Rebel Girl's the best

.....Ever read “Orange Coast Magazine”? It’s that glossy mag (about the OC—well, the ritzy half of the county) with the celebrities on the cover. I see it at Ralph’s all the time.
.....Well, last Thursday, OCM held a fancy-schmancy, invitation-only party for the purpose of unveiling a new and improved version of the magazine.
.....Rebel Girl was among the VIPs. During the event, she later told me, copies of the July issue were distributed. The “inaugural” issue presents the “Best of Orange County.”
.....And guess what? Among the best of OC, according to OCM, is our very own Rebel Girl! Go to Best of Media (“For those who enjoy reading, writing, and ribald rhetoric”):

Literary Blog (The Mark on the Wall)

As Rebel Girl, Irvine Valley College English professor Lisa Alvarez tirelessly tracks down Orange County literary events to create a one-stop shop for book-minded cyber-crawlers at her regularly updated blog. In addition to getting the word out about local readings, she also highlights local authors and venues, directs readers to publication opportunities, and links to local literary journals.

MEANWHILE...

.....• MORONS IN OC. Lots of Orange Countians, and even (especially?) rich Republican Orange Countians (well, most of ‘em) want Orange County to shed it’s right-wing, John Birch Society image. But some people sure do make that hard.
.....Check out O.C. anti-illegal immigration activists reject McCain, Obama:

.....The T-shirt said it all. Costa Mesa resident John Powelson, a lifelong Republican, displayed his political sentiments across his chest at an anti-illegal immigration meeting last week: "Is John McCain the Manchurian candidate?"
.....The slogan, Powelson explained, refers to the title of the 1962 film starring Frank Sinatra, in which Soviet agents capture an American soldier, take him to Manchuria, China, and brainwash him to become a communist agent.
.....Powelson, 57, wonders if McCain's policies on guns and immigration, which he sees as far too liberal, are the result of a real-life Manchurian incident. "It could very well be that he was brainwashed," he said, referring to McCain's six years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam….

Good grief.

.....• I AUTHORIZE YOU TO DO WRONG. You remember the Milgram Experiments, doncha? (If not, see slide show.) They revealed an awful truth about most people: that they will obey evil orders, as long as somebody else says they'll take responsibility.
.....Well, in the New York Times, Benedict Carey returns to those experiments, first done nearly 50 years ago:

Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?:

.....…In [one] paper, due out in the journal American Psychologist, a professor at Santa Clara University replicates part of the Milgram studies — stopping at 150 volts, the critical juncture at which the subject cries out to stop — to see whether people today would still obey. Ethics committees bar researchers from pushing subjects through to an imaginary 450 volts, as Milgram did.
.....The answer was yes. Once again, more than half the participants agreed to proceed with the experiment past the 150-volt mark….

The REAL law dean of Orange County

Marla Jo Fisher is at it again! This time, she has interviewed Erwin Chemerinsky, UCI’s new law dean, who’s moving into his Irvine home. (For the entire interview, go to Irvine's new law school dean shares his plans and philosophies.)

You rememember Erwin: he was hired, then fired, then hired again! The usual right-wing rat bastards were making their move, but it backfired. Nyah.

Q. Do you have one main goal for the new school?
A. We want to be a top 20 law school as soon as we can, all the faculty and staff are coming from top 20 law schools, but if we just replicate what other top 20 law schools do then we've failed. We have this wonderful opportunity to create the dream law school. The central tension we face is the need to keep a sufficient number of traditional elements, while adding our own innovations.

Q. Many people have been opposed to creation of a new University of California law school, saying the state doesn't need any more lawyers. How would you answer those people?
A. Orange County has 3 million people but it has no public university law school, nor is there one between Los Angeles and the border with Mexico. I think we can create a law school here that will make a difference.

