Shermer on Wokeness, etc.

 

SOCCCD trustee candidates: statements

BACKGROUND: See The Trustee Area 4 Mess (Whitt Rydell v. Reeve!) 

AREA 4: Whitt Rydell, the incumbent, will be opposed by one Derek Reeve:

Whitt Rydell's statement is predictable; Reeve's statement, however, is a doozy:

 

AREA 5: Milchiker, the incumbent, will run unopposed:

AREA 2: Prendergast, the incumbent, will run unopposed:

AREA 6: Dack and Kunju are running for the seat vacated by James Wright:

Ryan Dack

James Wright

SOCCCD trustee race (candidates) [It's Reeve vs. Whitt Rydell!]

The deadline to complete the candidate filing process was August 12 (i.e., today) at 5 p.m.

Here are the filings as of 5:45 p.m. today (source: OC Registrar of Voters):

Area 2 

Only 1 candidate: incumbent Prendergast:

Area 5

Only 1 candidate: incumbent Milchiker

Area 6:

2 candidates:

Ryan Dack and Pramod Kunju, neither an incumbent

Area 4:

2 candidates:

Incumbent Terri Whitt Rydell and non-incumbent Derek Reeve

 

Reeve has already indicated that he will not be seeking reelection as a member of the San Juan Capistrano City Council. Hence, his term as Mayor ends in December, 2022. He is free, therefore, to run for this office.

RELATED POSTS:

The Trustee Area 4 Mess (Whitt Rydell v. Reeve!) (Aug 5, 2022)

  Is Terri Whitt Rydell another "Dodgy" Dot Fortune? (Aug 3, 2022)

District 6 Trustee Candidate RYAN DACK tags opponent James Wright for campaign finance violation  (Oct 29, 2020)

SEE ALSO:

• South County Politician—and Saddleback Poli Sci instructor—wants citizens to be able to carry their (unloaded) guns almost everywhere 
• The grunt of the Neanderthal 
• Saddleback's Derek Reeve to City Council: "I named my dog Muhammad"  
• Professor Reeve's curious Facebook page 
• I smacked myself upside the head 
• An offensive trend among OC elected officials (louts) 

Next: professional development week!

Next week is "Professional Development Week," something I regard with utter cynicism and despair. At this point, I contemn anyone who partakes of it without noisy and constant disapprobation. 

This year, PD themes are: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Pedagogy; IT/Technology; Health and Wellness; and "Returning to Campus." Yep. Imagine the spin, the self-deception, the wokedness.

—Kill me now. [It's not all bad, of course. I'm sure there's good stuff here and there. E.g., the session on critical race theory should be interesting: I know most of the presenters.]

DAVID HUME: 

"Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would shew him, as a specimen of its ills, an hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcases, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? [To freakin' professional development week?] He might justly think, that I was only shewing him a diversity of distress and sorrow."

(Time to retire, I think.)

I wonder sometimes if American TV—or American college—is fundamentally different. 

Some kind of mad circus.

The Trustee Area 4 Mess (Whitt Rydell v. Reeve!)

   I spoke with Rebel Girl about this Whitt Rydell business, and so she did some digging at the OC Registrar of Voters. After a few minutes, she called back, and the news wasn’t good. 

   Whitt Rydell’s “trustee area” is number 4. Turns out that only two people have filed to run for that seat, and the filing deadline is about a week away. Those two are Terri Whitt Rydell and—gulp—Derek frickin’ Reeve! 

   Reeve is a lawyer and local right wing pol; he’s done some teaching, too, at local colleges (including Saddleback). He’s been on the San Juan Capistrano City Council for years and, presently, he’s that town’s mayor. (His term ends at the end of this year.) 

   You’ll recall we covered some of Mr. Reeve’s exploits and scandals more than ten years ago (we tagged him for plagiarism). Essentially, he’s another Steve Frogue, and he has a local following among knuckle-draggers. He’d be worse, far worse, than Terri Whitt Rydell on our board. 

   What if this “living in Colorado” rumor pans out and Whitt Rydell is disqualified? That would leave Mr. Reeve unopposed. Good Lord! 

   A BOT with Reeve would be very entertaining, I suppose, but he’d be a disastrous trustee. He’d create an endless Frogueian circus what with his gun love and outrageous Islamophobia and whatnot (Villa Park’s ghastly Deborah Pauly is among his allies). 

   I have no idea if the Faculty Association is aware of this apparent PROBLEM. Let’s hope so. IF Whitt Rydell is living in Colorado and thus is unqualified for area 4 candidacy, somebody’s got to come up with a new candidate for that seat, and fast. 

