Tuesday pics

I noticed this painting hanging in the hallway at IVC earlier today. There's quite a story behind it. May as well tell it.

Years ago, IVC's School of Humanities and Languages acquired the painting--from the artist, I believe, who taught for us for some time. So we hung it on the wall.

For many years, that seemed to be fine with everybody. And why not?

Then, about five years ago, during Dean Gensler's Reign of Error, the painting was suddenly taken down and put away. Why? Some of us made inquiries. It turns out that no one had complained about the painting. No instructor. No student. Nobody.

What was the deal then?

Well, all by himself, Howard--one of Raghu's hires--had decided that the painting was "harassing" female students who saw it.

--CORRECTION: the Reb tells me that I got this wrong, which is entirely possible, because I've tried to forget everything Gensler, and Reb has a perfect memory for Genslerian folly. (She could write volumes.) According to the Reb, Gensler took down the painting because it was harassing HIM.

The mind reels.

As soon as that asshole left (well, he didn't exactly "leave"), we stuck the painting right back up there on the wall.


o doubt you've heard about the Greenhouse Massacre by now. Evidently, the worst loss was some rare and old plant called a "Staghorn Fern" (see above).

Or maybe I remembered that wrong: my mind plays tricks with these crazy plant and flower names. Hell, I still call every flower a "posy," just 'cause I heard that word as a kid, with my immigrant's ears, and I thought, what a wonderfully ridiculous word.

They're really goin' to town building that new Theater Complex at IVC. They've got a crane there that's so tall that I had to just stare at it for a while.

I took this picture on my way home today. It was taken from just above El Toro Road. That's Modjeska Peak (5496 ft.) in the middle and Santiago Peak (5690 ft.) on the right. The view from up there is amazing.

This one's from just above Bake Parkway in Irvine (or is it in Lake Forest?).

Memos Mean I Love You

TO: the college community

FROM: the office of the College President

RE: recent events at the edge of campus (i.e., the greenhouse)

As some of you are aware, the college greenhouse suffered damage last week. It seems that the power source serving the facility was—alas—inadvertently disconnected by the crew working on the new state-of-the-art theater facility on that Friday. (SNAFUery)

That weekend's record-breaking high temperatures inspired my own family and I to fly to the river and enjoy our Sea-Doos. I love my Sea-Doo. Vroom, vroom. But I digress.

The unseasonable heat—plus, of course, the lack of power to regulate temperatures inside the greenhouse—meant that the plants within were unable to survive. Sources say that the temps inside reached 160 degrees. Impressive. (But not as impressive as me on my Sea-Doo. Talk about HOT. Whoa.)

I have not always been a fan of the greenhouse. You may remember the firm public stand I took when a faculty member faced the loss of his job for allegedly placing a nameplate on the facility. I am a firm believer in rules, even those that don't exist at the time they are being enforced.

But, after awhile, my motto was: "Live and Let Live"—and until last Friday, that's exactly what happened in the greenhouse, except there in bio it's called "photosynthesize and let photosynthesize."

We are not about killing plants, people. That's not the American way.

Were this any other institution, you might expect to be apprised of this news via the college newspaper, but, as most of you know, that award-winning program was systematically underfunded and oppressed until it was no more—it was, as some say, "run into the ground" or "had its legs cut off from under it." You get the picture.

That's why you have to depend on these irregular memos from me to inform you of events and to dispel rumors. For example, there is absolutely no truth to the idle tittle-tattle that the Chancellor was seen skulking about in the orange groves adjacent the greenhouse with wire cutters and a GPS. The Chancellor has personally assured me that he is not a man who holds grudges, and we know that personal assurances are the gold standard in this district. Though others have pointed out that our leader is under considerable stress these days, the idea that he would stoop to vindictive acts is incomprehensible to those who know him well.


Now the good news: it has been brought to my attention that Board Policy 345691.98 states:

"In the event that the building of one facility causes the inadvertent destruction of another facility and/or irreparable damage to another facility, the faculty who have suffered the loss can assume ownership of the offending facility."

This means that our Life Science colleagues can expect to possess what many have longed for: a state-of-the-art theater. I know this must especially please one: yes, soon one Bio prof will be able to stage Gilbert and Sullivan festivals, and yes, flex credit will be offered.

Of course, this leaves Fine Arts with a greenhouse filled with wilted and roasted flora and fauna. Sorry guys.

Some say that the others should be held responsible for this tragedy—that there should have been oversight, supervision, accountability, liability, that management should have been managing affairs, etc. Some think that this episode is inextricably linked to the recent unfortunate series of events which found us without adequate classrooms on the first day of classes and of course, the re-keying situation, which left faculty and staff locked out of their offices and classrooms.