Q. When the UCI chancellor sought approval for this law school, he said it was necessary to create more public interest lawyers. Critics responded that there are already plenty of students who would like to practice public interest law, but the high cost of law school and hefty student loans drive them into private practice. What would you say to those critics?
A. That's just not true. And I can say that from having been a law professor for 20 years. Wherever lawyers go, in big firms or small, they can spare part of their time to serve the public. They should be doing something with their law degree to make the world a better place. We plan to match the Berkeley (law school) loan forgiveness program for students going into a certain range of employment.

Q. As a former law student and longtime professor, certain things must have irritated you over the years that you want to change in your own school. Can you name some of them?
A. I don't think law schools spend time preparing students for the practice of law. We can do a better job. I want every law student to have some clinical experience with at least one client before they graduate. Most students graduate never having had a client. … I want to teach fact investigation. … I have hired L.A. Times (legal affairs) reporter Henry Weinstein to be a professor and teach it to our students….


Q. Can you remember things specifically that bothered you when you were a law student?
A. I went to Harvard in the 1970s, and, overall, I was disappointed in the quality of the teaching. I had a sense that the faculty that was there then didn't seem to care much about teaching….

Q. Why did you go to law school? Did you know you wanted to be a law professor?
A. I went to law school because I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I knew someday I wanted to be a teacher. At one point I even became certified as a high-school teacher….

Q. You teach. You write a lot. You argue cases before the Supreme Court. You have a family. How do you do it all? Some of your friends joke that you never sleep.
A. I don't need a lot of sleep. I am just high energy. I have a low stress level. I don't obsess and worry about things too much….
…
Q. When Chapman University wants to recruit a new faculty member, the president takes them out on a borrowed yacht in Newport Harbor. How did you recruit your faculty?
A. Well, I don't have a yacht and I don't know how to swim. Don't look shocked. I'm from the south side of Chicago. My pitch is to come and create a dream law school….
…
Q. There was national attention when you were hired, fired and then rehired by UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, which you said at the time was due to political pressure over your liberal politics. What are people saying to you about that now?
A. For the most part, it's in the past. Occasionally, it comes up. I've had a year now of working with Michael Drake and our relationship is better than ever.

Q. How have you changed your outspokenness as a result of your new job as law dean? Have you toned it down?
A. I have an op-ed piece today in the L.A. Times on gun control. I think it's very important for a law faculty to express its opinions to the public on matters of law….

Q. There were some newspaper stories that implied without saying that (billionaire law school donor) Donald Bren was behind the plan to sabotage your appointment. Have you met him?
A. I have met him at functions and he's an important supporter for the law school. Those stories were just false and very unfair to him.


Q. Some Jewish people have described UCI as "the most anti-Semitic campus in America." You are Jewish. What do you think about that?
A. This is something I looked at very closely. I think it's a misapprehension. There was a letter written by students at several Jewish organizations on campus talking about the wonderful Jewish student life here. As a Jew, I have never seen the slightest evidence of anti-Semitism on campus.

There have been some speeches on campus against Israel that crossed over into anti-Semitic speech. But a university has to be a forum for all ideas, even if we don't agree with them.
…
Q. Now you've bought a house in University Hills. How does that work?
A. You buy the house and the university owns the land. Usually, faculty get put on a waiting list until some older people retire, but we heard the couple who owned this house was selling, so we were able to buy it. One of the things that attracted me to this campus was that we could live on campus and walk to work. There's a real community feeling here, too. That was one reason we left L.A. (for North Carolina four years ago). We didn't like the traffic and we wanted a different type of community.

Q. Have you met any of your neighbors?
A. Oh yes, people have come over and made us feel welcome. It's very nice.

Gods with little to do

From today’s What’s New (by physicist Bob Park):

PEW FORUM: U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE SURVEY.

The latest findings of the respected Pew Forum’s massive survey make it clear that we are an overwhelmingly religious people. Only 16 percent identify themselves as "unaffiliated" and only a tenth of those are atheists.

