Rebel Girl's the best

.....Ever read “Orange Coast Magazine”? It’s that glossy mag (about the OC—well, the ritzy half of the county) with the celebrities on the cover. I see it at Ralph’s all the time.
.....Well, last Thursday, OCM held a fancy-schmancy, invitation-only party for the purpose of unveiling a new and improved version of the magazine.
.....Rebel Girl was among the VIPs. During the event, she later told me, copies of the July issue were distributed. The “inaugural” issue presents the “Best of Orange County.”
.....And guess what? Among the best of OC, according to OCM, is our very own Rebel Girl! Go to Best of Media (“For those who enjoy reading, writing, and ribald rhetoric”):

Literary Blog (The Mark on the Wall)

As Rebel Girl, Irvine Valley College English professor Lisa Alvarez tirelessly tracks down Orange County literary events to create a one-stop shop for book-minded cyber-crawlers at her regularly updated blog. In addition to getting the word out about local readings, she also highlights local authors and venues, directs readers to publication opportunities, and links to local literary journals.

MEANWHILE...

.....• MORONS IN OC. Lots of Orange Countians, and even (especially?) rich Republican Orange Countians (well, most of ‘em) want Orange County to shed it’s right-wing, John Birch Society image. But some people sure do make that hard.
.....Check out O.C. anti-illegal immigration activists reject McCain, Obama:

.....The T-shirt said it all. Costa Mesa resident John Powelson, a lifelong Republican, displayed his political sentiments across his chest at an anti-illegal immigration meeting last week: "Is John McCain the Manchurian candidate?"
.....The slogan, Powelson explained, refers to the title of the 1962 film starring Frank Sinatra, in which Soviet agents capture an American soldier, take him to Manchuria, China, and brainwash him to become a communist agent.
.....Powelson, 57, wonders if McCain's policies on guns and immigration, which he sees as far too liberal, are the result of a real-life Manchurian incident. "It could very well be that he was brainwashed," he said, referring to McCain's six years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam….

Good grief.

.....• I AUTHORIZE YOU TO DO WRONG. You remember the Milgram Experiments, doncha? (If not, see slide show.) They revealed an awful truth about most people: that they will obey evil orders, as long as somebody else says they'll take responsibility.
.....Well, in the New York Times, Benedict Carey returns to those experiments, first done nearly 50 years ago:

Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?:

.....…In [one] paper, due out in the journal American Psychologist, a professor at Santa Clara University replicates part of the Milgram studies — stopping at 150 volts, the critical juncture at which the subject cries out to stop — to see whether people today would still obey. Ethics committees bar researchers from pushing subjects through to an imaginary 450 volts, as Milgram did.
.....The answer was yes. Once again, more than half the participants agreed to proceed with the experiment past the 150-volt mark….

The REAL law dean of Orange County

Marla Jo Fisher is at it again! This time, she has interviewed Erwin Chemerinsky, UCI’s new law dean, who’s moving into his Irvine home. (For the entire interview, go to Irvine's new law school dean shares his plans and philosophies.)

You rememember Erwin: he was hired, then fired, then hired again! The usual right-wing rat bastards were making their move, but it backfired. Nyah.

Q. Do you have one main goal for the new school?
A. We want to be a top 20 law school as soon as we can, all the faculty and staff are coming from top 20 law schools, but if we just replicate what other top 20 law schools do then we've failed. We have this wonderful opportunity to create the dream law school. The central tension we face is the need to keep a sufficient number of traditional elements, while adding our own innovations.

Q. Many people have been opposed to creation of a new University of California law school, saying the state doesn't need any more lawyers. How would you answer those people?
A. Orange County has 3 million people but it has no public university law school, nor is there one between Los Angeles and the border with Mexico. I think we can create a law school here that will make a difference.

Q. When the UCI chancellor sought approval for this law school, he said it was necessary to create more public interest lawyers. Critics responded that there are already plenty of students who would like to practice public interest law, but the high cost of law school and hefty student loans drive them into private practice. What would you say to those critics?
A. That's just not true. And I can say that from having been a law professor for 20 years. Wherever lawyers go, in big firms or small, they can spare part of their time to serve the public. They should be doing something with their law degree to make the world a better place. We plan to match the Berkeley (law school) loan forgiveness program for students going into a certain range of employment.

Q. As a former law student and longtime professor, certain things must have irritated you over the years that you want to change in your own school. Can you name some of them?
A. I don't think law schools spend time preparing students for the practice of law. We can do a better job. I want every law student to have some clinical experience with at least one client before they graduate. Most students graduate never having had a client. … I want to teach fact investigation. … I have hired L.A. Times (legal affairs) reporter Henry Weinstein to be a professor and teach it to our students….


Q. Can you remember things specifically that bothered you when you were a law student?
A. I went to Harvard in the 1970s, and, overall, I was disappointed in the quality of the teaching. I had a sense that the faculty that was there then didn't seem to care much about teaching….

Q. Why did you go to law school? Did you know you wanted to be a law professor?
A. I went to law school because I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I knew someday I wanted to be a teacher. At one point I even became certified as a high-school teacher….

Q. You teach. You write a lot. You argue cases before the Supreme Court. You have a family. How do you do it all? Some of your friends joke that you never sleep.
A. I don't need a lot of sleep. I am just high energy. I have a low stress level. I don't obsess and worry about things too much….
…
Q. When Chapman University wants to recruit a new faculty member, the president takes them out on a borrowed yacht in Newport Harbor. How did you recruit your faculty?
A. Well, I don't have a yacht and I don't know how to swim. Don't look shocked. I'm from the south side of Chicago. My pitch is to come and create a dream law school….
…
Q. There was national attention when you were hired, fired and then rehired by UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, which you said at the time was due to political pressure over your liberal politics. What are people saying to you about that now?
A. For the most part, it's in the past. Occasionally, it comes up. I've had a year now of working with Michael Drake and our relationship is better than ever.