   As you know, silly old Jim Wright of trustee area 6 has stepped down, and so there’ll be a race for his seat. As it turns out, only one individual has filed and, luckily, that person is Mr. Ryan Dack, whom we encountered during Wright's last race in 2020. Dack's a good guy. 

   So we seem to be OK with 6. 

   Marcia (area 5) and Prendergast (area 2) are running unopposed.

   The only problem here is area 4.

SEE ALSO 

• South County Politician—and Saddleback Poli Sci instructor—wants citizens to be able to carry their (unloaded) guns almost everywhere 
• The grunt of the Neanderthal 
• Saddleback's Derek Reeve to City Council: "I named my dog Muhammad"  
• Professor Reeve's curious Facebook page 
• I smacked myself upside the head 
• An offensive trend among OC elected officials (louts) 

Is Terri Whitt Rydell another "Dodgy" Dot Fortune?

Some district history:

   As you know, our district and its colleges have had their share of scandals over the years. 

   One especially juicy scandal concerned former SOCCCD trustee (1996-2003) Dorothy Fortune.

   Well, “Dot,” as we always called her, was involved in several scandals during her tenure, for she was a member of the original, union-promoted (!) “conservative board majority,” which included Holocaust denier Steve Frogue and corruption poster child John Williams. 

   You remember those guys. 

   These people didn’t seem to think the rules applied to them. 

   By late 2003, while Fortune was serving her second term as trustee, she moved out of the state—but didn’t mention it to anyone who might care that an elected official, by law, must live in the district she supposedly serves. 

   Hence, Dorothy Fortune ended her time at SOCCCD ignominiously. She resigned just as local journalists closed in. (See Junior College Trustee in O.C. Quits, LA Times, Sept. 18, 2003)

Whitt Rydell:

   These days, the district board still comprises some dodgy or semi-dodgy characters, though perhaps not quite in Dot Fortune or John Williams’s league. Perhaps the dodgiest is Terri Whitt Rydell, someone who snuck onto the board less-than-honestly. 

   How so? 

   Well, way back in 2015, just as she retired (as Saddleback nurse faculty), Whitt Rydell was chosen to serve as interim replacement for the ailing trustee Nancy Padberg, who was in the first half of her 4-year term. At the time, Whitt assured everyone that she had no interest whatsoever in actually running for office when her interim service was over in late 2018. She was strictly a short-timer, a stopgap. (Bobbie Jay offered the same assurances.)

   Promises were made — e.g., to the Faculty Association, who had already identified a candidate for the '18 run.

   But she broke those promises and ran for office anyway, exploiting the sorry fact that, as an incumbent, she was likely to win simply because she was an incumbent, thereby obviating an expensive campaign. (Consider how the odious Tom Fuentes made it to the board back in the election of 2004. With his considerable baggage, Fuentes, the notoriously autocratic and misogynistic chief of the OC GOP, was not likely to win without the incumbent advantage. Hence, in the summer of 2000, the unpopular trustee Frogue resigned, Fuentes got the interim gig, and then Fuentes sailed to an easy victory in ’04. Nice trick. Likely, the Padberg replacement used the same playbook.) 

   Whitt’s been on the board ever since—nearly seven years—and she hasn't made much of a contribution. She's coming up for reelection in November. Because she's an incumbent, she'll win, even if she doesn't campaign.

   It's the American Way.

Frogue, Fortune, Lorch, Williams

Anti-intellectualism, again:

   Whitt Rydell represents yet another theme in district history: the inclusion of anti-intellectual “conservatives” at the top, i.e., on the governing board. That sort of thing goes back to the beginning, with the likes of John Schmitz conservative Hans Vogel (see; see also here), the district's first board president (1967). The district went through another serious bout of this kind of anti-academic governance starting with the 1996 “conservative board majority,” an era that didn’t really end until maybe 2012 or even later. (This was made possible, of course, by the cynical and unprincipled leadership of the Faculty Association.) 

Whitt Rydell gets her news from Trumpians: Breitbart, Daily Wire

   How conservative is Whitt Rydell? Well, take a look at her Facebook page. Among her “likes” is Breitbart: “Breitbart News … is a conservative news and opinion website founded by the late Andrew Breitbart.” (Whitt Rydell also likes "Daily Wire," another right wing organization.)

   According to Wikipedia, Breitbart’s journalists 

are widely considered to be ideologically driven, and much of its content has been called misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals and traditional conservatives alike. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories. Posts originating from the Breitbart News Facebook page are among the most widely shared political content on Facebook. … Breitbart News aligned with the alt-right under the management of former executive chairman Steve Bannon, who declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016. 