The strongest predictor of a person’s faith has always been the faith of their parents, but with interfaith marriages increasing, a quarter of adult Americans have switched to another religion.

The greatest gain was in unaffiliated, but even among the unaffiliated 70 percent said they believe in God.

The willingness of Americans to compartmentalize their beliefs, holding totally contradictory convictions in different spheres, is remarkable. Scientists accept as a given that behind every physical effect lies a physical cause. That seems to rule out supernatural causes, leaving gods with little to do.

—Check out OC Weekly's Orange Coast magazine has a party. I happen to know that Rebel Girl was invited to (and attended?) that party, and a piece about her (among others) will appear in the next edition.

For you conspiracy fans: watching the machine and some of its tiny, stinky parts

DEEPLY COMMITTED TO THE WELL-BEING OF—HIMSELF

.....Chancellor Raghu Mathur sure does some strange things—for instance, his very special hire (he essentially nullified the search committee’s recommendations) of the inexperienced Tod Burnett (the fellow, it seems, has never been a college administrator of any kind) as President of Saddleback College sure was odd.
.....Now, why would Mathur do something like that? Well, Burnett is a politician/bureaucrat with bigtime connections in California politics. Right now, he works for the State Chancellor; he used to work for the Governor.
.....We must always remember that Mathur is essentially a political animal (genus: political; species: narcissist), and he’s inside the local GOP machine, especially the crude and cruel gears inside a smallish dark and noisy box way, way over to the right.
.....One way the machine works is through endorsements. So, naturally, Mathur, the wily politician, endorses candidates who are associated with his own right-wing cronies on the local scene. It’s practically automatic. (More on that in a moment.)

* * * * *

GOSH, THE PROXIMITY OF SOME PARTS OF THE MACHINE TO OTHER PARTS OF THE MACHINE CAN BE WORRISOME

.....According to Trustee Tom ("supervisor of pedophile") Fuentes' district bio, "Speaker Dennis ["enabler of pedophile"] Hastert of the United States House of Representatives appointed Trustee Fuentes in 2006 to serve...on the Board of Advisors of the United States Elections Assistance Commission [EAC].... The [EAC] oversees the expenditure of Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds across the nation."
.....According to Wikipedia, the EAC does more than that. It is responsible for “Creating a national program for the testing, certification, and decertification of voting systems.”
.....OK, so our man Fuentes is part of the machinery that oversees "voting systems."
.....According to Wikipedia, "[HAVA]...[was]...signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. [It was] Drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election...."
.....The goals of HAVA include "[replacing] punch card voting systems." That is, HAVA seeks to move us toward electronic voting.
.....You'll recall that the 2000 and 2004 national elections were, in places, seriously hinky, and a large part of the hinkitude concerned the scandal-ridden electronic voting industry, which is dominated by three companies: Diebold, Sequoia, and Election Systems & Software (ES&S). Remember that last one: ES&S.
.....One aspect of the hinkitude concerned the politics of the people who own these companies. Amazingly, they keep turning out to be right-wingers--often, way-right-wingers. Or even way-way right-wingers.
.....Now, if you trace the history of ES&S in particular, you'll discover that a major deep-pocket in the ES&S saga is none other than mega-scary theocratic right-winger Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who lives here in Orange County.
.....So, as it turns out, Ahmanson was (and, according to some sources, still is) one of the Big Money Men behind the electronic voting industry.
.....Naturally, Ahmanson, the big "voting industry" cog, and Fuentes, the tiny "voting systems oversight" cog are close personal friends. They go way back. Decades even.
.....Lovely, isn't it?

