Sprite visits

Inexplicably, Bohrstein asks what kind of beer Sprite was examining. It was Bass, though the hairy little guy was actually uninterested in it. At left is a shot of the booze I offered my friends last night at our very smallish get-together preceding their travels to Italy next week. I favor the Pilsner Urquel. The tequila was for my friend. Good stuff, I'm told.

John Williams' well-traveled low road

• SADDLEBACK'S NEW PRESIDENT. I keep running into folks who tell me that Saddleback College's new president, Todd Burnett, just doesn't listen to people. Nope (they say), he's got it all figured out.

As you know, the fellow, while impressive (if being Arnold's appointment secretary is impressive), has no experience as a college administrator (he's worked with policies a lot). So you'd think that he'd be WAY open to advice. Well, he is, but only if he gives it. (This reminds me of something we used to say in grad school: "He who enters with bombast exits with kicked ass.")

Perhaps some of you out there have more favorable stories to tell about the fellow? Do tell!

Prez Todd Burnett consults with small bird:


• Q: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? A: ORLANDO. In my recent report on the August meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, I mentioned trustee Nancy Padberg's latest effort to reveal trustee excess. This usually means that she's zeroing in on John Williams' expensive junketeering, tie-clip hoarding, and the like. You'll recall that, in the past, Padberg has singled out Williams' trips to Orlando, Florida, on the district's dime—for conferences that, according to the Nance, are no more informative or educational than those available to Williams here in the Golden State.

But I forgot to mention that Williams has a brother in Orlando—you know, a brother he'd like to visit without having to bother with those pesky travel expenses. For a dozen years now, various sources close to Williams have told me that he's a perky kinda guy. Evidently, he's shamelessly perky.

These local "fiscal conservatives" are really something, aren't they?

• CHRISTENSEN V. WILLIAMS. Could someone please enlighten me about this Carl Christensen fellow who's running against Williams for the Mission Viejo board seat? I do believe that he is a Saddleback College professor who retired in 1999. Evidently, he was the president of the Faculty Association one or two hundred years ago.

For a guy running for SOCCCD trustee, Carl Christensen is stunningly clueless. A few months ago, he showed up at a board meeting carping about the dearth of post-WW II history classes offered at Saddleback College. That might be a real issue—I have no idea—but surely it is less pressing than forty or fifty others that even Walter Flosser could name.

On his blog, Christensen inveighs against the exploitation of part-timers and the unfortunate full-time/part-time ratio at the colleges. Well, that's great, but he seemed utterly unaware of the district's Spring hiring of 38 new full-time faculty—which must have done wonders for that ratio—until, that is, I advised him to get up to speed by reading DtB.

His blog does not mention our accreditation problem. Nor does it mention the endless expense of getting ATEP off the ground. It doesn't mention the board's imposing a universally despised Chancellor upon the district community. Until others clued him in, Christensen was unaware of the district's "50% Law" problem.

Why so clueless? Is Tom Fuentes his advisor?

Three weeks ago, he did report something interesting:

I received a telephone call from someone associated with the SOCCCD. In an effort to act as a mediator the person informed me that an incumbent on the Board ... had found my Sample Ballot Statement ... to be "inflammatory". Therefore the incumbent Board member would likely encumber me with the legal fees of a lawsuit unless I removed the Sample Ballot Statement before the deadline.... I told the mediator that I appreciated his efforts to resolve the issue.

I reread Christensen's "statement" and it is about as inflammatory as a cat turd. (I quote it in full at the end of this post, for those who enjoy turd-reading.)

The "incumbent" that Christensen is referring to would have to be John Williams. (Um, who else?) So, evidently, the mysterious "mediator" was telling Christensen that Williams would pursue an expensive-to-Christensen lawsuit over Christensen's "inflammatory" campaign statement that, in truth, is plainly uninflammatory ("flammatory," I guess).

Clueless Carl doesn't seem to know it, but the phone call was a dirty campaign trick.

Naturally, I don't know whether a Williams shill (or indeed anyone) made a call to Christensen about this supposed lawsuit. But it would be just like Williams to arrange something like that.