But we know better, don't we?

Sanaz Mozafarian in New York on 9-11

In honor of the fifth anniversary of "9-11," we offer the following.

It is an account of one young journalist's experiences in New York on that day, five years ago.

“GRAY”: New York, NY;
Sept. 11, 2001

[from Dissent 60, October 22, 2001]

SANAZ MOZAFARIAN

[Remember Sanaz “Action Figure” Mozafarian? She was a terrific reporter for the IVC school paper (the Voice) some years ago. Since then, she’s gone off to college in Berkeley and New York and has done some reporting for The Nation. She’s presently working as a reporter at the Independent Media Center (IMC) in NY.

Sanaz was in the city on September 11th. Here’s her email account of that day, written early the following morning. –CW]

t’s three a.m., Wednesday morning, now officially the day after the World Trade Center terrorist attack. I’m sitting at the Independent Media Center after an exhausting and chaotic day. I’m writing you all to let you know that I’m in one piece.…

I was in class when the planes exploded into the buildings, several miles north of downtown. As soon as I found out what had happened I began making my way there. Manhattan’s streets were chaotic. Smoke was billowing on the horizon, as people gathered around deli television sets.


All the buses and subways were shut down and people were lined up for blocks to make phone calls. Eventually, a bus appeared that ran downtown. I climbed in the back and got down to Times Square and then frantically got out to watch Arafat on the big screen.

Hundreds of New Yorkers were gathered outside the CBS studios. People were crying and fixating on the screen for the next bit of information, cringing as the network replayed footage of the Twin Towers crumbling, glancing down the street to the hole in the sky where the buildings had been replaced by black smoke.

After the newscast became repetitive, I began walking downtown. After a brief stop at the IMC, on 29th street, I made it to a downtown bus on Fifth Avenue. No one knew where the bus would stop, not even the bus driver. Everyone was distracted by the beret-wearing National Guardsmen guiding traffic with rifles all along Fifth Avenue.

We were kicked off of the bus at 8th Street. From that point, until we made it to the foot of the towers, we were in the midst of total chaos. We sought to get to ground zero by any means possible, and the police were trying to keep us out of there by any means possible….

The situation reminded me a lot of trying to get into the “no protest zone” on December 1, 1999 in Seattle. At every street corner a different group of cops told us to take off in the opposite direction we wanted to go, and at every street corner we tried to convince them to let us in.

Eventually we made it to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge where frantic volunteers in street clothing hauled two-by-fours and plywood to the park to make stretchers. These crude devices were then packed into empty garbage trucks and hauled along with volunteers to the foot of the buildings. The real urgency of the situation was not clear to me until I saw the hurried way these people worked and the number of stretchers they were making.

It was there that I met Paul and Jose. Paul, a 23 year-old white kid, came up to me and asked me for a cigarette. When I told him I didn’t have one, he began to talk, and I listened. He said that his father works in the North Tower, which tumbled first, on the 76th floor, and that he hadn’t heard from him since the buildings collapsed. His mission was to get into the building area and then to find his dad. Jose was his younger friend who presently looked like he was eighty years old. He walked with a limp, pulling his bike along with him. His hair was completely gray. He told me he was thrown several feet off his bike when the first plane hit. He was helping Paul.

I watched Paul almost get clubbed and arrested by a group of cops at a nearby barricade. I tried to calm him down. He was telling the cops that someone should have attacked their precincts. The coppers weren’t responding well to this.

As we got closer and closer to the foot of the buildings, the air got thicker, our skin and eyes dryer, our lungs weaker and our shoes and clothing grayer. The landscape of lower Manhattan was surreal, a thick gray dust covering everything. It reminded me of a post-bomb scene—or astronauts walking on the moon. The streets were deserted, except for a few business people and workers covered in dust with masks over their mouths and eyes, looking for a way out.

We were still a quarter mile from ground zero. The gray soot was mixed with hundreds of pages of charred paper, mostly financial reports and an occasional apple core and half-eaten bread. Venders had abandoned their fruit and bagel carts and people had looted them. Red and black smoke covered the skyline. Cars covered with dust had messages written on them: “You Can’t Stop NY”; “Revenge is the Only Answer.” We found a few water bottles, a couple of masks and marched on.

Repeatedly, we were turned back by cops. We lost track of where we were but kept moving; we tried every street. Soon we were walking down Wall Street toward Broadway. You could hardly see even one block.

Within minutes we heard a rumbling. The third building was falling: Seven World Trade Center, a forty-seven floor building near the towers. The dust and smoke that followed left us kneeling on the ground coughing and covering our eyes. We decided to take a different route.

