Thursday evening Chunkery

• COOL PICS. There’s an odd-but-cool article in the Times about a Modjeska Canyon resident and her elegant garden: Modjeska Canyon garden's water-wise ways take bloom. Check it out, if you dare.

"To live in chaparral and have a creek in this canyon is amazing," she says. "It is a privilege and a responsibility to live here and not waste it. We are so lucky that it didn't burn down. I would have been just as upset to lose the garden as the house. I guess we would have had to rebuild." Sarkissian is quiet for a moment as she looks at the creek and reflects on her time here. "But you just don't have that many 13-year periods of your life."

The article includes an unusually lovely slide show. Garden, flowers, blue shirt.

• THE GREAT STINK. Matt Cocker (!?) at the OC Weekly (THE GREAT P-U) explains that the endless Irvine “Great Park” events these days are being undone by a big 'n' stinky compost pile. As my old Opa would say, "It did shtink."

• VENGEANCE IS THEIRS. R. Scott Moxley, also at the OC Weekly, writes about the Susan Atkins (of Manson Family infamy) parole issue: DA Tony Rackauckas Joins the Battle Over Susan Atkins' Dying Wish.

Atkins, who has an impeccable prison record, is sinking fast (brain tumor, amputated leg, etc.), but Rackauckas (a charter member of Mike Schroeder’s “Team Rat Bastard”) has joined the LA Times in opposing release.

Moxley quotes the Times as recently opining: “Atkins gravely wounded our collective peace, and society has a right, even the obligation, to exact vengeance.”

Exact vengeance? Well, either the Times editorial writer needs to work on his tone, or he’s just a moron.


• CRAPULENCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY. I was out in the world again today and so I took my camera. Two of these shots are near my house: on Live Oak Canyon Rd (above) and at the entrance of Lambrose Canyon (at the beginning of this post, above). Another (below) is from that crazy overpass from the 5 south to the toll road north (toward the Santa Ana mountains). (Click on photos.)

I was feeling sick (never mind), and so I just took 'em from the car, through the windshield.


• THE DARK END OF THE STREET. Couldn't sleep last night. Started watching an old episode of Millennium (Lance Henriksen), which included a moving sequence using James Carr's "Dark End of the Street" (1967). Do you know it? It's wonderful. (So's Millennium, BTW.)

The smoky north

Along with Louis B. Jones, the Reb directs the prestigious Writers Workshop at Squaw Valley. Thus, soon, she and her crew will be heading north, as per usual. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

It'll be a bit smoky up there, of course. Here's a satellite image of Cal wildfires in this morning's OC Reg. I've indicated the approximate location of Squaw Valley (Olympic Valley).

MEANWHILE, THE TOASTY SOUTH. See Marla Jo's article in the Reg: 3 O.C. community colleges make top 100: Annual list ranks schools based on number of associate degrees they confer. Evidently, a trade publication ranks Coastline, Orange Coast and Santa Ana colleges in the top 100, in this odd regard. (Many traditional students forgo acquiring Associate degrees, since they are unnecessary for transfer to a four-year institution.)

AND THE SULTRY SOUTHEAST. There’s a marvelous story in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (In Culture Wars, Do Facts Matter?) about a phony quote, falsely attributed to an academic by the usual right-wing suspects: “No. We don’t hire Republicans because they are stupid and we are not. Why should we knowingly hire stupid professors?”

Here's the actual, somewhat more "nuanced," quote, from a philosophy professor: “We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too.”

Just how big an IF is that IF? Yet another empirical question, one about which most of us would rather not discuss openly or directly.

What Mill actually said was: "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." Now, if you add the premise that "there are many stupid people," then you can expect there to be lots of conservatives, i.e., Republicans. But one may not infer that conservatives (Repubs) will be scarce among (the smart) academics, since, for all that Mill has said, it is possible that most smart people are conservative. I mean, it is at least possible that, oddly, if you're stupid, you're conservative, and if you're smart, you're conservative (and maybe if you're average, you're non-conservative). Whew.