Trustee Fuentes' boss, Buffalo Bill Lange

een surfin’. Once in a while I just type in “Tom Fuentes” and follow the trail. You could do a lot worse than spend time Googlin’ the Fuenster. Maybe. Well, probably not.

CARPAGE:

The Blogosphere—i.e., the world of blogs (daily web logs)—is pretty amazing and bewildering. Blogs, like TV shows and insects, appear and die in great numbers. This can leave an impression of utter chaos and hopelessness. A sensitive oldster like me is tempted to look away.

But no. Some blogs rise to the top and attain a large or loyal readership. Some of these blogs are fun and informative.

The blogosphere, as it concerns Orange County politics, has a few standouts. One of ‘em, I guess, is “Orange Juice,” which bills itself as “Orange County's source for political news & views, featuring comments from the right by Art Pedroza, and comments from the left by Claudio Gallegos.”

Back on February 7, Orange Juice's guy on the right, Art Pedroza, carped about our own Tom Fuentes. (The Reb turned me on to this.)

The upshot: that Fuentes (a) is taking money from one hopeless GOP hopeful in the race for the 47th Congressional District, (b) is doing a lousy job for that fool, and, in the process, (c) is essentially betraying a worthy GOP stalwart. Read and judge for yourself:

An anonymous blogger posted a comment on OC Blog today insinuating that Tan Nguyen, the former Democrat who is running in the GOP primary against Santa Ana School Board Member Rosie Avila, for the 47th Congressional District, paid Tom Fuentes to work on his campaign. I took the time to look up Nguyen's campaign filings, and sure enough he paid Fuentes a total of $10,000. However, the report is murky as to what Fuentes did to earn the money.

It turns out that Fuentes, the former Chair of the Republican Party of Orange County, is indeed acting as a senior adviser to Nguyen, according to Nguyen's latest mailer. You might recall that Nguyen has dedicated about $250,000 of his own money to his campaign. His latest filing indicates that he is now $57,000 in the hole. That's not good.

I already commented on Nguyen's first political mailer, and this week I received the follow-up, which announces Fuentes' connection to the Nguyen campaign. The funny thing is that the picture on the back of the slick, cardstock piece depicts Fuentes in all his glory--and the back of Nguyen's head. It is a photo taken at an appearance made by Congressman Tom Reynolds, who is displayed in profile. But poor Nguyen--all you see is one ear and his back. Well done Tom--at least you got yourself a little publicity, and $10,000 to boot.

What really galls me about all this is that Nguyen's Republican adversary, Avila, has been a lifelong good Republican soldier. Fuentes knows that but he is backing Nguyen because the latter has money, or rather he had money. Not so anymore, apparently.

...Nguyen has shown me, by virtue of his atrocious campaign mailers, that he is not ready for prime time. Even if he wins the primary, which is a stretch, he will be eaten alive by the incumbent, the inexecrable [sic] Loretta Sanchez. Shame on Fuentes for not being loyal to Avila, who has been such a solid Republican leader in the otherwise blue central county area. Her overwhelming success on the Santa Ana School Board makes her a much better candidate than Nguyen, who is just the latest of so many Republican "businessmen" to waste his money in a political campaign he cannot possibly win.

Jeez, this story reminds me of a another story goin’ round--about Fuentes’ (alleged) less-than-wholehearted “support” of Dave Lang’s (now non-existent) bid for the OC Treasurer gig. Have you heard it? If not, just ask around.

FUENTES' SPECIAL MAGNETISM:

checked out Trustee Fuentes’ bio on the district website. It informs us that he is "Senior Vice President of the LFC Group of Companies.”

So I looked up the LFC “group.” LFC is owned by one William Lange (the L is for "Lange"). The company arranges online auctions of real estate. Imagine that!

Apparently, LFC is doing very well. According to a news release (likely authored by LFC) that appeared on PRnewswire in January,

In a record setting online auction, a 200… acre parcel of real estate in South Florida is being auctioned with a record setting seller's suggested value of [$]80 Million USD. This mixed use property has the potential to attract a wide range of buyers both in the US and internationally, in what is believed to be the highest value online real estate auction of all time.” The auction is being conducted by “LFC Online.”

This Fuentes fella sure does have an interesting relation to big money. He’s like an iron filing in a world of Filthy Rich Magneto-Men.


