Google's version of Wikipedia

.....
* In this morning’s New York Times: Google Develops Wikipedia Rival:

.....Google is developing an online publishing platform where people can write entries on subjects they know, an idea that's close to Wikipedia's user-contributed encyclopedia but with key differences.
.....The project, which is in an invitation-only beta stage, lets users create clean-looking Web pages with their photo and write entries on, for example, insomnia. Those entries are called "knols" for "unit of knowledge," Google said.
.....Google wants the knols to develop into a deep repository of knowledge, covering topics such as geography, history and entertainment.
.....Google's project will have to catch up with Wikipedia, which includes more than 7 million articles in 200 languages. Anonymous users constantly update Wikipedia entries in an ever-growing online encyclopedia that's edited by a network of vetted editors.
.....But Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.
....."We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog….. (UPDATE: see also Wikipedia Competitor Being Tested by Google)

* From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Alleged Conflicts of Interest at Cambridge College:

.....The board of Cambridge College has placed Mahesh Sharma, the institution’s president, on leave after finding that he tried to use college funds to pay for his nephew’s tuition and that he appointed as a vice president a man whose company had a six-figure contract with Cambridge, The Boston Globe reported. Sharma did not respond to calls from the Globe seeking comment….

* In this morning’s LA Times: Orange County is again an uneasy investor:

.....Merrill Lynch & Co., the brokerage giant blamed for triggering Orange County's $1.6-billion bankruptcy in 1994, was the single largest dealer of complex debt securities to the county within the last two years that are now at risk of a credit rating downgrade, a Times review of county investment holdings has found.
.....Merrill's role in selling the debt instruments to Orange County is emerging just one year after the Board of Supervisors voted to reestablish full business ties with the firm, over the objections of politicians who served during the bankruptcy.
.....…The Nov. 30 warning by Moody's Investors Service that it might downgrade $460 million in securities held by Orange County forced the treasurer's office to write down their value by nearly $13.8 million. The write-down led to a $12.4-million paper loss for the month of November.
.....…Concerns over the investments have also added to Treasurer Chriss Street's political woes.
.....Street faces a previously scheduled vote by the Board of Supervisors next week on whether to strip him of his authority over the county investment pool. Supervisors have cited Street's business dealings before entering public office a year ago, a $750,000 office remodel and his handling of contracts to redesign the exterior of his building....

(Street is one of Trustee Tom Fuentes' many corrupt pals. See Orange County: home of the rat bastard.)

angry professor

A little wishful thinking.

Jesus' glasses, Erlinda's shower

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

.....A plan to add a shower to the private restroom in the president’s office of Santa Ana College has been halted. The Orange County Register reported that trustees of the Rancho Santiago Community College District put a stop to the project, which had already started, after word of it leaked to them. Erlinda Martinez, president at Santa Ana, said she needed the private shower because she must frequently change from business attire to cocktail attire when she leaves her office to go directly to receptions in the evening. But trustees said that the spending sent the wrong message. The Register reported that private showers are common for corporate CEO’s, but not for college presidents, many of whom manage with the same bathrooms used by other employees in their buildings.

In this morning’s LA Times: Lawsuit targets history teacher's comments:

.....A San Juan Capistrano high school student and his parents filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that his history teacher violated his constitutional rights by making "highly inappropriate" and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.
.....James Corbett, who teaches Advanced Placement European history at Capistrano Valley High School, consistently "demonstrates a sense of hostility toward religion," causing Christian students to "feel ostracized and treated as second-class citizens," according to the lawsuit filed in federal district court in Santa Ana by Chad Farnan, 16, and his parents, Bill and Teresa.
.....The lawsuit contends, among other things, that Corbett told students during class that "when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth"; said that religion is not "connected with morality"; compared Christians to "Muslim fundamentalists" who want women to "stay pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses"; and suggested that churchgoers are more likely to commit rape and murder….
.....[Farnan's mother] said her suspicions were aroused on the first day of school when her son -- a sophomore honors student required to take Corbett's class for college admission -- asked her whether America was founded on Christian values, which he said his teacher had denied.
....."He had learned in the eighth grade that our country was founded by persecuted Christians," said the mother, who describes her family as nondenominational Christian, "so I sent him to school with a tape recorder."....

Spewing spores

It's finals week here at Irvine Valley College, which is fine by me, except I've got the flu, and I can barely function, but here I am, every day this week, giving this flu back to these darned kids that gave it to me in the first place, no doubt. I sneeze at 'em, spewing spores all over the place. So there.

