Let a Hundred Hiring Committees Bloom!

.....What happens when you sit on a Hiring Committee Saturday and Sunday, all day — and know that, even then, you're not finished, it's not over?
.....You have dreams.
.....Bad dreams.
.....In this dream, Rebel Girl asks the candidates the first question, which is, inexplicably: "How do you make a Spanish Tortilla?"
.....This doesn't make any sense because they are interviewing for a full-time position in English, a writing specialist, but there it is, the first question: "How do you make a Spanish Tortilla?" She watches the candidates react, then attempt an answer, invariably going in the sorry direction of a corn tortilla or flour.
.....All the questions are like this one, cooking-related. There has been some terrific screw-up but these are the questions they have. These are the questions that are taped to the table. These are the questions they must ask. Rebel Girl can't even imagine which position these questions are for, since the cafeteria isn't hiring and even if they were, they don't make food for this. (Describe the process of making a cassoulet.)
.....As far as she knows, the culinary institute proposal for ATEP went nowhere, but maybe these questions were designed for that ill-fated project. (How do you make a roux for a béchamel sauce? Explain the difference between garlic, shallots, and onions.) The committee decides that, instead of closing down the search and starting all over, they will ask the questions and try and discern the best candidate from the answers given.
.....Rebel Girl tries to help one candidate who is obviously stumped, prepared to answer questions about how to teach grammar, how to teach writing in the community college classroom but not this.
....."Do I use a tomato?" the candidate asks.
....."No," Rebel Girl says helpfully.
.....Someone kicks her under the table. "You can't help them," a voice hisses.
.....Onward to the cooking demonstration!

(Rebel Girl, by the way, loves her hiring committee. And the food's been good too!)

Déjà vu, sort of, re weird machinations

.....There’s a story in today’s OC Register about South County school board candidates and their curious peekaboo financial contributors (CUSD recall group relied on PAC).
.....It may inspire déjà vu among denizens of the SOCCCD and its two colleges.
.....As you know, the Capistrano Unified School District has endured a series of embarrassing controversies in recent years: the building of the infamous "Taj Mahal"; the compiling of a secret list of parent foes, etc.
.....A recall campaign was launched against some trustees. Parents were hopping mad.
.....Eventually, in 2006, three pro-Recall candidates won seats on the board, in part owing to the support of the CUSD teachers union. But it turns out that the chief financial support those candidates received came from Education Alliance, a Christian right organization that has fought teachers unions since 1994.
.....According to the Reg,

.....The contributions have raised concerns about the CUSD Recall Committee's intentions as it endorses and helps fund the campaigns of candidates in a June recall election that could oust two longtime trustees.
.....The $17,000 donation by the Tustin-based Education Alliance, made days after the three candidates in early November 2006 denied accepting money from the political action committee, created speculation among their opponents that the self-described "back to basics" group had secretly influenced the election.
…..
.....Financial disclosure statements show the Education Alliance donated $17,000 to the committee on Nov. 2, 2006, five days before the election. The Education Alliance also gave $5,000 to Bryson's individual campaign that day, according to records.
…..
.....Bryson's campaign reported receiving the Education Alliance's $5,000 donation a day after it was made; the recall committee reported getting its $17,000 donation 11 days later, after the election had ended....
.....News of the donations stunned the Capistrano Unified teachers union, which endorsed Addonizio and Christensen in August 2006 after the two candidates orally assured the union that they were not connected to the Education Alliance, said Vicki Soderberg, president of the Capistrano Unified Education Association. The Education Alliance opposes what it calls the political clout of teachers unions.
....."We're concerned about any candidate with a connection to the Education Alliance," she said. "The CUSD Recall Committee is connected much more closely to the Education Alliance than they are letting on."
.....Now the teachers union is much more skeptical about trusting the recall committee and the candidates it endorses, Soderberg said.
…..
.....About a week before the election, Addonizio, Bryson and Christensen told The Orange County Register they had not received financial contributions from the Education Alliance.
.....
Bryson said Friday that she did not know she would be receiving the Education Alliance donation at the time she made her statements to the Register.
…..
.....But opponents say the donations from the Education Alliance appear to be part of a plan for one special-interest group to wield influence over the school board….