Taking advantage of the dust and confusion, we were able to get close enough to see the once 110-floor building at a now-undaunting four-story height. Medics and volunteers, including many activists, were standing idly. The fire and excessive debris made it impossible for them to get to possible survivors. Ambulances couldn’t get in to pull people out.

We were quickly discovered and sent out of the area—itchy, exhausted, slightly blind and short of breath. We decided to get out before another building fell. Along the way, Paul, defeated, mumbled about the idiots who hijacked the planes. A few stragglers we had picked up, also young white boys, hoped that we’d go to war. I remained silent. What do you say to a kid who may have just lost his father so traumatically?


…[Later,] I gently tried to explain that people are killed like this…all the time, that the attack may have been a reaction to America’s international policies and actions. Being working class kids from Queens, Paul and Jose were not jumping to defend their government. Eventually we were agreeing, albeit not completely. Paul and Jose and I separated in Chinatown.…

I came back here to the IMC and we’re putting together some reports, shaking our heads in frustration as we watch Bush give his speech and Congress sing patriotic songs and reporters provide analyses about bin Laden. We are working hard, washing our clothes, skin and hair, trying to get the campfire smell out and trying not to scratch our skin too much. People pass out occasionally and then get up again to send emails and write stories and, every once in a while, we sit around together to figure out what we should do next.

The schools and most of downtown will be closed tomorrow, and so we’ll hold a meeting in Union Square at noon to discuss how to respond to the fervid patriotism emerging to fuel a possible war or bombing attacks. It feels like a daunting task…We have already heard that Arab NYC residents have been harassed in the streets and at their work places, but we haven’t heard about anything serious yet.

…Right now a few of us are going to ride down to the Javits Center where civilian volunteers are gathering for search and rescue teams. Needless to say, I’m not sure where I’ll be in a few hours from now. I’ll keep everyone updated…Do what you can locally. Any minute now we could be in the midst of massive war, internationally and nationally.

Good Luck

(See Sanaz at The Nation: writing about IVC.)

(Saddam had "no link to al-Qaeda". Surprise, surprise.)

Archive riches!

Yesterday, I added a dozen or so old blogs (i.e., old Dissent articles) to the ARCHIVES. You might find some of them worth reading. Check out October 1999. There you’ll find entertaining coverage of my court victory over the District. (For those new to the district saga: I was forced to defend myself against the District’s charge that Dissent—and thus I—had violated district policies concerning violence and discrimination. See Roy Bauer's 1st Amendment Battles.) For instance, there’s a transcript of the often-amusing court discussion between Judge Feess and the two lawyers, Carol Sobel and David Larsen. At one point, Feess ridicules union Prez Sherry Miller-White’s “fear” that I might drop a two-ton slab of granite on her head. Check it out. In response, the district's desperate lawyer, David Larsen, sputters forth a series of ridiculous instances of alleged Bauer "violence":

MR. LARSEN: [Bauer once told someone:] "You fucking asshole." [He's] violent in other people's face. [This is a reference to an incident, described in a declaration by Ken W, in which Bauer, upon being treated to one of W’s infantile needlings, muttered, “You fucking asshole,” as he walked away.] FEESS: Well, "You fucking asshole," if that's an assault, then the courts of the state system would be filled to overflowing…

I’ve added a separate account (You had to be there) of that 1999 court hearing. It ends with a scene on an elevator. Right after the hearing, all six of us—Carol and David, Sampson & Mathur, Wendy and me—end up together in that uncomfortably cramped space--and with that 800 pound gorilla of our having just kicked the district's ass:

Soon, we were out in the hallway, and, as luck would have it, all six of us ended up alone in an elevator, headin’ down. I smiled pleasantly. Dave turned to Carol and said, “Well, Carol, you did very well with the judge, as usual.” Without missing a beat, Carol responded by saying, “Yes, you did well, too, Dave.” Then she got that impish look. Gesturing toward Cedric and Raghu, she added: “—Given what you had to work with.” Wendy and I smiled, and maybe even snorted. Raghu glared. I’m not sure what Cedric did, ‘cuz I didn’t look at ‘im, but, later that evening, at the board meeting, he looked like a bloodless Halloween corpse, the poor fellow.