Q. How have you changed your outspokenness as a result of your new job as law dean? Have you toned it down?
A. I have an op-ed piece today in the L.A. Times on gun control. I think it's very important for a law faculty to express its opinions to the public on matters of law….

Q. There were some newspaper stories that implied without saying that (billionaire law school donor) Donald Bren was behind the plan to sabotage your appointment. Have you met him?
A. I have met him at functions and he's an important supporter for the law school. Those stories were just false and very unfair to him.


Q. Some Jewish people have described UCI as "the most anti-Semitic campus in America." You are Jewish. What do you think about that?
A. This is something I looked at very closely. I think it's a misapprehension. There was a letter written by students at several Jewish organizations on campus talking about the wonderful Jewish student life here. As a Jew, I have never seen the slightest evidence of anti-Semitism on campus.

There have been some speeches on campus against Israel that crossed over into anti-Semitic speech. But a university has to be a forum for all ideas, even if we don't agree with them.
…
Q. Now you've bought a house in University Hills. How does that work?
A. You buy the house and the university owns the land. Usually, faculty get put on a waiting list until some older people retire, but we heard the couple who owned this house was selling, so we were able to buy it. One of the things that attracted me to this campus was that we could live on campus and walk to work. There's a real community feeling here, too. That was one reason we left L.A. (for North Carolina four years ago). We didn't like the traffic and we wanted a different type of community.

Q. Have you met any of your neighbors?
A. Oh yes, people have come over and made us feel welcome. It's very nice.

Gods with little to do

From today’s What’s New (by physicist Bob Park):

PEW FORUM: U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE SURVEY.

The latest findings of the respected Pew Forum’s massive survey make it clear that we are an overwhelmingly religious people. Only 16 percent identify themselves as "unaffiliated" and only a tenth of those are atheists.

The strongest predictor of a person’s faith has always been the faith of their parents, but with interfaith marriages increasing, a quarter of adult Americans have switched to another religion.

The greatest gain was in unaffiliated, but even among the unaffiliated 70 percent said they believe in God.

The willingness of Americans to compartmentalize their beliefs, holding totally contradictory convictions in different spheres, is remarkable. Scientists accept as a given that behind every physical effect lies a physical cause. That seems to rule out supernatural causes, leaving gods with little to do.

—Check out OC Weekly's Orange Coast magazine has a party. I happen to know that Rebel Girl was invited to (and attended?) that party, and a piece about her (among others) will appear in the next edition.

For you conspiracy fans: watching the machine and some of its tiny, stinky parts

DEEPLY COMMITTED TO THE WELL-BEING OF—HIMSELF

.....Chancellor Raghu Mathur sure does some strange things—for instance, his very special hire (he essentially nullified the search committee’s recommendations) of the inexperienced Tod Burnett (the fellow, it seems, has never been a college administrator of any kind) as President of Saddleback College sure was odd.
.....Now, why would Mathur do something like that? Well, Burnett is a politician/bureaucrat with bigtime connections in California politics. Right now, he works for the State Chancellor; he used to work for the Governor.
.....We must always remember that Mathur is essentially a political animal (genus: political; species: narcissist), and he’s inside the local GOP machine, especially the crude and cruel gears inside a smallish dark and noisy box way, way over to the right.
.....One way the machine works is through endorsements. So, naturally, Mathur, the wily politician, endorses candidates who are associated with his own right-wing cronies on the local scene. It’s practically automatic. (More on that in a moment.)

* * * * *

GOSH, THE PROXIMITY OF SOME PARTS OF THE MACHINE TO OTHER PARTS OF THE MACHINE CAN BE WORRISOME

.....According to Trustee Tom ("supervisor of pedophile") Fuentes' district bio, "Speaker Dennis ["enabler of pedophile"] Hastert of the United States House of Representatives appointed Trustee Fuentes in 2006 to serve...on the Board of Advisors of the United States Elections Assistance Commission [EAC].... The [EAC] oversees the expenditure of Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds across the nation."
.....According to Wikipedia, the EAC does more than that. It is responsible for “Creating a national program for the testing, certification, and decertification of voting systems.”
.....OK, so our man Fuentes is part of the machinery that oversees "voting systems."
.....According to Wikipedia, "[HAVA]...[was]...signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. [It was] Drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election...."
.....The goals of HAVA include "[replacing] punch card voting systems." That is, HAVA seeks to move us toward electronic voting.
.....You'll recall that the 2000 and 2004 national elections were, in places, seriously hinky, and a large part of the hinkitude concerned the scandal-ridden electronic voting industry, which is dominated by three companies: Diebold, Sequoia, and Election Systems & Software (ES&S). Remember that last one: ES&S.
.....One aspect of the hinkitude concerned the politics of the people who own these companies. Amazingly, they keep turning out to be right-wingers--often, way-right-wingers. Or even way-way right-wingers.
.....Now, if you trace the history of ES&S in particular, you'll discover that a major deep-pocket in the ES&S saga is none other than mega-scary theocratic right-winger Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who lives here in Orange County.
.....So, as it turns out, Ahmanson was (and, according to some sources, still is) one of the Big Money Men behind the electronic voting industry.
.....Naturally, Ahmanson, the big "voting industry" cog, and Fuentes, the tiny "voting systems oversight" cog are close personal friends. They go way back. Decades even.
.....Lovely, isn't it?

