Sunny Girl, on so fine a day, abjures all politics

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The Sunny Girl at about 1:00 p.m., Trabuco Canyon, CA.

No clouds, no monsters.

Just grass.

A mess is a mess, oh yes, oh yes

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1. OCC gone wild

Dang! All you ever hear about is that damned Orange Coast College. Among local colleges, it’s the admired/despised “popular kid” in the classroom. Students flock to that place as though it were a beach party held by that “Girls Gone Wild” jackass. (The above is actually a GGW poster.)


And no wonder! They’ve got yachts and private Canadian islands and wacky, beret-wearing student radicals! What have WE got here at sober old Irvine Valley College? The students are all Republicans. We used to have a laser beam & a clock tower. Plus orange groves. All of that got yanked out.

Naturally, I don't advocate turning IVC into another party school. There's one too many of those already. But I do think that IVC could do a better job marketing itself. But how do you compete with a party? One with its own yachts and islands and gifts from Dr. Laura?

Back to the party school. OCC really does have an island. Some guy who previously gave the college a yacht (yup, another yacht) turned around and gave the college an island to boot, worth a cool million.

Well, it’s seriously uncool to accept a gift like that and then to sell it for cash, but it looks like reality is forcing that option upon the OCC bacchanalians. According to this morning’s LA Times (O.C. college to sell its Canadian island), OCC

has decided to sell its craggy British Columbia island over the protests of students and faculty…. The Orange Coast College Foundation Board of Directors voted 15-1 … on Thursday to proceed with the sale of Rabbit Island, a 36-acre swath in the Gulf Islands, which dot the Strait of Georgia off of Vancouver. [See graphic.]

…The decision comes after a lengthy campus debate in which some faculty members argued that Rabbit Island affords the college a unique research opportunity. Students circulated petitions that said selling the island "for a quick cash boon would be a hasty and unwise use of a generous gift."

…The college, which has an enrollment of about 24,000, held classes on the island each summer for about 25 students, who combed it for plant samples and snapped photos of spectacular tides. They stayed in four cabins equipped with twin beds, sinks and mirrors; the island also has a solar generator, a windmill, several bathrooms and an outhouse carved with the requisite crescent moon.

…Recently hired consultants concluded that the island was too far away and its maintenance too expensive to make a research station feasible….

When I was a little kid, I lived in Vancouver, but all I remember is fog and cold (and fish & chips). I bet those OCC kids tried to party on Rabbit Isle but they found out fast about the weather. I can hear them now: "Who’d o’ thunk that there’d be islands that don’t offer Coronas, sunshine, and wild island babes? "Road trip!"


2. Stupider-than-usual Idiot spotted at South Coast Plaza

OK, I can’t resist this one. Wednesday night, some guy tried to rob a clerk at Macy’s (in South Coast Plaza)—sans weapon. Evidently, the would-be robber demanded money “several times.”

Well, “the clerk refused…”

The robber “ran away.”

(See Unarmed idiot tries to rob Macy's.)

3. Lunging


Apropos of nothing, I direct you to a recent humpback whale sighting off Dana Point. According to the Reg (Rare humpback whale seen off Dana Point),

A humpback whale, one of the most majestic creatures in nature, was sighted four miles off Dana Point Harbor last Saturday by nature lovers.... Melissa Panfili, an instructor on the cruise, estimated the whale at 50 feet in length. [The Ocean] institute says the whale was "engaging in 'lunge feeding,' a process by which the whale circles around a school of fish, blowing bubbles to round them up into a group. The whale then lunges into the school, gulping down hundreds of the small fish at a time."

Lunge feeding? I thought only my little brother did that.

4. A mess is a mess, oh yes, oh yes

Well, the 2nd part of that super-duper Stanford U study on California public education hit the fan yesterday. It focuses on money:

California needs to boost education spending at least 40 percent, or about $25 billion a year, to dramatically raise student achievement levels, according to the second part of an education research project released Thursday…. (See Study calls for more school money without performance guarantee.)

Dan Walters weighs in on the study’s release in this morning’s Sacramento Bee (It's official: Education is a mess):

The studies, about 1,700 pages of often-opaque academic prose, were publicly unveiled this week…. And they fundamentally confirm what those who watch the system already knew: It's a disaster and needs a top-to-bottom overhaul.

The schools spend more than $60 billion a year to educate about 6 million K-12 students of immensely diverse backgrounds, but may be underfinanced. However, the researchers concluded, merely spending more will not significantly improve outcomes, especially for children living in poverty, unless what project Director Susanna Loeb called "systemic and fundamental reform" is also adopted.

