Stupidity and cell phones

(Above: there was an earthquake. Naturally, everyone phoned someone. And they kept doing it.)

WE’RE STUPID PEOPLE.
If you’ve been following the science news, then you know that there’s been a mysterious lull in seismic activity around here lately. It's portentous.

The Reg’s Science Dude now reports that “Scientists have found a way to detect changes in rocks that precede small earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, a possible step toward creating an early warning system for Southern California.”

That’s great. But the Science Dude goes on to say, “The southern branch is of particular concern because it could cause massive death and destruction in Orange County, about 60 miles away.”

Yeah, massive death. We knew that. But we don’t like to talk about it much, do we? The Reg buries its seismic stories in blogs like “Science Dude.” Nobody but me reads "Science Dude." And I forget everything I read there. I'm going to the beach.

UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): about five minutes ago, we felt a pretty strong earthquake. Lasted at least five seconds.


CELL PHONES ARE STUPID, BUT THEY’RE NOT KILLERS.
In this morning’s New York Times, John Tierney lists 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List, including “killer hot dogs,” “killer sharks,” and “carcinogenic cellphones.” Turns out, the “nitrite” weenie worry was a bust, as was the grilling-killing freakout. According to new research, weenies aren’t even a big threat re saturated fat. (But I bet tofu dogs are much better for you.)

Guess how many people died from shark attacks in the world last year? One.

Do you watch Mythbusters? Then you know that, as far as fuel economy goes, you’re better off using you’re A/C rather than driving with your windows open. According to Tierney, “After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.”

Thanks to the reliably unreliable Larry King, who seems to select guest experts with a randomizer, lots of people are afraid of their own cell phones, but, in truth, nobody can identify a way that those stupid things could hurt you, and “epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer and cell phones”—i.e., there is no reason to suppose that there is a correlation between cell phone use and cancer.

I’m pretty sure that the Reb and I are the only Orange Counties who do not own one of these gadgets. We hate ‘em. At least I do. That’s got nothing to do with cancer, though.

WAIT. CELL PHONES ARE KILLERS.
This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports a curious element in the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s new student orientation program: they are “adding warnings for new students about the dangers of “ped-texting” — sending cell phone text messages while walking.” Apparently, some of these kids just walk out into the street like zombies.

Of course, we all know what happens when you talk on your cell phone while driving. People are bad enough drivers as it is. Teenagers should not be allowed to talk and drive. Well, they should not be allowed to drive. Or talk.

SHOT IN ASS. DON'T KNOW WHY.
According to the OC Reg (Man found shot in the butt in Stanton), well, a man was found shot in the butt in the city of Stanton.

Authorities don’t know how this happened to the guy. They’ve interviewed him, and “He’s doing his best to cooperate,” or so says a cop. But he’s so goofed up, he’s no help.

I bet the guy has a cell phone. They should check it for nitrate residue.

COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL.
Yesterday, the Reg reported that two Tesoro High School seniors would be appearing in court (See). Recently, these kids were charged with “altering public records, computer access and fraud, burglary, identity theft and conspiracy in what prosecutors described as an elaborate plot to better their odds of getting into college.”

They’ve retained a celebrity lawyer—Larry King regular, Mark Geragos.

Looks like these kids were way out of control. One of them “altered his Advanced Placement exam scores, stole an English test he was caught cheating on, and pilfered master copies of tests, some of which were e-mailed to dozens of Advanced Placement students.”

No word on whether these kids have cell phones.

Why I hate cell phones

I recall one night maybe a year ago in a parking lot. Seemed like nobody was around. Maybe there was one guy about forty yards away, where it was dark. But somebody was madly talking to somebody. It was creepy. How could this be?

It be all right. It was this solitary guy, walking across the parking lot, unapologetically yammering at full volume on his goddam cell phone. I hated that guy. I hated how he weirded me out and he never even knew or cared.

You’ll be talking to somebody and then, wham, something starts buzzing on the table; or maybe some goofy calliope music plays; or maybe there’s the sound of nuts cracking coming from somebody’s pants.