I first encountered Williams' Karl Rovian side back in 1996, even before he and three others used a misleading and homophobic flier to get elected. In the mid-90s, John and his pals wrote a series of highly truth-challenged letters about then-trustee Harriett Walther and her supposed board misconduct. Walther had a technical and inadvertent conflict-of-interest problem re a board vote granting a tiny contract to the ACCT. Williams and Co. jumped on that and blew it up into absurdly mammoth proportions. You'd swear she'd been receiving valuable cash prizes in manilla folders down in the basement of the Watergate Hotel. I recall being stunned by the bold dishonesty and ruthlessness of that effort. (See the CFPPC letter re Walther's violation at the end of this post.)

(And I won't even go into Williams' infamous attempted secret deal with two IVC administrators back in 1997. I mean, I won't even mention how this inspired a judge to refer to the board's "persistent and defiant misconduct.")

Carl, if you are reading this, there are two things you need to know about John Williams. First, he's stupid. Second, behind his boyish demeanor and his genuine "golly, I was a bailiff and I shur dew luv sports" blather is a guy who often and easily takes the low road. 

He's our crafty cretin, our devious dunderhead, our Napoleon of nincompoops.

Christensen's "inflammatory" campaign statement:

"Formerly a president of the SOCCCD Faculty Association, I retired as a full time Saddleback instructor after 28 years. I believe students should have the quality teaching of carefully selected full time staff. [FLAME!] I believe current emphasis on reducing costs by hiring part timers is detrimental to quality teaching.

Also, Saddleback College offers only one section of US History Since World War II as compared to offering 32 sections of American history dealing primarily or exclusively with American history before World War II. [IT'S A VERITABLE HOLOCAUST!] The argument for limiting classroom access to the recent past is that not enough time has elapsed since World War II for that era to have been analyzed. However, when that one section fills, many students are being denied classroom access to post-World War II events which are the most important events in creating the present world. What is common knowledge to their parents and grandparents essentially remains a mystery to Saddleback students.

I was a sergeant in the Korean War. [OH, THE HUMANITY!] I worked two fire seasons as a Forest Fire Truck Driver for the California Division of Forestry. Prior to Saddleback I taught full time for six years at Mount San Antonio College.

• • •

Re the Walther "violation":

The California Fair Political Practices Commission sent a "Case Closure Memorandum" to Trustee Harriett Walther concerning the charge that she had violated "conflict of interest" provisions. (5/3/95)

The memorandum ends with a paragraph that makes clear that Walther's violation was merely technical and insubstantial (see below).

The faculty union--on behalf of Frogue, Williams, Fortune and Davis--secured this document and quoted from it selectively and deceptively in fliers and ads during the 1996 trustees' campaign. Williams did the same in "letters to the editor."

What follows is the key section of the memo that the union conveniently failed to reveal in "exposing" the existence of the CFPPC document:

However, we have determined that prosecution for this violation is not warranted based on several mitigating factors which include: 1) the vote to approve the ACCT contract was unanimous and apparently would have been approved without Ms. Walther's vote; 2) it appears that Ms. Walther did not believe that she had a conflict of interest with regard to the ACCT contract, and had she known, it appears she would have abstained from the decision; 3) as a telephone research consultant, she did not stand to gain any commission or bonus as a result of the contract; 4) all other members of the SCCD involved in the ACCT contract were informed by Ms. Walther that she had been employed by ACCT, and 5) Ms. Walther has no prior enforcement history with the Commission.

The joy of bringing students to big issues, philosophy-style

Well, the first week of the semester is over, and it’s been pretty great. It’s nice to get back to teaching.

In class this week, I’ve explained the nature of philosophical issues, emphasizing philosophy’s focus on the highly fundamental and abstract—unavoidable issues for those with curiosity and a desire to get to the bottom of things.

Like many instructors, I employ “Blackboard,” software that allows us to anchor our courses in websites that contain announcement pages, readings, crucial course information (the syllabus, etc.), assignments, student grades, and just about anything you can think of.

It’s pretty freaking terrific.

And so, this morning, on my philosophy Blackboard sites, I “announced” an interesting book review that I found in yesterday’s New York Times. My announcement is as follows:

Philosophy can be about anything, and so it can be about “values.” We step back from the bigger world of nations and civilizations and inevitably puzzle at differences and tensions that continually arise there. And this brings us to the difficult question of whether and how there can be “absolute” or “objective” values.