What reforms? The researchers focus on what's wrong with the system—such as the convoluted structure of "categorical aids" that distort financing and too much micromanagement from Sacramento—but are vague on what specifically should be done to make the system more responsive and effective.

…Will the research … really change the state's long-standing gridlock on education policy? The papers, as noted earlier, largely confirm what informed observers already knew—that the Capitol has habitually disregarded reality and logic on substantive issues. When it comes to schools, the competing political positions are well-entrenched, as the dynamics of the unveiling underscored.

Schwarzenegger reflected a common Republican position, stressing reform over new financing…. But Democratic legislative leaders and state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell, echoing the education community's long-held position, insisted that more money must accompany structural change. "Both reform and resources are essential," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who nonetheless refused to talk about raising taxes.

So now we have a trove of data and critical analysis about our school conundrum that could be a basis for serious policymaking. But overcoming ossified political positions would be immensely difficult, perhaps impossible, mirroring the even larger question of whether this very complex state is governable at all.

See also School study calls for cash, local control

Failure, fraud—plus somebody got a prize

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1. Public Ed in California fundamentally broken.

Today’s big education story is the release of a super-study (a collection of 22 studies) commissioned by the Governor and a bipartisan group of legislators a year ago. Turning to Stanford researchers, they asked:

Um, what’s wrong with the public school system?

Apparently, the answer is: lots. The system is fundamentally broken, evidently. See

● The San Francisco Chronicle: Deep flaws found in school system
● The LA Times: No quick, cheap fix for state's schools
● The Sacramento Bee: State education report gets rapid assessment

The study’s findings will be exploited by both parties. Republicans will now say “we told you so.” But meaningful reform that is guided by this study will cost huge money. Democrats will therefore claim that the study refutes the Republican slogan that “more money” won’t solve the problem. Well, as far as this study is concerned, fixing our public ed system will require INCREDIBLE SHITLOADS of money.

One alleged solution, of course, is the elimination of the public education bureaucracy altogether.

2. Compton Community College audit


☞You’ll recall that, owing to various egregious misdeeds by officials, Compton Community College lost its accreditation a few years ago. That forced the State Chancellor’s Office to swoop in and do whatever those people do, which ain’t much most of the time, I’ll tell you for sure.

Well, on the 10th, State Chancellor Mark Drummond issued a press release:

“Since the first day of the takeover of the Compton Community College District by the Office of the State Chancellor in 2004 a state intervention team has worked to fiscally stabilize the college and focused on keeping the doors open for students; while cleaning up the past practices of mismanagement, fraud and corruption. This audit report details just how bad things were, and what the team from the State Chancellor’s Office has faced in the past 2 1⁄2 years.

“The ‘clean-up’ process is nearing completion … While there are a few in the community that still insist that ‘nothing was wrong’ and the state takeover was misguided, this comprehensive independent audit by FCMAT should put most of those sentiments and suspicions to rest.

“The vast majority of faculty at Compton Community College was never the source of the problem, and they have worked very diligently with the recovery team to make a future for the college and the students it serves….

“This entire experience is a lesson about what happens when locally elected officials violate the public trust. The Office of the Chancellor has greatly improved monitoring capability to prevent things like this from occurring in the future, but there is no sure cure for corrupt public officials except for transparency and voter scrutiny.”

—OK, but just what happened?

Well, three days later (on the 10th), the Times reported:

In a scathing audit of Compton Community College released Monday, state investigators said they found numerous instances of potential financial fraud, phony student enrollments, missing computer equipment and even the campus auto shop being used for private gain.

The "extraordinary audit" ordered by the state Legislature backs up and expands previous probes that led to the college being taken over by the state in May 2004 and to the school's loss of academic accreditation last year. The campus became a satellite of El Camino College in Torrance last fall.

State auditors and the investigative firm Kessler International recommended that legal authorities consider possible prosecutions for irregularities found during the 2003-05 period examined in the study. The FBI and Los Angeles County district attorney's office are looking at the report, several officials said.

A former college trustee, Ignacio Pena, pleaded guilty in 2005 to siphoning more than $1 million in public funds via a dummy organization that enrolled people in sham college courses.

…[I]n the face of so much uncertainty and scandal over the last several years, the student body has declined by about half to an enrollment of about 3,000, officials said. …

Among its findings:

• Administrators and teachers enrolled nonexistent students or lied about enrollments to hike funds from the state. In some cases, multiple identification numbers were assigned to the same students and some students were listed as taking the same courses several times. Instructors were scheduled on paper to teach two or more classes slated for the same time periods, the audit found.