* * * * *

IT'S LIKE A FREAKIN' DAISY CHAIN

.....Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Neil Blais, a familiar OC Republican, is running to replace term-limited Assemblyman Todd Spitzer in California’s 71st Assembly District.
.....I don’t care. But I was Googling “Raghu Mathur,” and I came upon Blais’ campaign website, and, in particular, the part of it devoted to “endorsements.”
.....Naturally, Blais is endorsed by my Congressman, Republican Gary Miller, aka maybe the most corrupt politician in Congress.
.....Blais is also endorsed by

• Mike Schroeder (head of the OC “Republican Mafia” and a close associate of Trustee [and former OC GOP chair] Tom Fuentes; Schroeder was much involved in the Frogue Recall)
• Mark Bucher (co-founder of Education Alliance, on whose board SOCCCD board president Don Wagner sits; Trustee Nancy Padberg, too, has EA associations)
• Chris Norby (conservative Sup, whose brother our Board Majority tried to slip onto the SOCCCD Board of Trustees back when Board Majoritarian Dot Fortune got caught living outside the county)
• John Williams (well, you remember him; he was a bailiff; now he's an SOCCCD trustee and, owing to local GOP connections, this "househusband" became the county guy in charge of corpses)
• Tony Rackauckas (corrupt OC DA; key member, along with disgraced former Sheriff Mike Carona [a frequent guest and prayer-leader at Irvine Valley College], of the OC Mafia)
• Marcia Milchiker (Good grief)
• Nancy Padberg (Well, she’s a conservative Republican, so what else is new. Plus she used to be, and probably still is, a member of Bucher's Education Alliance.)
• Adam Probolsky (this guy can be found in every dark corner, including the one in my classroom; he’s a close associate of Schroeder, Fuentes, and each of the rest of the OC mafiosi)

—and, of course, “Dr. Raghu Mathur, Chancellor, South Orange County Community College District.”

* * * * *

YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE? NOT A PROBLEM!

.....It will come as no surprise that Blais has strong views concerning “illegal immigration”:

…I will fight to immediately secure the California border so that the flow of illegal immigrants is stopped once and for all. … I will join the Governor and our Republicans in Congress to convince neighboring states to also seal their borders with Mexico to end the flood of illegal immigrants. I support allowing all local law enforcement agencies to check legal status of those being incarcerated for crimes and identify illegal immigrants for deportation.

.....It’s the usual red meat.
.....One problem, though. Blais is a bit of a hypocrite.
.....I came upon this month-old story in the OC Reg:

Neil Blais and illegal immigration: the straight story

.....The upshot: Blais’ opponent, Corona mayor Jeff Miller (yet another conservative Republican), is accusing him of raising money for the benefit of illegal immigrants. If true, it would put an end to Blais' election hopes. The Reg’s Martin Wisckol looked into the charge and found it to be exaggerated.
.....On the other hand, he suggests, it has merit:

.....Blais and his wife, Destin, run a grant-writing consultancy. ... Three of the agencies and foundations with which Blais is contracted benefit, among others, illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County. ... ¶ The attacks from opponent Jeff Miller’s campaign include a mailer and a press release. Unless you’re paying close attention, you might think LA County’s spending on illegal immigration is Blais’ doing — and that he’s getting rich doing it. … ¶ The attack goes over the top, as many attacks ads do. But Blais was associated with agencies … that often don’t check the residency status of those [they help]…. … ¶ Blais may have done little business with these groups, but he never said he turned the work down. Rather, it appears that the groups never called on him to perform, with a small exception. It seems as though he was ready and willing to do the work.

.....Another way the machine works is that hypocrisy isn’t a problem. You just smile through it. It's like Sheriff Carona's piety and love of family. The fact that he's obviously a hypocritical Rat Bastard never mattered to Fuentes, Schroeder, Mathur, and that whole crowd—until he was formally charged with crimes and put on trial. "America's Sheriff" my ass.
.....Naturally, I could go on forever with examples of this crowd's hypocrisy. Remember when Tom "mentor to pedophile" Fuentes was concerned about possible faculty "cronyism"?! (Good Lord!) And remember when Mathur crusaded against "reassigned time"? He was only the champion abuser of RT while an instructor. He was the poster child for the very thing he was railing against!