Those were good times! In one blog from 1999, Red Emma goes after an Old Guard apologist (Curt McLendon) in his usual amusing manner, only with lots of cool Spanish. Another blog relates some mailroom hijinks by two of the Old Guard’s best, namely, Walter Floser and Lee Walker—two remarkable instructors who’s names continue to come up whenever the subject of simultaneous chewing & walking arises. Two old blogs describe Andrew Tonkovich’s celebrated offer to provide security services for Raghu (Not-so-secret-service and In security). Tonkovich is a remarkably close (ahem) friend of Red Emma’s. His take on Raghu’s crocodile fears is amusing. The latter escapade was highlighted by our pals over at the OC Weekly, who, in 1999, gave us four bullets in their “best of” edition (We’re just the best). Check it out. Lee Walker’s infamous “fife and dumb corps” (to use Red’s memorable phrase) inspired several blogs, including Red Emma’s Poetry Korner and my Club WASP. The latter concerns Lee’s proud membership in the “Sons of the American Revolution,” a Tupperware kaffeeklatsch for dwarfs. I guess that some of these old blogs (e.g., The Chancellor’s opening session & the FA lunch AND Miss Fortune’s guide to holiday giving AND Tales of Mathurian Pettiness and Ruthlessness AND He keeps secret files on faculty!) are arguably mere historical records of distant absurdities. If you expect to live another 80 years, do be sure to read them before you're carted off to the boneyard. I came upon one very special blog, namely A quotational tour of recent district history (98-9). Just about anything that anybody said that’s worth repeating from those days is right there! Here’s an example of this blog’s many delights:

Krugel to Frogue: “Do you trade pictures of little girls with Joe Fields?” Williams: “Sir, I don’t want to hear any more comments about little girls.”

—From an exchange among Barry Krugel (of the JDL), trustees, and visitors during the June 15, 1998, board meeting. As Red and Reb like to say, “You can’t make this stuff up!” The “quotational” blog is a thousand points of blight—it’s a lengthy litany of preposterousness and shriekitude. On the other end of the spectrum are such concise nuggets as Rebel Girl’s Consultin’ Collegially, Raghu Style, which is 25 words long. 25 words? Hell, I’ve got more than 25 references to "rat bastards" in some of these pieces!

Moody Trabuco Canyon morning

Chunk's house.
Chunk's hill. Well sorta.
Just above the workshop. The structure burned down in 2001 but was rebuilt.
By 10 a.m., most of the moisture had burned away. It's a beautiful day!
5 minutes ago.

Boobs in space & making the big time

Do you like boobs a lot?
Gotta like boobs a lot
If you like boobs a lot tag-a-long

The Fugs, 1965

I tend to think of institutions of higher learning as places where young people are brought up to speed regarding humanity's hard-won attainments in understanding and expression. Sure, community colleges must be something else, too; they've got to help train the workforce. But there's still that noble college idea that's not about just making a buck and giving people "what they want."

Evidently, administrators at our colleges do not share my perspective.

Consider the magazines that the district and colleges leave out for students to read. Dissent has featured some of these in recent months. (See SOCCCD's magazine for women and Upchuckery.) They're pretty awful. Lots of pretty pictures. Lots of slick ads. Nothing challenging.

At IVC, the latest freebee is something called Saturday Night Magazine, a glossy and flashy mag targetting the young college crowd, which makes sense. Its articles are about--what else? They're about TV stars, music, film...

--and making big bucks.

The publisher, one Michael H. Ritter, tells us that he is "excited about...the new section [of SNM] called Destination Success."

Success? Just what is, or what should be, success? Let's really think about this...

SNM doesn't ponder. Success, of course, is making a huge pile of money. This month's "Destination Success" is described in this way:

Tired of seeing people your own age and younger hit the big time? Then you might not want to turn to this brand new section.

Naturally, I turned immediately to this brand new section. It was on page 45. Here is what I found:


The article celebrates the success of one Joe Francis, the youthful "owner and operator" of Girls Gone Wild. You know what that is. It's about T&A. (See Baby, give me a kiss.)

In case you can't make it out, the article starts with a remark by Mr. Francis:

For the first time, we're taking naked girls and making them weightless. Boobs in space. It's a great sight, worth the nine bucks all in itself."

Now, I'm all in favor of boobs, weightless or otherwise. Still, I'm not convinced that our colleges should be joining in on the youthful obsession with Boobery. Don't we represent another sort of yearning?

Silly me.

For years, on Thursdays, the back wall of IVC's administration building would fill with the latest Irvine World News and OC Weekly. Nowadays, the Weekly is gone.

I guess I understand that. Those nasty ads are a bit much. But who decided to banish nasty ads in favor of "boobs in space"?

Tales of SNAFUery

WAYNE’S WORLD

About a year ago, I noticed that nobody seemed to have anything good to say about IVC’s new Director of Facilities and Maintenance, Wayne Ward, who was hired in 2004.