• Hundreds of thousands of dollars in classroom rent for nonexistent rooms was paid to off-campus firms, and additional money went to an instructor and his companies to help produce a campus newspaper that was not published, several sources told investigators.

• Large sums were paid without proper documentation to consultants and independent contractors. Among those, programs supposedly geared to recruit students and get them ready for college billed the school for trips to amusement parks and restaurants and bought clothes and shoes.

• "Extremely disorganized" payroll policies allowed one maintenance employee to miss three consecutive months of work and still get paid, and another worker to award herself a 25% raise without approval from bosses. Moonlighting was winked at, such as a campus security officer who appeared to work simultaneously as a police officer in another city.

• More than $571,000 worth of computers, iPods, televisions, cameras and video games were purchased but never showed up in inventories later.

• A collection of African art that was donated to the school wound up stored in potentially poor conditions off-campus and a few pieces were taken to an employee's house…. (See State audit details mismanagement at Compton Community College)

3. OCC Art History instructor receives Hayward Award

An instructor at Orange Coast College recently received the Hayward Award for Excellence in Education from the State Chancellor’s Office. An SCO press release informs us that

Art History Professor Irini Vallera-Rickerson has received numerous local and national awards for teaching excellence...Her local service includes advising for such student organizations as the Muslim Club and Amnesty International. Consistent with her workshops, lectures and presentations that enhance the educational, cultural and social experience of students, Professor Vallera-Rickerson created a successful campus-wide fund raising effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina. For the past sixteen years, she has worked with students and colleagues to raise tens of thousands of dollars, annually, to provide Christmas gifts for rehabilitation shelters. At the center of her professional life is the belief that “Everything is interrelated,” and her incessant effort to prepare students for active, constructive participation in a democratic society is reflective of that belief….

4. “On the air” is at the college

While we’re on the subject of OCC, did you know that Dr. Laura Schlessinger donated a $2.3 million yacht—named “On the Air”—to OCC’s School of Sailing and Seamanship? Happened a couple of weeks ago. See their press release.

I rite pretty goode, got a B

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ARE MANY COLLEGE STUDENTS unprepared for college? Well, don’t even get me started. I teach at a college in an affluent town known for its excellent public schools, but few of my students write at the college level.

They often seem to feel otherwise, however. I'll explain their weaknesses as writers, but students will often shoot back with, "But I got a B!"

I teach at a community college where just about anybody can enroll. (I understand they're awarding degrees to dogs now.) The State University system, however, only accepts students from the top third of High School graduates. Impressive. Surely, entering CSU students can write!

Well, no, many of them cannot write, and recent efforts to raise the proportion who can don’t seem to be working.

So explains a report in today’s San Jose Mercury: Unprepared freshmen pervade CSU system:

Nearly half of the first-time freshmen admitted to San Jose State University last fall were not prepared for college English and one-third were not prepared for college math, according to new data presented Tuesday during a meeting of the California State University Board of Trustees.

…On average, 45 percent of CSU freshmen needed a remedial course in English and 37 percent needed a course in math before progressing to college-level material. The report offers disappointing evidence that high school-based efforts to boost the college-readiness of California's young people are still falling short.

"The problem is not yet solved," concludes the report, presented by Gary W. Reichard, CSU's executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer.

The CSU trustees aimed to have 74 to 78 percent of incoming freshmen ready for college by fall 2004—and 90 percent ready by fall 2008.

This dream now seems unachievable, the report concludes, because the proportion of prepared students has stayed stable for four years.

"There is no realistic likelihood of achieving the trustees' 90 percent readiness goals in both subjects by fall 2008," the report concludes.

…The report found that 49.3 percent of SJSU students needed remedial English classes and 33.4 percent needed remedial math classes….

…CSU accepts all students who have scored in the top third of their high school class and have at least a B average.

But these students are not necessarily ready for CSU-caliber work, said Elizabeth Chavarin, 23, who took one semester of remedial math and English courses after graduation from San Jose's William C. Overfelt High School before going on to complete her bachelor's degree in public relations.

"You still need to prepare yourself for college-level material," she said. "Just because you pass the high school exit exam doesn't mean you're at college level.

…Students have 15 months to pass these remedial courses. If not, they can study at the community college level and then return to CSU.

For students who don't master the remedial material within two years, most quit higher education. Students sent back to community colleges rarely re-enter the CSUs, the report found….

Retrial or no? Plus Meese!