* * * * *

IT'S LIKE A FREAKIN' DAISY CHAIN

.....Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Neil Blais, a familiar OC Republican, is running to replace term-limited Assemblyman Todd Spitzer in California’s 71st Assembly District.
.....I don’t care. But I was Googling “Raghu Mathur,” and I came upon Blais’ campaign website, and, in particular, the part of it devoted to “endorsements.”
.....Naturally, Blais is endorsed by my Congressman, Republican Gary Miller, aka maybe the most corrupt politician in Congress.
.....Blais is also endorsed by

• Mike Schroeder (head of the OC “Republican Mafia” and a close associate of Trustee [and former OC GOP chair] Tom Fuentes; Schroeder was much involved in the Frogue Recall)
• Mark Bucher (co-founder of Education Alliance, on whose board SOCCCD board president Don Wagner sits; Trustee Nancy Padberg, too, has EA associations)
• Chris Norby (conservative Sup, whose brother our Board Majority tried to slip onto the SOCCCD Board of Trustees back when Board Majoritarian Dot Fortune got caught living outside the county)
• John Williams (well, you remember him; he was a bailiff; now he's an SOCCCD trustee and, owing to local GOP connections, this "househusband" became the county guy in charge of corpses)
• Tony Rackauckas (corrupt OC DA; key member, along with disgraced former Sheriff Mike Carona [a frequent guest and prayer-leader at Irvine Valley College], of the OC Mafia)
• Marcia Milchiker (Good grief)
• Nancy Padberg (Well, she’s a conservative Republican, so what else is new. Plus she used to be, and probably still is, a member of Bucher's Education Alliance.)
• Adam Probolsky (this guy can be found in every dark corner, including the one in my classroom; he’s a close associate of Schroeder, Fuentes, and each of the rest of the OC mafiosi)

—and, of course, “Dr. Raghu Mathur, Chancellor, South Orange County Community College District.”

* * * * *

YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE? NOT A PROBLEM!

.....It will come as no surprise that Blais has strong views concerning “illegal immigration”:

…I will fight to immediately secure the California border so that the flow of illegal immigrants is stopped once and for all. … I will join the Governor and our Republicans in Congress to convince neighboring states to also seal their borders with Mexico to end the flood of illegal immigrants. I support allowing all local law enforcement agencies to check legal status of those being incarcerated for crimes and identify illegal immigrants for deportation.

.....It’s the usual red meat.
.....One problem, though. Blais is a bit of a hypocrite.
.....I came upon this month-old story in the OC Reg:

Neil Blais and illegal immigration: the straight story

.....The upshot: Blais’ opponent, Corona mayor Jeff Miller (yet another conservative Republican), is accusing him of raising money for the benefit of illegal immigrants. If true, it would put an end to Blais' election hopes. The Reg’s Martin Wisckol looked into the charge and found it to be exaggerated.
.....On the other hand, he suggests, it has merit:

.....Blais and his wife, Destin, run a grant-writing consultancy. ... Three of the agencies and foundations with which Blais is contracted benefit, among others, illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County. ... ¶ The attacks from opponent Jeff Miller’s campaign include a mailer and a press release. Unless you’re paying close attention, you might think LA County’s spending on illegal immigration is Blais’ doing — and that he’s getting rich doing it. … ¶ The attack goes over the top, as many attacks ads do. But Blais was associated with agencies … that often don’t check the residency status of those [they help]…. … ¶ Blais may have done little business with these groups, but he never said he turned the work down. Rather, it appears that the groups never called on him to perform, with a small exception. It seems as though he was ready and willing to do the work.

.....Another way the machine works is that hypocrisy isn’t a problem. You just smile through it. It's like Sheriff Carona's piety and love of family. The fact that he's obviously a hypocritical Rat Bastard never mattered to Fuentes, Schroeder, Mathur, and that whole crowd—until he was formally charged with crimes and put on trial. "America's Sheriff" my ass.
.....Naturally, I could go on forever with examples of this crowd's hypocrisy. Remember when Tom "mentor to pedophile" Fuentes was concerned about possible faculty "cronyism"?! (Good Lord!) And remember when Mathur crusaded against "reassigned time"? He was only the champion abuser of RT while an instructor. He was the poster child for the very thing he was railing against!

* * * * *

.....Here’s an oddity. I noticed that Dana Rohrabacher is listed as endorsing both Blais and Blais’ opponent, Miller.
.....The machine gets complicated.

Jay and Milchiker voted against Burnett

Video of the June 24 meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees is now available here. I had the opportunity to view the first twenty minutes or so. I was surprised to discover that the appointment of Tod Burnett (Prez of Saddleback College) was not unanimous. (See below.)

Here are some highlights:

00:00:39
Clerk Tom Fuentes reads out actions taken during closed session. He reports that Tod Burnett was approved as Saddleback College President on a 5/2 vote, with Bill Jay and Marcia Milchiker voting against.

Wow. Perhaps J&M were displeased that Mathur disregarded the recommendations of the search committee (he interviewed the committee’s three recommendations and then went back into the pool, pulling out Burnett). Boards typically seek to approve top administrators unanimously. Further, Burnett, though impressive, seems to lack college administrative experience.

00:05:30
Math professor Karla Westphal declares that she was “appalled” by Wagner’s speech at the recent Scholarship event. She is disappointed that only Trustee Padberg urged Wagner to apologize.

00:08:38
Nancy Padberg stands by her words regarding Wagner and the scholarship event.

00:09:09
Tom Fuentes says he returns “30 pounds lighter” and with “gratitude to God,” after his liver transplant surgery.

00:15:00
Wagner: “I’ve had the privilege, the pleasure, of serving on the IVC Accreditation Focus Group over the course of the last several months and it has been quite an eye-opening experience; there’s been a lot of give and take, a lot of frank…discussion…; it’s a group [that’s]…just a pleasure to be involved with; chaired by President Roquemore and co-chaired by Wendy Gabriella and [Vice] President Justice. You guys are just doing a great job. I thank you for the opportunity to participate. I think we’re doing some great work for the colleges, and for IVC in particular, and I’ve really enjoyed my time there, so thank you…it is an all-star group….”

00:19:30
Mathur: Summer enrollments are up 7.5%. Blah, blah, blah. Mathur praises outgoing Saddleback President Rich McCullough, a man that Mathur in fact pressured out. “Let’s all give him a standing ovation,” said Mathur.

00:24:00
Fuentes wants to develop a policy regarding naming new buildings.
…
01:40:00
Re tentative budget. Discussion of the reserve. Poertner explains what is meant by "basic aid" money. Lots of disagreement.

