Yellow Bird, Golden State

ONE OF THE BAY AREA'S CHARMS is the ubiquity of cheap motels along the coast. I’m told that European vacationers love these places. Germans especially—they’re just nutsig about the cheesy architecture, the modest accommodations.

In their minds, evidently, it’s all quintessentially American.

Heimat Land!


Some of these places offer music and dancing.

Fannie’s good friend, Grant, is the music guy for Nick’s Sea Breeze, a restaurant and motel in Rockaway Beach, a cove in Pacifica, just south of San Francisco. Said Fannie, “we should take in Grant’s band, Friday night. I think he’d like that.” So that’s what we did, me, Fannie, and Elroy.

Nick’s lounge/dance hall, which has been in operation, I think, since 1927, is pretty cheesy all right. The classiest thing in the room is the Naugahyde.


Last night, for some reason, most of the customers at the periphery of the tiny dance floor were members of the motorcycle club The Henchman. Most of the rest were geezers in their best dance outfits. Regulars maybe.

I wondered if I counted as a geezer yet. Not quite, I figured. But soon.

Grant’s mom, Roberta, was there. She came over and sat with us. She’s a great lady, 97 years old, originally from Minnesota. She came out to the coast in ’42, started some businesses.

I think she’s got big money. She dresses like it anyway.


And she dances!

Poor Grant. He’s obviously a terrific musician (piano), and his mates seem accomplished enough. His girl singer, a leggy blond, is talented, albeit green. (Grant told me she’s a loan officer by day. “Sweet girl,” he said.)

Mostly, Grant and Co. offered a set of auditory Cheez Whiz—a predictably incoherent mix of pop standards, rock chestnuts, disco schlock, etc.

The crowd loved it, and so did I.

THE DAY BEFORE, Grant had come by for one of his occasional free haircuts. He and Fannie were yucking it up about that silly old song, “Yellow Bird.” Fannie seems to like just about anything that can be played on a ukelele. She’s a bit of a kitschaholic, I think. Grant, on the other hand, is a jazz musician, so I figure he hates just about everything he hears, though he’s wise enough to hide it. He listens to Weather Report.

Nice guy.

Still, while perched on Fannie’s bronze chair (nobody seems to know why the word “hell” is etched into it), he commenced mocking this particular song. Jamaican, I think. 1957.

So, last night, Grant and Band suddenly broke into “Yellow Bird,” complete with vibes and, at one point, Grant’s lunatic kazoo.

We were in on the joke and laughed. Meanwhile, the crowd didn’t notice anything different. Not the Henchmen, not the old hoofers, not the nearby barflies.

I looked over at the bikers. I kept hoping Grant would do “Tequilla.” I know he knows it.


FROM NICK’S, you can see and hear waves crashing dramatically a hundred yards to the left. The Nicksters train searchlights onto the waves to make sure nobody misses ‘em. Maybe they amplify them, too. Not sure.

“Look at the size of those waves!” shouted Elroy.

Roberta sipped her coffee, while Fannie sipped her ice-water and I sipped my Stella Artois. Fannie and Roberta seemed to have a lot to say to each another. I just smiled.

I’m pretty deaf, so I have no idea what anybody said to me, but even Fannie was having trouble communicating, what with the noise. At one point, Grant shouted out the name of his next number: “Mack the Knife.”


“Macro Knife?” asked Fannie. “What? Are they gonna do a cooking demonstration?”

“No, ”Mack the Knife,” shouted Elroy. But it was no use.

We left there pretty happy. Went home to watch Dexter. Lots of cool Cuban music.

Fannie woke me early this morning for my long trip home. She slowly mounted the stairs, warbling: “Yellow bird, up high in banana tree. Yellow bird, you sit all alone like me.”

ESSENTIALLY, the state of California is Cheez Whiz smeared onto natural magnificence. At least, so it seemed to me today, as I entered cheapy gas station markets and blew past Magic Mountain, Knotts Berry Farm, and Disneyland whilst listening to White Stripes, Neil Diamond, and the Be Good Tanyas.

Sunny says hey.

Another one bites the dust

From today’s New York Times: President of Evangelical University Resigns:

Facing accusations that he misspent university money to support a lavish lifestyle, the president of Oral Roberts University has resigned, officials said Friday.

The resignation by Richard Roberts was effective immediately, according to an e-mail statement from George Pearsons, the chairman of the university’s Board of Regents.