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WELL, YESTERDAY, the jury deadlocked on whether to convict highly connected accused child molester Jeffrey Nielsen.

I noticed the story on the LA Times/OC homepage late last night, just after midnight. It continued to be prominently displayed (on the Times' homepage) this morning.

I was on the OC Register’s homepage late last night too, and, surprisingly, the Reg had a report there as well. But I couldn’t find it there this morning. It moved somewhere else.

The conservative OC Reg has not really covered this story. Could it be because of the powerful Republicans who are embarrassed by it?

Well, I guess so!

Perhaps the most interesting reporting on the Nielsen non-verdict came today from OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit, so I'll start with that. [UPDATE: See also Teeny bop panty drop, by R. Scott Moxley.]

1. The OC Register: Would like to know more about jury:

The three papers covering the trial were not told the jury was coming back to tell Judge Craig Robison it was having problems reaching a verdict and the judge might declare a mistrial. The Register and Times specifically asked the Superior Court and the D.A.'s Office to be informed when the jury came back. We provided cell numbers and made sure we were within 20 minutes' drive of the Newport Beach courthouse. But we didn't find out until more than a half hour after the mistrial was declared and jurors had already left.

…We do know the votes on the six counts were 4-8, 3-9, 7-5, 5-7, 2-10 and 2-10. Based on the way I was told they were reported by the foreman in open court, the first number is that of the "guilty" votes, the second the "not guilty" votes.

As I'm sure you're aware, the chief advisor to OC DA Tony Rackauckas is local GOP bigshot Michael Schroeder. Schroeder is among the Republicans who, one might guess, is embarrassed by the Nielsen story. (Schroeder wrote letters of recommendation for Nielsen.)

Schroeder's wife, Susan, is the DA's chief spokesperson.

2. The LA Times/OC: Mistrial in molestation case against former congressional aide: Jury can't decide on charges against Jeffrey Nielsen, who once worked for Dana Rohrabacher, may face another trial on the charges.

An Orange County jury deadlocked Monday on whether to convict a former congressional aide on charges he molested a 14-year-old boy he met in an Internet chat room, leading the judge to declare a mistrial.

Jurors had deliberated less than three days when they sent a note to Superior Court Judge Craig Robison just before noon Monday saying they could not reach a verdict on any of the six charges against Jeffrey Nielsen.

Paul S. Meyer, the attorney representing Nielsen, said he was "exceptionally disappointed" with the outcome.

"This case deserved a unanimous not-guilty verdict," Meyer said. "We understand that, generally, a majority to a large majority of the jurors agreed with that assessment."

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess said it was unfortunate the jury couldn't reach a verdict. He plans to retry the case, after a full review of the trial.

Both sides are due back in court April 6 for further discussions.

Nielsen, 36, was arrested three years ago at his Costa Mesa law office and charged with molesting the teenager, identified in court as John Doe because his identity has been shielded, on three occasions in the spring of 2003: twice at his Ladera Ranch condominium and once at the Westminster mobile home where the teen lived with his family.

The trial in Newport Beach's Harbor Court might not have gained intrigue if not for Nielsen's political connections. A USC-trained lawyer, he has worked for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and local GOP chairman Scott Baugh. Nielsen's father, Ben, is a former Fountain Valley mayor.

…While on the witness stand, Nielsen acknowledged that he had looked at computer photographs of men having sex with boys, but that he didn't consider it any more exciting than other gay pornography, and that those images were not on his mind when he met with Doe….

3. The OC Register: Hung jury in molestation case: New trial considered for Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, former aide to congressman, accused of lewd acts with teen.

A Superior Court jury deadlocked today after more than three days of deliberations on whether a former aide to an Orange County congressman molested a 14-year-old boy he met on a Web site for gay men.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office is considering seeking a new trial….

Defense attorney Paul S. Meyer, who argued that the boy was a liar who fantasized about having an affair with Nielsen, said he was disappointed with the hung jury.

…The case has drawn drew widespread attention because of Nielsen's connections to several Orange County Republican leaders.

He was once a legislative aide in Washington, D.C., to Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, and worked on an Assembly campaign of Scott Baugh, now the Republican Party chairman in Orange County.

In addition, Nielsen was given recommendations to University of Southern California law school by Republican activists Tom Fuentes and Michael Schroeder….

…Nielsen acknowledged when he testified last week that he chatted with the accuser on the gay Web site and later met him on three occasions. But he insisted they never had sex, exposed themselves, kissed, or touched each other sexually.

Instead, Nielsen said he counseled the teenager, who told him that he was troubled about deciding whether he should come out as gay. Nielsen said he felt empathy for the boy because he was facing the same dilemma.

