Fix it, please

▲ THIS JUST IN: State's community college fees to drop $6 per unit. Starts Jan. 1. An attempt to ameliorate low enrollments. Free cash prizes would be more effective still. Perpetual boozy-sexy parties in the Quad would be good, too.

▲ Today, the Associated Press reported the perceived urgent need to overhaul California’s incorrigible public schools: Education overhaul urged. Check it out.

Obviously, the preparedness of students attending CA's community colleges is determined by the preparedness of graduates (and non-graduates!) of CA's public schools.

(Hey, if things get much worse in my IVC classes student-preparedness-wise, I'm gonna have to start teaching the ABC's!)

The article discusses the obvious: bureaucratic inefficiency, funding, and teacher quality. It notes likely proposals and suggestions.

It ends with:

Some suggestions, particularly ideas about measuring teachers' effectiveness, are likely to meet resistance from powerful interests such as the California Teachers Association…The politically powerful union has resisted previous efforts to monitor teachers….

▲ Raghu P. Mathur is still the Chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District. No relief in sight.

Preparing for the Big Wet One

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO, DtB posted a discussion of the tsunami threat here in Orange County. (See So Cal Tsunamis?)

Ridiculous, you say?

Don’t think so. As we explained then, the tsunami threat is real, not because a devastating tsunami in our lifetime is likely (it isn’t), but because a devastating OC tsunami (at some impossible-to-predict moment) is inevitable.

We’re like Indonesians were until two years ago: unprepared, unworried, "because we're unlikely to be 'the ones.'" We're TYPICAL HUMAN KNUCKLEHEADS.

Well, in this morning’s OC Reg, the point about the nature of the threat and other points are made in Before the ocean rises. The article also announces that OC will soon be the first California county to be “TsunamiReady.”

I wouldn’t get too excited about that. It turns out that being “TsunamiReady” doesn’t mean we're ready for a big tsunami, though it’s a good start. Essentially, it means that there’s been an effort to educate the public about the danger. Plus some efforts have been made to organize emergency personnel for a response. But, when the big wet one hits, the ocean is still gonna destroy everything in its path, and that path covers coastal towns filled with cell-phone packin' knuckleheads.

The upshot: saying your county is “TsunamiReady” is like a driver saying she’s “CrashSafe” because somebody told her to wear her seatbelt and to get a AAA card.


The Register article has some good graphics. Check 'em out. Here are some excerpts:

…All Orange County beach cities are or in the next few months will be "TsunamiReady," a National Weather Service designation that recognizes communities that prepare for such events….

…"The message we put out is to be prepared, because you just never know," [Ed Clark, warning coordination meteorologist in San Diego] said. "To say we're not going to be hit is in a way asking for it."

Mark Legg, a Huntington Beach-based scientist who for decades has studied the potential for a tsunami here, said about the countywide effort, "It's about time."

"We humans think we're not vulnerable because we think technology will save us," he said. "Well, Mother Nature is very powerful."

Russ Fluter, a Newport Beach resident walking the Strand in Newport Beach on a recent day, said he wasn't concerned…“I don't think it's going to happen, personally," he said....

Since 1980, there have been tsunami warnings issued in Southern California in May 1986, October 1994 and June 2005…The 2005 warning, which happened just months after the Indonesia devastation, was a wake-up call, emergency officials said…The warning confused residents along the coast who didn't know whether to stay or go.

Glorria Morrison, emergency services coordinator in Huntington Beach, said hundreds of people called 911 to ask, "What should I do?"….


Are we at risk?

● ...Mark Legg has studied the area's risk for a tsunami since the '70s and said there is evidence large tsunamis have hit our shoreline.

● While large earthquakes offshore are rare, they have happened. There have been four offshore earthquakes stronger than magnitude 6 in the past 75 years.

● There was a well-documented case in Southern California in 1927 that generated a tsunami, raising the ocean by 6 feet. There was no major damage because much of the coast was undeveloped. That's different from a 6-foot wave that surfers here are used to--this is a sea change that "you can't outrun, you cannot swim against," he said.

● Catalina is a danger area that could be a source of a tsunami. The island is on a fault that bends left, a "pop-up" formed by many earthquakes over hundreds of thousands of years.

● Other fault lines move right, creating a hole, or "pull-apart" basins. San Diego Harbor is an example of this, as is the San Pedro Basin. These slopes offshore are steep and made of soft sediment. A large earthquake could trigger a submarine landslide, which could create a tsunami….