   Unsurprisingly, Whitt Rydell’s extreme right-wingery has occasionally revealed itself during Board business, the most notorious example being her incoherent performance during the Sept. 2021 board discussion over vaccine mandates. On that occasion, Whitt Rydell sought simultaneously to please the educated pro-vacc crowd while maintaining fidelity to her Neanderthal, anti-vacc (i.e., Trumpian) electoral base, and it just wasn’t working; she sounded like a blithering idiot. (Reminded me of Teddi Lorch, another interim trustee—and right winger—who got the unbeatable incumbent advantage. She was an incredible dolt. The Faculty Union engineered that one too.)

Little birds:

   Well, little birds are telling me that Whitt Rydell might be repeating Fortune’s 2003 gambit: not long ago, she married and she now lives with hubby in Colorado. Or so I’m told. 

   Is that true? 

   When I first heard about this (from reliable people), I asked: well, just how many days per month, if any, does she spend in her place in San Clemente? Do we know that she spends most of her time in the Centennial State?

   Nobody seems clear about that. 

   Let's get clear.

Remembering trustee John Williams

2002: Fortune, et al., honoring then state senator Bill Morrow.
Morrow was vehemently anti-abortion and the sort who would join the notorious Minutemen.
Nevertheless, the conservative SOCCCD crew were pleased as punch to be seen with him.

Recording "California Dreamin'" (1965)

 

“California Dreamin’” was written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips during a cold winter in New York, 1963. This was before they had formed the Mamas and the Papas. Michelle missed the warmth of Los Angeles and the song grew out of that. 

The story of the M and the P’s recording of “California Dreamin’” and the group’s signing to Dunhill Records is as follows:

MIX: Classic Tracks: The Mamas & The Papas' "California Dreamin'". 

Jul 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By Dan Daley 

Bones Howe, 1963

…“Bones” Howe instinctively downplays his role in the creation of one of pop music's most memorable tracks. “I was just the engineer,” he says…. 

Howe would get to see the very beginning of the arc of The Mamas & The Papas' rise to the top through to its bittersweet end. In early 1966, “California Dreamin'” was the first of a string of sparks — the group's first six singles, including “Monday, Monday,” “Words of Love” and “Dedicated to the One I Love,” would all go Top 10 — that helped keep vocal harmony alive, well and hip in the stoned-out fuzzbox of the 1960s.

…The track to “California Dreamin'” had already been recorded before The Mamas & The Papas were even signed to producer Lou Adler's Dunhill Records label. John Phillips, the group's acknowledged leader and songwriter, was already getting noticed as a composer, and the group — he, Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot — was making some money doing background vocals around L.A., where they had moved the year before from New York. All four had roots in New York City's folk scene. Actually, it was Barry McGuire, of “Eve of Destruction” fame, who originally decided to cut John and Michelle Phillips' “California Dreamin',” and Adler and Howe had recorded the track for him. The night they were scheduled to cut the vocals, McGuire brought The Mamas & The Papas with him into United & Western Recorders as backup singers.

“We were working in Studio 3, which was so small that we always did basic tracks first and vocals afterward because you couldn't fit that many people in there at once,” recalls Howe. “So Barry comes in with these four scruffy-looking characters. Lou said, ‘Let's listen to them, but first let's get a few other things taken care of.’ So they waited around while we kept working, doing more tracking. Then we took a break and Barry asked us again to listen to them sing. So we asked if another studio was open and Studio 2 was, so we went in there and John picked up an acoustic guitar and they sang four songs, including ‘California Dreamin’” and ‘Go Where You Want to Go’; basically, they sang what would become their first four hits. Lou turns to me and says, ‘What do you think?’ I said to Lou, ‘If you don't take them, I will.’ That did it.”

Adler then peeled off $100 and gave it to the group — a down payment on the contract they would sign that same week, and $50 more than Capitol Records A&R; chief Nick Venet had given them the day before. “I don't think Nick ever spoke to Lou again after that,” says Howe.

The track, intended for McGuire (it was released on one of his albums), now became the basis for The Mamas & The Papas' first hit. It had been played by members of the famed Wrecking Crew, which included Hal Blaine on drums, bassist Joe Osborn, pianist Larry Knechtal and acoustic guitarist P.F. Sloan, who created and played the wonderful picked guitar intro that so perfectly sets up the mid-tempo track. Howe's tracking technique was typical of the era and varied little, if at all, from session to session. “In those days, we'd have a track mixed together in 10 minutes,” says Howe. “There was none of this, ‘Let me hear the kick drum and now the snare drum.’ If you listen to instruments individually, they don't sound the same as they will when they're all playing together, whether it's a drum kit or a rhythm section. When you have the musicians in the same room together without headphones, they tend to balance themselves better than any engineer can.”

