Heck of a job, Brownie

High-Tech Cheating Abounds, and Professors Bear Some Blame (Chronicle of Higher Ed)

"Grading homework is so fast when they all cheat and use the illegal solutions manual," quipped Douglas Breault Jr., a teaching assistant in mechanical engineering at Tufts University. After all, if every answer is correct, the grader is left with little to do beyond writing an A at the top of the page and circling it. Mr. Breault, a first-year graduate student, ended his tweet by saying, "The profs tell me to ignore it."….

Some Students Want 'Our Lord' Removed From Diplomas (Inside Higher Ed)

Some students at Trinity University, in Texas, want the phrase "our Lord" removed from the institution's diplomas,The San Antonio Express-News reported. The students note that not everyone at the university views Jesus as their lord….

'Math wars' over national standards may erupt again in California (San Jose Mercury)

Hold on to your graphing calculators: The passionate, contentious debate over how California students should learn math is ready to erupt again. ¶ While math formulas and properties may be delightfully precise, how best to teach them to children is not. As the United States prepares for the first time to adopt nationwide K-12 "common core" standards, mathematicians and educators are split….

ERIK BROWN:

You know who Erik Brown is, right? He's the local guy at the center of the latest Republican scandal. He’s also the President of Dynamic Marketing, Inc. here in Orange County (Rancho Santa Margarita).

He’s listed as the “Political Director” of the OC Young Republicans.

Well, I visited his Facebook page. And guess what? Listed there are his friends. Only one friend appears.

It’s our own Adam Probolsky! Adam has lots of connections to our district and to IVC.

Adam's connection to our district goes way back. He was the large fellow in the room helping Tom Fuentes engineer replacing Steve Frogue on our Board of Trustees back in 2000. He’s a member of the so-called OC Republican Mafia.

I'm trying to determine just how close Erik and Adam are. One thing for sure. Members of the power group of which Probolsky is a member are uniformly special. Gosh, anything's possible.

O.C. man billed Republicans for event at sex-themed club (Total Buzz/OC Reg)

A man who billed the Republican National Committee almost $2,000 for an event at a sex-themed West Hollywood nightclub runs a political consulting business in Orange and is listed as a member of the Orange County Young Republicans’ executive board. ¶ The Associated Press reported Monday that the RNC is seeking repayment from Erik Brown, the owner of Dynamic Marketing Inc., who was reimbursed for $1,946.25 spent on Feb. 4 at Club Voyeur. ¶ The club is described by Club Planet, a nightlife directory, as a place where “the female employees disrobe, pornographic pictures double as wallpaper, and patrons are advised to be ‘uninhibited’ in the photo booth.”….

The Red County blog has much to say about this Erik Brown brouhaha. Check it out:

Michael Steele's Bondage Party Has an O.C. Connection (The Hammer)

…DMI President and Gen Next member, Erik Brown, was who picked up that tab and ended up expensing it to the RNC.

According to sources who were in attendance that night, the "official" part of the evening started with 50+ person dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel, then carried on throughout the evening, eventually ending up at Voyeur. While RNC employees, who were in town to recruit members to its "RNC Young Eagles" program, did participate throughout the entire evening and did find their way to the bondage-themed club, Michael Steele himself was "not in attendance" for any portion of the evening. Brown, by the way, is reportedly a "Young Eagle" himself, a fundraising sub-group of the RNC which targets larger donors based on age group.

Presumably, the Daily Caller (which broke this whole story on its website earlier today) is continuing to pour through RNC disclosure documents. If so, it will likely find significant sums spent by the RNC on services rendered by DMI; not only do local politicos report that Brown liked to brag about his ties to this and other state-wide and national organizations and campaigns, but it would seem consistent with someone who would think he could get away with running through such a large expense….

But the story doesn’t end there. Later, Chip Hanlon wrote about the snafu, placing the blame not on Brown but on GOP chairman Michael Steele:

One Little Bar Tab Should Put Michael Steele at Risk

“Take us to the hottest nightclub in town.”

Those were the instructions given to Orange County’s Erik Brown by RNC staffers and in L.A., that’s one heavy-duty request. On Grammy weekend, it’s an even taller order, one which led to the now-infamous night at Voyeur in February, 2009 which was first reported on by the Daily Caller yesterday.

After a follow-up Red County post reported exclusively on some of the details missing from that original DC piece, for the rest of the day I found myself in contact with a number of that night’s key attendees, some of whom I know personally. After speaking with multiple sources I understand how the whole night went down but for the sake of putting the focus back where it belongs—the RNC—in my opinion there is only one moment from that night that matters….