Let's not malign the good name of the Twilight Zone

Trump on China's respect for his "very, very large brain"

A Tale of Two Fliers: Censorship?

IVC's Rocky Horror: Take One.

Word has reached the Dissenters that there are TWO competing fliers for the upcoming production of Rocky Horror Picture Show. The first was designed, approved and distributed - only to be recalled -as sources say -  by ASIVC, who disapproved of the imagery. ASIVC, according to sources, said that the original flier could be used, but only if ASIVC as a co-sponsor was removed. (See above.)

The solution? A new flyer, absent the "offensive" imagery. (See below.)

One wonders if those at ASIVC who were offended by the imagery (if, indeed, sources were accurate) have seen the play or film or heard about artistic freedom or academic freedom or censorship. There is an infinite supply of material to be offended by. Good luck with that.

IVC's Rocky Horror: Take Two. 

We at Dissent encourage all to support the production which, according to feverish rumor dreams, may pay a actually sneaky homage to IVC's own Rocky. See for yourself.  And, until opening night, Thursday October 25 (Let's help them SELL OUT!), keep a watch for the surviving original fliers - still unconfiscated - delighting and offending viewers on campus bulletin boards everywhere. Hot patootie, bless my soul, I really love that Rock and Roll!



Rebel Girl acknowledges the assistance of others in reporting this story  (you know who you are) and regrets her inability to devote more time to it but she has been busy lately what with a full load of classes and complaints and lawyers and meetings.  She does what she can with what she has. 
*

laugh at the liar, the fool

In “less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” (Laughter)

Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you honey?
Now would I say something that wasn't true?
I'm asking you sugar
Would I lie to you?

Lies
La la la la la la lies

I know where you been
And I know what you been doing
Don't lie to me

In Case You Missed It: Colleges responsible if they know a student is dangerous and they fail to act

from Inside Higher Ed:

Duty to Protect: California Supreme Court has determined public colleges in the state must warn and shield their students from violent acts. Experts say the ruling could have nationwide implications. 

"In a decision that experts say could have nationwide significance, the California Supreme Court has ruled that public colleges and universities have a duty to protect their students from potential violence in “school-sponsored activities.”

This overturns a lower court decision and allows a former University of California, Los Angeles, student to proceed with her lawsuit against the institution, stemming from when she was attacked in a classroom more than eight years ago.

Katherine Rosen, who was 20 years old at the time of the 2009 assault and in her junior year at UCLA, was working in her chemistry class and had bent over to put some items in her desk drawer. Without provocation, another student, Damon Thompson, came up behind her and stabbed her in the chest and neck with a kitchen knife.

Rosen survived, despite life-threatening injuries. Thompson was charged and found not guilty by reason by insanity. The institution's Counseling and Psychological Services had treated Thompson off and on; he had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and possibly schizophrenia and reported hearing insults and voices in his dormitory and classrooms. The lawsuit alleges the university knew of his aggressive tendencies and should have warned and guarded Rosen."

While Rebel Girl hasn't read the ruling (she's been so busy these days!) it's interesting to note that a commentator pointed out that "the decision relied upon an earlier Delaware ruling that universities have 'a legal duty to regulate and supervise foreseeable dangerous activities occurring on its property,' including 'the negligent or intentional activities of third persons.'"

From the LA Times article on the same ruling:

"The unanimous decision, among the first of its kind in the nation, put California's colleges on notice that they may be held responsible if they know a student is dangerous and fail to take steps to control him and protect others.

Citing the 2007 Virginia Tech killings, the state high court said public colleges and universities in California 'have a special relationship with their students and a duty to protect them from foreseeable violence.'
...

UCLA officials knew Damon Thompson, Rosen's assailant, suffered from paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations [emphasis by Rebel Girl] , had been barred from campus housing and had told a teaching assistant that he believed Rosen was demeaning him[emphasis by Rebel Girl], according to court records.