BUFFALO BILL'S BEANS:

If you go to the LFC website (http://www.lfc.com/), you'll find a very odd “history” of the company. Inexplicably, the entire history is devoted to the tale of a “Buffalo Ranch” in Newport Beach. We’re told that

Until recently, this working ranch, located in the heart of Newport Beach, California, doubled as LFC’s corporate headquarters….

In 1986, after a 25-year absence, LFC’s founder, Bill Lange, reintroduced a herd of American bison, commonly called buffalo, to LFC’s Buffalo Ranch. The new herd included Scotty, our 2000-pound male, along with Wendy, Amanda and Patti. The Buffalo Ranch soon became a standard fixture on the elementary school circuit. After all, not every city has its own buffalo herd!!

Each summer LFC would invite its clients from throughout the United States and around the world to what became known simply as the “Buffalo Ranch Barbecue.” This one-day event became famous for its diverse group of guests. Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Canadians, Europeans and Americans would all show up in their best cowboy and cowgirl outfits to share a day of great country western music, good steaks and Bill’s Beans.

I’m not making this up, honest I'm not. If you take the online tour, you learn lots more about the history of the Buffalo Ranch:

...the Buffalo Ranch was used as a working part of the Irvine Ranch until 1954, when buffalo rancher Gene Clark opened it as a public attraction and imported over 100 head of buffalo to the 115-acre parcel of land….

Occupied in the 1970’s by the late famed architect William Pereira, a self-proclaimed "barn freak," the Buffalo Ranch red clapboard barn and buildings provided a tranquil and relaxed setting for Pereira, who renamed the ranch "Urbanus." From his office atop the silo, Pereira produced plans for UC Irvine and Fashion Island.

--Well, I guess that explains why so much bullshit emanates from UCI. But I digress:

From 1986 to 1994, The LFC Group of Companies made the Buffalo Ranch our headquarters…. Employees played volleyball on the back lawn, tended the bison, held western barbeques and enjoyed the rustic setting of Lange Financial Plaza.

--Do you suppose they were chewin' on their beloved buffalo? Figures.

Newport Beach provided the perfect setting for the bison to roam amid beautiful surroundings. When The Irvine Company announced plans to develop the adjacent property into condominiums and apartments, an outspoken contingent of Orange County residents took it to heart. Attempting to block the proposed development, they started a grass roots organization called "Friends of the Buffalo Ranch." The development ultimately received approval from the planning commission. Part of the barn structure was declared an historic site and was moved to the Orange County Fairgrounds.

The bison herd was donated to the Discovery Museum of Orange County and auctioned (naturally). Becky was donated to the Orange County Fairgrounds and is still visited today by Buffalo Bill [i.e., William Lange] and his family.

No, for the last time, I’m not making this up!


BUFFALO BILL'S WILD FRAUD SHOW

I Googled the name “William Lange” with “LFC” and I didn’t find much.

I did, however, find that, in 1997, Lange was sued by the government. Evidently, the Justice Department was convinced that “Buffalo Bill” was committing fraud in a very big way. A year after charges were filed, the matter was settled, and the defendants (including Buffalo Bill) admitted no wrongdoing.

The charges are amazing. You’ve really got to check this out. I tell you, this "fraud" yarn is like an episode of Knott’s Landing! Picture Buffalo Bill as William Devane and his wife as Donna Mills.

The tale is told on the website for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) news releases [News Release]:

FDIC PRESS RELEASE:

SETTLEMENT OF LAWSUIT AGAINST FORMER FDIC AND RTC CONTRACTORS

The suit described in PR-49-97 (7-18-97) [see below] was settled by an agreement between the United States Department of Justice, William W. Lange, Alisha A. Jensen Lange, Lange Financial Corporation, Asset Clearinghouse, Inc., and Richard H.W. Bennett, executed by all parties on November 13, 1998. That agreement contains a statement that it does not constitute an admission of liability or an admission of the truth, substantial merit or validity of any previously disputed claim or factual assertion.

[The site next presents what appears to be an earlier press release [from 7/18/97?]:

THREE FORMER FDIC AND RTC CONTRACTORS SUED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD CASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FDIC Inspector General Gaston L. Gianni, Jr., announced today that the Justice Department filed suit July 15 against three California residents charging them with fraud that resulted in nearly $3.6 million in profits from contracts issued by the FDIC and the former Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to auction assets.

