Sunny's back!

She's back from the vet, and she's more peevish than ever! Plus, now, she's only 4 pounds of brat! And she's sick and tired of that McCain fella, too!

Chuck D (aka Charles Darwin) was a spectacular fellow

.....The Origin of Species was published nearly 150 years ago, and so, soon, a celebration of that event will begin. Naturally, the anti-science crowd—including our own Trustee Tom Fuentes—will piss and moan in private and, sometimes, in public.
.....Let 'em. Chuck was a spectacular fellow, a hero to those who will use their goddam minds, not shut 'em off and roll their eyes in mindless ecstasy.
.....In yesterday’s New York Times (Darwinmania!), evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson asks, Does Charles Darwin deserve all of the glory that is about to be bestowed upon him?
.....Her answer: “Yes.”

.....…Does he deserve all this? He wasn’t, after all, the first person to suggest that evolution happens…. Natural selection is what we normally think of as Darwin’s big idea. Yet he wasn’t the first to discover that, either….
.....…[The “Origin of Species”] changed everything. Before the “Origin,” the diversity of life could only be catalogued and described; afterwards, it could be explained and understood. Before the “Origin,” species were generally seen as fixed entities, the special creations of a deity; afterwards, they became connected together on a great family tree that stretches back, across billions of years, to the dawn of life. Perhaps most importantly, the “Origin” changed our view of ourselves. It made us as much a part of nature as hummingbirds and bumblebees (or humble-bees, as Darwin called them); we, too, acquired a family tree with a host of remarkable and distinguished ancestors.
.....The reason the “Origin” was so powerful, compelling and persuasive, the reason Darwin succeeded while his predecessors failed, is that in it he does not just describe how evolution by natural selection works. He presents an enormous body of evidence culled from every field of biology then known….
.....At the same time, he uses every form of evidence at his disposal: he observes, argues, compares, infers and describes the results of experiments he has read about, or in many cases, personally conducted. … In short, he tests his reasoning over and over again.
.....… The “Origin” does not just expound natural selection. It contains a wealth of additional ideas and hypotheses, some of which Darwin went on to elaborate in other books….
.....This is not to say that the “Origin” is flawless, or that Darwin was right in every respect. … Yet his knowledge of the natural world is so immense, and the scrutiny to which he subjects his ideas is so thorough and scrupulous, that the “Origin” presents a grand new vision of the world. A vision that, as far as possible given the knowledge available at the time, he worked out in every detail. A vision that changed the world forever.
.....Let’s party!

Tiny newsberries

.....This morning, I took the Sunny Girl to my vet ($49), who sent us up the road to a specialist in Irvine. That guy insisted on keeping the Tiny Beast (4 lbs. 3 oz.!) over night ($1200).
.....I dropped by school (Irvine Valley College) and talked to every spook in that ghost town.
.....It looks like Karima Feldhus, former Dean of Humanities & Languages/Fine Arts, will be returning, this time as the dean of Fine Arts/Business. She left IVC at the end of the Fall for a gig at Long Beach City College. I don't think she's happy there.
.....It’ll be great to have her back. Naturally, the board has to approve the appointment, but there’s no reason to think they won’t. Unless Mathur gets involved. That’s always possible, even though it’s none of his goddam business.
.....We’re pretty much sans deans here at IVC, you know.
.....It’s no secret that Bob Kopecky, until recently the Provost of ATEP, will be joining the faculty at IVC this Fall. He’ll be working in the Learning Center.
.....Speaking of ATEP (i.e., the Advanced Technology and Education Park, in Tustin), I keep hearing that things are FUBAR with the ATEP confabs. Is Camelot a buttnugget? If so, plan B will look nothing like plan A, and SOCCCD will look like SHIT once again P.D.Q. (The Young Americans want to put up their tents and park their clown cars at ATEP. Is that part of plan B?)
.....As you know, some of our trustees (and trustee Tom Fuentes in particular, who has philosophical misgivings) are unhappy with Big ATEP. When, a few months ago, things got rocky Big-ATEPwise, the board was barely able to scrape up a green light for continued efforts.
.....In the end, could be that our Tustin campus, after ten years of development, will amount to a small cluster of classrooms on the corner of Redhill and Valencia with a few hundred students learning about plastic molding and bedpans.
.....BTW: I asked folks at the district to make available a map of the seven district areas (corresponding to the seven trustees) and they were very accommodating. A very detailed map is now available here (see "boundary map" link) at the district website. Thanks, R and T!