Rebel Girl's been showing up, too—giving finals, collecting essays—only she's got a cold or something plus pink eye, which she got from Limber Lou, who got it from some of those Republican brats he hangs out with in the canyon.

He's a great kid, that Limber Lou. Check out the picture I took of 'im a couple of days ago. The kid never stops moving—he spews little-kid sauce out in all directions, and there's no use protecting yourself—so this is the best I could do. I like his hair.

The Reb made me take a picture of the "delightful flowers" somebody had layed out there in the so-called "faculty lounge" of A200, which is where they keep us. This is what you get when you share space with biologists. They get excited about tubers and mold and this weird-ass thing here, whatever it is. Me, I go for ordinary posies and ferns. In vases.

Speaking of bio, the Reb dragged me out to the greenhouse/park—over by the tennis courts—where, a few days ago, the biologists put up a nice plaque in honor of their colleague, Alan Cohen. It's all fenced off and locked, so I had to poke a hole in the fence to take a peek.

Why were we out there? Reb's into dark, foul conspiracies by corporations and administrators. With a hushed voice, she suddenly said, "Check out this weird machine over here!" OK. I stared at it. It looked like one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners, only big and green. It was made of fiberglass and it sat behind a chain-link fence. It's mighty weird. I guess.


Then she dragged me just around the corner to some weird emergency shower—you know, for when chemicals splash in your eyes. It was on a nondescript building, sans windows, next to the biologists' greenhouse/park.

What's that all about? Dunno. Maybe that big vaccuum cleaner and this shower are, like, the greenhouse/park for the Chemists. Could be. Raghu's a chemist, isn't he?

Yeah. This must be the "Raghu P. Mathur Chemical Depository and Park." Ugly and creepy. Perfect.

Nobody ever comes out here. Nobody ever will.

“God instructed me to hit him with a pie”: Monday’s board meeting

.....AN OLD GUY named Carl Christensen addressed the board, fretting about the “imbalance” in Saddleback College’s history offerings, which deemphasize, he said, history after World War II. He may as well have addressed potted plants for all the reaction he got from this board.
.....Next, the board broke into their annual “organizational” meeting, whereupon Trustee John Williams nominated Don Wagner for President of the board (Tom Fuentes seconded). That passed unanimously. Don beamed.
.....At that point, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur popped up to give exiting board president Dave Lang a big stack of plaques and prizes, one by one, including one from the Governor. It was a delicious display of Mathurian brownnosery, and everyone was highly amused.
.....Tom Fuentes, natch, then nominated Williams as board VP. Nancy Padberg voted against that idea. Fuentes was made Clerk again. He seemed to respond by blowing tiny bubbles with the spittle on his lower lip.
.....Dave Lang, who ended a three-year stint as president and who plainly sees himself as terribly important, offered his long goodbyes. He thanked his “particularly dedicated” board colleagues (especially Wagner and Fuentes), our “hard-working” Chancellor, and various administrators.
.....If he mentioned faculty and faculty leadership, it was under the umbrella term “and others.” This plainly annoyed faculty in attendance.
.....Fuentes then left because he was feeling ill.
.....During board reports and at other times during the meeting, trustees sang the praises of Saddleback College President Rich McCullough, who recently announced his retirement, effective in June. They really seemed to praise him.
.....During his report, Chancellor Mathur made a point of thanking “all workers,” somehow implying that some workers (faculty) are thanked far too often and too strongly as far as he was concerned.
.....Trustee John Williams, junketeer extraordinaire, requested a detailed report on nepotism in the district. Don’t know what that’s about.
.....Don Wagner ran the meeting as though he were in a hurry to go home to watch House. Wham, bam.

THE FLAT WORLD

.....Eventually, trustees got to their sole “discussion” item, though they didn’t seem to want to discuss it. As you know, Mathur reads one book per decade, and the last one was Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, which describes “globalization” and its challenges. Mathur has enthusiastically “shared” this book with trustees and with various administrators. He has memorized its ISBN number and he owns an edible edition—or, rather, he once did. (Evidently, Mathur is unaware that good books are published all the time. Not just this one.)
.....Mathur’s obsession with Friedman’s trendy tome somehow yielded this odd little presentation, called “language in a flat world,” by the two colleges’ VPIs—namely, Rajen Vurdien and Craig Justice. (Tracy provides a link to the presentation.) Globalization, we were told, is threatening language diversity, for some tongues, such as English, have become “killer languages.”
.....I kept waiting for Rajen and Craig to explain whether English’s homicidal ways are to be welcomed or repelled, but I couldn’t tell which way they went on that question. Both ways maybe.
.....They presented facts and trends regarding language instruction at the two colleges. Spanish and some other languages are in decline (at least at Saddleback) while Chinese and Korean are on the rise. I was surprised to find that the two colleges differ so much with regard to language instruction.
.....The VPI Twins seemed to suggest that, perhaps, we should prepare for English’s unstoppable killing spree. Maybe, they said, we should partner with foreign universities to teach English. Will we be teaching less and less in the area of foreign languages?, they asked. Should we promote “regional languages,” such as Spanish and Korean?
.....Don’t ask me.
.....I must confess that the presentation confused me a bit. It seemed to confuse the trustees too, who had virtually nothing to say about it. On the other hand, they praised it.
.....Whatever.

