies at community colleges and recommends that the schools collectively provide $500,000 to hire three people to run a countywide ethics office. The office would develop a uniform code of ethics for all five local community college districts, investigate whistle-blower complaints and monitor compliance with open government laws.
.....The grand jury believes that the cost could be partially offset through reduced legal fees resulting from the office's guidance.
.....The 17-page report is largely anecdotal and rarely mentions a specific person or even a specific college, except in three instances:

• MiraCosta College accepted the resignation of its president last year in exchange for a severance package of nearly $1.6 million, exceeding the 18 months' salary permitted by state law.
• The employment contract of the chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District was changed without board approval in 2006. The chancellor deleted a clause that limited his severance pay to 12 months in the event of his dismissal. The clause was later re-inserted. [See Serafin Zasueta.]
• The organization that accredited Southwestern College four years ago noted that the governing board tended to interfere too much in day-to-day operations. Since then, the college has had two interim and two permanent presidents and three of its four vice president positions need to be filled.

.....In addition to an ethics committee modeled on the city of San Diego's ethics commission, the grand jury recommends several community college reforms:

• Term limits. The report recommends limits of three four-year terms for college trustees.
• Campaign finance reform. The grand jury recommends that a trustee disclose the amount of any campaign contribution from a firm whose contract is on an agenda and recuse himself or herself from the vote. It also suggests a contribution limit of $300 per source.
• Limit severance packages to no more than 18 months' salary and benefits.

Jamaica Me Crazy

I’m up here in the Bay Area to visit my sister Fannie and her cat Tiger Ann. Elroy’s still around, and so is Kateta. Angela might drop by tomorrow.

Fannie insisted that we drive down to Half Moon Bay. She wanted to visit some junk shop called "Twice as Nice." It was way junky. Bought a Pez dispenser for Sarah & Adam plus some weird-assed spices and hot sauce.


We drove by this cool little seaside restaurant--the Moss Beach Distillery. Checked it out. Turns out Dashiell Hammett used to hang there. That was way cool.

We noticed artwork on the ceiling: a matador and bull. For some reason, the bull's scrotum was prominently displayed. Fannie notices such things.



They've got copper buildings in that town, among other things. Some nice old houses. Love it.

Came across what must surely be the ugliest car in the world. It was an American Motors Eagle (c. 1980). (I prefer to call it the Nash-Rambler Eagle.)



Tiger Ann says "hey."