Early 1998(?)
...Civility is a petit bourgeois behavior, a conceit used by Imperial Britain, Imperial France and Imperial Margarine....
March 27, 1998
Red Emma teaches writing part-time at Irvine Valley College. His activist politics demand his union membership, but in five years of teaching here, not once has anybody ever invited or encouraged him to join the union or provided him materials regarding representation by his local.
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| Young Raghu |
April 14, 1998
…As regards the Red One's report, he stands by [it] and points out that the only legitimate potential slander issue here has to do with privacy. In fact, Red Emma's article effectively blew full-time Prof. Ray Chandos's well-protected and profoundly deep cover as Union Rep, a position thus far successfully concealed from over two hundred IVC part timers by him and the union local for years….
April 27, 1998
…The union leadership does not want to explain to the membership why it is revising the bylaws only a year after the last (so-called) revision. … During the last Rep. Council meeting, however, faced with a direct question, Sherry at last provided a clear explanation: it is being forced to make changes by the CTA, for the CTA has judged that our so-called bylaws contain many illegal elements, a point that critics of the leadership have made repeatedly to no avail….The ratification election is rapidly approaching. Predictably, the leadership has decided not to provide copies of the current bylaws to members (in preparation for that event). Further, it has decided not to hold a meeting to explain the revisions to the membership. Finally, for now, it won’t show anyone the revisions….
May 12, 1998
"A spectre is haunting Irvine Valley College...the spectre of adjunct faculty organizing."…Trustee Dorothy Fortune, doing her part to build goodwill between part- and full-timers, took a moment from her busy schedule to attack Saddleback College part-time organizer Richard Lewis, expressing concern over Saddleback's "irregular Senate representation." Lewis serves as the singular adjunct officer on [Saddleback College]'s Senate, a position for which he is meant to receive, not reassigned time…, but a stipend. Part-time participation in academic governance should of course be rewarded and encouraged, but Ms. Fortune apparently thinks otherwise.Finally, as that great union organizer Joe Hill wrote in Emma's high school yearbook: "Don't mourn, organize. And have a bitchin'‘ summer."
October 26, 1998
...Red Emma ... transported himself to the [faculty union] Rep Council meeting, confident that although the moral arc of the universe might bend, as Dr. King said, toward justice, two such equitable contortions were perhaps too many to hope for in one week. ... I had spoken by phone earlier to David Lebow, Chair of the … CTA Board Team, making a point of calling to his attention the potentially … vulnerable following language in the section on Part-Time (Associate) Faculty Representation.“Part-time faculty at each college shall have one representative on the Representative Council.”Red Emma knows what this meant to him and, after speaking with Mr. Lebow, learned that it meant the same to [Lebow]; that is, there would be, pending approval of the bylaws, TWO part-time rep positions on the ballot, one representing IVC and one Saddleback….General Pinochet’s house arrest notwithstanding, there is room for evil in the world and it resides in a little room in the Saddleback library where, true to Red Emma’s sorry expectations, that group we whimsically call the union leadership attempted first to get everybody to agree that nothing could be done about my ["each"] concern.... Then Mr. Lebow and his CTA team advised that he was there to “officially” advise the correctness of [Red’s] interpretation of the “each” clause, after which time it was the responsibility of the Rep Council to amend the bylaws. Yikes. ... A tenacious revanchist sitting next to the tonsorially captivating Madame President indicated that my favorite clause was intentionally “vague,” at which point Mr. Lebow indicated in no uncertain terms that Mr. McClendon was in fact wrong.Mr. McClendon: “Am I right or not right?”Mr. Lebow: “You are not right.”Chair Lebow indicated that the ballot would have to include two part-time reps, a judgment which led to expressions of some discontent from the generals….