Mr. Roberts, the son of the televangelist and university founder Oral Roberts, came under fire with the university after three former professors filed a lawsuit last month that included accusations of a $39,000 shopping tab for Mr. Robert’s wife, Lindsay, at one store; a $29,411 senior trip to the Bahamas on the university jet for one of Mr. Roberts’s daughters; and a stable of horses for the Roberts children.

Mr. Roberts had been on temporary leave from the evangelical university, fighting the accusations. In a recent interview, he and his wife denied any wrongdoing.

…The professors [at the university]…said in the lawsuit that Mr. Roberts had required students in a government class to work for the campaign of Randi Miller, a candidate in the 2006 Republican primary for mayor of Tulsa. Mr. Roberts has denied that.

Tim Brooker, one of the plaintiffs, accused the university of forcing him to quit after he had warned Mr. Roberts that requiring students to work on Ms. Miller’s campaign jeopardized the university’s tax-exempt status.

Mr. Roberts received a vote of no confidence last week from the university’s tenured faculty….

Science news from Bob Park

From Bob Park's What's New?:

SCIENCE ADVICE: WHO IS ADVISING THE CANDIDATES ABOUT SPACE?

Recognizing that the only direction is up, WN has tried to stay clear of the nomination battle. It was a jolt, however, to read in the Washington Post today that the Democratic front runner supports key aspects of the Bush space plan, hereafter referred to as the Lunacy Program. It calls for a return to the Moon in the multibillion dollar Constellation spacecraft to prepare for a vastly more expensive human mission to Mars to do that which robots do better. Barack Obama would delay Constellation for five years to provide funds for education. We’re all in favor of education, but there are vital science programs in space that are getting squeezed out for this money sink. Let's consider climate change:

(Theater across the street from Joe's Grill, Geary & 18th)

CLIMATE CHANGE: A MAJOR GAP EXISTS IN QUANTIFYING THE CHANGE.

Solar radiation is partly absorbed by the Earth system and partly reflected back into space. The reflectivity is called the albedo. In addition, the planet radiates back into space in the infrared. Both the albedo and Earth radiation must be known to determine the energy balance. But as Francisco Valero at Scripps and Robert Charlson at U. of Washington have pointed out, comparisons of satellite radiometers from CERES (Cloud and Earth Radiant Energy System) and ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Program) do not agree. Data from DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) would provide a calibration to resolve the matter - unfortunately DSCOVR, built and paid for, never got launched. There are those who would rather not know.

(Near the Cliff House)

BIODIVERSITY: WHO DECIDES WHAT WE SHOULD LET GO?

Rachel Carson’s 1962 book "Silent Spring" resulted in the environmental movement and a decade later the Endangered Species Act. As the biologist Paul Ehrlich argued, we don’t understand ecology well enough to know which genes are essential, so we tried to save them all. With the Earth facing crisis, an article by Emma Marris the 8 Nov 07 issue of Nature has the courage to finally ask out loud, "What to Let Go?".

Black Friday, San Francisco

In Joe's Ice Cream and Grill, Geary and 18th

Most of these are taken from Lincoln Park and around the old Cliff House.







Gratuitous Tiger Ann photo.

Fannie took this one while we were driving home. Check out the surfer dude.

Thanksgiving in Pacifica

It's been good. Thanksgiving dinner was great (see tofurkey below), Tiger Ann has been loads of peevish furry fun, and the weather has been perfect. And in Pacifica!

Thinking about heading up to Lincoln Park today (San Francisco), checking out the oil damage. Or just the beauty. Later!

It’s beginning to look a lot like HELLMOUTH

--HERE IN Orange County, anyway. From the OC Register:

• Tustin middle school students suspended for repeated hugging: Parents and students protested outside of Hewes Middle School:

Eighth-grader Noah Stillman was suspended and stayed home from school Wednesday after hugging a girl on Tuesday….

A few parents and some students picketed in front of Hewes Middle School Wednesday morning for about an hour with signs that included “Honk for hugs,” “Hugging is not a crime” and “Stop the war on hugs.”

Students who continue to hug after at least one warning violate the state's education code for defiance of authority….

…Another student, Gianna Cammarota, 13, was suspended this month for repeated hugging according to her mother, Christy.

• Fire area threatened by slides and floods, report states:

People, property, water quality, wildlife and infrastructure once threatened by the flames of the Santiago fire are now at risk of floods and landslides caused by rain, according to a report released by the state Tuesday.

