Rebel Girl's Father Phones In

.....MODJESKA CANYON: It's 2:15 on Super Tuesday and Rebel Girl's father has already telephoned her to inform her that her vote for Obama (he knew, he said, that she voted for Obama without having to ask) was naive.
.....Ouch!
.....He has, he reminded her, lived longer than she has and has seen more things.
.....This is true. He was born in 1927, the youngest son of Juan and Teresa, two immigrants from Mexico, and grew up in Los Angeles. He served in WW II as a teenager, came home and went back to high school for his diploma (back then you had to sit in classes with the high school students in order to matriculate, no special classes or equivalency tests). He then applied for a job with LA City Fire Department and was denied on the basis of the physical given him by the department's doctor. His health was good enough to go to war but not to fight fires in his hometown. He had to fight the doctor and the department and, in the end, he prevailed. Rebel Girl's father doesn't use the word "racism" often, but he uses it when he recalls this incident. He became one of the first Mexican-American firefighters in the department and when he retired a few years back, he was the oldest active duty firefighter at age 74. His health, once judged so poor, had apparently held out. Yet among his defining experiences were the four decades he spent in firehouses and what he saw there among men (it was mostly men in his days) who were supposed to be brothers.

....."There is no way," Rebel Girl's father said this afternoon, "that this country will elect a black man president." It saddens him, he said. He worries that Americans won't elect a woman either, but he doesn't worry about that as much.
.....He liked his daughter's optimism but he doesn't share it. "I have lived," he said. "I have seen things. Change doesn't come as quickly as you'd like." Then suddenly his tone changed. Maybe he remembered he was talking to his daughter. "But, I don't want you to be discouraged," he said. "I don't want you to be disappointed. That's just the way it is."
.....He sounded tender, full of regret.
.....Rebel Girl's father, of course, like most parents perhaps, is unaware of the depths of his own child's experience, doesn't perhaps spend too much time measuring what she may or may not know about disappointment or defeat. There's a level of naivete there as well and hope, of course.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "no false patriotic wreath"

A little poetry for Super Tuesday. Oh yes, you can tell, it's getting to Rebel Girl. Don't worry, she is used to losing, even expects it -- but what she is unaccustomed to is all this damn hope that keeps following her around, hope from unexpected quarters. She prides herself on being resistant to such appeals. Something's happened. What?

Today's poem is long but Rebel Girl is confident that your attention span can carry you to the end.

You do want to get to the end, that final stanza. Really. Written by Langston Hughes in 1938:


Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!



(Jasper Johns on the paintbrush.)

Obama fever!

.....Call me crazy, but I think I feel the ground moving under me. All of a sudden, things are shifting, and, for once, the change is good!
.....Maybe I'm wrong--about Obama fever. We'll soon find out.
.....But it sure was a beautiful day today! Clean air, big clouds! Took these shots a couple of hours ago driving home from work: Saddleback Mountain, from my place and from Lake Forest.


.....Don't forget to vote!
.....And, uh...YES WE CAN!

Yes We Can

Rebel Girl has already voted - lots of no's (No! No! No! No! No! No! - she's like that)and one big YES.

Here's some music for you all to vote by. I know we're not the prime audience for this thing 'cause Rebel Girl recognized only one of the muscians. Still, rock out.

Rebel Girl suspects that Chunk will dislike this video but she posts its anyway knowing that it is their aesthetic differences that make this blog the fairest blog in all the land.

Vote!

"Weighing all of the allegations"

A NEW VIDEO (click on the ARROW):



WATCH:

• Mathur's cronies try to string words together!
• Dale Carranza inexplicably perform a Perry Mason impression!
• Allanah Rosenberg tell it like it really is!
• Laura Uren channel a friggin' TV commercial!
• the student government kid give Raghu credit for every dang thing! (Gosh, where'd he get that idea?)
• Howard Dachslager invent a new word & accuse some faculty of trying to "destroy" the colleges!

But why would they do that?

He doesn't say!!!

Terrell Fletcher at Saddleback College

In yesterday's OC Reg: Pastor, former NFL player speaks at Saddleback College:

Saddleback College recently presented a speech by pastor and former NFL player Terrell Fletcher honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fletcher was running back for the San Diego Chargers for eight years, and is a senior pastor at City of Hope International Church in San Diego. He spoke at Saddleback College on Jan. 24….