This case is the result of an ongoing investigation by the FDIC Office of Inspector General. The defendants named in the lawsuit are:

• William W. Lange of Corona Del Mar
• Alisha A. Jensen Lange (William Lange's wife) of Corona Del Mar, and
• Richard H.W. Bennett of Yorba Linda. Mr. Bennett is a certified public accountant and the brother-in-law of Alisha Lange.

The civil complaint, filed pursuant to the False Claims Act, alleges that the defendants fraudulently acquired contracts and overbilled the two agencies for work performed. The three were allegedly responsible for more than 2,500 false claims submitted to the FDIC and the RTC.

In the scheme outlined in the lawsuit, Ms. Lange owned "on paper" a sham company called LFC Real Estate Clearinghouse, Inc. (LFCREC). The company in fact was created, owned and operated by her husband, William Lange. The Langes improperly certified that LFCREC was woman-owned, enabling the firm to obtain lucrative government contracts. Those contracts, procured from 1992 through 1994, called for the LFCREC to auction property for the FDIC and the RTC that the agencies had acquired from failed financial institutions.

According to the lawsuit, LFCREC fraudulently obtained contracts to perform more than a dozen auctions in California, Texas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. The shell company was paid more than $1 million in commissions, approximately one percent of the assets sold. LFCREC was also reimbursed more than $2.5 million for expenses the firm claimed to have incurred in connection to the auctions.

The civil complaint alleges that LFCREC was a shell company for Lange Financial Corporation, a Newport Beach firm that is one of the largest auctioneers in the country with several subsidiaries. In addition to falsely stating that LFCREC was woman-owned, LFCREC allegedly hired subsidiaries of Lange Financial to perform auction-related work and failed to disclose that the subsidiaries were "related companies." The subsidiaries purportedly overbilled for services, including charging the government $80 per hour for work that cost $24 per hour. Mr. Bennett allegedly prepared and submitted "padded" bills to the FDIC and RTC.

Under federal law, the Langes and Mr. Bennett are potentially liable for damages of up to three times the nearly $3.6 million paid to LFCREC, and up to $10,000 in fines for each of the more than 2,500 alleged false claims. The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) provides an additional $5 million penalty for making false statements designed to influence the RTC and the FDIC.

Like I said, it’s essentially an episode of Knott’s Landing.

And our Tom Fuentes is the Senior VP of Buffalo Bill (Devane) Lange’s LFC.


Why does this make so much sense? I am filled with calm and a profound sense of understanding.

Be likewise.

The Mystery of the Presidential Window Blind by REBEL GIRL

--Some theories offered toward the meaning of completion of a recent work order by Facilities Management:


The Feng Shui Hypothesis

Some history, and some cultural history. Previous to the recent installation of the Presidential Window Blind, the Presidential Office Window offered an unobstructed floor-to-ceiling view into the modest but well appointed (No mold pizzas in there! No scampering of little mouse feet on the ceiling panels! Lots of jelly beans!) Presidential Office. If passersby were so inclined--and who wasn’t?--they might catch a glimpse of the college president at work or in conference with visiting dignitaries or chatting casually with the state’s accreditation team or counting jelly beans or ordering inspirational management gimcracks or making crank calls.

Indeed, in years past, it became something of a sport (low-impact, aerobic, non-competitive, to be sure--and no mascot) to glimpse, for instance, a certain Academic Senator standing on Thursday afternoons, post-Academic Senate meetings, as he faithfully reported the week’s disappointments and travails to the jovial and understanding campus leader, all the while eying the jelly bean jar with the same look on his eyes as the famous Victrolla dog.

But that’s another story, shared governance is only a memory, and danger is everywhere. Anybody who knows anything about Feng Shui (Did the president contract a feng shui advisor, or only pick up decorating tips from a visit to the perfectly shui Ruttan and Tucker offices?) might recognize that the window posed a clear hazard to the Presidential Power--site, the Sedona of administration.

As readers probably are aware, Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of physical space to invite the achievement of spiritual harmony with the environment. The presidential window, in its previously--and alarmingly--unharmonized condition, allowed all the energy created in that sacred and powerful space to leak out. Instead of fostering force and vigor, the gaping portal became a negative element, sort of like when you go to a party in your tux, hair nicely groomed, tie on straight but some wiseass points out that your fly is open.