Interestingly, two important 20th Century writers, one a leftist (socialist), the other a rightist (conservative), agreed on rejection of moral relativism. Or so says David Lebedoff, author of The Same Man. The book was reviewed in yesterday’s New York Times: Two of a Kind:

…[George] Orwell conjured up the nightmarish dystopia of “1984.” [Evelyn] Waugh’s best-known work, “Brideshead Revisited,” was a reverie about a vanished age of Oxford privilege, titled Catholic families, large country houses and fastidious conscience. Orwell was tall, gaunt and self-mortifying, a socialist with an affinity for mineworkers and tramps. Waugh was a short, plump, florid social climber and a proud reactionary.... Orwell fought on the loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. Waugh announced, “If I were a Spaniard I should be fighting for General Franco.” … Orwell thought “good prose is like a window pane,” forceful and direct. Waugh was an elaborate stylist whose prose ranged from the dryly ironical to the richly ornamented and rhetorical. Orwell was solitary and fiercely earnest. Waugh was convivial and brutally funny. And, perhaps most important, Orwell was a secularist whose greatest fear was the emergence of Big Brother in this world. Waugh was a Roman Catholic convert whose greatest hope lay with God in the next.
…
Dissimilar though their causes may have been, Orwell and Waugh were both anchored by “a hatred of moral relativism”; that, Lebedoff claims, is what set the two men apart from their contemporaries. Yet in stressing this similarity, the author elides [omits] a deeper difference. Although Waugh despaired about the future, he saw the Catholic Church as an enduring bulwark against chaos. His moral order was backed by divine authority. Orwell too was a passionate believer in objective truth, including moral truth. But unlike Waugh, Orwell did not attribute transcendent power to the truth; indeed, he feared that it might ultimately prove impotent in history. Hence his terrifying vision in “1984” of a future of totalitarian sadism, of “a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

...The two men admired each other—up to a point. Orwell thought Waugh was about as good as a novelist could be while holding “untenable” beliefs. “One cannot really be Catholic & grown up,” he wrote. Waugh thought Orwell was as good as a thinker could be while neglecting ­nine-tenths of reality: the supernatural part. He wrote to Orwell apropos of “1984” that “men who love a crucified God need never think of torture as all-powerful.”….

—I do hope students read these things. Some do, I’m sure. And what could be better than thinking about the likes of Waugh and Orwell viewing the world and its struggles essentially in the same way! How does our own thinking compare to theirs?

In class, I often note that those on both ends of the political spectrum do seem to approach the world as moral objectivists—people who suppose that there exists some set of values that apply equally to all of humanity. It is obvious that conservatives do: the more primitive among them often seem to view the beliefs and practices of foreign cultures essentially as 16th Century Europeans (or late 19th Century Americans) did.

Perhaps it is less obvious that leftists/liberals are often entrenched objectivists as well, for surely a willingness to wield “human rights” across cultures assumes that there is some objective standard of conduct and moral belief to which people around the world may appeal! (Hilary Clinton is big on "human rights.")

But I am a philosopher. And so I ask, “OK, what justifies that idea?” I mean, how is this supposed to work exactly? Is it that those nasty cultures that pursue female genital mutilation and the like are somehow blind to facts? Do they lack reason? Are their brains damaged? Did God neglect to send them a Moses?

These ideas are implausible.

OK, all you right-wingers out there. Know this. I routinely piss off leftists too.

• • •

One kind of “objectivist” are those who favor including creationism in the curriculum, which involves the assumption that the Bible is an objective (universally applicable) account of history/science. McCain's running mate Sarah Palin seems to be in this category: 'Creation science' enters the race

Hilary Clinton and the Human Rights Campaign

• • •

Don't get me wrong. I'm as horrified by female genital mutilation as anybody. But when we base our philosophies on assumptions, we need to identify them and ask whether we can defend them. Philosophy can be very harsh to what Orwell called our “smelly little orthodoxies."

It can be harsh on the fragrant ones too.

• • •

I offer a "version" of this post that quickly diverges into philosophy on OC Blue Philosopher.

Pesky critters

We seem to have our share of pesky critters here in Orange County. I like 'em.



Sea Lions sink boat in Newport Harbor

Tom Fuentes' tiny town

A Republican event?

According to the local GOP, the OC is “America’s most Republican County!”

Yeah, whatever. Occasionally, I visit the OC GOP website, ‘cause there’s no telling what you’ll find there. I mean, these people gather to listen to Rush Limbaugh! Yeah, and some of these same bozos wanted to name Irvine’s Great Park the "Richard M. Nixon" Park. Plus they wanted to name ATEP the “Ronald Reagan Technology and Jelly Bean Village.” I kid you not. (Well, OK, I made up the "village" part.)