02:07:00
IVC Senate Prez Wendy Gabriella gives her report.

A SONG FOR YOU. I offer yet another obscurity, this one by Peter Sarstedt in 1969. I used to love this song, though I knew nothing about it or the singer. It was just mystery music emerging from my little Philco radio by the side of my bed. But if I love a song, it plays in my head forever. So, tonight, nearly forty years later, I did some searching and found it (by reviewing a list of British "tops of the pops"). The song was by Peter Sarstedt. I read about him. They offered Sarstedt a TV show, but he said no; he walked away from fame and fortune. Never had another hit. Maybe you'll remember "Where do you go to, my lovely?," but I think you'd have to be over 50. I wonder: for many of my generation, this song had a certain magic. Does it have magic, too, for young people today?



OK, I can't help myself. Gotta love Dusty Springfield. "You don't have to say you love me," from 1967:

Memorable cataclysms, part 1

Four billion years ago: Asteroid M4005X hits Mars, causing the great "dichotomy"

Twelve years ago: Asteroid GOO hits the South Orange County Community College District, causing the great "lobotomy"

Last night’s board meeting: eyes have been opened

.    I couldn't attend last night’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees 'cause I was at the Greek Theater enjoying the performances of country/bluegrass star Alison Krauss, Led Zep singer Robert Plant, and super-duper producer T Bone Burnett (plus four other musicians, including the great Buddy Miller!). If you get a chance to see the "Raising Sand" show, don’t miss it. (See Times' review.)
.....Monday night, Krauss and Co. will be warblin' in San Diego.

.    Still, I did get a brief report from someone who was there—at the board meeting I mean. (As usual, we await Tracy Daly’s fluffy “Board Meeting Highlights,” which will likely materialize soon. [UPDATE: the "highlights" are now available.] And, don’t forget, the district regularly archives video of board meetings. The video, when available, can be viewed here.)

.    Naturally, the BIG NEWS last night was the appointment of Saddleback College’s new President (see posts below). The announcement was made, I’m told, by death-defying board Clerk Tom Fuentes, who, despite recent liver transplant surgery, was back on the job, scowling (I'm only guessin' about that) and making the world safer for right-wing nutjobs everywhere. (According to Fuentes, the accreditation process is fixed and controlled by, um, faculty. [That's seriously paranoid.] Plus the fellow wants to name Irvine's "great park" Nixon Park. [Nixon was a corrupt bastard, kids.])
.    We’re glad he's recuperating. Fuentes, I mean.

.    Math professor Karla Westphal was on hand to put Board President Don Wagner’s feet to the fire for his allegedly inappropriate speechifying (re trustee prayers) at Saddleback College’s scholarship event. Trustee Nancy Padberg was supportive—of Westphal.

.    During his report, Trustee Wagner, who, for several months, has been working with faculty (and administrators and classified—and even a student) on Irvine Valley College’s accreditation problem, went out of his way to praise these faculty. Working with this crowd, he said, has “opened my eyes.”
.    I’ve followed this saga carefully—early on, I was a detractor of the "focus group" idea—and, in my view, there is zero reason to suspect that Don’s remarks were anything but sincere. Later in the evening, an appreciative IVC Senate Prez Wendy G had an opportunity to return the compliment, which she did, or so I’m told.
.    Again, I do hope that members of the IVC community are keeping tabs on the doings of the IVC Accreditation focus group, for they have worked very hard and intelligently and seem to have generally hovered about consensus on some difficult issues (trustee micromanagement, roles and responsibilities of officers & groups, the climate of “despair,” etc.). Their biweekly (i.e., twice a month) meetings will continue for a month or two.
.    If our college manages to avoid accreditation disaster early in 2009, it will be largely because of the efforts of the focus group.
.    Be not oblivious.
.    Not sure what's going on with Saddleback College's more laid-back focus group, which includes trustee Dave Lang and whose motto appears to be, "What, me worry?" Or, again, so I'm told.

.    There was some discussion of the board's curious decision, a few months ago, to adopt a high level of "reserve" funds. Efforts last night to reconsider the matter were obliterated, I believe, by Trustee Fuentes, who made clear his firm opposition to lowering the percentage.
.    (Ten years ago, our district was placed on the state chancellor's "watch" list when our reserves dipped below the required percentage. Nowadays, however, our district is swimming in extra moola, owing to our "basic aid" funding plus high local property values, to which this funding is keyed.)

.    The ATEP thing passed. (Submittal of long range plan to the city [of Tustin].)

.    (Did you know that the city of Tustin, aka the "City of Trees," has peskified this whole ATEP business in part because certain Tustinites embrace a view of county history according to which Irvine Valley College was supposed to be Tustin's community college [to be located where the Tustin Marketplace now sprawls], but then that dastardly Irvine Co. showed up with "free land" along Jeffrey? [According to this yarn, the Irvine Co was in dutch over some seriously hinky deal, but they made that problem go away with this highly opportune giftage.] So, despite ultra-clear state rules to the contrary [proximity issues], Tustin wants its own friggin' community college [at long last!] there along Redhill, and, so, there you are: inveterate stink-eyed Tustinary peevitude!)

.    That’s all I’ve got. --CW


And here, for no particular reason, is one of my favorite semi-obscure tunes, "Here Comes My Baby," done by the Tremeloes in 1967. (The song was composed by Cat Stevens.)

I don't know why I like this version so much. The band is obviously a bunch of idiots. --Still....

Marla's Q & A with Burnett

As you know, last night, at the monthly SOCCCD board meeting, the trustees announced that Tod Burnett has been named as the President of Saddleback College, succeeding Richard McCullough, who retires at the end of this month. (See A New President.)

I had heard from reliable sources that the Presidential search committee recommended three candidates to Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur, but, upon interviewing those three, Mathur exercised his option to go back to the candidate pool to interview candidates not forwarded to him. The word on the street is that Burnett, who admittedly looks good on paper (although he lacks experience running colleges; he's essentially a politician/bureaucrat), was a beneficiary of that late process. I have no confirmation of this however.