November 02, 1998
…These, then, are my own complaints against [the board, the union, & Mathur], framed in a wider, national context which I see as a right-wing, corporate attack on public education by people who imagine that, yes, schools should be “run like businesses.”They have attacked shared governance… They have tolerated, even encouraged, anti-Semitism and homophobia ... They have successfully co-opted a labor union local. … They have created … a testing ground for activism by far-right groups. … They have promoted the corporatization and further privatization of the academy…. They have championed the ghettoization of faculty. …They have marginalized students…. They have limited expression, inquiry and engagement in the political process…. They have spent district money defending themselves against much of the above….Because our crisis is in fact so wonderfully representative of a single, connected trend it’s easy to pretend not to see that Big Picture. It’s easy for media to pretend that its readers won’t get it. It’s easy for students and teachers not to understand that as it happens here, it is happening everywhere….
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| Red |
November 10, 1998
[Note: this piece, authored by Red (and illustrated by Bauer) was cited in Sampson’s letter to Bauer in December of ’98. According to Sampson, this piece … illustrated Bauer’s "violence" and "preoccupation with weaponry." Judge for yourself.]RED EMMA:
Finally, in the spirit of international cooperation, we at Dissent announce the founding of the Milosevic-Mathur Academic Integrity Matrix. (I couldn’t think of a more annoying business ed sounding type word than “matrix”; besides, it permits a satisfying acronym: MAIM.)Beginning immediately, I’ll accept nominations here for candidates to an academic exchange program between IVC and University of Belgrade (home of the fighting Ethnic Cleansers!). Forward written nominations to Dissent c/o Red Emma. In the Dissent spirit of irony, efficiency and recycling, all nominations should be completed using the back of any of the recent Presidential Solicitation for Input forms. In fifty words or less, please argue why your nominated IVC administrator, trustee, or college president should be sent to Serbia and one of Milosevic’s henchpeople visit our divisive little campus in their place….
December 15, 1998
…Finally, there goes the neighborhood: Chile’s most unlikely export sits in a shabby manor outside London, upsetting the locals. For those of you unable to make the trip to the despot’s winter retreat, don’t overlook the General’s political and spiritual sponsor’s permanent residence in Yorba Linda. The Nixon Museum offers “Wassail Wednesdays” all month long and—be still my anarchist heart—Bruce Herschensohn’s “special” lecture.Disappointingly, the General, beneficiary of Nixon’s CIA largesse, is noticeably absent in the life-size convocation of world leaders assembled in the library rotunda. Also absent are statues of the Shah of Iran, Franco, Somoza, Marcos, Duvalier.
You say you’re struggling to find a fun holiday family outing? A jolly docent bragged to me over the telephone that the bronze statues weren’t really bronze at all, just papier-mâché and epoxy sprayed with paint. “They only look like bronze. Why,” she explained, “Chairman Mao only weighs about eighty pounds!”
March 15, 1999
Dear Miss Fortune:I am the illegally hired president of a formerly impressive community college. In an effort to compel respect from my subordinates, I recently earned a long distance degree in education management and poinsettia arrangement from the U of Woodbridge. Now I’m unsure how exactly my subordinates should address me. I’ve taken to adding an understated “Ed.D” after my name, but this has only caused some clever wag to refer to me as a famous television talking horse.Signed: Through Horsin’ Around, Ed. D.Dear Through:Don’t complain to me about funny names and titles, buddy. Here’s Miss Fortune’s advice: E-mail your entire college announcing what exactly you want to be called, but include in the e-mail message some unrelated attack on a defenseless minority. I suggest homosexuals or philosophers or, better yet, homosexual philosophers. (Did you know, by the way, that Professor Roy Bauer was once faculty advisor to the Gay and Lesbian Club at IVC? Did you?) People will be distracted and confused as a result of your attack and soon you can call yourself anything at all. It worked for me. I call myself a registered Democrat and a trustee. –MF
September 20, 1999
…Later, ... Wendy P. pithily explained Frogue to me. After all the confusion about this man’s “politics” (he has none), his pathetic ambitions, his strangely warped understanding of political expression, Wendy’s characterization seems apt: “He’s the kind of person,” she says, “who would let you call him an ‘asshole’ for an hour just so you’d hang out with him.”….