At the website, under “events,” I found the usual meetings, fundraisers, parties, and whatnot. Every one of these events has some connection to, well, Republicans, which makes sense.

But what about this one?

9/11 Commemoration Ceremony
Keynote Speaker: Irvine Police Chief David L. Maggard, Jr.

Where: Irvine Valley College Performing Arts Center

Please join the IVC community in commemorating the seventh anniversary of 9/11 with keynote speaker, Irvine Police Chief David L. Maggard, Jr. and Master of Ceremonies Tom Fuentes, Chairman Emeritus, Republican Party of Orange County. During the ceremony, there will be a moment of silence in commemoration of the lives lost on this day. Let us never forget our loss.

Somebody explain this to me. Is this a “Republican” event? Is that the idea?

Gotta Clue?

Sometimes the first week of classes is a lot like the classic Parker Brothers board game, CLUE.

You know the one where players try to figure out whodunnit where and with what.

People drop by our office brandishing their latest theories: Miss Scarlet in the ballroom with a candlestick? they ask. Colonel Mustard in the hallway with a holepuncher? The biologist in the classroom with the cadaver? The consultant in the PAC with the report? The student in the parking lot with the iPod? Professor Plum at ATEP with the paper shredder?

Maybe it's just the back-to-school adrenaline kicking in. Maybe it's something more.

We don't really know, but someone out there must. Do tell.

Tonight's board meeting: a pleasant coma

Perhaps owing to Tom Fuentes’ absence, tonight’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees was pleasant. Fuentes, we were told, was at the hospital “finishing up” the process related to his liver transplant. (The new student trustee was also absent—something about minor injuries sustained in an auto accident.)

As near as I could tell, nothing of interest was reported from the board’s closed session.

As you know, tonight, the board was slated to “reaffirm” its “commitment to holding invocations at Board meetings” (item 6.3). Inevitably, therefore, Saddleback College Math professor Carla Westphal arrived to object, which she did during her 3 minutes near the start of the meeting. The board did not respond to her points in any way.

Trustee reports were unremarkable. John Williams praised the Chancellor’s “opening session” (last Tuesday), and others joined him. Trustee Dave Lang made a point of praising various individuals for their efforts on behalf of Saddleback College’s accreditation. Lang also mentioned that he is running for reelection.

During his report, Chancellor Mathur highlighted the good news concerning enrollments, which, district-wide, are up about 10% (they’re way up at IVC). Mathur also reported that, according to recent calculations, for last year, instructional spending was at 51.36%, and thus it was above the 50% line mandated by state law. As you know, for years, Mathur had allowed the district to drift steadily downward in its proportion of instructional spending. Disaster was barely averted by various measures, including the hiring of 38 or so new full-time faculty last Spring.

Padberg later requested a report of this entire 50% FUBAR. Evidently, she was not satisfied with Mathur’s “gosh we made it” speech.

Williams, that staunch Republican, has evidently been bitten by the green bug, for he requested a report about the possibility of more solar panels and “wind farms” at the colleges. He made a point of noting that he got this clever idea before he saw last week’s presentation on “sustainability.”

John’s not bright.

Padberg, no doubt thinking of Williams, requested a report that details all trustee expenses. Voters should know, she said, how much trustees cost the taxpayer. This report, she added, should be ready in September, just before the election.

She smiled.

(You’ll recall that Williams was Padberg's boss until a couple of years ago. He fired her.)

Tonight’s “discussion topic” was “online degree and certificate programs.” The two VPIs and the new technology guy gave predictable rah-rah presentations about the explosive growth of online instruction. They noted that our colleges have been increasing online offerings at a high rate. They made a point of ignoring the fact that, nevertheless, compared to other districts, we are moving slowly.


In the middle of the presentation, Marcia’s purse suddenly emitted the sound of Ray Charles singing “Georgia.” This went on for maybe 30 seconds. As near as I could tell, Marcia was wrestling with her purse somewhere under her chair. When Ray was finally strangled, she emerged, smiling.

In the course of the "online" discussion, it was revealed that, sometimes, UCI calls up to ask about whether and how our courses are taught in an online configuration. According to Rajen, such calls generate anxiety among faculty concerning “articulation.”

I hate when people talk about us as though we were mental patients.

At one point, Mathur put out a call for “discussion topics” for the board. He made a point of including the “college community” in this request.

