The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
Washington (CNN) Dr. Scott Atlas, a highly controversial member of the White House's coronavirus task force, has resigned from his post in the Trump administration.
A source familiar with what happened told CNN that Atlas turned in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump on Monday. As a special government employee, Atlas had a 130-day window in which he could serve and that window was technically coming to a close this week.
Atlas tweeted out a photo of his resignation letter later Monday. In the letter, he said his "advice was always focused on minimizing all the harms from both the pandemic and the structural policies themselves, especially to the working class and the poor."
"I sincerely wish the new team all the best as they guide the nation through these trying, polarized times," he wrote, apparently referring to President-elect Joe Biden's incoming coronavirus team….
Atlas' months-long stint in the White House was marked by controversy as he became a close adviser to Trump on the pandemic, adopting public stances on the virus much closer to the President's -- including decrying the idea that schools cannot reopen this fall as "hysteria" and pushing for the resumption of college sports.
In one extraordinary episode in October, Twitter removed a tweet from Atlas that sought to undermine the importance of face masks because it was in violation of the platform's Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy, according to a spokesman for the company.
And earlier this month, he criticized coronavirus restrictions in Michigan, urging residents in the state to "rise up" against the measures. The comments came weeks after officials thwarted an alleged domestic terrorism kidnapping plot against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who herself has been the subject of harsh criticism from the President and other Republicans amid the pandemic….
Students are again seeking pass-fail options for this anything-but-normal fall. Institutions are far less lenient than they were in the spring -- with some exceptions.
Sarah Fuller of Vanderbilt University kicked off in the second half of a football game against the University of Missouri on Saturday, becoming the first woman to play in a Power Five football game, The Tennessean reported.
Fuller, a senior goalkeeper for Vanderbilt's women's soccer team, was asked to join the football team after COVID-19 contact tracing depleted the roster of specialists.
While college athletes may earn scholarships, there are strict bans on companies or others paying them money. But The New York Times reported that National Collegiate Athletic Association and college rules do not apply to cheerleaders, "meaning they can sell autographs, appear in commercials and wear their cheer uniforms while promoting products as social influencers, without fear of being disciplined." The story examines the business relationships between companies and top cheerleaders, including contracts with Nissan, Amazon, FabFitFun, Colgate, SmileDirectClub and Urban Decay....
Tax fraud and obstruction of justice are just the start.
—Mother Jones
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James Comey, Christopher Steele, John Bolton, a Time journalist, flag burners—this is just a partial list of the people Donald Trump has wanted to see imprisoned during his ignominious presidency. Yet the moment he steps out of the White House, shedding the sheath of immunity that enshrines all presidents, it is Trump who should be most concerned about a legal reckoning. His list of alleged offenses, committed both during and before his presidency, includes tax and bank fraud, obstruction of justice, bribery, defamation, and more. Legal experts have even debated whether Trump could face criminal charges connected to his woeful response to the coronavirus pandemic….
According to the New York Times and other news outlets, Trump is keenly aware of the legal jeopardy he confronts as a private citizen and, as a result, was particularly fearful of losing the election. In fact, the possibility that he might be charged with a crime has been on Trump’s mind for much of his presidency. After the 2017 appointment of Mueller to oversee the Russia investigation, Trump declared in a tweet that he had the right to pardon himself. Some legal experts have speculated he might attempt such a gambit prior to leaving office.
However, says Philip Bobbitt, a professor at Columbia University who specializes in constitutional law, presidential pardon power is not unlimited. He raises what he says is a more likely scenario, similar to what occurred in 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned and was promptly pardoned by Gerald Ford. In the waning days or hours of his presidency, Bobbitt speculates, Trump could invoke the 25th Amendment and briefly surrender presidential authority to allow Mike Pence to pardon him. Alternatively, Trump could resign on the final day of his term, leaving Pence to momentarily assume the presidency and absolve his former boss of all federal crimes....
Shorpy's got high-res old photos that you can really dive into.
Check 'm out.
It's like a time machine, man.
Some of these are "influenza" themed.
Click on the photos!
Virginia 1923; the daughter of some state official
Washington, D.C. 1918
New Orleans 1924
Pittsburgh in the rain, 1941
Katherine Stinson, the "Flying Schoolgirl," 1918. Red Cross ambulance driver in France. As a flyer, she set many records. In France, she contracted influenza, which led to tuberculosis. The TB forced her to give up flying for good.
Opera singer Elvira de Hidalgo (1891-1980), Spanish coloratura soprano, New York, 1910. She was the chief mentor of Maria Callas.
Seattle, during the Influenza Epidemic (1918)
1918: Washington, D.C., native Billie Burke (Glinda, the Good Witch; 1939) in her hometown.