● Legg and his colleagues found evidence of a tsunami – shells and marine life mixed with bedrock – in Carlsbad that occurred within the last 11,000 years. The findings were 29 feet above sea level, meaning the ocean rose by at least that much.

Oh Wow: Strong earthquake shakes Taiwan. No tsunami this time.

Know any rich people?

There's a brief article about Irvine Valley College's PERFORMING ARTS CENTER in this morning’s OC Register. The Facility is now under construction and should be completed by summer. The article explains that individuals and whatnot now have an opportunity to get some or all of this thing named after 'em!

For $2 million, the new $32 million performing arts center at Irvine Valley College could be named after you.


The Irvine Valley College Foundation is selling naming rights to the building that college President Glenn Roquemore has called a "gem destined to become a cultural and architectural centerpiece" in Irvine. It is to open in July.

The center's rooms and the lobby will also be named after those who donate toward the center. The money will be used for such things as lighting instruments, several grand pianos and wireless microphones. One of the most expensive items sought is a $200,000 acoustic shell for the symphony, used to project sound toward the audience. (See: Irvine: College selling naming rights)

I haven't got much money, so I'm thinking small. Something along these lines:

The CHUNK WHEELER toilet partition

Or maybe

The DISSENT the BLOG baton & catgut string depository (i.e., closet shelf)

--Yeah, something like that.


If you really cared about this college, you'd find a rich person and get them to cough up some dough!

What about that "fish taco" guy who spoke at last year's Commencement? He seemed nice. His taco money and that "acoustic shell" are a perfect fit, I'd say.

In all sincerity, this building will be wonderful. Maybe a "gem" even.

It's gonna be BIG. It'll make Saddleback's Ronald MacDonald Theater look like a Lilliputian apiary!

The principle of “gratuitous-yet-just insultitude”

▼ Years ago, in the print version of Dissent, I called a certain administrator a “liar.”

.I was immediately accused of “name calling.”

.But wait! What if there are lots of demonstrable facts indicating that the guy is a liar—I mean, a persistent or extreme one—and I call him a “liar”? Is that name-calling?

.Sure, technically. But calling a plumber a plumber is name-calling too, in that sense. When we accuse somebody of name-calling, we mean, not just that they've applied a "name" to something, but that, in this case, they’ve done something that they should not do.

.Why shouldn’t I call this liar a “liar,” especially since I've cited the overwhelming evidence that, in fact, he lies often and boldly—and to people to whom he has an obligation to be honest?

.When reporters describe Saddam’s former situation in terms of “tyranny,” are they engaging in name-calling? If I describe O.J. Simpson as “unsavory” or George Bush as “inarticulate,” am I guilty of something?

.Imagine someone who refuses to call an apartment fire that kills a dozen children a “disaster” or a “tragedy.” Anyone who doesn’t think that that event was a tragedy—that, really, the fire is more properly described as an "event" or "occurrence"—doesn’t understand the event. Sometimes, by refusing to suggest a judgment or a moral response in our account of a person or thing or event, we distort the truth. We make it harder, not easier, for people to understand what needs to be understood.

▼ CONGRESSMAN FLIMFLAM. In this morning’s LA Times, there's more bad press for Dissent the Blog’s Congressman, Republican Gary Miller. The Times article describes Miller’s latest apparent flimflammery. Check it out. Or not.

.It bugs me no end that this guy represents me (and the Reb, and Red Emma, and even Limber Lou).

.I looked up Miller’s name in my Devil’s Thesaurus and I got: “total asshole.” I bet he gets reelected, though.

.Do you know any person—one that you are comfortable calling decent—who would examine the consistent conduct of Mr. Miller (see earlier blogs) and not agree that it is dishonest and repellent? Is there anyone who doesn’t think that people like Miller are scamming, sometimes individuals, sometimes the public?

.All right, then. FLAMFLAM. Among other things, this man engages in flimflammery most foul. Shout it out! Let there be moral clarity!

.We'll return to the word "asshole" in a second.

▼ GOVERNOR POTATO HEAD. Governor Arnold broke a leg skiing yesterday, but he didn’t even have the decency to break the damn thing here in California. He was in dang Idaho. Henceforth, I shall refer to the fellow as "Governor Potato Head."