I cannot believe that he wasn’t forced to do that.

Let’s take him up on it! Maybe the academic senates can work on this?

Mathur and Padberg sniped at each other over the cost of a conference that some trustee indicated he wanted to attend. (Mathur doesn’t seem to understand that, if he hates a trustee, he should seek to disguise the fact.)

The final budget was adopted. Nancy Padberg expressed concern that “basic aid” money is being distributed to the two colleges equally despite Saddleback’s having twice as many students as IVC. Mathur, once again making his hatred of Padberg plain, flatly denied that the money is distributed in that fashion. Lang seemed to say that there is a process now in place for allocating basic aid money, and it is very collaborative and successful, etc.

We finally got to the item about naming the Health Sciences Building the “Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room.” Actually, the item was: should Mathur ask Nancy Reagan whether that would be OK?

There was no discussion. The item passed unanimously. I looked around the room. I do believe that everyone was in a coma.

Padberg and Milchiker actually managed to table the “invocation” item. There was no discussion.

Well, that was about it.

Good vibes at Irvine Valley College

Enrollments are way up; students are all smiles.

The “Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room”?

Two items popped up when I perused the agenda for tonight’s board meeting:

6.2 SOCCCD: Naming of Health Sciences Building, Room 145,
Saddleback College

Approve giving direction to Chancellor to communicate with Mrs. Ronald
Reagan to seek permission for naming Health Sciences Building, Room
145, The Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room.

6.3 SOCCCD: Invocation

Approve reaffirmation of Board of Trustees commitment to holding
invocations at Board meetings and District functions, and to establish a
policy for members of the community to offer those invocations.

The open session begins at 6:30—at the “Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room.”

Good grief.

Dissent's "first day" video

Rebel Girl and I check out the new Business Sciences and Technology Innovation Center.

Feels Like the First Day!

Just in case you think that we at DISSENT get moody—take a look at the folks over at Rate Your Students.com

Jeesh!

excerpt:

Dear Amanda,

Thank you sooooo much for e-mailing me several times over the summer. I am very glad that you took the time to read my "Auto Reply" that indicates that I won't be responding to fall semester e-mails until late August. Did you know that I don't get paid in the summer and therefore don't get paid to answer your e-mail until my paycheck starts up again? Silly me, for thinking that you would read the message (since you got one for each of your seven poorly spelled, all caps e-mails).

I know that your Previous Proffie was very understanding of your special circumstances, how kind of you to note that in your e-mails. However, I expect my students to show up to class, on time—particularly for the first week of class. I know how much you want to be in my class....you've bought the books, you want me to send you notes and handouts, you're "ready and excited to learn" in my class. What I cannot understand is why you would think it's OK to miss the entire first week of a 5 unit class. I know you think that since you've e-mailed me many times explaining how you are special and bought your plane tickets to Aruba a year ago, but you see I have 80 other special individuals (plus waitlisted students and crashers) who will be in class on the first day with their books, picking up their handouts and actually taking their own notes during the first week that you "will miss but hope it doesn't impact your grade."

Well, my dear wonderful would-be student, it won't impact your grade. You see, you'll be dropped from my roster on the first day of class because you aren't there. I'm so sorry. I know that your life will be turned upside down because I don't understand how special you are. I know your Previous Proffie really went out of his way to not only let you miss class for a vacation last fall, but also provided you with his Powerpoint files and let you "make up the missed time" in his office hours. However, I don't use Powerpoint and use my office hours as a way to clarify and augment my lectures, not repeat them for absentee students. Clearly I am not as student-oriented as Previous Proffie because I don't realize how special you are and what an ASSet you'll be for my class this fall. I know, it's a shortcoming that I must work on within myself.

I sincerely wish you well in your future academic endeavors. Should you want to enroll in my spring class, please do so and plan on showing up on Day 1 and Every Day of class after that.

Some attitude, huh? Click here for more if you want it.

As for herself, Rebel Girl is looking forward to the first day, as always. She is a bit of a Girl Scout that way. Besides, she scored a brand-new classroom in the BST building. (By the way, we're all calling the building Beefsteak for short.) She has already peeked at it—amazing digs. We should all have such clasrooms. Expect a photo spread on the new classroom—and, of course, the old classrooms for contrast and conversation.

See you at the xerox machine!

And now for something completely different...