Then came the first week of the fall 2006 semester: the CEC portable classrooms weren’t ready for use, and that caused huge problems.

The CEC’s are Wayne’s responsibility.

I looked up his bio on IVC’s website, and it says that he received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Phoenix. Uh-oh. (See U of Phoenix Loses [fraud case] in US Court.)

So I’ve been trying to keep an eye on this Wayne fella. Recently, a colleague complained that, among other vices, Wayne has some seriously high-handed ways.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, like he thinks he can park just anywhere he wants. He’s a real asshole.”

I did not pursue the matter. Today, however, I happened to be walking past the Facilities and Maintenance office, and I spotted a snazzy silver Camaro. It was parked next to a storage bin near a sign saying, “Do not enter.”

I walked closer. The license plate said, “XXX WARD.” (I’ve obscured the 1st three letters.)

Well, whatever.

Later in the afternoon, I was in my office. A guy walked in and started unscrewing the plate that holds the lock assembly on my door. He did not explain himself. I stared at him. He removed the lock and replaced it with another one. He left.

OK. I mean, it's IVC.

A few minutes later, I left the office, closing the door behind me. After a few steps, I realized that I had left my camera in the office, so I returned to retrieve it. But my key wouldn’t work. I was screwed.

Plus I’ve got a class tomorrow morning. I'm gonna need to get into my office!

On the way out to my car, I ran into a few acquaintances. Evidently, lots of faculty have had their office door locks replaced today. No keys were provided. Lord only knows when we’ll get them.

IF we get them.

Wayne’s in charge of locks, I suppose.

Or maybe nobody is. (Is it Owen K, chief of police?)

DEAD PLANTS

Today, I ran into one of our likeable crew of biologists. The full-time biology instructors at IVC are like some kind of eccentrics club, like birders or spelunkers. They’re close-knit. They’ve got their own corpse.

They’re fun.

This particular biologist, Mr. D, had a sad story to tell. It concerned our little greenhouse.


Perhaps you’ll recall that, several years ago, our biologists decided to construct a greenhouse for students. Well, after much effort and expense, they did so, and, with typically dry biological humor, they held a ceremony in which they solemnly christened the little structure “The Terry Burgess Greenhouse.” There was a plaque and everything.

Burgess, of course, had been the college’s first biologist and, later, its VPI. He also happened to be one of then-President Raghu P. Mathur’s least favorite people in the whole world. And that’s sayin’ somethin’, baby, cuz Raghu’s got lots of enemies. (He carries a list.)

Raghu heard about this greenhouse stunt and was pissed. But he’s a clever little fellow. Back at Hah-vud, he had studied Saddam’s treatise on effective management, and Saddam’s a big one for occasionally taking some poor slob and making an example of him. You know, set fire to ‘im, boil 'im in oil--that sort of thing.

So Raghu thought: “Are there any members of the School of Life Sciences who are untenured? Mu-hu-hu!”

What about Jeff K! Prepare the oil!

Now, in fact, Jeff had nothing to do with naming the greenhouse. But that was OK. When you zap a guy to make an example, it doesn’t much matter who you zap. (For the rest of Jeff's "greenhouse" story, see Mathur goes after Jeff for naming a greenhouse.)


Well, that’s ancient history now. But Mr. D’s tale concerned that very greenhouse. As you know, not far from IVC's greenhouse, in what used to be a lovely orange grove, the college is constructing a Performing Arts Center. Well, naturally, over the weekend, construction workers managed to cut the power line that goes to the little house of plants. I guess they just figured that was OK. (Do you suppose they called Wayne?)

You know how these greenhouses work. You’ve got to condition the air, cuz, if you don’t, it’ll get blazin’ hot, especially this time of year. So when Mr. D and his colleagues visited the greenhouse on Tuesday, they found that the temperature inside had risen to a lethal 160 degrees. All the plants—including some expensive ones—were yellow and withered. They were dead.


CLUELESS

Each year, faculty retire. As you know, it is common for instructors to retire mid-year.

Well, when new VC of Human Resources, Bob King, found out that one of our psychology instructors wanted to retire in December, he declared that that simply wasn’t possible. How come? Because, said Bob, faculty teach a year at a time, and so a guy’s gotta teach the whole year or none of the year. He can’t teach half of it!

Huh?

--He said something like that. I don't know the details.

I’m told that Bob was brought in to head HR because the Director of Human Resources, Teddi Lorch, is, well, clueless. Naturally, when Bob’s position was created, she got seriously pissed about it. She didn’t want a boss.

Well, it turns out that her boss is clueless too.