Here's my 41st grunt

▼ Over at the OC Reg's College Life blog, Marla Jo Fisher reports that the CSU Teaching Assistants’ union has called for a strike—to commence tomorrow morning (CSU teaching assistants to strike, just in time for finals).

Apparently, CSU officials regard the strike as illegal.

One reader, who goes by the handle Grunt41, opined as follows:

When I was at UCLA I found that my TA’s often knew less about the subject matter than I did, causing me to by-pass them and deal directly with the professors. Further, having to attend discussion sessions that they held was a torture that they wouldn’t even use at Gitmo, or Pyongyang [Ooh, nice name-dropping, jarhead].

Reduce the student body, which will reduce class size, have the students deal directly with the professors, and put the TA’s, and others, in check by letting them know that a higher education is a privilege, not a right.

Perhaps "Grunt41" isn't this fellow's name. Perhaps he's trying to tell us that this opinion of his is his 41st grunt in a series of grunts. That makes more sense, seems to me.

Another fellow wrote to say:

Fire them if they go on strike and replace them with someone who would do anything for a job. Stupid, ungrateful people. They think they are entitled to something for nothing? Join the real word. Man do I hate unions.

Pithy, that. But I really don’t think it will work to replace all of these TAs with just one guy. Plus: what's he mean by the "real word"? How do you join that? And who's to say which words are the real ones?

▼ Meanwhile, Matt Coker over in the OC Weekly webpage (UCI SCIENTIST HELPS ADD MORE CULPRITS TO THE GLOBAL WARMING LIST) reports that

…an international study that includes the research of a UC Irvine scientist has found drought and deforestation can also help fuel the pesky phenomenon [aka global warming] and should be included in future climate pacts.
…
The findings show deforestation limits should be part of future climate agreements, according to UCI climate scientist James Randerson, who co-authored the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (love their centerfolds!).
...
He notes that "[l]and managers respond to the drought by using fire to clear more land. In dry years, they burn deeper into the forest, which in turn releases more carbon dioxide." ….

That sucks, man.

"It's the audacity of the conduct"

From DtB file Q

▼ For those trustees with hinky reimbursements for travel and lodging expenses at conferences, let this be a warning. From this morning’s Record:

Serna resigns from Delta board: Trustee pleads no contest to charges she took double reimbursements:

STOCKTON - Longtime San Joaquin Delta College Trustee Maria Elena Serna resigned from the board Monday moments before pleading no contest to a charge that she claimed reimbursement twice for several business trips dating back to 2005.
…
Serna, a Delta trustee since 1990, was accused of claiming nearly $1,650 from both Delta College and the Community College League of California [CCLC], which held conferences attended by Serna in San Francisco and Sacramento. The money has been paid back, prosecutors said.

"It's not the amount of the money. It's the audacity of the conduct," said Deputy District Attorney Stephen E. Taylor. "When people do that in public service, they have to leave."

Delta administrators noticed inconsistencies in Serna's reimbursement records and contacted prosecutors, who sent the case to Stockton police. A criminal complaint was filed Friday following a two-month investigation.
…
The single felony charge levied on Serna could have resulted in up to three years in state prison.
…
One example: According to an internal Delta College memo, Serna attended a meeting of the nonprofit college league June 20-21 in Sacramento. Delta College used a $179 credit card payment to reserve her room at the Hyatt Regency hotel; Serna wrote up her own reimbursement for the same amount and filed it with the league.
…
Prosecutor Taylor accused Serna of "felony conduct" and said the case was treated very seriously because Serna held public office....

As we reported previously, our own trustee John Williams attended a one-day CCLC event, also in Sacramento, in June (17) of 2008. His lodging cost the district $605.56. Click on the graphic for details. (This is a public document from the last board agenda.)


▼ From this morning’s New York Times: Those Taking Graduate Test Abruptly Drop in Number

In bad times, the conventional wisdom has it, people flock to graduate school. But there is at least one sign that in this recession, that may not happen.

After years of steady growth, the number of students taking the Graduate Record Examination, which is required for most graduate programs, is on course to decline this year.