In addition, the window’s openness, its physical and metaphysical vulnerability, allowed the potential for passersby and onlookers to transmit potentially negative energies to the office’s occupant.

With installation of the Presidential Window Blind, the college president has both remedied his precarious position, trapping the accumulated psychic energy he creates, while shielding himself and also deflecting the transmission of random or negative cosmic elements emanating from passerby and onlookers.

The Chinese have a phrase for this which, translated loosely, amounts to “Fuck off.”


The Asian Shadow Puppet Theater Speculation

As an undergraduate with sporadic interest in the dramatic arts, Rebel Girl once studied Asian Theater and was particularly interested in the tradition of shadow puppetry. So, the day when she first saw the Presidential Window Blind while schlepping out to the faculty lot with her usual collection of student papers, baskets, and bags, she was struck by its dramatic possibilities. Could the President, she wondered, also be a fan of shadow puppets? Was this an attempt on his part to invigorate the cultural life on campus?

Life imitates art, or is it the other way around? (Rebel Girl missed a lot of classes in college.)

Behold the Presidential Window Blind, illuminated with its bright office light. Even though I might have missed that lecture, it seems to Reb that this modest shade offers the perfect screen for puppets, intricately designed from and made mobile with rods, sticks, and wire. We move into a world of allegory and myth. (Think recent board meetings.) The shadow puppets are never directly seen by the audience, only the effect they create is visible. This effect is created when the puppeteer moves the puppets and the light behind the viewing screen creates the shadows for the audience on the other side.

Traditionally used to depict epics, the puppets could easily be adapted to other narrative styles or meeting minutes. Take Santander, for instance. Trustee Fuentes’ Spanish Adventure. Please. Rebel Girl imagines the college president might be inspired to offer a revue of sorts, a variety show, the greatest hits of the SOCCCD.

The Allegory of the Cave

Or perhaps the Presidential Window Blind is the college president’s attempt to approximate Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” This is, admittedly, a variation on the Shadow Puppet Theory.

Those of you who sat in the front row of your undergraduate philosophy class will remember that in the allegory, Plato likens people to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see.

Such prisoners might mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows.

The college president is reportedly a fan of both Plato and the Matrix movie series. Haven’t you seen the pin-up of Keanu Reeves that the Presidential Window Blind now obscures?

However, the college president’s purpose in creating this homage is not easily ascertained. Does he want to lead people out of the cave into the light? Or does he wish to remind us of our own state of imprisonment? Or...?

The Clock Tower Conjecture

The arrival of the Presidential Window Blind coincides with the obvious decay of the Clock Tower. Perhaps our secretly sentimental leader can no longer bear to cast his eyes daily on the rotting clock tower, an IVC icon perhaps more beloved than he, and thus devised the window blind as a way to obscure the splintering tower and its garland of yellow police caution tape. Out of sight, out of mind.

The IKEA Premise

Self-explanatory.

Saturday morning snaps

At about 10 this morning, Rebel Girl called and mentioned that she could see snow out her window. Sheesh!

So out I went to take a few pics. Drove up to the Trabuco church, which permits a view, not only of the mountains, but of the ocean. Check it out.




If you look carefully, you can see Catalina Island. Some of it is to the left; some way to the right (It's pretty faint):


This doesn't look like much, I guess. It's a bird in flight. He seemed happy. Me too.


This one's a shot of the notorious Wheeler compound--from across Live Oak Cyn.


My nephew (taken last weekend).


My niece.


I do hope you all have a good weekend.

Pre-break peevitude

1. Raw Journalism:

Have you seen the latest Lariat?

Never mind the stories about the Accrediting agency’s spankage of the trustees or the board’s ridiculous American Library Association action.

No, I’m talking about the Lariat’s coverage of a new play, “Wild Party.”

The paper’s front page (see) presents a vaguely lurid scene from the play, emblazoned with the words, “Taking it all off.” The latter phrase is never explained.

It did, however, inspire me to turn to the rest of the story on the back page (see). That page is devoted to more scenes, also lurid, which appear under the heading, “Sex, Drugs and Jazz.”