THE 50% LAW: ORWELLIAN GOO

.....Among the meeting’s “information” items was a “report on compliance with [the] 50% Law during 2007-08.” As you know, Mathur and Co. have fucked up disastrously, allowing the district to trend strongly below the mandatory 50% line with regard to expenditures on instruction. (They saw it coming; they were heedless; they threw huge chunks of cash at ATEP.) As a consequence, the district has been scrambling to cut non-instructional costs, hire faculty, etc.
.....Mathur persists in offering public remarks about our predicament with ZERO recognition of his responsibility for it. He did that again last night, even adopting, as is his custom, the attitude of a stern parent lecturing recalcitrant children.
.....He makes about $300,000 a year.
.....IVC Academic Senate President Wendy G reminded the board of the 50% Advisory Committee recommendations. Among them: that measures to address our fiscal difficulty should proceed in relation to our larger plans, including each college’s strategic plan. Sometimes, she suggested, that is “not happening.” She cited the apparent decision to cut an “executive assistant” from IVC’s Office of the President. That office, she reminded the board, is particularly important. Cutting staff there can really hurt; it can have ripple effects.
.....Nancy Padberg picked up on that point. She asked if the Chancellor intended to cut executive assistants also at Saddleback College—and at the district. She wondered if, by this action, he were not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
.....Mathur responded by playing the old “shared pain” card. Leadership has to set an example by cutting in their areas too. (I wonder if he intends to give back some of his salary.)
.....Marcia Milchiker joined in. The two colleges, she said, are spending well over 50% on instruction. The 50% difficulty concerns the district and ATEP, not the colleges. Plus, by making these cuts, isn’t the Chancellor micromanaging the colleges?
.....Lang seemed to agree with Milchiker, Padberg, and Jay. He emphasized the importance of the process by which “savings items” are chosen. He seemed to say that, in future, the Chancellor should provide specific cost-saving figures and such per potential cut.
.....Bill Jay found some of the district’s numbers confusing (as did I and others). What’s all this talk about 13 and 14 million dollars?
.....The faculty union’s Ken W noted that, last week, the Chancellor issued an edict—near as I can tell, one that was unfamiliar to administrators—according to which instructors could not teach more than 60% of their load in distance ed. This sort of rule, he said, diminishes the colleges’ ability to maximize enrollment, for deans must now scramble to find replacement instructors. (Note: increasingly, DE is our cash cow.) This, he said, is a case of micromanagement.

.....Trustee Wagner intoned nastily that he hoped that “someday [you] will move past calling anything you don’t like ‘micromanagement.’”
.....To his credit, Ken did not permit his head to pop.
.....Mathur suddenly affected the manner of a wounded and dying hero. Gosh, he said, the term “micromanagement” sure is being used loosely (brownnose, brownnose, roly-poly brownnose). This complaint, he said, is an attempt to “politicize” something that is not political. He commenced railing against instructors who teach 100% of their courses online. How, he asked, can faculty satisfy their other duties (office hours, committee work) if they teach online? He “cautioned” the board against discussing this matter in an inappropriate setting.
.....(Mathur was throwing up a cloud of dust. Nothing prevents deans from requiring of faculty, even those who do all of their teaching online, to hold office hours and do committee work.)
.....In truth, Mathur’s 60% edict was likely just one of his typical efforts to hurt his “enemies,” i.e., his critics, some of whom happen to embrace distance ed.
.....Padberg said that she agreed with Marcia, except for one thing: she has no complaint with the 50% Law, which, she said, is “good.” She suggested that the district needs to take a hard look at expenses at the district and at ATEP. We have, she said, a bureaucracy that has “ballooned” at the district level.
.....Marcia then expressed surprise regarding the 60% edict. Aren’t we trying to grow DE instruction?, she asked. How does this edict help with the 50% problem?
.....Mathur roared that it is “false” to say that district bureaucracy has grown. (He’s a lying sack of shit.) He commenced lecturing Nancy and Marcia. The issue of instructor limits on distance ed courses is “bargainable,” he said.
.....Huh? If it’s bargainable, then it should be bargained; it should not be a matter of Chancellor edicts. —So declared Bill Jay. Good point!
.....You should definitely watch this discussion (go to #7.1) yourself when it becomes available at the district website. It was pretty obvious that Mathur was hopping mad. He started to make that rat-face. You know the one.
.....It was wonderful.