One student posed the question of whether the greatest threat to minority populations is minorities themselves. Fletcher responded, saying that some elements of black popular culture can be self-destructive and harm the community's image.

"We fill our communities with so much negativity about ourselves that it is very difficult to not believe it after a while," he said. "In one hand, we can say it's just music. On another hand, you can say it's very destructive."

Another man later responded, saying that negative themes in hip-hop are a reflection of disadvantages the artists experience. He asked Fletcher what black celebrities like him are doing to reach young children who know nothing but their community's underprivileged situation.

Fletcher responded, saying that many prominent blacks are giving generously to their communities, but that the media tends to focus only on negative images.

"We're not going to bring a whole bunch of cameras when you write a check for scholarships so that kids can go to school… but if you get caught on your third drugging offense, we're going to load you up," he said.

He added that the responsibility of raising children is on parents, not artists or entertainers….

Especially less-than-excellent

NOW, A WORD FROM OUR ACCREDITORS. The Accrediting agency (ACCJC) sends out its letters on January 31—tomorrow—so we’ll soon learn their assessment of our two colleges. It’s hard to predict what they’ll do. I’ve heard no rumors.

Toward the end of our last cycle, Mathur and the board seemed to do everything in their power to mess things up. It’s as though they were trying to prove that they are precisely the bastards they are widely suspected of being. But the Commissioners can be way political and self-serving and all the usual shitty and depressing things. Will they actually do their job? Will they wash their hands of us? Who can say?

MATHUR UNLEASHED. So far, it looks like the power shift from Lang to Wagner (board president) has meant that Mathur is now allowed to roam freely, scaring children, torching fields, poisoning wells, and so on. (The leash that master Lang wielded was weird and long, but at least he used one.) For instance, recently, Mathur and his team of hounds have racked up quite a record of peeing on policies with regard to hiring committees. What? There are rules re committee membership? Screw that! There's no third-level interview for deans? There is now!

Luckily, thus far, watchdogs have used effective counter-measures against Mathur's dictates re faculty hiring.

WHAT ABOUT BEEFING UP FACULTY SALARIES? We’ve heard next to nothing about our unfolding 50% problem, the MASSIVE Mathurian Fuckup that dares not speak its name. It was barely mentioned at last week’s board meeting, the meeting in which Nothing Happened.

But my guess is that things will get ugly. Great pressure will be applied to slash non-instructional costs. All the creative bookkeeping in the world isn’t going to bring us up to 50%. (See Look at the data.)

If you read Dissent, then you know that Trustee Don Wagner—our new board president—has expressed an odd perspective about the 50% problem, namely, that we should just hand back the money to the state. Hmmm. Why would he propose such a thing?

Because, dear readers, the 50% problem is precisely this: that we are spending too little on instruction compared to other things. And instruction means faculty salaries. Now, normally, you can comply with the law without resorting to huge faculty salaries, but things ain't normal, cuz Mathur's an idiot, and so everything's a rush job. In this emergency, all we can do is beef up faculty salaries.

But there’s no way that certain trustees—Wagner, Fuentes, Lang—are gonna sit for ad hoc faculty raises, since, as you know, faculty work only 36-hour weeks for ten months of the year while pulling down on average about $100K a year. (Who says? Tom Fuentes says. See Fuentes bashes faculty.)

That’s the word in some circles, anyway.

RED, RED HERRING. Even though the 50% law has been around since, like, 1960, Fuentes and company have been running around as though it just came down Main Street like Godzilla. Fuentes and other district officials recently met with the other OC community college districts to carp about that law. Or so said Mr. Fuentes during his report at the last board meeting.

Fuentes’ efforts are, of course, a red herring. See, we’re not supposed to notice that, unlike the SOCCCD, all those other districts are complying with the 50% law, and are liable to do so well into the future. We’re not supposed to notice that, because Mathur blew off the law for years, we’re destined to be out of compliance for some time. —Either that or some serious pain will be dispensed in the district.

Mathur won’t feel any pain. He makes $300,000 a year.

UPDATE: yesterday, I included here brief mention of an IVC administrator about whom we've been hearing for years. I stated that the latest story (it came to us from a reliable person) concerned her over-spending her budget. Certain knowledgeable persons contacted me and suggested that the matter in question is more complex than the story suggests and that the assertion that the dean over-spent her budget is inaccurate. Dissent regrets any factual error regarding that administrator and her actions re budgeting.