'Although a criminal act is always shocking to some degree,' Corrigan wrote, 'it is not completely unpredictable if a defendant is aware of the risk.'
...

UCLA had a violence prevention strategy, but they didn't do it properly,' Dell'Ario said.

'They didn't report this guy up the chain the way they should have, and when they finally figured it out, it was too late,' he said.

The ruling in Rosen's case was limited. It did not extend liability for violence committed on campus by a stranger unknown to college officials [emphasis by Rebel Girl] or for an alcohol-related death at a student party, he said."

 

The Return of IVC's Voice?

The newspaper racks that once held IVC's copies of student newspaper The Voice and Saddleback's The Lariat continue to be taken over by a free Catholic newspaper which is now delivered regularly to campus it seems. It's a free public service, apparently at our public education institution: delivery of religious material seemingly with the imprimatur of the college itself. Gloria Patri, et filio, et spiritui sancto… 

Early last week, working late evening, Rebel Girl had a visitor to her office. She was startled as she wheeled around at her desk (for reasons she won't divulge here), wishing she had shut her door, not kept it open. (For the record, denizens of the LA building have long complained that the dominant office layout with the majority of faculty desks facing away from the office doors present a clear safety hazard. For the record. If anyone is tracking faculty and staff concerns about campus safety.)

But Rebel Girl had nothing to fear. Whew. It was a student interested in the history of the school newspaper and curious about whether or not it could be revived. He had been directed in her direction. He carried a little notebook, like reporters do. He had lots of questions. Rebel Girl gave him lots of answers. He was especially curious about the paper's demise. She showed him some of the newspaper archive that she still keeps.

She saw the student throughout the week: walking the campus, in BSTIC, in the LA building waiting to talk to the dean. He seemed engaged by the enterprise, gathering support, cheerful, optimistic. Later in the week he wrote to her telling her he had run into the college president and took the opportunity to ask him some questions, including one about the demise of The Voice.  The college president gave him a different answer from Rebel Girl's. Tee hee.

On Thursday night, before she left, Rebel Girl found this flier outside her office door. Check it out. Let's do what we can to help him and ourselves.

IVC's Misogyny Club strikes again!

Perhaps the Misogyny Club needs to get their own flier. 

It's been quite a week for misogyny, toxic masculinity and sexual assault and harassment and Rebel Girl is not just talking about whatever is going down in D.C. 

To cap off this week (which eventually will go down in some history book even if she has to write it herself) as she left campus on Friday after failing to download or upload the PDFs she had come to campus expressly to work on (something about a password need to open up Acrobat Adobe, a password she didn't have today and didn't have to have the last time she opened up the documents), anyway, that was all water under the bridge or perhaps spilled milk or maybe the broken eggs an omelet needs, whatever, anyway, on her way out of the L.A. building she spied this flier on the second floor bulletin board and noticed that someone, a male, she surmised, had taken exception to the newly formed Feminist Club.

You can read it for yourself.  (Click on the photo for a larger image.)

It was, she thought, as she stood taking a photo, perhaps the perfect punctuation mark to end this week at the little college in the orange groves. 

But, just when she was writing the disappointing end to a challenging week, this happened: While she was taking this photo, two female students came by, paused and watched her.

Rebel Girl quipped, "This makes me want to join the club!"

They nodded and one of them said, "I already took a photo and sent it to campus police."

Rebel Girl congratulated her. Then the three women stood for a moment in the sun bright hallway and talked about the very vital need for a Feminist Club. 