OK, I know this video is 5 months old, but I've never seen it and so, I figure, lots of you have never seen it either. The BASTARD FAIRIES are a pair of lunatics (a Native American and an Englishman in LA) who've made lots of inspired videos. It's all new to me, but I live in a cave. Here we find them doing an old Melanie song--with the help of about twenty ukulele players.

Looks and sounds great to me.

I'm told that this next one, featuring an 8-year-old girl trashing O'Reilly, is among their classics:

The coolest 8-year-old in the world talks about O'Reilly

American Prayer: "when you get to the top of the mountain, will you tell me what you see?"

Maybe you can score better than Rebel Girl did when she tried to identify the participants in this music video.

Some people will be in Denver this week. Rebel Girl will be in her classroom, another kind of convention, casting her own kind of vote.

Tom Fuentes' deceptive candidate statement

Have you read Tom Fuentes’ candidate statement? (He’s running for reelection as SOCCCD board member, Area 6.)

Since the SOCCCD is, after all, a college district, I thought it would be appropriate to subject Tom’s little essay to some close reading and analysis—you know, like we do at the colleges!

Tom starts off by invoking the memory of Ronald Reagan:

Ronald Reagan broke ground for the South Orange County Community College District, forty years ago. As your Trustee, I have sought to utilize his conservative values and principles to guide our District. ¶ As a result, our District is financially solvent and our campuses are safe for our students.

We critical thinking instructors discourage this “brownie points by association” tactic, of course, since it amounts to the ringing of a Pavlovian bell. In this case, drool is replaced with the voting-for-Tom reflex.

Also, Tom here states that his (allegedly Reaganesque) guidance has resulted in campus safety and financial solvency. In logic, we call this sort of statement, um, a "statement." Statements that are not obviously true need support, but Tom offers none. In fact, our campuses were very safe before Tom arrived. Our district is financially solvent largely owing to our being a “basic aid” district—a district that receives a portion of local property taxes, and, as you know, the value of local property has been very high. Tom is no more responsible for our basic aid funding than any other trustee.

Modern classroom technology and instructional equipment have been implemented by the prudent expenditure of limited funds. Enrollment has increased and the renovation and construction of college buildings have been achieved without new taxpayer burdens of bond measures.

Oops! One doesn’t “implement” equipment, does one? Still, we know what Tom meant.

Tom implies that the district has “limited funds,” but, in truth, our district is nearly unique in the state in that, owing to its basic aid funding, it has been swimming in dough for years—a circumstances that yields much resentment throughout the state’s community college system.

It is true, of course, that the district has not pursued bond measures, but that is because its basic aid funding makes such measures unnecessary. In truth, SOCCCD is a relatively rich district, and thus it spends an unusually large amount of taxpayer money. Tom is trying to pull a fast one here.

Course offerings for students have grown tremendously with online classes. A Master Plan for education and facilities is in place. Faculty and staff are held accountable for student success. As a consequence, our District has achieved high transfer and job placement rates for our students.

The claim about course offerings seems a little confused (# of course offerings and # of students [FTES] are distinct). In fact, in recent years, our colleges have seen zero growth except for online classes, which are growing faster in many other districts. (And are online courses always a good idea? That’s hard to say.)

Yes, we have a Master Plan, but is it any good? Chancellor Mathur’s fingerprints are all over it.

Is Tom implying that, under his guidance, faculty and staff are held more accountable for student success? How so? What has changed re accountability during the Fuentes era? Nothing that I can see. ("Student Learning Outcomes" are mandated by the state and by the accreditors, not by trustees. Besides, there is no evidence that they have yielded anything beyond annoyance.)

In any case, Tom asserts specifically that our colleges’ high transfer rates are the “consequence” of his holding faculty and staff accountable. But, again, how has Tom or the board affected accountability? What is supposed to be the mechanism? I am completely at a loss to explain why Tom thinks that he is responsible for our high transfer rates.

And why does Tom repeatedly imply that he is the leader of the board? With the exception of newbie Bill Jay, Tom Fuentes is the only trustee who has not served as President of the board (at one time or another).

(Now, in fact, I do think that, owing to his political stature as the former chair of the OC GOP, Tom does wield unusual influence among our Republican trustees, some of whom are politically ambitious. But one can easily argue that such "leadership" is a species of corruption.)

Well, there you are. I give 'im a C-

Arellano's Orange County history

Young Sarah

She'll be starting kindergarten in a week or two. Wasn't she, like, a baby not long ago?!