Your companion suddenly looks at a spot on the wall and then reaches for their goddam cell phone. They look away from you. You’re gone. You’ve been forgotten. You shuffle away like Puff the freakin’ Magic Dragon—only to run into somebody else walkin’ and yackin’ on the phone. You step out of their way. You’ve always gotta step out of their way, ‘cause, when they’re talking, they’re morons, and they think they own the fuckin’ universe.

Hate ‘em. Cell phones I mean.

Why do people—especially kids, but adults too—always embrace popular new gadgets? It’s the kind of thing little kids should do, not adults. New modes of life—IMing, going through your day listening to music and utterly ignoring everything and everybody around you, suddenly startin’ up a phone conversation while you're in the bathroom—you’ve gotta take a beat, man. Don’t just jump in there! How do you know this isn’t just ridiculous? I mean, it’s new, so how would you know?

It’s this endless enthusiasm for jumping right in there and feeling really good about being part of the mindless horde who doesn’t think about anything but just does stuff—that’s what pisses me off. If that’s the way people are, there’s no hope. None at all.

I swear, soon somebody will find a way for two people to drink the same Coke—serially, I mean—probably with weird-assed straws shaped like Ronald McDonald and comin' out of your neck—or maybe they'll figure out a way to surgically exchange ears, and everybody will be all over it with their "new" ears and punctured necks. They’ll smile and laugh (through their neck hole) and think you’re obviously an asshole if you’re not into it too.

See, this has to do with how conservatism does not exist in this country. If you’re conservative, you’ve got this idea that things barely work as it is. And that means, mostly, you don’t wanna just shuffle the deck just for the sake of shuffling. Things could get worse. We could lose what we've got.

But, in this country, everybody’s into shuffling. Everybody's moving around and doing new things. And it’s all about commerce and somebody with something new to sell. The money people: they’ll change everything around without a thought, except the thought of how to make money and more money. And everybody goes along with it, ‘cause they’re morons, and they don’t think about how the most valuable things might just be imbedded in away of life. So you don't want to mess with it too much. You gotta be careful. Take it slow, if you can.

But who thinks like that, like a conservative?

Mythbusters last week on Letterman:

Tonight’s board meeting

Note: Tracy's "board meeting highlights" are available here.

Tonight’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees was supposed to start at 6:30, but it didn’t start until nearly an hour and a half later.

The first order of business was to read out decisions made by the board in closed session:

On a 5-1 vote, with trustee Bill Jay dissenting (Marcia Milchiker was absent), it was decided that David Bugay would be offered employment as Vice Chancellor of Human Resources (replacing Bob King).

On a 6-0 vote, it was decided that Robert Bramucci would be offered the job as Vice Chancellor of Technology and Learning Services (replacing Andreea Serban).

On a 5-1 vote, with Trustee Nancy Padberg dissenting, it was decided that Tracy Daly would be appointed Associate Provost of ATEP for one semester (she’ll be replacing IVC President Glenn Roquemore, I believe. He filled in after Bob Kopecky stepped down).

There was a resolution of some sort about the glory and wonder of ATEP. They even let Bob Kopecky get in the picture (Don Wagner seemed to be behind that), though he wasn't named in the Resolution. That's Mathur for you.

Chancellor Raghu Mathur introduced us to Saddleback College’s new President (starting in a few days), Todd Burnett. Burnett said he was very impressed by the trustees. Maybe Fuentes showed him his scar, dunno.

Next, Mathur trotted out David Bugay. Next came Bramucci, who we’ve seen before (at a Chancellor’s “opening session” not long ago).


Tracy Daly came up too, but she seemed to keep her distance from Mathur. She was all smiles, though.

Nancy Padberg’s invocation was interesting. She referred to how we have different varieties of “spirituality.” In the end, she led us through a moment of silence. I kid you not.