A brief article that doubles as a review (glowing) appears at the center. There, we learn that “’Wild Party’ leaves the audience panting after two hours of copulation, cocktails and crime.”

Jeez, if that’s what the audience are doing, what on earth is going on in the play?

The play, we’re told, is a “racy display of immorality.”

So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Not sure. As near as I can tell though, the racy display is the reason the writer liked the play.

The play, he says, “was filled with drug use, underage drinking, raw homosexuality, group sex and murder.”

Group sex? Copulation? Raw homosexuality? Good Lord! —That sounds like—dare I say it?—PORNOGRAPHY!


2. IVC’s Rot Tower:

A few days ago, I walked through the A200’s so-called “faculty lounge” and briefly overheard two instructors. They were complaining about President Glenn “Sandbag” Roquemore. “What does he stand for?” asked one instructor. “What is his vision? During all these years, has he ever had anything that anyone would call a vision?! If so, somebody tell me what it is!”


Glenn does have trouble with the “vision thing.” That wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t also have so much trouble with the “everything else” thing.

As I’m sure you know by now, the people who run IVC are knuckleheads. When they’re not throwing sand bombs around campus or overseeing mold growth, they’re telling faculty to box up their stuff and move it into the hallway. And when do they choose to do this? Smack dab in the middle of the semester, that's when.

IVC has exactly one landmark: its clock tower. It ain’t much, I know, but it’s all we’ve got. We used to have an orange grove, but Glenn tore that out a few years ago, whereupon he leased the land to farmers who immediately sprayed it with a dangerous toxin. “Oops,” said Glenn.

Well, the knucklehead(s) allowed the clock tower to rot to the point that they’ve gotta tear it down before it falls down and breaks something. Near as I can tell, that’s gonna happen, and there’s no plan to replace the tower. I’m not gonna even argue about that. If I have to argue and explain, then forgetaboutit.

Today, Rebel Girl told me that the wood beams that hold up the canopy above our “vending machine complex” are also rotten. “They look just like beavers have been chewing on them,” she said. “Go see for yourself!”

So I went out there today and took some pictures. (See.)


Now, this stuff doesn’t have to happen. If you take care of these things, they don’t rot.


3. Improvements; deterioration:

In the past, we’ve monitored the amazingly poor conditions of the CEC temporary building—you know, the one that is rotting and deteriorating. Among its more rotten aspects is its “handicapped” ramp out back. That ramp is so bad that the maintenance people had to set up Sherry-colored cones to keep people from falling into or through the gaping holes.

Well, today, workers finally replaced the rotten wood. Here’s a pic. It’s about time, Glenn!

One of the workers noticed my camera, and so he walked over to me and explained that the fix was temporary. A more permanent fix will come later. He admitted that the ramp was “bad.” “Real bad,” he said.

As I walked back to my office, I noticed that part of CEC’s roof had rotted so badly that it fell to the ground. (See.)


3. A200 Enigmata:

If you walk into the A200 building (from the clock tower) and walk through the hallway, you’ll encounter two drinking fountains.

They’re side by side, about a foot apart.


They’re at about the same height.

I just wanted to point that out.

That’s all.


4. The Presidential Office Enigma:

IVC is a smallish kind of place. As you walk past the flag pole (which, as I recall, had its flag at half mast for a while when Nixon bit the dust), and walk toward the Clock Tower, you’ll see the Presidential Office just to the left.

The area just outside that office (there’s a large window) has been the scene of many a Dissent story over the years. Especially, the “Clock Tower Incident” (see).

Denizens of IVC have grown accustomed to walking past that office and glancing briefly into the Presidential Lair. That’s all you’ve gotta do: one glance, and you see the whole operation in all its inglory.

Well, all of a sudden, about three weeks ago, Glenn started putting up barriers and such. First, he installed some big dopey blind (brought two-thirds of the way up). And then he placed a coupla big dumb plants in front of the window.


What’s it mean? What’s he hiding?

COMING SOON!

• Rebel Girl on IVC’s “Miracle at Lourdes” (a magical fountain).

• Red Emma’s horoscopes! (Somethin’ about “Phoenix.” I never pry.)

In a possible world

The embattled Mr. Fuentes

Plus the PEEVISH Mr. Wagner:


I picked up this photo from the consultants at the last board meeting:

Trustees, Utah, Red Meat

"As with administrators in any organization, high on the list of expectations of chairs is that they will display loyalty, courtesy, and willingness to participate as a member of the leadership team….”