The Register’s Marla Jo Fisher has just posted a Q & A with Burnett:

Q: What’s your family status?
A: I’m unmarried, no kids. I have a dog, though, a fawn pug named Rudy. Yes, he’s named after Rudy Guiliani, whom I had just seen that week and thought it was a good name. He’s the cutest pug in the world.

Q: What’s your favorite music?
A: I love all music but especially 80’s music. My favorite band is Tears for Fears.

Q: What’s in your car CD player right now?
A: Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve

Q: What kind of car do you drive?
A: A gray 2007 Acura RDX. I wish I had a hybrid, though.

Q: What do you do for fun?
A: I like all athletics, tennis, hiking, biking, whitewater rafting. I’m a big college football fan, especially the USC Trojans. I’m excited about the Gaucho football team and all the athletics there. I also like movies, theatre and all the arts, weekend trips to wine country and the mountains. I used to have a cabin in Lake Arrowhead for many years.

Q: Do you have a place to live in Orange County?
A: I’m looking for a place, probably in Mission Viejo, Aliso Viejo or Laguna Woods. It’s a 24/7 job so I want to be near campus.

Q: What are you looking forward to, and what makes you nervous about your new job?
A: I’m looking forward most to working directly with the faculty and staff and the community on campus, after working on a statewide level. We all miss that. The traffic makes me anxious.

Q: What one thing would you like students to know about you?
A: That they can come to me for any reason, with anything they want. I’m accessible.

Q: The South Orange County Community College District has been under fire from a variety of sources over the years. Did you have any trepidation about coming here?
A: No, not at all. I think one reason I was selected is because I’m an outside fresh face. I believe everybody is there for the students, hopefully I will be helpful.

Q: What will you be wearing on campus? A suit and tie?
A: Good question. I have to figure out what’s appropriate to the culture of Saddleback College.

Q: What kind of movies do you like?
A: I like a lot of action adventure. My favorite is Indiana Jones. I also like heavy dramas.

Q: What did you think about the new Indiana Jones movie?
A: It was pretty good but not as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark. That was my favorite.

Q: What are you reading right now.
A: I’m reading a business book, “The Long Tail” about Internet and advertising marketing and sales; also, don’t laugh, but “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I love all those fantasy-adventure type books.

Q: What do you think about Orange County TV shows like the OC or Real Housewives of Orange County?
A: I have to say I have never seen them.

(I asked Rebel Girl if she'd read the above Q&A, and all she could say was, "80s music?! Tears for freakin' Fears!?"—something like that. I couldn't get her to move beyond it. Classic Rebel Girl.)

A big victory for Education Alliance

The attempted recall of two school board trustees of the Capo Unified School District (CUSD) was at long last successful last night (see articles below). But the group that achieved this change in CUSD leadership got a substantial portion of its political funding from Education Alliance, a right-wing “back to basics” group with ties to several trustees of the SOCCCD board. (See Education Alliance.) Be on the lookout for hubris.

• LA Times: Capistrano Unifed school board members are recalled:

With the recall Tuesday night of two school trustees in South Orange County, a group of parents, politicians and gadflies claimed their greatest in a series of recent victories: control of the embattled 50,000-student Capistrano Unified School District.

With relatively low turnout, about 70% of voters approved recalling Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke, who between them have 36 years of experience on the board, and replacing them with substitute teacher Sue Palazzo and termed-out Assemblyman Ken Maddox….

• OC Register: New Capo trustees pledge openness:

Capistrano Unified's new trustees-elect, Sue Palazzo and Ken Maddox, on Tuesday pledged an era of open communication and redoubled examination of school affairs. 
“The days of trying to gloss over things are over,” Palazzo said. “At the beginning of my term, it's just going to be truth. People will feel they can talk, raise questions that will be answered truthfully. ”

Maddox and Palazzo will join trustees Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen in creating a five-person bloc on Capistrano's seven-member school board, once election results are certified….
…
Parents skeptical of the new five-person majority will be carefully watching the board's every move.
Anti-recall leaders have cited a link between the CUSD Recall Committee and the Tustin-based Education Alliance, a political action committee that opposes health clinics and bilingual education in schools, advocates for school vouchers, and wants to curb the power and influence of teacher unions. The recall committee received almost half of its political donations in 2006 from the Education Alliance. Maddox, a former state assemblyman who knows Education Alliance co-founder Mark Bucher through Republican circles, said Tuesday he had not received any donations from the alliance, but would not turn down money from the group.
“There are some things Mark and I agree on, and other things we don't,” Maddox said, citing school vouchers as an area of disagreement. 
“What is for sure is that voters can expect to see five unique individuals who bring their talents to the school board. We're not sitting around as a collective trying to formulate one goal. We are just five people wanting to see a change in the district. ”
Palazzo said the widespread rumors that she and the four other trustees were plotting to take over the school board and enact drastic changes at the district level were unfounded and untrue.
"I have been a public school teacher for almost 40 years, and I follow the California state law,” she said….

WHO IS MARK BUCHER?

• According to the OC Republican Party,

Mark has been actively involved in politics since the 1993 Proposition 174 [174 was a "voucher" initiative] school choice campaign, when he acted as the volunteer coordinator for Orange County . His observations during that campaign of the power and influence of the unions in our state led him to found the Education Alliance, a group dedicated to assisting school board candidates who are independent of education unions, as well as authoring, qualifying, and chairing Proposition 226, which would have required unions to receive permission to use their members’ dues for political purposes.

Mark also oversaw the qualification of Proposition 22, the Defense of Marriage Initiative, as well as Proposition 38, a school choice initiative.

Mark obtained his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Biola University , and his Juris Doctorate from Western State University , where he graduated Summa Cum Laude first in his class, and with the additional honor of Valedictorian. Mark lives in Tustin with his wife, Hanne and their 3 children.