.....You’ll recall that Education Alliance supported Don Wagner and Nancy Padberg (aka "Wagberg") during their successful 1998 run for the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees.
.....But guess what? Wagberg also got support from the SOCCCD teachers union! At the time, a mystified OC Weekly reported that

.....Donald P. Wagner and Nancy Padberg will join Steven Frogue on the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees. Wagner and Padberg were backed by the anti-union, Christian Right Education Alliance and by the district's anti-union teachers union (sadly, you read that right). ”Jeeeeeezuz Christ!” (OC Weekly), Nov. 5, 1998

.....The union’s support came in the form of a pro-Wagberg flier that touted the candidates as opponents of the El Toro airport—although, of course, college trustees had no say on that issue.
.....Evidently, Wagner and Padberg continue to be affliliated with Education Alliance. Back in September (2007), the SOCCCD Board Meeting Highlights newsletter noted that

.....[Board] Vice President Donald P. Wagner [reported that he] … attended the Education Alliance dinner and encouraged everyone in the community to take a look [at] the organization, of which he is a board member.
.....
.....Trustee Nancy M. Padberg [also] attended ... [the] Educational Alliance dinner....
......
.....Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur ... thanked Trustee Wagner for inviting him to the Education Alliance dinner....

It appears that the fund raiser featured noted blowhard Dennis Prager. For photos of the event, go to Prager and Education Alliance

See also: The board's secret allies

A weak smile, the persistence of the Moon

• OFF TO POKEY. A miserable closing chapter to the Nielsen case: Sex-Abuse Victim Confronts Ex-Rohrabacher Aide Jeffrey Ray Nielsen at His Sentencing (R. Scott Moxley in the OC Weekly)

...This façade had served the 37-year-old Ladera Ranch man well, helping him get a job as a Washington, D.C., congressional aide to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, win close friendships with political heavyweights such as Orange County Republican Party bosses Scott Baugh and Tom Fuentes—oh, and lure impressionable seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade boys into sexual relationships....

• From this afternoon's What's New: ASSHOLE FEARS BLACK HOLE

Technology has changed in the 400 years since Cervantes first told the story of Don Quixote. Windmills are now particle accelerators and the knight’s lance is a federal court injunction, but the plot is the same. It begins with a befuddled lawyer in Hawaii named Walter Wagner. Having read far too much science fiction as a youth, Wagner fantasizes that he is a physicist by virtue of an undergraduate biology degree with a minor in physics. Accompanied by Sancho, his loyal TA, Wagner embarks on an adventure to slay the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a doomsday machine that he believes is poised to destroy the world by creating a black hole. He seems to have forgotten the last time he tried this. In 1999 Wagner warned that RHIC, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, must be slain lest it create a black hole. The then BNL director, Jack Marburger, named a distinguished panel of physicists to investigate. Their report noted that nature has been conducting the relevant safety test for billions of years by colliding heavy-ion cosmic rays with the moon. It concluded that creation of a black hole is "effectively ruled out by the persistence of the Moon."

Friday Afternoon Movie

Hat tip to KPFK's Pocho Hour of Power for bringing this film to Rebel Girl's attention.

Sweet Time

From the OC Register: Latino Notebook: OC writer included in upcoming anthology:

Lisa Alvarez, a professor of English at Irvine Valley College, has a piece in the upcoming anthology "Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature." ... 

The story is called "Sweet Time." It tells of two sisters who don't get along and are thrown together as they await their mother's death. ... 

Alvarez maintains a literary calendar on the Web. It's at http://themarkonthewall.blogspot.com/.

Getting caught

.....Today, Tracy Daly informed the district community that there’ll be changes in HR leadership. She announced that “Bob King, Vice Chancellor, Human Resources, will be pursuing his private law practice full-time at the end of April.”
.....Gosh, that’s odd. The fella’s been working in the district for only about two years!
.....You’ll recall that, almost as soon as King arrived, Chancellor Mathur angled to make him the district’s general legal counsel. Trustees soon put the kibosh on that deal. I wonder what that was about?
.....My guess is that the “private law practice” that Bob is now returning to is none other than Legally Nanny, a business started by Bob and his wife that caters to people who want to hire, well, a nanny.
.....On their website, one learns that “At Legally Nanny, we are committed to helping you hire your nanny legally, maximizing your tax savings, and providing you with more time to spend with your family.”
.....The website sports a menu. On the top of the menu is “getting caught.”
.....Gosh, that does sound helpful! Good luck Bobster!

Slapping words on the wall

• From this morning’s OC Reg: 'In God We Trust' not coming soon to Tustin:

…Mayor Pro Tem Doug Davert said a staff report prepared for the meeting amounted to a single paragraph and a photograph. He urged staff to spill more ink to ensure the display would be "educational and accessible to the public."… "Some (cities) just slap the words on the wall of a building open two days a month, which I think is an incredible disservice," said Davert. … Four Orange County cities, including Mission Viejo and San Clemente, have adopted the motto, standardized by U.S. Congress in 1956….

• From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Campus visits for two finalists for the presidency of Monroe Community College, in Rochester, N.Y., have been postponed amid growing criticism of the search process, The Democrat and Chronicle reported. Two search committees recommended two finalists, both presidents of other community colleges. But the college’s board added two other candidates as finalists — even though the search committees had passed them over — including a former county legislator whose candidacy is being pushed by Republican politicians, but who is viewed by many at the college as lacking appropriate experience.