See also

• Tracy's Board Highlights &
• Night of Narcissus

Night of Narcissus

.....I'll have a full report (on the SOCCCD board meeting) some time tomorrow. Right now, I'm beat, and I've gotta get to bed.
.....BRIEFLY: Wagner is the new board president, and boy was he efficient. It was the first meeting to end early in years, I think. I don't think it was early enough for Don, though.
.....Dave Lang seemed to think that his stepping down (from the board presidency) was momentous—epoch-shattering even. He hoped, he said, that "history" would treat him well.
.....Well, actually, history doesn't give a shit about little Davey Doo. But if it did give a shit, it would judge him to be a mere quisling and jackass. ATEP is falling apart; the colleges' accreditation is fouled up; the district is seriously behind the 8-ball because of Davey's boy Mathur's 50% screw-up; and morale still sucks.
.....Wow, what a legacy. Wagner got a laugh when he said that Lang left some big shoes--and a hot seat.


.....After accepting about seventeen prizes, Lang commenced throwing darts at Chriss Street, the OC Treasurer. Those are some seriously sour grapes. (Lang wanted the job that Street got. That's what Lang is all about. That's what he's still about.)
.....The two VPIs gave an oddly incoherent report about "language and the flat world." Still don't know what that was all about. English, it turns out, is the "killer language." But is that a good thing or a bad thing? The report seemed pretty unclear about that. Should we stop offering foreign languages? Maybe. Maybe not.
.....Jay, Milchiker, and Padberg were all over Mathur, making him look like an asshole. So I'd have to say that, all in all, it was a damned good night.
.....More tomorrow.

Anti-evolutionists ecstatic—and inconsistent

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Academic Freedom and Evolution:

.....Opponents of evolution have of late been trying to frame their arguments as being about academic freedom and free expression. As a result, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute is ecstatic over the recent discovery of e-mail messages among professors at Iowa State University criticizing the views of a pro-intelligent design professor whose tenure bid was denied. “Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez and Academic Persecution” is the title of the institute’s Web page about the case. (Iowa State says that the professor’s views on evolution were not a decisive factor in his dismissal.)
.....The Christian Law Association, meanwhile, frames a lawsuit against the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution by a fired postdoc who does not believe in evolution or want to do work related to evolution as a matter of his being punished for his beliefs.
.....But the groups arguing for freedom of expression of evolution deniers have not been heard agitating for the rights of Richard Colling. He’s a professor at Olivet Nazarene University, in Illinois, who has been barred from teaching general biology or having his book taught at the university that is his alma mater and the place where he has taught for 27 years. A biologist who is very much a person of faith, these punishments followed anger by some religious supporters of the college over the publication of his book in which he argues that it is possible to believe in God and still accept evolution.
.....“I thought I was doing the church a service,” Colling said in an interview. He believes that religious colleges that frame science and faith as incompatible will lose some of their best minds, and that his work has been devoted to helping faithful students maintain their religious devotion while learning science as science should be taught.
.....“You can’t check your intellect at the door of the church,” he said. Colling has tenure and he hasn’t been fired or had his pay cut — which university officials have told the American Association of University Professors means that Olivet Nazarene can’t be accused of violating his academic freedom.
.....Actually, the AAUP tends to believe that having courses taken away (without due process) and having your books banned generally is a violation of academic freedom, and the association is currently investigating the case while pushing (without success) for the sanctions against Colling to be lifted. The case is in many ways notable because the AAUP gives religious colleges considerable leeway in enforcing religious beliefs and is getting involved here only because of evidence that the university is violating its own stated principles. At the same time, the AAUP says that proponents of intelligent design are not necessarily correctly citing the principles of academic freedom in some other prominent cases attracting attention….

• Did you know that Trustee Tom Fuentes is involved in the publishing of books that attack evolution? Imagine that! See Fuenteian titles.