* * * * *

.....Here’s an oddity. I noticed that Dana Rohrabacher is listed as endorsing both Blais and Blais’ opponent, Miller.
.....The machine gets complicated.

Jay and Milchiker voted against Burnett

Video of the June 24 meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees is now available here. I had the opportunity to view the first twenty minutes or so. I was surprised to discover that the appointment of Tod Burnett (Prez of Saddleback College) was not unanimous. (See below.)

Here are some highlights:

00:00:39
Clerk Tom Fuentes reads out actions taken during closed session. He reports that Tod Burnett was approved as Saddleback College President on a 5/2 vote, with Bill Jay and Marcia Milchiker voting against.

Wow. Perhaps J&M were displeased that Mathur disregarded the recommendations of the search committee (he interviewed the committee’s three recommendations and then went back into the pool, pulling out Burnett). Boards typically seek to approve top administrators unanimously. Further, Burnett, though impressive, seems to lack college administrative experience.

00:05:30
Math professor Karla Westphal declares that she was “appalled” by Wagner’s speech at the recent Scholarship event. She is disappointed that only Trustee Padberg urged Wagner to apologize.

00:08:38
Nancy Padberg stands by her words regarding Wagner and the scholarship event.

00:09:09
Tom Fuentes says he returns “30 pounds lighter” and with “gratitude to God,” after his liver transplant surgery.

00:15:00
Wagner: “I’ve had the privilege, the pleasure, of serving on the IVC Accreditation Focus Group over the course of the last several months and it has been quite an eye-opening experience; there’s been a lot of give and take, a lot of frank…discussion…; it’s a group [that’s]…just a pleasure to be involved with; chaired by President Roquemore and co-chaired by Wendy Gabriella and [Vice] President Justice. You guys are just doing a great job. I thank you for the opportunity to participate. I think we’re doing some great work for the colleges, and for IVC in particular, and I’ve really enjoyed my time there, so thank you…it is an all-star group….”

00:19:30
Mathur: Summer enrollments are up 7.5%. Blah, blah, blah. Mathur praises outgoing Saddleback President Rich McCullough, a man that Mathur in fact pressured out. “Let’s all give him a standing ovation,” said Mathur.

00:24:00
Fuentes wants to develop a policy regarding naming new buildings.
…
01:40:00
Re tentative budget. Discussion of the reserve. Poertner explains what is meant by "basic aid" money. Lots of disagreement.

02:07:00
IVC Senate Prez Wendy Gabriella gives her report.

A SONG FOR YOU. I offer yet another obscurity, this one by Peter Sarstedt in 1969. I used to love this song, though I knew nothing about it or the singer. It was just mystery music emerging from my little Philco radio by the side of my bed. But if I love a song, it plays in my head forever. So, tonight, nearly forty years later, I did some searching and found it (by reviewing a list of British "tops of the pops"). The song was by Peter Sarstedt. I read about him. They offered Sarstedt a TV show, but he said no; he walked away from fame and fortune. Never had another hit. Maybe you'll remember "Where do you go to, my lovely?," but I think you'd have to be over 50. I wonder: for many of my generation, this song had a certain magic. Does it have magic, too, for young people today?



OK, I can't help myself. Gotta love Dusty Springfield. "You don't have to say you love me," from 1967:

Memorable cataclysms, part 1

Four billion years ago: Asteroid M4005X hits Mars, causing the great "dichotomy"

Twelve years ago: Asteroid GOO hits the South Orange County Community College District, causing the great "lobotomy"

Last night’s board meeting: eyes have been opened

.    I couldn't attend last night’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees 'cause I was at the Greek Theater enjoying the performances of country/bluegrass star Alison Krauss, Led Zep singer Robert Plant, and super-duper producer T Bone Burnett (plus four other musicians, including the great Buddy Miller!). If you get a chance to see the "Raising Sand" show, don’t miss it. (See Times' review.)
.....Monday night, Krauss and Co. will be warblin' in San Diego.