November 15, 1999
[Here, Red is poking fun at Curt McLendon, faculty union spokesMartian, who sent everyone a request to participate in SETI (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence). McLendon had also expressed anger that some new unionists asked that those who purchase food for the union charity (an orphanage near Tijuana) acquire receipts. McLendon angrily & erroneously implied that receipts are unheard of in Mexico!:]Red Emma:I can see it now. The silver craft hovers above a townhouse somewhere in South County. Curt has carefully painted the words “Tourist Information” on his roof. The small, bulb-shaped green visitors descend a steel ladder under the Mothership. They knock politely on Curt’s door. He sells them a map. They thank him, eyes shining, and scamper back to the UFO.Suddenly, they turn back. Their leader, who is wearing, as it turns out, EXACTLY THE SAME NEON GREEN OUTFIT AS SHERRY MILLER-WHITE, steps forward and, his long arm now fully extended, asks Curt for a receipt.[It turns out that the orphanage administration was corrupt or, um, worse: The Old Guard’s not-so-sweet Charity]
December 13, 1999
...Red visited the next door neighbor’s to watch “The Simpsons” on a recent Sunday night. Afterward, his weekly TV appetite not completely dulled, he surfed a bit, stumbling on that sagely entertaining man of American letters, Gore Vidal, giving a talk at the Writers’ Guild. Vidal waxed political on the state of our savage Republic, then fielded a few softball questions and said goodnight.As is usually the case with these C-SPAN events, the cameras lingered first on the stage, then the crowd, in this case a packed house. I am curious about what America looks like…, and, yes, Dissent readers will have anticipated that, indeed, that evening’s audience included our very own addled co-conspirator, S. Frogue, who was stumbling out of the hall, looking a little confused at being around so many people who didn’t know (or care) who he was. It may seem difficult to conceive of attendance by an apologist for “fiscal conservatism,” a right-wing Republican Holocaust conspiracy nut, a racial exoticizer with a penchant for Jew-Asian-Mormon baiting, at an event critiquing exactly the kind of people as our Mr. Frogue….
December 30, 1999
[An open letter to Irvine Valley College president Raghu Mathur from Red Emma:]
December 30, 1999…I am writing to offer my services as a security consultant. As your security stipend is equivalent to a full two weeks' pay for my own work as a part-time instructor, you'll understand that I'm eager to start work immediately....
[The OC Weekly printed Red’s letter to Mathur. So Red wrote them to say thanks:]
Thanks for printing my letter to Irvine Valley College president Raghu Mathur offering my services as Security Consultant (“Not-So-Secret Service,” Dec. 30). Mathur has yet to contact me regarding a job interview, presumably planning to spend his $2,400 annual stipend on a pit bull and a home alarm.Please note that our illegally appointed community-college president not only manufactured unsubstantiated stories about “threats” to him (later contradicted in his free-speech-case deposition) but somehow also persuaded the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees to spend taxpayer dollars on this assertion. The board voted unanimously to write him a big check....[Tonkovich’s public ridicule of Mathur and the Board were followed by a decision, by the dean of IVC’s School of Humanities and Languages, Howard Gensler, to dispense with Red’s services (as part-time teacher). I.e., Red was fired.]
January 18, 2000
[At the Dec. 13 meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, “A Poem to a Soldier” by Father Dennis Edward O’Brien is read as part of a patriotic opening to the meeting. Red Emma had his doubts:]Where to begin? As an educator and writer, I’ll resist the urge to explicate this bit of martialistic Ann Landersite barber shop inspiration. Its many errors speak for themselves, and loudly: single cause fallacy, either/or fallacy, cause/effect incongruity, ahistoricity, illogic, and so on. Just one observation: As much as Red Emma opposes militarism and the military and soldiering generally, it’s important to note the good father’s utter contempt for the actual soldier, who is reduced, like the reporter, poet, and organizer, to a sad cartoon. Can’t soldiers also be poets, organizers, or reporters? No, not in the unvivid and fabulously one-dimensional civilian vs. soldier world of Padre Dennis, U.S.M.C. Frankly, this kind of writing gives war a bad name….