• MARK BUCHER's role in "Fuentes-world" (from Fuentes-world, Part 1):

Back in 1993, Bucher, then a businessman, and two pals—James Righeimer and Frank Ury—fought for passage of the “school voucher” initiative (Prop 174). Apparently, when that measure failed, the three amigos founded “Education Alliance,” in Tustin, an organization dedicated to placing “conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, on local school boards” (Cosmo Garvin).

At the time, Frank Ury was a trustee on the Saddleback Valley Unified School District board—having been elected as part of a slate that took out trustee Raghu Mathur in ‘92!—but, owing to Ury’s support of the voucher initiative, he lost in 1996 to an opponent who was heavily financed by the California Teachers Association (CTA), of which, incidentally, Raghu was a member. (CTA is the parent organization of our own Faculty Association.)

A New President for Saddleback College

Marla Jo Fisher’s College Life Blog reports the following:

.....It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but trustees have appointed Tod Burnett, statewide vice chancellor for California community colleges, as the new president of Saddleback College.
.....Burnett will replace Rich McCullough, who’s retiring. In New York City this week at a conference, Burnett, 45, said this morning he plans to start his new job August 1, after finding a place to live and taking a short vacation in Hawaii.
.....An alumnus of Pepperdine, USC and UC Riverside, Burnett said he’s a sports fan who’s looking forward to rooting for the Gauchos. He pledged to keep his door open to students and said he’s excited to be on campus working directly with faculty and students, rather than in Sacramento.
.....Born in West Covina, Burnett said he has family and friends throughout Orange County, and will likely look for a place to live near the campus.
.....While at the system office in Sacramento, Burnett has been responsible for the systemwide strategic plan and overseeing policy initiatives.
.....Burnett, who formerly was deputy appointments secretary to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he wasn’t scared off by bad press over the years about the South Orange County Community College District, which operates Saddleback.
.....“I think one reason I was selected is that I’m a fresh face coming from the outside,” he said. “I believe everybody is there for the students and that’s what matters.”

At the State Chancellor's office website, one finds the following description of Burnett:

.....Dr. Tod A. Burnett was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as Vice Chancellor on January 1, 2006. In this capacity, he coordinates implementation of the California Community Colleges System Strategic Plan and is responsible for the development, formulation, coordination and communication of complex and highly sensitive policy initiatives for the System Office. He is also an Associate Faculty at the University of Phoenix. Prior to joining the Community Colleges System Office, Tod served as Deputy Appointments Secretary for Governor Schwarzenegger where he advised the Governor on making political appointments to hundreds of full and part-time positions in State government.
.....Previously, Tod was Director of State and Local Government Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Christie Todd Whitman and Commissioner on the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan. His private sector experience includes Chief Financial & Operating Officer of the law firm of Gascou, Gemmill & Thornton; Vice President of Eva Gabor International, Ltd.; Assistant Vice President for Union Bank's Merchant Banking Department; and Financial Analyst for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's Capital Markets Group.
.....Tod is a strong proponent of youth leadership education. He served as President of the Board of Directors of California Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership, Inc. (HOBY), a non-profit organization that seeks out, recognizes and develops leadership potential of high school students. In 1999, he was selected among over 5,000 volunteers worldwide as HOBY’s National Volunteer of the Year.
.....Tod holds an Education Doctorate Degree in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science/Administrative Studies from the University of California, Riverside. Tod was born and has lived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area most of his life, except for two years both in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He has resided in the Sacramento area since 2003.

FURTHER INFO, FACTOIDS:

• Evidently, Burnett is not averse to participating in politics, and, for once, they don’t seem to be right-leaning. See his recent endorsement of Democrat Laurette Healey for Assembly.

Those zany sharks!

• WEIRDNESS CONTINUES. There’s been yet another shark incident, this one on the far side of Catalina Island: Shark attacks woman on kayak at Catalina, knocks her off in front of her kids. It occurred Saturday but wasn't reported until last night. A shark knocked a woman off her kayak, but small boats came to her rescue (her family saw the incident from their boat, but they were unable to respond because the boat was anchored). She's OK. (It doesn’t seem quite clear that the shark was “attacking” the woman, although it did knock her over. Some say that sharks can be motivated to "attack" by mere curiosity.) See update.

As you know, yesterday, the Reg reported a shark incident, involving people on an Outrigger, off Laguna Beach. The Sharkster was reported to be "gnarly."

• BURNT MOUNTAINS. The Register has posted a nice photo essay of the burned areas of the Santa Ana Mountains: Photo report: Inside the closed wildfire zone. Check it out.

This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports that:

• Lack of cleanliness in educational facilities hinders learning, according to a national survey of students by APPA, the organization that represents higher education facility managers. In the survey, students ranked cleanliness as the fourth most important building element to influence learning, after noise, air temperature, and lighting. [Gosh, I wonder what a lack of sanity and decency does?]

• Syracuse University adjuncts have approved their first union contract with the university, under which they are receiving gains in pay, health insurance, professional development and procedures for resolving disputes. The union is an affiliate of the New York State United Teachers, which is part of the American Federation of Teachers, which released details on the contract.

• I’ve included some photos from the Reb’s recent adventures on Santa Barbara Island. “It was hot,” she said. So, she says, people tended to stay in the lovely water—with the sea lions. (See photo below.)

Especially Limber Lou.

What's on tap for tomorrow's board meeting?

.....The “agenda outline” for tomorrow’s (June 24) meeting of the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees has now been posted (here (pdf)).
.....The closed session starts at 5:00 p.m.
.....Under "public employee discipline/dismissal/release," the closed session agenda lists four “cases.”
.....It also lists a single “appointment”: “President, Saddleback College.” Does this mean that they’ve hired someone? Maybe so. (Or maybe Chancellor Raghu Mathur is allowing for the mere possibility. Dunno.)
.....There’s the usual union, ATEP, and legal stuff.

OPEN SESSION:

.....The open session is set to start at 6:30.
.....As usual, after some "resolutions," members of the public will be given an opportunity to address the board.
.....Why doncha show up and just point and scream like Donald Sutherland (or, better, Brooke Adams) did at the end of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? They'll let you do it for three whole minutes.