MORE REPUBLICANS:

The district’s Tracy D has sent out one of her lovely “Updates”. This one mentions that

Former United States Attorney General Edwin Meese recently visited in Irvine. SOCCCD Trustees Donald P. Wagner and Thomas A. Fuentes and Chancellor Mathur greeted him at a dinner in his honor.

Early in his career, Meese served as Chief of Staff to California Governor Ronald Reagan.

Naturally, there's no mention of the fact that Mr. Meese is highly ethically tainted.

[Y]ou don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.

—Ed Meese

You gotta love that "plague of despair"

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THAT'S RIGHT. We've been up sh*t creek, sans paddle, since December of '96, when the original "Board Majority" took charge. The Accreditors call it our "plague of despair." Really, they do. (Plagues then and now.)



UNFAMILIAR with the three-ring Cirque de Dismay that is the South Orange County Community College District? You might want to read:

Trustee Fuentes' Spanish Adventure: yes, bigshot Republican Tom Fuentes stirs up a hornets' nest. Spain, he says, has "abandoned" our fighting men and women! Therefore, no Study Abroad trips to Spain! Shit hits fan.

IVC faculty prohibited from discussing the war: yes, it's true. April 2003. We're not making this up!

Trustee Frogue invites Holocaust deniers to campus: The board thinks that's just swell, and, despite warnings, gives Frogue the green light. The excrement really hit the fan that time! Overnight, Saddleback became the college that invites crackpots and lunatics (and maybe Nazis, too)!


Is Trustee Frogue a Holocaust denier?: apparently so. See the evidence.

Hangin' with bigwig Republicans while Nazis hide in bushes: local GOP consigliere Mike Schroeder embraces the Frogue recall. Everybody who's anybody was at this event—Loretta, Bob—and Nazis too!

Bauer's court victory: the district ruthlessly tries to shut down a faculty critic—but the federal court says "nope" plus "what were you people thinkin'?" Lots of bad press. What a board!

"Liberal busybodies!": Libertarian Don Wagner pulls the colleges out of the American Library Association! More bad press.


The Howard Hilton: one of the great harebrained schemes of all time. Wagner, Mathur, and Gensler hope to build a Hilton Hotel (w/ lake) at Irvine Valley College! The plan goes "poof" among never-ending whoops of ridiculosity.

The Board's unlikely secret allies!: in 1998, a faculty union finances the successful trustee bids of two conservative Republicans. (And those two are still here!) Only in South Orange County!

Check out the UFOs!: we witness a flying Fuentes; plus mold pie.

"Kill it & Grill it" and other FUENTEIAN titles: Tom Fuentes is into publishing—publishing anti-intellectual crap, that is.

The replacement Clock Tower adventure: a popular favorite. Chunk, Reb, and Red have some fun with news of the demolition of our beloved Clock Tower.

My cat Sunny evidently contemns that Tom Fuentes

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SUNNY lobbied to go outside this morning. I said, "OK, we're going out there, little girl, but we've gotta watch out for coyotes and stuff." She got all twitchy and then yammered. She never meows. It's always squalling, and howling, and yammering. No meows.

When I opened the door, the darned fool bolted toward freedom, running idiotically into the sunlight in all directions. That's Sunny all over. She's like a goddam caffeinated weasel.

It was an incredibly beautiful day. It was—it continues to be—the kind of day in which the air feels beautiful. I checked out Modjeska Peak before me. It shone in the sun. The day just sparkled.

Sunny's no fool (well, actually she's a total fool). Anyway, she, too, seemed to appreciate the super-fine weather. She checked out everything.

She ate some grass. She was mighty particular about the blades she ate. She rejected most of 'em. I don't get it.

She took a dirt bath. Check it out.


She found a sunny spot and planted her chin on the dirt. She kinda rested like that for a while.

After about twenty minutes, I called to her, and she ran indoors like a lunatic. Standard stuff.


I had some clippings over in the corner. One had a picture of Tom Fuentes on it. She started retching, like she does. I started to get a rag.

She puked all over Tom. I walked up to clean up her puke ball. (I always call 'em "puke balls.") I looked at the hideous thing, leaking through the paper, distorting Tom's image, stinkin' up my room.

"Well, you got that right, Sunny Girl," I said. "You sure got that right."

I scrunched the clip and the rag together and threw the entire mess, first, into a plastic bag, then into the trash barrel outside.

"You are one sweet cat, Sunny girl!", I shouted. Don't know if she heard me. I think she's deaf or something.