.    Still, I did get a brief report from someone who was there—at the board meeting I mean. (As usual, we await Tracy Daly’s fluffy “Board Meeting Highlights,” which will likely materialize soon. [UPDATE: the "highlights" are now available.] And, don’t forget, the district regularly archives video of board meetings. The video, when available, can be viewed here.)

.    Naturally, the BIG NEWS last night was the appointment of Saddleback College’s new President (see posts below). The announcement was made, I’m told, by death-defying board Clerk Tom Fuentes, who, despite recent liver transplant surgery, was back on the job, scowling (I'm only guessin' about that) and making the world safer for right-wing nutjobs everywhere. (According to Fuentes, the accreditation process is fixed and controlled by, um, faculty. [That's seriously paranoid.] Plus the fellow wants to name Irvine's "great park" Nixon Park. [Nixon was a corrupt bastard, kids.])
.    We’re glad he's recuperating. Fuentes, I mean.

.    Math professor Karla Westphal was on hand to put Board President Don Wagner’s feet to the fire for his allegedly inappropriate speechifying (re trustee prayers) at Saddleback College’s scholarship event. Trustee Nancy Padberg was supportive—of Westphal.

.    During his report, Trustee Wagner, who, for several months, has been working with faculty (and administrators and classified—and even a student) on Irvine Valley College’s accreditation problem, went out of his way to praise these faculty. Working with this crowd, he said, has “opened my eyes.”
.    I’ve followed this saga carefully—early on, I was a detractor of the "focus group" idea—and, in my view, there is zero reason to suspect that Don’s remarks were anything but sincere. Later in the evening, an appreciative IVC Senate Prez Wendy G had an opportunity to return the compliment, which she did, or so I’m told.
.    Again, I do hope that members of the IVC community are keeping tabs on the doings of the IVC Accreditation focus group, for they have worked very hard and intelligently and seem to have generally hovered about consensus on some difficult issues (trustee micromanagement, roles and responsibilities of officers & groups, the climate of “despair,” etc.). Their biweekly (i.e., twice a month) meetings will continue for a month or two.
.    If our college manages to avoid accreditation disaster early in 2009, it will be largely because of the efforts of the focus group.
.    Be not oblivious.
.    Not sure what's going on with Saddleback College's more laid-back focus group, which includes trustee Dave Lang and whose motto appears to be, "What, me worry?" Or, again, so I'm told.

.    There was some discussion of the board's curious decision, a few months ago, to adopt a high level of "reserve" funds. Efforts last night to reconsider the matter were obliterated, I believe, by Trustee Fuentes, who made clear his firm opposition to lowering the percentage.
.    (Ten years ago, our district was placed on the state chancellor's "watch" list when our reserves dipped below the required percentage. Nowadays, however, our district is swimming in extra moola, owing to our "basic aid" funding plus high local property values, to which this funding is keyed.)

.    The ATEP thing passed. (Submittal of long range plan to the city [of Tustin].)

.    (Did you know that the city of Tustin, aka the "City of Trees," has peskified this whole ATEP business in part because certain Tustinites embrace a view of county history according to which Irvine Valley College was supposed to be Tustin's community college [to be located where the Tustin Marketplace now sprawls], but then that dastardly Irvine Co. showed up with "free land" along Jeffrey? [According to this yarn, the Irvine Co was in dutch over some seriously hinky deal, but they made that problem go away with this highly opportune giftage.] So, despite ultra-clear state rules to the contrary [proximity issues], Tustin wants its own friggin' community college [at long last!] there along Redhill, and, so, there you are: inveterate stink-eyed Tustinary peevitude!)

.    That’s all I’ve got. --CW


And here, for no particular reason, is one of my favorite semi-obscure tunes, "Here Comes My Baby," done by the Tremeloes in 1967. (The song was composed by Cat Stevens.)

I don't know why I like this version so much. The band is obviously a bunch of idiots. --Still....