Idjit

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Endorses Local Politician Accused of Peddling “Racist Conspiracies” 
(Mother Jones)
Once again, the Republican congressman associates with an alt-right activist criticized for anti-Semitism.
DAVID CORN

…On Tuesday, Rohrabacher posted a photo on Instagram of him with Gracey Larrea-Van Der Mark, a candidate for a school board seat in Huntington Beach, California. Rohrabacher endorsed her and called her a “patriot.”
     The Republican Party of Orange County also endorsed her candidacy, according to Larrea-Van Der Mark’s Facebook page.
     Last month, OC Weekly, which covers Orange County, California, published a story on Larrea-Van Der Mark that makes these endorsements seem odd. The story chronicled her known associations with alt-right activists and white nationalists and previous remarks that have been criticized as racist and and anti-Semitic. The headline: “Gracey Van Der Mark, peddler of racist conspiracies, runs for school board in HB.”
     In April, Larrea-Van Der Mark ran into trouble when it was reported that after joining an alt-right protest in summer 2017 against a local workshop about white privilege, she posted a YouTube video from the event with this comment: “This meeting was being ran by the elderly Jewish people who were in there. The colored people were there doing what the elderly Jewish people instructed them to do.” OC Weekly also reported at the time that “one of her YouTube channel playlists dubbed ‘Holocaust hoax?’ includes half-a-dozen anti-Semitic videos.”….

Betsy DeVos again

DeVos Gets Another Chance on Obama Loan Rule
(Inside Higher Ed)
Andrew Kreighbaum

     The Department of Education has until Oct. 12 to offer a stronger justification for delaying an Obama-era student loan rule issued to help defrauded borrowers [i.e., graduates of unscrupulous for-profit institutions]. If it can't do so, the rule will take effect, a federal judge said Monday.
     U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss ruled earlier this month that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos unlawfully delayed the rule, known as borrower defense, because the decision did not include an adequate rationale. After the delay, consumer groups and Democratic attorneys general sued the department.
     DeVos in July issued an overhaul of the rule with tougher standards for defrauded borrowers to get loan forgiveness. Moss's ruling could mean the department must carry out requirements of the much more generous Obama borrower-defense regulations until the expected effective date of the DeVos rule next year.

Alexander: Congress Shouldn’t Pass Campus Free Speech Law 
(Inside Higher Ed)
Andrew Kreighbaum

   Senator Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate education committee, said Monday that Congress shouldn’t attempt to attach federal funding to a college’s protection of free speech rights on campus.
     Higher ed leaders should instead promote campus speech themselves by taking steps like refusing the heckler’s veto and adopting the Chicago principles of freedom of expression, Alexander said.
     “It doesn’t work,” he said of a potential federal mandate.
. . .
     President Trump himself warned last year that the federal government could withdraw federal funds from the University of California, Berkeley, after leftist and antifascist protesters blocked right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on campus amid sometimes violent protests.
     Alexander, like many fellow conservatives, claimed both that college students today are too coddled and that college administrators have caved too easily to the heckler’s veto, where students use protests or other tactics to block appearances by controversial speakers. And he argued that promoting underrepresented points of view -- especially conservative opinions -- should be as important to colleges as promoting a diversity of student backgrounds on campus….

 

AAUP Condemns Trump's Tweet on Hurricane Study
(Inside Higher Ed)
Colleen Flaherty

 The American Association of University Professors on Tuesday condemned what it called President Trump’s “disregard for and assault on science,” this time in relation to Trump’s comments about the credibility of a study by George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. AAUP’s statement says that Trump has "falsely claimed that the study, which found some 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria" in 2017, was politically motivated. It cites a recent tweet by Trump saying, "This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!" 

 
     While the AAUP takes no position on the accuracy or inaccuracy of this or any other study, reads its statement, “such research can be properly evaluated only by qualified experts through open channels of review and debate. Studies of this sort must not become political footballs. For the president of the U.S. to accuse scholars of political bias, without a shred of evidence, is an unacceptable assault on independent research and the academic freedom of scientists.”…

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

What happens when the college shuts down the student newspaper but doesn't care enough to ever remove the racks. It would be funny if it wasn't so damn sad and angry-making on so many levels.

Who remembers the IVC Voice?

Who remembers sportswriter and editor Nicolas Sandoval who was killed nearly 24 years ago while riding his bike home after putting the paper to bed late one night? His family came from Colombia to toss his ashes into the Pacific on a foggy day, the deck of the boat crowded with weeping IVC students.