—John "Brownie" Williams (7/11/97)

n a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article (February 24), Piper Fogg describes problems that commonly arise in the working relationship of faculty and trustees. Fogg, of course, is writing about four-year institutions, not community colleges.

For every college trustee who complains that professors are a difficult, whiny lot, there is a professor who thinks trustees are pompous stuffed shirts.

Governing boards are packed with businessmen, faculty members will moan. They are steering institutions down the dreaded path to corporatization.

Trustees will counter that faculty members don't know how good they have it: They teach just a few hours a week, have summers off, and enjoy more benefits than most professionals.

Boards often think faculty members should be supervised by the administration just as any employees would be by their managers. But faculty members generally feel they are part of a collaborative enterprise and are entitled to a say in how it is run.

Pompous stuffed shirts? (“Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women….”)

“Corporatization”? Business? (Remember when Raghu considered setting up “consumer complaint” stations around campus?)

—Hey, that sounds like our kind of squawking!

Whiny faculty? (Remember when Trustee Lorch referred to faculty as “squealing pigs”?)

Teaching “just a few hours”? (36 hrs. a week, according to Trustee Tom.)

Managers and employees? (“Disloyalty will not be tolerated!”)

That sounds familiar, too.

Faculty and trustees who've grown distant and suspicious of each other are often advised to do lots of commingling and working together—and, evidently, that can work, as Fogg illustrates with examples from around the country. On the other hand, “Trustee organizations warn boards against commingling too much with the faculty, lest their respective roles be confused.”

Go left. No. Go right. D’oh!

It’s common, evidently, for boards not to speak with or listen to faculty. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for pesky administrators who fill up the info vacuum:

Some boards may not talk much to professors, but they all get an earful from the president. The AAUP's Mr. Bowen says it is common for trustees to get most of their information from the college's top administrators. That can be problematic, he says, since presidents sometimes vent their frustrations about the faculty. Trustees, in turn, take those comments at face value. "It's too damn easy to demonize faculty," he says.

At the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, faculty members say the board is getting a warped sense of reality by listening only to top administrators. "I think they don't have much of a clue about what goes on in the trenches," says Mary M. Beck, a professor of animal science and president of the Academic Senate.

A “warped sense of reality”? Clueless trustees? That sounds like the SOCCCD all right. Only our top administrator is a notorious schemer and liar to boot.

In another article, “When Trustees Blunder” (Feb. 17), Richard P. Chait asks:

Is inept governance contagious? Has the germ that infected corporate America contaminated colleges and universities, too? For every Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom, we seem to have an academic equivalent.

Egregious boards, writes Chait, tend to make the news ("Board bites college"), but they’re rare, he says. “In reality nearly all board members work diligently and contribute constructively….”

It must be swell dealing with a board like that.

On the other hand, “the manifestations and permutations of dysfunctional [trustee] governance are so plentiful.” Chait goes through a disturbing litany. We don’t get mentioned, but that’s because we’re a community college district. Or maybe we're just off the scale.

Check these articles out. Faculty, if you don’t have an account with the Chronicle, you can access it freely through “NexisLexis” on our school computers. We’ve got anything that’s ever appeared in the CHE at our fingertips.

WHAT’S NEW?

n this week’s “What’s New?”, Bob Park reports on the continuing “Dover Effect,” that is, the spreading legislative crapulosity among creationists and IDers caused by their huge court defeat in Dover.

Writes Bob, “Utah is one of the most conservative states in the nation, but on Monday, legislation favoring intelligent design lost. Alas, I'm sure the Discovery Institute will be able to find a new gimmick.”

Who funds the Discovery Institute? That would be OC’s own Howard Ahmanson. In the early to mid-90s, Ahmanson was the sugar daddy of Tustin's Education Alliance. The EA, of course, is the organization that helped bring us Nancy Padberg and Don Wagner.

I hope everyone has noticed that Nancy is now battling Mr. Wagner with regard to his red meat tossage--i.e., pulling our colleges’ memberships in the American Library Association just to keep his Neanderthal constituency happy.

Plus she's on the case with regard to Trustee Williams' expensive junketing habit.

But Nancy, give us the details!