The 5th photo is Natalie, who's approaching her first birthday. Next, Natalie, right, with her twin, Catherine; and mom.
Finally, Adam and Sarah "reading" the Cat in the Hat on my parents' iMac.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "long live life"

From this week's New Yorker, a poem by Mamoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet who died earlier this month.

Here the Birds’ Journey Ends

Here the birds’ journey ends, our journey, the journey of words,

and after us there will be a horizon for the new birds.

We are the ones who forge the sky’s copper, the sky that will carve roads

after us and make amends with our names above the distant cloud slopes.

Soon we will descend the widow’s descent in the memory fields

and raise our tent to the final winds: blow, for the poem to live, and blow

on the poem’s road. After us, the plants will grow and grow

over roads only we have walked and our obstinate steps inaugurated.

And we will etch on the final rocks, “Long live life, long live life,”

and fall into ourselves. And after us there’ll be a horizon for the new birds.

(Translated, from the Arabic, by Fady Joudah.)

Fuentes trumpets

Jubal over on OC Blog notes a brief mention of Tom Fuentes’ recent campaign event (Rick Rieff On Fuentes Campaign Event) in this week’s OC Business Journal:

It was almost like old times—a couple of hundred loyalists enjoying drinks and cigars at the Balboa Bay Club, conservative stalwart Bruce Herschensohn signing books and Tom Fuentes at the center of it all. The event launched Fuentes' re-election campaign for trustee of the South Orange County Community College District, job enough these days for the once-powerful chairman of OC's Republican Party. The old lion held court, told stories, trumpeted the college district's fiscal conservatism and blamed the GOP's woes on power brokers who value "money" more than "people" or "ideas." But a slowed Fuentes was gracious, and more philosophical than combative. He did not partake of the libations, a small price to pay, he said, for his new liver: An encounter with cancer "makes you realize what's really important."

For some reason, Tom chose not to trumpet our district's equally outstanding "accreditation brinksmanship" or its "50% Law cluelessness." And then there's its remarkably persistent "hostility, fear, and despair."

"Liver Boy"?

On Sunday, tylerh posted about the SOCCCD on OC Blog: Saddleback and Irvine Valley College Likely to Keep Accreditation.

Mr. T, a regular contributor to the popular conservative blog, noted that “Saddleback's and IVC's accreditation status has become an issue for this year's South OC Community College District (SOCCD) [sic] races.” Those opposed to the reelection of Tom Fuentes and Dave Lang, he said, are raising the “bogey man” of accreditation loss.

His retort: that’s “unlikely.”

Mining for anything to bolster his position, T found a chirpy remark in the Saddleback College Accred report: “the college and the district have made great strides in responding to the recommendations of the visiting teams....”

“This,” he announced, “is not the tone of a committee that intends to administer the educational equivalent of the death penalty.”

Tylerh is ignoring a crucial fact: that the Accreds have declared that they are no longer satisfied with improvement. All issues must be resolved once and for all by October, or else.

T referred readers to my post for a “different view” on the accrediting issue. I wrote that I am not as interested in identifying the odds of non-accreditation as in the reasons our colleges' accreditation was jeopardized in the first place. I explained that Mr. Fuentes is a major reason. That's why he should not be reelected.

T seems uninterested in such subtleties.

Tylerh’s post has received only three comments. On Tuesday, a “conservative prof” took the opportunity to slam SLOs (one of the Accreds’ recommendations to Saddleback College concerned SLOs).

Then someone named “Missy” opined as follows:

It's true that there's been some improvement, but the relationship the board and the chancellor have with the staff is still horrible. Morale among staff members is extremely low. ¶ If this were a K-12 district rather than a CCD there would be much greater public scrutiny and a recall might have been launched by now. ¶ Yes, improvement has been made. But only because there was nowhere to go but up.

Naturally, one of OC Blog’s conservative readers responded to Missy by declaring that “around these parts we don't launch recalls against conservative elected leaders like Tom Fuentes who stand up to liberal union bosses.”

Fuentes standing up to the nasty “liberal union boss.” That’s the picture that Fuentes is selling.

On Tuesday, during the union luncheon (held in IVC’s acoustically challenged gymnasium), Bob Bliss, the union-endorsed challenger to Fuentes, referred to Fuentes’ recent explanation for seeking reelection: “he needs to stay on the college board to help ward off liberal influence.” That was reported in a recent Frank Mickadeit column.