Balboa, 1925 (and Bob was there!)
Volunteers of America, Xmas 1925 (Note the sign on the wall.)
Professor placed on leave for controversial statements on COVID-19, the N-word, the atom bomb, the moon landings, Jews and more.
—Inside Higher Ed
…"This controversy started after I made a few statements in a College of Arts and Sciences meeting of faculty and staff about the COVID-19 pandemic," [Ferris State U's Thomas Brennan] wrote. "My statements were to the effect that I believe the COVID-19 pandemic is a stunt designed to enslave humanity and strip us of all of our rights and freedoms. I don’t believe that the pandemic is a hoax, people have died. But its severity is being exaggerated by revolutionary leftists in the media and government who ‘never let a good crisis go to waste.’ The end result of this hysteria, if unchecked, will be a mandatory vaccine. No one will be allowed into public places or permitted to buy food in a supermarket unless they present proof-of-vaccination. Initially, this electronic vaccination certificate will be tied to a person’s smartphone, but will soon after be in the form of injectable micro or nanotechnology in the vaccine itself. If this comes about it will truly be a fulfillment of the prophecy of the mark of the beast, as described by St. John the Apostle in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 13:16-17."
He added, "I believe that Bill Nye, Buzz Aldrin, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Anthony Fauci are human beings of worth, as we all are, but I believe they are telling some lies and are a part of a system of lies."…
The county's rate of new coronavirus cases has tripled over the past two weeks in a buildup that public health officials suspect is fueled by "COVID fatigue."
The filmmaker had access to hundreds of hours of unheard music and never-before-seen video for 'Zappa'
—Los Angeles Daily News
"Gail [Zappa’s widow] made it pretty clear to me as we became friends that year [before she died] that she was used to getting pitched these very kind of almost encyclopedic, fanatical perspectives on Zappa, the ’70s rock god. And that was just not what I walked in with. It wasn’t my interest. … He was the man I suspected he was in many ways, in that he was more sober, more measured, more warm than his reputation or his public image. His humor offstage was much more warm and sophisticated than his public humor, which is intentional, I think. He made the really fun, ribald stuff almost like another instrument in his arsenal."
A new estimate quotes large losses, but defenders of the system say it's functioning as designed. Will the number matter in the larger debate over debt forgiveness and federal lending policy?
—Inside Higher Ed
It is an eye-popping number: $435 billion.
That is the amount of money the federal government can expect to lose on its $1.37 trillion student loan portfolio, according to an analysis consultants performed for the Department of Education. That analysis anticipates borrowers paying back $935 billion in principal and interest on their student loans, leaving $435 billion for taxpayers to absorb….
College presidents are more concerned with reputation management than racial justice.
—CHE
✅ Coronavirus: California sees record case spike, more counties restricted. Are we behaving ‘selfishly’? -- California moved more counties to tighter restrictions on business and activities Tuesday after the state set new records of daily infections amid a relentless autumn surge that has left health officials pleading with people to avoid Thanksgiving gatherings outside their households this week. John Woolfolk, Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ Amy Graff in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 11/25/20
"California moved more counties to tighter restrictions on business and activities Tuesday after the state set new records of daily infections amid a relentless autumn surge that has left health officials pleading with people to avoid Thanksgiving gatherings outside their households this week.
One local health chief even went so far as to admonish the public for behaving “selfishly.” ... Health departments around the state reported 20,513 new coronavirus cases Monday, shattering the previous single-day record of 16,521 that followed the July 4 weekend. On Tuesday, the state topped the summer peak again, recording more than 16,700 new cases. That brought the state’s daily average of new cases to a record 13,336 over the past week, doubling in the span of 12 days. ... Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday the new infections generally are linked to social gatherings in which people remove face masks and are close to others outside their households. All counties report that private gatherings are significant drivers…."
✅ Arellano: How Huntington Beach became Angrytown, USA -- In this year, the lack of masks being worn and outright disbelief about the severity of coronavirus are hallmarks. In all years, the overwhelming whiteness of the crowd in an Orange County that has been majority minority for nearly a generation. And anger, anger — so much anger. Gustavo Arellano in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/24/20
"The rallies have unsurprisingly drawn widespread attention and out-of-towners looking to join the fun. To clueless outsiders who think California is a sapphire of socialism, the Huntington Beach gatherings are surprising, even perplexing. How can such vivid displays of right-wing pique persist in such a blue state?
But even Californians can’t look away. Because we know they’re our doppelgangers."
Scientists want to know why a major journal published findings that female mentors may be bad for your career, even after reviewers pointed out flaws in the paper’s methodology and analysis. Nature Communications says it’s investigating.