At the start of the year, the Educational Testing Service, which administers the $140 exam, projected that 675,000 students would take it by year’s end. Now the service estimates that the total will be only about 621,000.
…
“If historic patterns hold, enrollments should rise in a recession, but they have not yet,” said Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. “We’re trying to figure out why the pattern is changing, and the loan situation can’t be ignored….

Only IVC and Saddleback are announcing no cuts

TODAY, Marla Jo Fisher of the OC Register (Community colleges cutting classes, sessions) reports on a “double whammy” for the state’s community colleges:

Just as more people are seeking to go to community college this year, either because they don't have jobs or they can't get into universities, state budget cuts are forcing [these] colleges to cut back on their offerings.
…
Even as the cuts begin, the statewide chancellor's office is projecting that enrollment increases will force the system to turn away 260,000 students.
…
People hoping to go back to school because they can't get jobs or want to retrain for different jobs are also having problems trying to get into class.
…
California has 110 community colleges in 72 districts, with about $6.2 billion general operating budget. $4.2 billion comes from the state's hard-hit general fun, and some $2 billion from property taxes.

But wait a minute! Aren’t we, here in the good old South Orange County Community College District, on that special gravy train called basic aid? Yup:

Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges are on a different funding formula than other colleges because they derive most of their funding from property taxes, rather than state enrollment payments.

These so-called "basic aid" colleges are also taking a hit statewide as property tax rolls decline due to lower property values, but a district spokeswoman said neither Saddleback nor Irvine Valley is planning to cut any classes….

In a sidebar, the Reg presents cuts that local colleges have been forced to make. Only Irvine Valley and Saddleback have announced no cuts:

Coastline College: Spring course sections reduced 12%

Cypress College: Winter intersession canceled. Monitoring low enrolled classes.

Fullerton College: Winter intersession reduced 75%, hold on summer school until the final budget is known, Spring courses may be reduced.

Golden West College: 40 classes cut from winter intersession, only 15 offered. Spring course sections cut by 100 classes and 110 more closed for registration, could be reopened by demand.

Irvine Valley College: No cuts announced

Orange Coast College: Winter intersession cut 10 percent. Spending freeze on equipment

Saddleback College: No cuts announced

Santa Ana College: Winter intersession cancelled, spring course sections reduced 15 percent

Santiago Canyon College: Winter intersession canceled. Spring course sections reduced 17 percent

▼ In the New York Times: Tribune Company Seeks Bankruptcy Protection:

The Tribune Company, the newspaper and television chain that publishes The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday….

▼ Brother, can you spare a dime?
Nice arrangement, from 1932, by Charlie Palloy, who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth in '32. Too bad.

A man and a lamb

KATHIE HODGE GOIN' SOUTH? In this morning’s College Life blog (Fullerton College president applying for job in Oceanside), Marla Jo Fisher reports that Kathie Hodge, the President of Fullerton College, is among the finalists for the Presidency of MiraCosta College in Oceanside.

Kathie is well known to denizens of the SOCCCD. During a period of heightened controversy at our district, she served as interim Chancellor.

MiraCosta has seen its fair share of controversy too. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune,

The [accrediting] commission sent representatives to the college's Oceanside campus after two years of turmoil and the departure of former President Victoria Muñoz Richart in June 2007.

Since then, the college has had two interim presidents while searching for a permanent leader.
…
The accrediting commission had faulted trustees for not working well with the faculty, the staff or one another. The seven-member governing board often split on 4-3 votes, and meetings were acrimonious.

Sounds familiar.

On Friday, the three finalists answered questions before an audience of about 100, including trustees.

How come President Richart left? Well, according to the Union-Tribune,

Trouble started in 2006 when Richart announced a probe into campus money-handling and the illegal sale of campus-owned palm trees. The head of the school's Horticulture Department eventually pleaded guilty to grand theft. The probe also led to the unwilling departure of two other administrators and a faculty no-confidence vote in Richart.

She left soon after trustees received a letter from 31 former trustees, administrators and teachers seeking her dismissal for a million-dollar investigation that found $305 in illegal tree sales.

LEGALIZED INCEST AND BESTIALITY? In today’s Inside Higher Ed:

About 200 students at the University of Washington held a protest Friday about a recent column in the student newspaper that denounced gay marriage and warned that it would lead to legalized incest and bestiality, The Seattle Times reported. Editors of The Daily have defended the column — while not endorsing its views — as free speech. But many students say that it crossed lines of appropriate commentary and that the paper was inflammatory in publishing it, with an illustration of a man and a lamb.