Donald Sutherland: Invasion of the Body Snatchers


.....Among the “consent calendar” items is this:

5.18 SOCCCD: Budget Amendment: Adopt Resolution No. 08-19 to Amend 2007-2008 Restricted General and Community Education Funds : Adopt resolution.

.....—As usual, the public is left sans clue as to what that’s about. I don’t think Raghu fully grasps the spirit of the Ralph M. Brown Act.

Among “general action items”:

6.1 SOCCCD: District Mission and Vision Statements and District-wide Goals 2008-09 (approval)

.....—Have you ever read this stuff? This kind of pseudo-erudite writing—Mathur's kind of shit-hackery—suggests a complete failure to grasp the notion that writing is meant to communicate something. (Naturally, the “agenda outline” does not actually provide the statements. Thanks again, Democracy Boy.)

6.3 SOCCCD: Five Year Construction Plan 2010/11 to 2014/15

6.4 SOCCCD: ATEP: Submittal of Long Range Plan to the City

.....—Looks like something’s brewin’, ATEPwise.

Item 6.9 (Academic Personnel Actions) includes “authorization to establish and announce a faculty position.” Don't know what that's about.

.....I’m gonna miss this meeting. I’ve got tickets to see Alison Krauss and Robert Plant at the Greek. Can somebody please cover for me?
.....Don't all volunteer at once.

T-Bone Burnett, Alison Krauss, & Robert Plant

Some daffy news

.....The two items of news provided below are odd. The first story concerns the U of California's evident intention to disobey a (soon-to-be) new state law designed to protect free-speech minded advisors to school journalism/newspaper programs. (They tend to get fired. Remember Saddleback College's Kathleen Dorantes?)
.....The second story concerns Philadelphia's plan to honor Charles Darwin (as we approach the 150th year since the publication of Origin of Species). That's great, but an organizer of that effort—a Dr. Janet Monge—is quoted (by the New York Times) as saying things that strike me as quite daffy. Judge for yourself.

.....NOPE, WE WON'T BE OBEYING THAT LAW. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed, we learn of a very odd conflict between California legislators and the University of California: Above the Law?:

.....Student newspaper advisers are something of an endangered species these days. They often get caught in the middle when administrators and student journalists clash over content, and in more than a few cases on college campuses in recent years, advisers …have found themselves losing their jobs….
…
.....It was with several recent such controversies in mind, and numerous instances of censorship at high schools in California, that the state’s Legislature overwhelmingly approved legislation this month that would prohibit a college or school district from firing, suspending or otherwise retaliating against an employee for acting to protect a student’s free speech. Last week, with the measure, SB 1370, sailing for passage and a trip to the governor’s office for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hoped-for signature, the University of California quietly revealed its opposition to the bill.
.....In a letter to State Sen. Leland Yee, the legislation’s sponsor, a lobbyist for the university system “respectfully” warned Yee that the university did not expect to abide by the requirement if it was enacted. “The University of California must maintain its ability to correct situations in which a member of its teaching corps or a University employee has failed to comply with academic teaching standards, violated UC policies, broken rules or laws, or misused University resources.” wrote Happy Chastain, senior legislative director for state government relations in the UC president’s office. “Under the provisions of SB 1370, UC is concerned that its ability to act in such circumstances would be restricted and expose the University to frivolous and unwarranted litigation.”
.....The last-minute opposition from UC officials infuriated Yee and other supporters of the bill. Not only did they challenge the university’s logic for fighting the measure, disputing the suggestion that it would restrict its institutions’ ability to punish faculty members who teach inappropriate material in the classroom; more broadly, they also expressed surprise that the university could assert the right not to abide by the law.
…
.....SB 1370 is only the latest piece of legislation aimed at ensuring the speech rights of student journalists. At the core of the effort is 1992’s California Education Code Section 66301, broadly protected the right of college students not to be punished solely “on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that, when engaged in outside a campus of those institutions, is protected from governmental restriction by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution” or California’s own Constitution.
.....In 2006, the California Legislature approved a measure (AB 2581) sponsored by Senator Yee that, in the wake of 2005’s controversial Hosty v. Carter decision, prohibited colleges in the state from censoring student newspapers or exercising “prior restraint” of student speech or the student press.
.....The reason Yee followed up with the pending legislation, SB 1370, said [Adam] Keigwin, his aide, is because campus media advisers are often thrust into the position of defending (or not defending) the student journalists whose work they oversee. If campus administrators can readily dismiss a faculty or staff member who stands up for student journalists, and replace him or her with someone who won’t, Yee asserts, the 2006 legislation can be seriously undermined.
.....“Since administrators are unable [under AB2851] to exercise prior restraint with regard to a student publication, they lean on advisers to do what they legally cannot,” said Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, which supports the Yee measure. “When advisers refuse, they are punished because administrators know they will face no legal consequences. SB 1370 is necessary to close this gaping loophole in the law.”
…
.....Last Monday, on the day that the state Assembly approved Yee’s legislation, the University of California — for the first time, according to aides to Yee — expressed its opposition to the measure. In the letter to Yee, Chastain noted that the university “feels strongly about academic and speech freedoms,” but argued that existing laws and university policies “already afford substantial freedom of speech protections for students and faculty.” The fact that the issue raised by the proposed legislation may not be an issue at UC, Chastain suggests, is “evidenced, in part, by our inability to identify a single example of the University of California acting to discipline employees for supporting the free speech of University students.”
…
.....What would happen, the university suggested, if “during delivery of a course in mathematics, a student uses class time to promote opinions unrelated to mathematics or the course materials, and ... the instructor of record not only allows this behavior to persist, but also reinforces the student’s beliefs in class.” In such a case, in which “the course is not being taught according to the curriculum approved by the University,” Chastain wrote, UC must retain “the right to take appropriate measures to ensure that our standards and policies are upheld.”
.....Supporters of the media adviser law were surprised by the last-minute nature of the university’s opposition ("It came totally out of the blue,” said Keigwin, “on the day after it passed the second house — that’s just not the way you do things") and by some of its assertions. They argued, for instance, that the example cited in Chastain’s letter is an illegitimate comparison, because the university would have every right to punish a faculty member who is not teaching the curriculum.
.....“The letter cites as a hypothetical example a math instructor who allowed a student to promote opinions unrelated to the subject during class time, suggesting that under the law, the university would be prohibited from punishing the teacher for tolerating the disruptive student speech,” [Mark] Goodman, the Kent State ... [Chair of Scholastic Journalism], wrote in a post on the blog of the Center for Scholastic Journalism. “Of course, the letter never explains why the University believes that off-topic student speech in the classroom would be protected by the law in the first place, a requirement for the university employee protections of the bill to come into play.”
.....In addition, just because UC has not punished a media adviser or other employee for protecting the free speech rights of students does not mean that university employees do not feel constrained and do not need protection, said Keigwin, the Yee spokesman. The Student Press Law Center has received numerous complaints in recent years about free speech being impaired at UC campuses, and since Yee introduced his bill, his office has received complaints about as many as a dozen cases “where the adviser felt some pressure to steer the paper in a certain way,” said Keigwin. “Speech has still been squelced at the college level.”
.....More fundamentally, Goodman and others are perplexed by the university’s assertion that it would not be obliged to abide by SB 1370 should it become law. In an e-mail message late Sunday, a UC spokesman, Brad Hayward, said that the university’s Constitutional status gives it “discretion in implementing state law.... In this particular case, the bill proposes to amend Section 66301 of the California Education Code, which is within Part 40 of the Education Code. Another section of Part 40, Section 67400, states, “No provision of [Part 40] shall apply to the University of California except to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make that provision applicable.”
.....In this case, Hayward and Chastain warn, the regents do not plan to let the media adviser provision apply if it should become law.
.....How is it that the university sees itself as not being subject to the media advisers’ legislation but bound, presumably, by the underlying free speech legislation on which it is based? Goodman asked. “I don’t see a legal distinction between one and the other. Why do they think this one is problematic when the underlying statute is not?”….