All areas near the 28,464-acre fire are at risk, but the risk is the greatest in Modjeska, Williams and the upper reaches of Silverado Canyon, according to the Burned Area Emergency Response report for the blaze. Sixty-eight locations were specifically identified in the report as being at risk of floods, landslides or falling debris….


…About 50 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service continue to monitor the remnants of the fire 24-hours a day, said Jay Bertek, incident commander with the Forest Service. Authorities said the fire was intentionally set along Santiago Road Oct. 21.

…According to the state report, most of the land affected by the fire belongs to the Irvine Company, with 10,682 acres. Almost 6,000 acres burned were inside the Cleveland National forest and 3,834 acres are owned by small private owners. The County of Orange owns 3,446 acres of the burned area, and 4,507 acres are owned by the toll roads, the federal government or school and water districts.

…Homes near stream channels in Modjeska, Williams, Santiago and Silverado canyons face the prospect of floods, while homes below or on slopes are in danger of unstable soil. A total of 68 sites have been identified as being at risk of landslides, floods, rockslides and debris flow…

…The report also recommends that hydroseeding and mulching not be used to rehabilitate slopes because the strategy prevents natural plants from sprouting and does not help to stabilize the soil. Burned soil doesn't take long to show signs of regeneration, the report states.

Irvine Lake, a source of drinking water for Villa Park and some parts of Orange, should be monitored for debris and sediment flows when it rains, according to the report….

• Turkey bowling a tradition at Los Amigos High:

…[T]hose who think they have all the uses for that big bird down to an art form may have overlooked one option pre-Thanksgiving: turkey bowling.

…Students at Los Amigos High School enjoyed the tradition Wednesday as the school marked the final day of its annual Turkey Olympics, a three-day event that included eating contests on Monday and Tuesday.

…One student from each of the four classes and two teachers rolled a frozen turkey down a 20-foot-stretch of red carpet toward 10 2-liter soda bottles filled with sand at the other end….

• Now arrived: Toy Trains: Nixon Presidential Library hosts 250 toy trains in massive display

Read and master our hard-won faculty hiring policy

I called Sierra, who reports that the Sunny Bear is "eating like a horse," which is good.

Meanwhile, Tiger Ann and I are hangin' out together. She's a sweet kid. Kinda surly, though.

Early indications are that you-know-who is messing with the new round of faculty hiring.

Just remember: we fought hard for the full-time faculty hiring process that we now have. Study it. Learn it. Don't let these people violate it.

(To learn how that policy came about, read The Senate sues the district.)

(To access the policy, go to Board Policies. Go to 4011.1, a pdf file.)


OUR BATTLE OVER THE HIRING POLICY, THE SHORT VERSION:

2002. According to a statute, faculty hiring policies are to be “mutually” agreed upon by the district (i.e., the board) and the faculty (i.e., the academic senates). During the Summer of 2002, Chancellor Mathur established a committee, including no faculty, that developed a new hiring policy. The faculty were not even informed of this committee’s work. The product of the committee—a truly appalling and incompetent policy—was then adopted by the board. ("So sue us," said one trustee.)

Here’s what happened next:

Judge Clay Smith ruled that the district had indeed failed to include the faculty in the development of the faculty hiring policy, contrary to law. He thus ordered the district and senates to get together to develop a faculty hiring policy.

But, in the end, the district’s representatives and the senates’ representatives did not see eye to eye on major issues, and so the district unilaterally pushed through the version of the policy that it liked, and it pronounced that policy the product of the committee. That policy was almost as appalling as the one that was neutralized by Smith.

Surprisingly, despite the vociferous objections of the Academic Senates to the new policy, Judge Smith ruled that the policy was indeed the product of “mutual agreement.”

It was an absurd judgment.

2005. The Academic Senates appealed. By summer 2005, the appellate justices unanimously acted to overturn and vacate Smith’s absurd judgment. The board tried one or two last ditch efforts to have the court reconsider, but to no avail. The academic senates had won, and that was that.

The senates had prevailed, period. That meant that the only valid policy was the one developed at the end of 1993 (that one was mutually agreed to). It was a good one from the faculty’s perspective.

The appellate justices urged the parties to work out their differences, and so, in the Fall of 2005, district representatives (namely, Mathur, the instigator of the original unilaterally imposed policy, and Lang, now the board president) and Academic Senate reps (namely, the two senate Presidents and the union president) mutually developed a policy that both sides could agree on. That work was completed by late October, 2005. This mutually ageed to policy is a vast improvement.

The policy was adopted by the board in December of 2005.