Board reports were unremarkable, aside from Trustee Fuentes’ announcement that he has filed (or will file) for reelection in November. (At one point tonight, someone whispered in my ear, “We give him a reason to live.”) As you know, recently, the fellow underwent liver transplant surgery.

Later, we learned that Fuentes has been reappointed to the US Election Assistance Commission. That’s just great. I think I’m giving up on voting, unless I get a receipt.

Wagner once again praised the people he worked with on the Irvine Valley College Accreditation “task force,” a group that by all accounts has done excellent work in the last seven months.

Several on the dais referred to meeting spankin’ new OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchins. Mathur even noted that the good sheriff would be visiting tomorrow, meeting with our two police chiefs. “I’ll be there,” said Mathur—a remark that couldn’t be more unnecessary.

Naturally, all this talk about Hutchins was a tad ironic, for, thanks to Tom Fuentes, this district has (or had) many ties to now disgraced former Sheriff Mike Carona, who awaits trial on corruption and excessive sexual braggadocio.

During his report, Mathur noted that the district has broken the 25,000 barrier for FTES (essentially, hours of teaching of students).

Trustee Nancy Padberg asked for a report on trustee travel and related expenses for 2007-8. You know what that’s about. She smirked. Trustee John Williams flinched.


Tonight’s “discussion item” was a real barn burner: the state of maintenance at the two colleges. This amounted to reports from the two maintenance chiefs, both of whom carped about the unfortunate consequences of the “low bid” policy for projects. We pay and pay to correct shabby work, they said. Apparently, the State Chancellor’s Office realizes that the "low bid" policy isn’t working.

Eventually, the board got to item 7.4, a report on employees earning over $90k. That was Fuentes’ baby. He said the predictable things about the “generous support” of “the taxpayer.” (I had a brief look at the list. Do you know that there are faculty who make over $200K [including benefits, which are about $30K] per year?! I noticed that counseling was well-represented in that top bracket. How is it possible? Naturally, most 90+ salaries were far smaller.)

Earlier, Bill Jay made an excellent suggestion: that we should be comparing the salaries of our employees with the salaries of equivalent employees in contiguous community college districts. He’s right. For once, Bill bested Tom.

During group reports, IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore thanked the various participants of the IVC Accred Focus Group. Of the report they have drafted, he said, “I think it hits the mark.” Glenn also reported that ATEP enrollments have been very high (about 600 this summer). He indicated that Chapman U, CSU Fullerton, and even UCI are “excited” about working with us at ATEP. (I got confirmation tonight that “Camelot” is out of the picture. One source told me that other groups [with big money, I assume], though, “have been standing in line” to get involved.)

IVC’s Academic Senate Prez, Wendy G, once again thanked trustee Don Wagner, VC Gary Poertner, IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore, and others for their fine work on the Accred Focus Group. (Did I mention that Gary was wearing a stunning pair of white shoes?)

Saddleback’s Academic Senate Prez, Bob C, noted the hard work that is being done now on SLOs at the college. He referred, too, to other belated efforts to get his college on track with regard to Accreditation. He thanked in particular board Prez Wagner and Trustee Dave Lang for their assistance. Turns out about $31K will be expended to support faculty in efforts to take care of SLOs (a key recommendation from the Accreds) and to complete the work in writing a decent report to ACCJC/WASC by the Oct. 15 deadline.

Bob said that he was “sorry” that things fell behind. “Things got screwed up,” he said. "Not sure what happened."

Yep, things got screwed up, and lots of people dropped the ball, but Bob has done more than anyone to try to turn things around. So far, so good.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "desire/and its difficulty"

The smoke from the Yosemite fire fills Squaw Valley late at night then the daily winds blow it somewhere else and by late afternoon the sky is clear again. The fire is burning parts of Yosemite that have no recorded fire history.

This morning Rebel Girl baked two loaves of bread, as she has done daily for the last week—she likes a challenge; she likes the magic of yeast; she likes to feed people; she likes knowing that no matter what tragedies fall in a day, her bread will rise and people will eat it. Today she ate one of the loaves with the fine poet who wrote the poem below.