.....PHILADELPHIA TO HONOR DARWIN. In this morning’s New York Times: Philadelphia Set to Honor Darwin and Evolution:

.....Nine academic, scientific and cultural institutions around the city are holding a Year of Evolution, a series of exhibitions, seminars and lectures to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin next February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, “The Origin of Species.”
.....Events will include a talk by John E. Jones III, a federal judge who ruled in 2005 that teaching intelligent design — the belief that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must be the work of a higher power rather than of evolution — in public school science classes was unconstitutional.
.....The intent of the citywide event, said Janet M. Monge, one of the organizers, is to increase public understanding of evolution and science in general at a time when polls show that a majority of Americans believe God created man in his present form and that the number of people who accept the evolutionary model of human origins is declining.
.....“The strengths and weaknesses of evolution are the strengths and weaknesses of science,” said Dr. Monge, the curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. “You don’t get answers.” [?]
.....She said the Philadelphia events were also intended to encourage people to consider the evolutionary alternative to the biblical account of the origins of man, as represented by the new Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., a $35 million institution that has attracted more than 400,000 visitors since it opened in May 2007.
.....Ken Ham, the president of the Creation Museum, said he expected to see more pro-evolution events as the Darwin anniversary approaches. Mr. Ham said that in response his museum was planning its own exhibits on the origins of life.
.....“The culture war is definitely heating up,” he said.
…
.....Creationists and their allies in the intelligent design movement suffered a setback when Judge Jones rejected a plan by the school board in Dover, Pa., to teach their ideas. Judge Jones sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and others who sued the school board, arguing that intelligent design was a religious rather than scientific concept and had no place in science classes….

.....I do not object to Monge's statement (according to the Times) that “The strengths and weaknesses of evolution are the strengths and weaknesses of science.” That makes sense. But she is also quoted as saying, "You don’t get answers.”
.....In the sciences?
.....I just don't understand that remark. It is certainly true that scientific theories do not answer all questions that one might have. This is perfectly understood by scientists. But one would never express this truism by saying that science provides no answers.
.....Perhaps the point is that scientific theories are never proved in a strong, deductive sense. A good theory, scientists tell us, is highly probable, not proved. ("You can disprove a theory, but you can't prove one," scientists often say.) But that means that science at times provides highly probable answers. That is, it provides answers.
.....Also (but less worrisome), why does Monge elevate Creationism as she seems to, for she describes evolution as the "alternative" view to Creationism. But surely the (at most) "alternative" view is Creationism, not Evolution. Backed by overwhelming evidence and reasons, scientists teach that evolution occurs—largely through the mechanism of Darwinian natural selection—and this explains much about what we observe in the natural world. People who fail to understand the standards of science (e.g., the importance of simplicity, fruitfulness, predictive power, etc.) might suppose that Creationism offers a good alternative explanation of the facts. Well, yes, it is a kind of alternative theory that in some sense can explain the facts. But, if so, it is also a very poor theory (e.g., it falsely implies or holds that the Earth is but a few thousand years old; it suggests that organisms have no design flaws—a perfect designer will produce a perfect design—but plainly some do). More importantly, it is decidedly inferior to "evolutionary" theory as it is now understood. (Again, think of simplicity, predictive power.)
.....Evolution is the probable truth about things. Creationism is the wacky "alternative" view. In truth, even calling it an "alternative" theory elevates it groundlessly. It's an alternative scientific theory like homeopathy is an "alternative" medicine. That is, it's an alternative only among the ignorant or goofy.
.....My main beef, though, is with the "don't get answers" malarkey. Maybe the reporter screwed up. Somebody sure did.

WHITE SHARK. This was posted at the OC Reg just a couple of hours ago: Large great white shark follows Outriggers about a mile offshore in Laguna. Crazy, man.

.....Sunny says "hey."