…Howe would usually record bass and drums to one track, then put guitars and keyboards on another nonadjacent track (e.g., tracks 1 and 3 or 2 and 4) [this is called “bouncing”], leaving the intervening tracks for vocals and bouncing. The actual track layout for this song was track 1, female vocals; track 2, guitars and piano; track 3, male vocals; and track 4, bass and drums.

The new vocals by The Mamas & The Papas were laid atop the original track, which fortunately was in the right key…. Howe set up the vocals the way the group naturally stood: the men and women facing each other, close in, each group with its own ... microphone. “I took the two mics and set them in a directional cardioid pattern, with the dead sides facing each other,” Howe explains. “That gave us great rejection and allowed them to sing naturally. The song starts out with the guys singing ‘All the leaves are brown’ and the girls answering the lines. It's pretty much the group all the way through except for a few lines that Denny [Doherty] sang solo. When the time came for that, John walked around to sing at the girls' microphone.”

The first-pass vocals were laid to one of the two open tracks. Howe then bounced the music bed tracks together on a second ... deck and doubled the vocals, careful to keep the vocal tracks separate from the rest of the recording. Adler wanted a solo, and the arrangement for McGuire had a hole for it on one of the vocal tracks after the second chorus. “Lou was saying he didn't want a sax solo like every other rock record had,” Howe remembers. “I knew that Bud Schank was playing flute on a jazz session in another studio because I had seen him earlier in the hall. So I went down there and said, ‘I can get you another session when your 8-to-11 [p.m.] is done’…. 

Howe was working on a custom console designed by studio owner Bill Putnam. He recalls it as having no more than 12 inputs, … plenty for a 4-track recording and plenty more for what would be a mono primary mix. A stereo mix was done afterward at Howe's request, and Adler never bothered to show up for it. “He had the radio mix he wanted in the mono mix,” Howe says. “Stereo was optional in those days.”

In fact, as was often the case in this era, much of the mix had been done as the recording went along, with reverb from Studio 3's live chamber…. Howe split the men and women right and left, respectively, on the stereo mix, just as they had stood in the studio. He didn't use a particularly light touch on the reverb on each pass, either, adding a bit more on the final mix. “The reverb was part of the whole '60s sound,” he comments. “Everyone used it a lot on [all the vocal groups]: Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys and so on. It might have sounded the same, but you have to understand that back then, everyone made the same records. We were using the same studios, the same musicians, the same equipment. The only thing that changed was the artists. That's where the difference was.”

Like pilots flying on instruments, engineers had to trust their judgment when applying reverb, because, as Howe points out, there was no way to monitor the reverb return separately on the ultrasimple signal path of the Universal console. “Those were very simple straight-line modules…” he explains. “The way you monitored it was to listen to the reverb recorded on the track with the vocals. You were making these kinds of commitments and decisions throughout the recording process as you went along. But the benefit was that when you layered the reverbs on each vocal pass, you got this wonderful, sparkling sound from the phasing in the chamber. We didn't plan these things; we discovered them as we went along.”

Barry McGuire

With its lush harmonies that practically begged listeners to sing along, “California Dreamin'” was a pleasing slice of folk-rock in a time when other top groups of the day were slowly starting to turn toward psychedelia. The song quickly shot into the Top 10, peaking at Number 4 in the early spring of 1966. It was followed by a string of hits from the album If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. The Mamas & The Papas never equaled the performance of that particular collection of songs, either as a group or in their individual solo careers, and personal demons would eventually destroy the group and, ultimately, two of its members: Elliot died in 1974 of heart failure after a handful of respectable solo hits and John Phillips passed away in 2001 after years of alcohol and drug abuse.

But Howe, who stays in touch with Doherty and Michelle Phillips (whom he affectionately calls “Michie”), remembers The Mamas & The Papas as the brilliant and dedicated musicians they were when they made that first record, even though they were still products of the age. “You name an excess — grass, alcohol, whatever — they did it,” he says. “Lou [Adler] later said to me we should have recorded 200 songs for that first album, because their behavior got worse as they got more famous and successful. But when we made ‘California Dreamin',’ they were still poor kids. That picture of them in the bathtub on the album cover — that's how they actually lived. But once the money comes, you know what happens. They used to have a contest to see who could spend the most money in a week. John bought a house. Cass bought a mulberry-colored Aston-Martin. She won that week. But they sounded the way they did because they were a group, the same as the musicians in the studio. They don't sound like their individual instruments, they sound like a unit. Lou Adler said it best when he said to me, ‘Bones, it's not a ham sandwich and a cheese sandwich, it's a ham and cheese sandwich.’ That's what making a record is all about: how the parts work together.”

Ham sandwich