Pictured: (i) Sunny Girl, yesterday, (ii) the old chapel at the former Tustin Marine Helicopter Station (now ATEP).

Going to the Chapel...

~
This was the scene this morning at the Civic Center in Laguna Hills when the first licenses were issued for same sex marriages. We feared protesters but there were none - all the crazies must have gone to Santa Ana.

The sun-drenched courtyard was filled with supporters with roses and good wishes, tearful, happy family and friends and newlyweds, one after another, young and old.










Rebel Girl and her little guy just stopped by to lend their support - only to discover - surprise, surprise - two people they knew poised to take the plunge.


Rebel Girl always cries at weddings. Today was no exception.

late afternoon update: Over thirty couples were wed. Rebel Girl was in good company in the courtyard with members of a local Unitarian Univeralist Church; together they formed a welcoming party. The rainbow flag stuck in the planter was a friendly signal. Some people were clearly apprehensive at what might await them.

A lone woman walked up shortly after noon and asked how it had been going. Fine, fine, they replied. "I mean," she said, "about the other side. Have they been here?" She was reassured that it had been peaceful. She returned a couple hours later and got married, posing with her spouse afterward, seated on the planter next to the flag. They'd been together for years, she said. Had a son who was 22.

That's what was heard all day. The chorus of years: 45. 30. 7. 13. 10.

Never thought I'd live to see the day said one man.

Obama on education: higher standards

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, went to Kettering University, in Michigan, Monday to deliver what he billed as a major speech on U.S. competitiveness and his focus was very much on education at all levels. In his talk, Obama said that changes in the world economy require national leadership on the scale of earlier leaders’ decisions to create land-grant universities, to build the Hoover Dam, and to launch the space programs. Most of the education and research proposals he outlined were among those he has made before, but not always linked together as he did Monday. Among the ideas he discussed: the need for higher standards in elementary and secondary education so more high school graduates are prepared for college, recruiting new teachers, “updating” schools of education, adding student aid and tax breaks for college education, and greatly expanding education benefits for veterans. He also called for major infusions of federal research funds, with an emphasis on research that promotes the environment and improves U.S. energy policy. Aides to Sen. John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent, held a briefing for reporters Monday to respond to the speech and they accused Obama of not believing the United States can compete with the rest of the world, and of favoring high taxes.

Also in this morning's Inside Higher Ed:

• BASIC SKILLS: It turns out that one of the problems with remedial instruction in California community college instruction is the failure to include the expense of counseling in the 50% Law—which requires that at least half of expenditures (at a cc district) be on “instruction.” As you know, our own district (SOCCCD) is now struggling with that law owing to the failure of the Chancellor, Raghu P. Mathur, to pay any attention to it.

Remediation Plan for Remedial Ed:

.....Paul Steenhausen recalls when his brother, a California high school teacher, asked a failing student what, precisely, he planned to do with his life. “And the kid said, ‘Oh I’ll go to Crafton Hills,’ ” the local community college.
.....“A lot of kids in high school don’t know that there are standards at a community college and they certainly don’t know how they match up,” says Steenhausen, a senior fiscal and policy analyst at the nonpartisan California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), which released a report Monday on improving remedial education in the 109-institution California Community College System.
.....“While they are all welcome to attend a community college — there are no admissions standards based on high school performance — they’re not going to go very far and they’re certainly not going to get a degree or transfer unless they address these basic skills deficiencies.”
.....The report addresses structural changes that could improve remedial, or “basic skills” education, throughout California’s community college system, finding, for instance, a need to better “signal” college readiness standards to high school students. The report comes amid lots of effort and millions in new funding for improving instruction in remedial math, English and English as a Second Language throughout California, with a focus, for instance, on trying innovative new teaching techniques.
.....The colleges face an uphill battle. The report finds that the community college system offered basic skills instruction to more than 600,000 students in 2006-7. The success rates are “generally low.” For instance, in terms of persistence, about half of students enrolled in credit-bearing basic skills math, English and ESL courses in the fall do not return to college the subsequent fall, the report finds.
.....The report also finds that only 60 percent of students enrolled in credit-bearing remedial English courses obtain a C or better (the success rates for math and ESL are 50 and 75 percent, respectively). And less than 10 percent of noncredit basic skills students ever complete one credit-bearing course applicable toward a degree (the report includes the caveat, however, that “an unknown number of noncredit students” – some ESL students, for instance — never aspired to that goal).
.....“What this report takes a look at are a lot of policies that colleges individually can’t change. The system as a whole and/or the legislature has to make those changes in order to untie their hands,” said Steenhausen, who wrote the LAO document. Among the report’s recommendations: change the state statute so that students who test into remedial math or English are required to take those courses in the first semester. (Currently, placement test results are, under state law, nonbinding. More than a third of students determined to be in need of basic skills courses choose not to enroll.)
.....The report also suggests developing a standard, statewide community college placement test, based on questions from existing California Standards Tests (used at the K-12 level)….
.....Lastly, as many basic skills students never receive mandated counseling services, the LAO recommends amending a state law requiring that districts spend at least 50 percent of their general operating budget on in-classroom instruction. Analysts recommend that counseling expenditures should be counted toward instructional costs, “to give community colleges fiscal flexibility to address the counseling needs of their students,” Steenhausen said….