.Now this is an instance of name-calling. Of a kind. Observe that it is made less offensive by the fact that Arnold’s head looks nothing like a spud. (I would never call a guy whose head looks like a potato a "potato head"; I might, however, call a vain scoundrel who is not very attractive "plug-ugly." There are rules!)

.Observe also that anyone who has paid attention to Mr. Schwarzennegger’s political career knows that he started it with a pledge specifically to eschew the “special interests,” and yet, from day 1, he has been up to his biceps in “special interest” money and connections. Observe, finally, that, though Arnold’s hypocrisy is manifest, journalists never call him a “hypocrite.” Occasionally, they come close. But they almost never just say what everyone (that minority who reads the paper and who attempts to retain pertinent facts) knows to be true. They seem to follow some kind of "Emperor's wardrobe" rule.

.In my view, it is in such cases as this that one may invoke the special “name-calling” exception, namely, the principle of “gratuitous-yet-just insultitude”:

When the person is indecent and decent people are not being heard, just to even things out a bit, engage in name-calling, but take care that the meaning of the “name” clearly does not apply to the person described.

.It is in this sense, then, that one may justly and happily call George W. Bush a “stupid asshole.” Nobody really thinks that he’s stupid. They think, rather, that he's surprisingly ill-informed, brutish, insensitive, and inarticulate.

.And yet, in calling the man a “stupid asshole,” we make the world a better place. We see good people smiling. We are ever-so-slightly more justified in viewing our world as just and good.

Let's come to the aid of a friend and student

Many of you at Irvine Valley College know, or at least have seen, a writer, graphics artist, and sometime-student named Eugene Ipavec. Well, he recently sustained a very bad injury, and he has no way to pay for the very expensive medical services that he'll need. In the meantime, he can't do much of anything.

I'll have more information about this situation in the coming days. But if you're interested in helping, check out Help for Eugene, which has been set up by one of Eugene's many friends and supporters, Jonathan.

Really. Check it out. It's the best thing since sliced bread.

In the Hobbit Hutch

IT WAS A BUSY DAY, and I've still got this rotten cold. Limber Lou dropped by, but only for a few minutes. It was so beautiful outside, I decided to take a few snaps. Limber Lou kept talking and squirming and asking me questions, and it was kind of a relief when he left. I waved.


My folks wanted me to drop by about something, and so I did that. Got to talking with my mom, Sierra, about that image of a German Shepherd that you see on K-9 cop cars. (I mentioned it a couple of days ago.) It’s a stencil that you can buy in the usual cop supply outlets. When I Googled “K-9 supplies” or some such thing, I first found a place in Kentucky that sold maybe 15 different stencils. Prominent among them was this one (see).

I asked Sierra (i.e., my mom) to tell me the story. Here’s what she told me.

It was the mid-70s, and she was painting animals in those days. She and my dad (and, to a certain extent, I) got to know a cop named Dave R. I’m not sure he was a cop—he could have been an electrician—but he was definitely involved in training dogs for police “K-9” squads.

Dave asked Sierra to paint portraits of his two dogs, Kai and Cora. They were magnificent purebred German Shepherds from Germany, as I recall, and they were truly amazing dogs, and beautiful, too. They were trained as “Schutzhund” (working) dogs—we had met Dave at a Schutzhund club. The training includes such routines as shooting a gun off next to a dog’s head! The dog isn’t supposed to freak out. These dogs never did. They were cool customers, boy.

I do believe that Dave regarded Kai and Cora as his best dogs ever, and he loved ‘em to pieces. My dad took some photos of the two—they were a kind of team, and they were lots of fun to be around—and my mom used those pictures, mostly, to paint the portraits.

Dave was pretty happy with the results. My mom got paid. Not long after that, my folks gave up on the dog club, and they didn’t see Dave much after that. (We had joined the club to get my little brother Ray interested in something wholesome—like dogs and dog-training. It didn’t work.)

After a few years, Sierra did hear from Dave again. He had sent her a letter along with a sweatshirt and some stencils. It turns out that his dog-training company needed an image of a dog, and they couldn’t get any image to work—except for the two portraits that my mom had painted (or photographs of the portraits). So, after a little manipulation, those images ended up on the company’s logo and masthead (etc.). The sweatshirt that Dave had sent had the picture/image of Kai, the male dog, on the front. (See below.) On the back was the company logo, which, I believe, included the image of Cora, the female. Dave had also sent stencils used to transfer the Kai image onto the sides of police "K-9" cars. He explained that police departments all over the country were using these stencils. They were being used in Germany, too.