(This one is for Vicki Forman. All love.)

Perseid Shower

Meteors break
through late summer night,

white blossoms scattering, furiously.
They don’t make a noise,

at least none
that we can hear.

They disappear in all directions
signifying desire

and its difficulty.
There. The half-moon floats

thin, translucent
as an insect’s wing. We say the moon is

half-full,
even as it wanes.

So much longing. . .
to witness the unfolding

across distance. How we must look
to anyone watching.

Here, the star cage:
Still life with black clock.


- Gary Short
from 10 Moons and 13 Horses



(On Tuesday August 12, the Perseid meteor shower will occur. Rebel Girl and family will look up that night, wherever they are. They hope you will too.)

Wanna go up in a helicopter?

Today, Gustavo Arellano (R. Scott Moxley in Washington Post!) directs us to yesterday’s Washington Post article about the “underside” of OC politics: The Dark Side Of Dreamland: Case Against Former Sheriff Reveals Underside of Orange County Politics.

You think I exaggerate about the politics around here? Nope. Read this article.

As the Post article implies, it was the OC Weekly—not the Times, not the Reg—who was on to Carona early on.

…[T]he alternative O.C. Weekly…was leery of Carona early on. Reporter R. Scott Moxley recalled being put off by the sheriff's phalanx of bodyguards (who called him "Braveheart") and Carona's choice of diversionary tactic during an interview on campaign contributors.

"In the middle of these discussions, he's saying to me: 'Hey, I got these great helicopters. You want to go up in a helicopter?' "....

The great desecration

DISRESPECTFUL FELLOW.
.    Biologist P.Z. Myers of the University of Minnesota seems to love getting in the face of creationists—and of theists generally. (See Crusade Against a Crusader in this morning's Inside Higher Ed.)
.    Recently, on his blog, Pharyngula, he’s defended a U of Central Florida student who “protested the presence of religious groups on his campus by taking a Eucharist — the small wafer blessed in Roman Catholic services and then seen as the body of Christ — and removing it from the service rather than consuming it. Myers, in an entry entitled ‘It’s a Frackin’ Cracker’ — questioned why this was such a big deal.”
.    Naturally, the usual suspects have begun attacking him and calling for disciplinary action.
.    Myers, being Myers, responded by staging a “great desecration,” which entailed taking a genuine communion wafer (sent to him by a supporter) and driving a rusty nail through it. He threw it in the trash, along with a banana peel, coffee grounds, some pages from the Koran, and—in a display of self-desecration—some pages from The God Delusion. I guess he photographed this mess and put that on his blog.
.    Now, people are really pissed. He’s even received threats, references to his children, etc. So far, the U of M, while distancing itself from his views, stands behind him. That’s great, but I do wish Myers would lay off of the “bring it on” routine.

CHIMP TRUSTEES.
.    Inside Higher Ed also reports on a community College board in Michigan. According to the local accreditor, “The board of Oakland Community College…‘dabbles in micromanagement,’ and doesn’t know how to have constructive discussions.”
.    Gosh, that sounds awfully familiar.
.    IHE says that, according to a Detroit paper, the accreditor “linked poor governance to controversies over management, saying that the board must ‘learn how to argue, debate and disagree intellectually.’ The board chairwoman told the newspaper that when the accrediting team was visiting, some board members were ‘very disgraceful’ and ‘didn’t act professionally.’”
.    Gosh, maybe some of those trustees are chimps.
.    Well, there’s your problem.
.    We live in such a special country. Over much of this great land, judges are elected by the people. (This means, of course, that they’re elected by a horde of legal ignoramuses. That’s the way it is around here.) Only stupid people would come up with a system like that.
.    We really love “local control” of things such as education, and so school boards and college boards are elected, too. Yeah, I get it, but one problem with that system is that you can have fools running school districts and colleges. Consider the state of Kansas.
.    And consider the South Orange County Community College District. Ten years ago, the board president was a Holocaust denier.
.    Nowadays, the dominant trustees on the SOCCCD board are right-wingers with open contempt for educators—this is especially true of Mr. Tom Fuentes, who embraces a conspiracy theory re accreditation according to which faculty pretty much orchestrate things.
.    This group (a descendent of the board of a decade ago) has brought our two colleges to the brink of non-accreditation, owing to their endless micromanagement (and the micromanagement of their agent and puppet, Chancellor Raghu Mathur) and their arrogant and disrespectful meddling with accreditation reports.
.    Pace chimps.