The college made promises to his family and friends and took their money to set up a scholarship in Nick's memory.

Rebel Girl cannot come up with another sentence to finish this piece. She hopes you understand.

***

B&W 4 U

A fine little girl, she waits for me
Me catch the ship across the sea
Me sailed the ship all alone
Me never think I'll make it home

     "[Influential 'We Five' singer] Beverly Ann Bivens was born in Santa Ana, California on April 28, 1946. ... Beverly attended Santa Ana High School (attended also by Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers, as well as members of the Chantays and actress Diane Keaton, who was her contemporary) and Orange Coast Junior College, where she majored in liberal arts." (From Wikipedia)
     Evidently, despite her obvious talent and charisma, she decided to drop out of the business in about 1967. See a live performance of this song here. She briefly reemerged in 2009 (here).

Quotes for dolts

Trump Attacks Woodward by Citing Interview on Cable Channel Known for Conspiracy Theories
(Mother Jones)

…In [one] tweet, Trump attempted to bolster his case by quoting Katelyn Caralle….
…The quote comes from Caralle’s Wednesday appearance on The Daily Ledger…. [a “conservative cable TV show”] that analyzes political news of the day.” This obscure show is part of the One America News Network, a pro-Trump cable channel….

Caralle

…In April, … [The Daily Ledger] ran a segment making the bogus claim that the California legislature was considering a bill that would ban Bibles. The network has actively promoted conspiracy theories about Seth Rich, a staffer for the Democratic National Committee who was killed during an apparent robbery in Washington in 2016. Last year, the network offered $100,000 for information relating to Rich’s death. The channel was popular with US Senate candidate Roy Moore, whose 2017 campaign in Alabama was derailed by accusations that he’d molested underage women. OANN defended Moore in a number of segments and on election night reported falsely that Moore had won the Senate race in a landslide…

Acadia Fires Professor Who Called Multiculturalism a Scam
(Inside Higher Ed)
Colleen Flaherty

Mehta

     Acadia University in Canada fired Rick Mehta, associate professor of psychology, following an investigation into comments he made on social media and in the classroom, CBC News reported. Mehta has said that multiculturalism is a scam, that there is no wage gap between men and women, and that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has created a victim narrative regarding those who attended Indian Residential Schools….

U.S. News revamps formula for its latest college rankings
(Politico)
BENJAMIN WERMUND

     U.S. News and World Report is changing the formula for its widely read college rankings to reward schools that enroll and graduate more students from low-income families — a year after a POLITICO report showed that the rankings promote economic inequality on campuses….

Aliso Niguel High School Football Program Sponsored by Anti-Sanctuary Mayor
(OC Weekly)

Harrington

     …It’s true that racism coming from high school bleachers in Orange County is a sin long predating the current Pendejo-in-Chief occupying the White House–look up the Weekly’s archives on everything from Foothill students holding a “#Chunti” sign during a basketball game against Tustin rivals to blackface at El Modena–but Friday night’s hate fest definitely bears the imprint of Trump. The Wolverines count among their 2018 sponsors Aliso Viejo mayor Dave Harrington. His wannabe Trump logo slides across the team’s website “Thank You” page. Better yet, the failed Orange County Sheriff candidate tried to up his name recognition earlier this year by enlisting the city in the anti-sanctuary state revolt that backed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lawsuit against California over such laws....

BOOM!

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
(NYT)
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

Dumb Yankee?

     …The dilemma — which [President Trump] does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
     I would know. I am one of them.
. . .
     The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

     Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.
     In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic…. Continued

From Woodward's book:

     "This guy [Jeff Sessions] is mentally retarded," Mr Trump reportedly told staff secretary Porter. "He's this dumb Southerner. He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama". 

From Politico:

...Trump’s reaction [to the anonymous Times letter] was swift and harsh, suggesting that the author committed treason and then demanding that “for National Security purposes” the Times “turn him/her over to the government at once!”  [Turn him/her over to do what?]