Nearly 90 percent of students plan on re-enrolling at the same college they attended during the fall semester, despite decreased satisfaction with support services and social experiences and heightened concern about finances as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new white paper based on a survey administered by Anthology, a higher ed technology services company.
About two-thirds of the 1,143 students surveyed in October by the company were taking classes fully online, while nearly one-third have a hybrid model of instruction and 3 percent were fully in person, the white paper said. Over all, 32 percent of students said they didn’t “feel included” in a circle of friends, and 27 percent said they did not feel like a part of the “college community,” both of which are “typical factors of mattering and belonging that lead to increased retention,” the white paper said.
Stanford University’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution against Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution who is currently serving as a senior adviser to President Trump. The resolution, introduced by a group of Stanford medical and infectious disease experts who previously criticized Atlas as downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, condemns Atlas’s Nov. 5 tweet calling on Michigan to “rise up” against Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer’s new COVID-19-related restrictions. The tweet, which has since been deleted, said, "The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept." Atlas later tweeted that he would never incite violence. Whitmer was the target of a political kidnapping plot revealed earlier this year.
The swirl of criminal investigations and civil complaints stemming from his business activities and personal conduct could prove more serious once he leaves office.
—WashPo
✅ Protesters demonstrate in Huntington Beach in defiance of coronavirus curfew -- A couple hundred protesters, many donning bright red caps and waving American flags, gathered Saturday night at Huntington Beach Pier in defiance of the state’s coronavirus curfew that went into effect at 10 p.m. Rosanna Xia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/23/20
Public health experts are increasingly worried the coronavirus case spikes are going to strain hospitals, while also exhausting medical staff, as hospitalizations continue to rise ahead of Thanksgiving.
“Parts of the country are already completely inundated with patients in ICUs and hospitals. They’re beyond the capacity to handle the number of patients. I think the fear is that we’re kind of heading toward that direction in Orange County and California, as well,” said UC Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin.
Shin, who’s also director of the university’s infectious disease science initiative, said if the trends over the past couple weeks continue, then OC could end up looking like North and South Dakota, where the hospitals are quickly being overloaded with virus patients.
“If nothing is done, then we are likely to get to a place where people who get sick are not going to be able to be taken care of because our hospitals are beyond capacity,” he said….
But an overwhelmed hospital situation is a possibility, said UC Irvine epidemiologist Daniel Parker.
“The new cases are high now. It’s not good. So, weeks from now, we’re still going to see these cases and hospitalizations climbing — maybe even faster. And at the same time we don’t have any extra interventions to put in place (masks, physical distancing, etc.), so we have to rely on people’s behavior,” Parker said in a Thursday phone interview.
He said, at that point, that’s when more people die.
“That’s highly related to the hospitals being stressed and running out of necessary beds and that’s when you see people having to make difficult decisions. To make these triage decisions: Who to put on the bed, who to pull off. That’s when things get really bad,” Parker said….
The order, intended to deal with a worrying surge in coronavirus cases, requires most non-essential work, movement and gatherings to stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
It's known that some policies help the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. A new report shows the same pattern is affecting institutions of higher education.
Study finds that half of the regional governors with Ph.D.s plagiarized them.
—Inside Higher Ed
Researchers have exposed widespread Ph.D. plagiarism among Russian regional governors, which they say is part of a broader culture of academic corruption in a country where ghostwriters are routinely hired to win the rich and powerful the prestige boost of a doctorate….
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended against travel for the Thanksgiving holiday and said college students returning home, and their hosts, should abide by extra precautions, including wearing masks, social distancing and improving ventilation….
…In particular, the administration should undo the new requirement under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that requires cross-examinations in a live hearing in cases involving sexual assault on campuses. That “could have a chilling effect on the willingness of survivors to come forward and raises serious concerns about retraumatization,” wrote Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, in a letter signed by 44 other higher education groups….
The groups also applauded President-elect Joe Biden’s plans to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and urged the incoming administration to drop Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s position barring DACA and other students who do not qualify for federal student aid from receiving emergency grants under the CARES Act.
COVID-19-related changes to teaching and dealing with students' mental health continue to weigh on professors, with implications for their own mental health.
Dig deeper into the state of community college enrollments, and you'll find some hints at what could be keeping some institutions afloat while others sink.
—Inside Higher Ed
Community college enrollments are suffering. Badly.
Nationally, they are down 9.5 percent, according to the latest report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Community college freshman enrollment is down by 19 percent. Enrollment of underrepresented minorities has taken an especially hard hit -- it's down by nearly 30 percent.