In the letter, Dave was apologetic. He said he felt bad that she wasn’t getting royalties. I’m sure my mom didn’t care about that. Besides, she told me, Dave owned the painting. She had sold it to him, and so he had every right to use it.

I asked Sierra if she still had the sweatshirt and the stencils. Off she went looking for them. After a few minutes, she returned with the shirt. It was in a bag and it was as good as new:


She said that she thought the stencils were up in the old “Hobbit hutch,” my family’s name for an old dilapidated structure that my parents once used for painting. They don’t paint much anymore. Nowadays, they’re into pottery and sculpture.

I headed up there. It’s a real rat-hole, up against the hill, right above my parents’ private road. I could find no stencils. But I did find interesting things.

Mostly, the shed is filled with old paintings—some on canvas, some on board—leaning against each other. The weather—the sun and moisture—and even the rats had gotten to them. In the case of some paintings that were directly exposed to sunlight coming through the dirty windows, the paint had mostly peeled away. The paintings that were stacked along the wall were very dusty and dirty.

I didn’t find the stencils, but I did find some of my mom’s old animal paintings, though most of them lay flat one on top of another in flat drawers. I focussed mostly on the paintings that were stacked along the walls.

Here’s one that was probably painted some time before the Kai & Cora episode:


I had to wash it down to really see the image. Even after that, it looked grimy and dark. Later, I photographed it, downloaded it to my Mac, and then Photoshopped it. I tried the “auto level” button, and, voila! For once, that button pretty much did the trick. (Later, I’ll actually clean up the painting. That’s tricky.)

I kept digging. One painting was a real surprise, and it brought back lots of memories. In the early seventies, my beautiful and silly German cousin Tina had visited my folks for several months. (This was while I was attending UCI.) She didn’t speak a word of English. Still, she managed quickly to become part of the family. She’s was—still is—a great gal, full of fun and full of wild gestures and great emotions. We took her everywhere. She charmed the pants off of everybody.

Evidently, my mother had started a portrait of her. It’s pretty badly damaged, but there’s no doubt who it is:


Well, I’ll be spending some time working my way through all this stuff in the crummy old "Hobbit hutch." (I seem to be the family historian and archivist.) I won’t go on and on about all the things that I found there today.

Well, there was one thing. Evidently, my whole family had attended one of the wild parties given by one of my Professors/advisors in grad school. This would have been about 1980. I don’t know how it happens, but, somehow, my family ends up knowing everybody that I know. The “wild party” Professor—a famous philosopher of religion!—had visited my folks on several occasions, too. I don’t get it, but there it is.

My sister was at the party, too. She’s an artist, and she took lots of photographs. Later, she developed the photos—they were pretty wild—into these 1 1/2-inch square “portraits,” exhibiting every imaginable emotion or attitude. She assembled these geometrically upon a large board. The resulting piece was a work of art. It was pretty wild. Pretty terrific.

Well, I found that thing—next to a large rat nest. It was covered in muck. Some of the photos were missing; others were damaged. I took it up to my place and started cleaning the photos, one by one.

The first one I cleaned—it was the first picture in the first row—was of my late brother Ray, who also attended the party. Ray was probably the funniest person I have ever known. I vaguely recall that he had entertained people, in his outrageous manner, quite successfully at this particular party, which occurred in a great little house near the ocean in Laguna Beach. Here’s the pic:

Ray would have been about 19 years old at the time. He's obviously giving my sister a dirty look. I loved the guy.

Later in the day, my mom called. She said that she had found some photos that I might want to look at. Among them was this one of my little brother Ray, standing before his “crop,” somewhere in Northern California (circa 1990):


I love this photo, which I've never seen before. It's so Ray.

If there are any Junior G-Men out there, well, just chill out. Ray’s long dead. And I don’t know where the photo was taken.

Ray knew the Latin names for everything. For instance, he knew the Latin names for all the varieties of vegetation in the Santa Anas. And he knew the Latin names of other vegetation, too.

He got into a lot of trouble, though not in the Santa Anas.

He sure did have a green thumb.

Evidently, Fidel Castro was at the party, too.

Ms. Sunny