February 14, 2000
--The Feb. 7 union meeting…Butt (sorry) let’s return to that metaphorical moment when [Old Guard unionist] Lee [Walker] actually lost his pants, hung so precariously from just below his gut. Yes, comrades, there it was, offered to the world, the proud derriere of a great great great-grandson of George Washington, that famous slaveholder and lousy general. Oh glorious, Oh vivid flab. Seeing it, exposed in the doorway of A403, made me want to chop down a cherry tree or throw Curt across the Potomac (except he wasn’t at the meeting) or just stand up and salute what makes America great: too much fried food.Instead, I pointed. I really did. “Look,” I exclaimed. “His butt!” A couple of other attendees will vouch for the patriotic display, but the curious thing is that, when I mentioned the incident to a couple of SOCCCD veteran teachers, one said, calmly enough, “I’ve been looking at Lee’s ass for twenty years.”….
February 29, 2000
Lifestyle reporter Red Emma had a few moments to catch up with newly elected CTA State Council Representative for region HE-5 Lisa Alvarez. Alvarez is a shy Professor of English who generally shuns the style spotlight. Though she’s been active in both Frogue recall efforts and has written editorials appearing in the Los Angeles Times, she prefers to work behind the scenes and get nasty e-mails from silly faculty members….Recently asked by administration to remove anti-Mathur posters from her office door, Alvarez offered that she shared the space with a colleague and thought she might need to ask him first. This clever ruse confused her Dean, who wrote a memo to himself….
March 06, 2000
Dear Miss Fortune:It’s me, again, the illegally-appointed president of a small community college, thinking positively, bringing people together and spreading the One True Light. Meanwhile, the judge threw out my SLAPP suit and now I’ve spent my raise on lawyers’ fees. How can I get the district to cover my losses?signed: SlappedDear Slapped:I’d ask for another security stipend, but if that doesn’t work, how about this: sue yourself. As President, the district lawyers will be required to defend you. Clever, huh? You lose, you win. I’m sure there’s a down side, but it can’t be any worse than teaching your new pet pit bull “Stipey” how to distinguish the Kate Clark mannequin from the Wendy Phillips one. —MF
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BONUS:
I’m sorry, I am this English teacher, okay?
I've been having difficulty finding the original illustration (or one of the illustrations) for the original Red Emma "MAIM" post, but I think I found it. Here it is:
I happened to use the same image also for the cover of a CD collection
of Bauer-family-recordings.
Rebel Girl was deposed for Bauer’s lawsuit against the district (concerning the letter, placed in his file, in which he was accused by the district, implausibly, of violating its “workplace violence” and “discrimination” policies). At one point, the questioning, by the district's attorney (Mr. Larsen) focused on the MAIM images:
Q [by the district’s attorney, Mr. Larsen] What does the term “maim” mean to you? …..
A [by Rebel Girl] To wound in a particular way.
Q In what way to wound?....
A Well, …It’s when…you’re wounded and you lose a certain portion of your body, I suppose—a limb or something to that effect….
Q So it’s a term of violence?
A Term of violence? It could be. It’s not always, you know.
Q …You see the cartoon in the upper right-hand corner? [Larsen is referring to the “Backdoor Gooster” graphic, which accompanied an article about Mathur’s “enemies list.” The comics graphic shows a fiend holding the head of his victim.]
A Yes, I do.
Q Do you consider that a violent depiction?
A I consider it a comic depiction of…something that is, I suppose, literally violent, the same way a Superman comic is violent or a Fantastic Four [comic] is violent. …..
Q Would you consider the depiction in the upper right-hand corner as being one of maiming?
A Actually, I would think the only body part that you could [lose] and not have it be considered maiming would be your head. I would offer that that would be a beheading. I’m sorry, I am this English teacher, okay? So I am amending my earlier definition of “maim.” Now, I…believe this is a depiction of a beheading, not a maiming….
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| Workers |