SERIOUS ACCOUNTABILITY—IN THE OLD WORLD.
.    Also in this morning’s Inside higher Ed, there’s a fascinating story about the system of “accountability” for institutions of higher learning that exists in Europe (On Accountability, Consider Bologna):

Impressed by American higher education’s embrace of accountability? You shouldn’t be, according to a new policy brief on the Bologna Process from the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Written by Clifford Adelman, a senior associate at the institute, the document “contends that none of the major pronouncements on accountability in U.S. higher education that we have heard in the recent past – from Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education to platitude pronouncements and wish lists for student learning from the higher education community — even begin to understand what accountability means.”

OK, so who does understand?

Adelman contends that across the Atlantic, the nearly decade-old, 46-country higher education reform initiative known as the Bologna Process offers lessons for what real accountability – not “accountability light” – looks like. And out of Europe’s efforts to make colleges, continent-wide, “more compatible and comparable,” Adelman identifies a series of “reconstructive recommendations” for American higher education.

Have a look.

Young Sarah drops by

She's six, and she's a sweetie-pie.

"The angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere"

.....The college textbook industry, while not abandoning traditional books, seems to be moving toward e-books, i.e., online subscriptions that give students access to a book for a semester or two. So says an article in this morning’s New York Times (First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.).
.....According to the article, the “digital transition” is tough for all book publishers, but it is especially tough for the college textbook crowd because students have zero sympathy for publishers and they’re often more than willing to rip ‘em off. “College students may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere,” says the author.
.....Websites that specialize in providing digital versions of textbooks for free keep popping up. Publishers keep stamping ‘em out, but it isn’t easy.
.....The Times article focuses on a particular textbook—“Organic Chemistry” by John E. McMurry—which lists for $209.95 and is usually sold at the discount price of $150. That’s expensive, and students certainly see it that way. And so, increasingly, students opt for used books. In this case, a used copy goes for $110.
.....But the popularity of used textbooks reduces profits, and so prices go up and students are more inclined than ever to buy used.
.....E-books potentially could change all that. The e-book version of “Organic Chemistry” sells (rents?) for $109.99. Selling an e-book cuts out the middleman (the bookstore), since the sale is directly to students, and it reduces the number of used books at the end of the semester.

• • • • •

.....The issue of the high cost of textbooks has been simmering for years in the SOCCCD. Students grumble endlessly, though they seem to do nothing beyond grumbling and buying used texts. Student government sometimes speaks for students, but student government, in our district, has a stake in bookstore profits, since that is a major source of revenue for them. Trustees (e.g., Wagner, Fuentes) sometimes zero in on this student government gravy train, but that usually just pisses everybody off.
.....It’s too soon to tell whether this e-book innovation will amount to anything. After all, students might well regard the scheme as another publisher rip-off.
.....I kinda hope it works.

• • • • •

.....Lately, DtB has been discussing the sorry state of our democracy. In my opinion, there is nothing sorrier than that democratic institution known as student government, at least what I've seen of it at our colleges. Undoubtedly, some good kids pop up there, but mostly it’s just a very expensive joke run (typically) by manifestly self-serving jokers. Most students seem not even aware that student government exists. Knowing how painful the textbook cost problem is for students, and knowing that one reason for the problem is the status quo re student government, it is very hard to watch typically hapless student officers give budget reports at board meetings and not wonder: maybe we oughta just pull the goddam plug.
.....You know how much I hate to agree with the likes of Wagner and Fuentes. But, at the very least, student government ought to get out of the book selling business.