Idyllic Modjeska Canyon

For the Times’ Janet Wilson and other canyon residents, it’s been a rough eight months. Janet gets personal. Check it out: Fire, rain, love, marriage—and an idyllic Modjeska Canyon to intensify it all

Casualty of the October fire.

The view from The Reb's neighborhood.

Still idyllic.

Sunny Girl, prowling in nearby Live Oak Canyon, twenty minutes ago. (All photos: Chunk, except top photo: LA Times.)

A little science for you

.....Here’s a little science for you this morning. A good place to go for science reporting is the British Guardian. This morning’s Guardian tells us that, according to Swedish scientists, Gay men have similar brains to straight women

.....Striking similarities between the brains of gay men and straight women have been discovered by neuroscientists, offering fresh evidence that sexual orientation is hardwired into our neural circuitry.
.....Scans reveal homosexual men and heterosexual women have symmetrical brains, with the right and left hemispheres almost exactly the same size. Conversely, lesbians and straight men have asymmetrical brains, with the right hemisphere significantly larger than the left.
.....Scientists at the prestigious Stockholm Brain Institute in Sweden also found certain brain circuits linked to emotional responses were the same in gay men and straight women.
.....The findings, published tomorrow in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest the biological factors that influence sexual orientation—such as exposure to testosterone in the womb—may also shape the brain's anatomy.
.....The study, led by the neurobiologist Ivanka Savic, builds on previous research that has identified differences in spatial and verbal abilities related to sex and sexual orientation. Tests have found gay men and straight women fare better at certain language tasks, while heterosexual men and lesbians tend to have better spatial awareness.
.....Savic and her colleague Per Linström took MRI brain scans of 90 volunteers who were divided into four groups of similar ages according to whether they were male, female, heterosexual or homosexual. The scans showed the right side of the brain in heterosexual men was typically 2% larger than the left. Lesbians showed a similar asymmetry, with the right hand side of the brain 1% larger than the left.
.....Scans on homosexual men and heterosexual women revealed both sides of the brain were the same size….

• From a couple of days ago (Guardian’s “Bad Science” column): How being swindled can make you feel better

.....…A paper currently in press for the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (available online) addresses this issue explicitly. Participants were given a quiz on American history, with the opportunity to win cash rewards for correct answers and the option to get advice for each question. The 'advice' was simply another student's answers, perfectly likely to be wrong, and the experimenters were quite clear about this.
.....The participants were either offered the advice for free, or they were offered the opportunity to buy it. It was made absolutely clear that the advice was of exactly the same quality, whether it was free or not. Participants were significantly more likely to change their answers in line with advice they had paid for, compared with advice they received for free. We are suckers.
…
.....A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March subjected 82 healthy subjects to painful electric shocks and, in a lengthy and authoritative leaflet, offered them pain relief in the form of a pill which was described as being similar to codeine, but with a faster onset. In fact, it was just a placebo, a pill with no medicine; a sugar pill. The pain relief was significantly stronger when subjects were told the tablet cost $2.50 than when they were told it cost 10c.
.....Even better is a paper published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Volunteers tasted and rated five wines, each individually priced, although in fact there were only three different wines, and two were tasted twice: once labelled at $90 a bottle, and once at $10. The results were clear: cheap wine really does taste better simply because we are told it's expensive….

• From Friday’s What’s New (physicist Bob Park):

.....After 99 years of trying, naturopaths in Minnesota can now call themselves "doctor."
.....That's OK, in Minnesota they call tag-team wrestlers "Governor."

• Listen to the Guardian’s Science Extra podcast from the 16th: MIT chemistry professor Dan Nocera tells Guardian science correspondent Alok Jha why chemistry can solve the energy crisis