Some colleges are doing worse than others -- and some are doing well. But it's hard to pinpoint exactly why. Inside Higher Ed requested enrollment data from every state's community college system but to date has received information from fewer than half the states. Several systems have said they don't expect to release numbers until January….
A new report from the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project of the Scholars at Risk Network analyzed 341 documented attacks on students, scholars and educational institutions in 54 countries over the past year.
This year’s “Free to Think” report, the latest in an annual series, highlights how COVID-related restrictions affected academic freedom by cutting off academic travel and enabling greater surveillance of university classrooms....
I just happened upon the above video, posted by Tim Jemal in late September, in which he identifies his promises made, and kept, as SOCCCD trustee.
—For what it's worth. (It seems unobjectionable to me.)
Recently, a friend alerted me to the following events at Monday's board meeting. He tells me that the trustees are back to giving "invocations" at the start of their monthly enbubblement, or at least they gave one in October and now one in November. On Monday, during the pre-meeting public comments I guess, IVC Academic Senate Prez June McLaughlin criticized the board's October prayer-invocation, no doubt citing the importance of separating church and state, etc. (As I recall, Trustee Wright used to lay it on pretty thick with his invocations, years ago. "Dear Heavenly Father," he would piously intone.) Soon thereafter, Tim Jemal offered yet another pre-meeting invocation, though, according to my witness (via Zoom, I guess), it was more of an expression of gratitude than a prayer.
But get this: my friend reports that Jemal expressed gratitude that we live in a country "where people like Roy Bauer can express their views freely without fear of retribution."—Something like that.
Golly.
My first thought was: retribution for WHAT? During the trustee campaign, I expressed my views about trustee candidates and about our board, a crew that I have been observing for years. I carped about trustee Wright's seemingly incorrigible, set-in-his-ways nature and his nasty habit of referring to Saddleback College (where he worked for decades) as though it were The District. I also noted that this board repeatedly renewed the contracts of very shitty administrators, despite vociferous complaints from faculty, et al.
A case in point: Glenn "MAGA" Roquemore, who was granted a 17-year reign of error, academic suppression, and anti-intellectual buffoonery. (The current board can't take all the blame, of course, just recent years of the man's "leadership.")
(Did I ever tell you about the time Roquemore blackballed an instructor candidate because the guy hailed fromColorado? "Colorado," he reportedly said, "is where Bauer comes from!" —Imagine having such a thought process! Note: I've never even been to freakin' Colorado.)
So I was expressing opinions about candidates. Retribution for THAT? For expressing my views during an election campaign? —It's not like I was going crazy with Photoshop, pasting Wright's head onto pterodactyls, or walking into board meetings, menacingly waving a bottle of Wright's All Natural Hickory BBQ sauce!
Sheesh!
I've tried to view Jemal's Monday-night invocation, but the district's videos only work up through October. Dang! Tell me if you get the dang player to work for November.
I too am glad I live in a country where I can express my views—well-grounded views offered sans hostility—without fear of retribution (unless, of course, its 1997 and I'm working at the SOCCCD).
—No thanks to you, pal!
But seriously, folks; I'm mostly amused. It's like the good old days, getting mentioned by government officials as if I were the freakin' Golden State Killer.
(Remember when trustee John Williams compared me to the Unabomber? —When Raghu Mathur got a security stipend to protect him from the likes of Kate Clark and me? —Good times.)
Trustee Tim Jemal has (evidently) sent me this email (using his district email account):
Here is the text of my invocation last night. Your friend misunderstood it:
"Thank goodness we live in a country where votes are counted. Imagine living in a country where at any moment you could be jailed, tortured or killed by simply engaging in free speech. Not hate speech, but free speech, like saying “I don’t like Joe Biden.” Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world. According to Freedom House, there have been 14 consecutive years of decline in Global Freedom. More than half of world’s established democracies deteriorated over the past 15 years. Freedom of expression and belief, which includes academic freedom, and the rule of law, are the most common areas of decline. Imagine one day Roy Bauer suddenly disappears because someone from the state doesn’t like the content of his blog. This kind of action is a very real threat in many countries around the world.
Here in Orange County we had an amazing 87% percent voter turnout in this election. Think about that. 87%. Never before have I seen a turnout like this in my lifetime. We should all rejoice that the people’s voice was overwhelmingly heard and counted. Freedom flourishes when governments are held accountable by the people. Thank you."
—Well, that's great. It's clear that my friend did misunderstand Trustee Jemal's remarks, which included nothing about fear of retaliation for expressing my views. On the contrary, Jemal uses this blog as an example of something that should be allowed to exist—an example of free expression that is endangered increasingly in the world.
I can find nothing to object to here. Quite the contrary. And I too feel great about the 87% turnout. It is indeed a reason to rejoice.