Bliss pointed out that he has been a registered Republican since 1964. Bliss, wrote Mickadeit, “wouldn't exactly qualify as a liberal.”

BTW, the title of Mickadeit’s piece is, I think, very odd: Liver Boy back in his element (8/14/08)

Fuentes has liver cancer and recently underwent a liver transplant.

“Liver Boy”?

IN THE NEWS:

• UCI again cracks top 50 in US News school rankings
• The Community College Enrollment Boom

Armando Ruiz still at Coast

On Tuesday, “Jubal” of OC Blog posted: Lawsuit filed challenging Ballot Title of Coast Community College Board Candidates. According to the Jube, somebody doesn’t think that candidate Charlotte Pirch is entitled to list her profession as “College Professor/Attorney.”

Never mind about that. Today, “Archstone” wrote in to say that the “real issue” in the CCCD trustee race is boot fanatic and "Friend of Raghu" ARMANDO RUIZ:

Jubal, the real issue in the election of the Coast Community College District board is Trustee Armando Ruiz, the pension double dipper who is trying to win re-election. Ruiz's actions in 2004, retiring from his part-time post as a Trustee and a full time job as a Counselor at Irvine Valley College, simultaneously, enabled him to double his pension, from $54,000/year to over $100,000/year. The legal loophole that Ruiz used to do this has been closed, but Ruiz has continued to serve on the Board, collecting his monthly paycheck, and his pension, all at the cost of the Coast District taxpayer. Ruiz is currently trying to gain the endorsement of the Orange County Democratic party….

You’ll recall that when Raghu Mathur was President of IVC, he sought desperately for allies and finally resorted to importing one from Saddleback College: Ruiz. Pretty soon, Ruiz, despite his manifest sleazitude and stupitude, became an administrator. After a year or two, however, he descended into disgruntletude when he wasn't promoted to the VPI job. (Glenn got the nod.) He retired and then commenced his double-dipping.

I think it was at that point that Mathur concentrated on his hot new administrative prospect Rodney Poindexter, who was fired when it became clear that he was, um, unstable.

Scott Lay on California's difficult education challenges

On the 19th, President and CEO of Community College League of California, Scott Lay, explained the major challenges that California faces with regard to education, especially at the state's community college system. He spoke at the Irvine Valley College's new Performing Arts Center.

Among Lay's points: that community colleges need to lay less stress on growth and more on completing the education of the students they already have.

I highly recommend that you view this short video (edited down from over a half hour to less than ten minutes).

Scott refers to these reports (pdf files):

America’s Perfect Storm: three forces changing our nation’s future

Rules of the Game: How State Policy Creates Barriers to Degree Completion and Impedes Student Success in the California Community Colleges

Brought to you by DISSENT the BLOG.

The Chancellor's Opening Session (video, part 1) & today's senate meeting

The general assembly of the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate met today, mostly in order to update faculty on the Accreditation Progress Report (which was formally presented late yesterday afternoon).

The turnout was remarkable—every seat in the room was taken. I don't think I've ever seen a larger turnout for a senate meeting.

Unsurprisingly, the report, the product of many months' work, was very well received by faculty.

We were informed that the senate would soon be visiting with a "consultant" who, I guess, will help us with accreditation. —A fellow named Bill Vega, the former Chancellor of the Coast Community College District.

That seemed swell to everybody, but, to me, there's something hinkey about this whole "consultant" business. So I asked two questions: (1) Who chose Dr. Vega? (2) To whom will he report?

All of a sudden, everybody clammed up. Senate Prez Wendy Gabriella said, I think, that she didn't know who selected Vega. We turned to the Vice President of Instruction, Craig Justice. Craig was pretty vague, as I recall. I think he (and/or others) said that the destination of the report is somewhat nebulous at this point. It sounded like we were paying for it and that "we" would receive it. Not sure.

How very odd. I still wanted to know who had selected Vega. Another senior administrator then spoke up to say that she did know this much: that the ACCJC (the accreditation agency) had selected Vega.

Oh. So the ACCJC chose a consultant for us who will write a report and then hand it over to us. OK.

I don't get it.

As promised, here's some video from yesterday's "Chancellor's Opening Session." This is part 1. It starts with a rock band and ends with a performance on the piano by IVC's Daniel Luzko. I think you'll enjoy it.

Part 2 will present excerpts from Scott Lay's presentation, etc.