Downtown Orange, 1937

Sarah at the recital

My niece, Sarah, is almost six years old. Here she is playing the piano at a recital in Irvine—just a few hours ago.

I don't think she was a bit nervous. She's nothing like her Uncle Roy in that regard.

The family was there for moral support.

Later, reading the reviews, at Ruby's.

Just where did Stan place that egg?

▼ As you know, I love old things and local history (that's a pic of Newport Beach in the 50s above), and so, for a change of pace, I thought I'd indulge that interest today.

I came across this marvelous clip from the 1934 Laurel and Hardy film Hollywood Party. If you’re the impatient type, you might want to skip to 4:13, where the real fun begins, as Stan and Ollie encounter the wonderful (and skimpily clad!) Lupe Vélez:

Vélez committed suicide ten years later. Wikipedia offers this account of her notorious death at age 36:

In the mid-1940s, she had a relationship with the young actor Harald Maresch, and became pregnant with his child. Vélez, following her Catholic upbringing, refused to have an abortion. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child, she decided to take her own life. Her suicide note read, "To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe." She retired to bed after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. According to newspaper accounts, her body was found by her secretary and companion for ten years, Beulah Kinder.

Andy Warhol's film, Lupe (1965), is loosely based on this fateful night. Suggesting that she was found with her head in the toilet due to nausea caused by the overdose. Another report says she tripped and fell head-first into the toilet knocking herself unconscious and drowning. However, Kinder reports finding Velez peacefully asleep in her bed.

There is skepticism surrounding whether it was simply the shame of bearing an illegitimate child that led Velez to end her life. Throughout her life she showed signs of extreme emotion; mania and depression. Consequently it has been suggested that Velez suffered from bipolar disorder, which left untreated ultimately led to her suicide. After all, Velez was known for her defiance of contemporary moral convention, and it seems unlikely that she could not have reconciled an "illegitimate child."

The mortal remains of Lupe Vélez, are deposited in the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres in México City.

▼ If you love local history as I do, you really should visit the blog O.C. History Roundup, which is authored by local historian and archivist Chris Jepsen. Recent posts concern such subjects as the location of a “hanging tree” in Irvine (see) and Orange County’s worst aircraft disaster (in 1965, Loma Ridge, Irvine; see pic). I vaguely remember the latter event,  a big deal at the time.

I doubt that you’ll cotton to Jepsen’s politics (he's feuding with Gustavo Arellano), but you’re gonna love his old photos.

Meanwhile, Fuentes continues to grease his tiny sprocket

Yesterday, I ran into a friend, and we got to talking about the politics of the district. He said he was struck by how parochial it all is.

Yeah, it’s parochial. And corrupt, too.

It's corruptarochial.

The ugly board-and-chancellor leadership of the SOCCCD is representative of the county’s creepy combo of parochialism and Karl Rovian ruthlessness and old-time machine politics. At district or college events, officials—the DA, the County Sheriff, county supervisors, mayors, police chiefs, congressmen—come and go. Every single one of ‘em is a Republican, and, usually, they’re a card-carrying member of Team Fuentes.

Lots of ‘em—DA Tony Rackauckas, Congressman Gary Miller, (former) Sheriff Mike Carona, et al.—are manifestly corrupt.

Trustee Tom Fuentes, of course, was the chair of the local party—and kingpin of the OC machine—for twenty years. He’s no longer chair or kingpin—he seems to have handed his scepter to Mike Schroeder—but he’s still very connected and he continues to nurture his Republican farm system (attractive young men in ties; they relax at the spa down at the Balboa Bay Club). The fellow is notoriously conniving, mean-spirited, and ruthless. Some say he stole that liver that he got transplanted into him a few months ago. Stole it from a Democrat.

Well, no, but Fuentes has turned our district and colleges into a revolving door of Republican officials and patrons--we’ve got cronyism, patronage, and all the rest. Fuenteanism has infected our foundations, our hiring, our honors, and so on. These assholes even renamed their conference hall the "Ronald Reagan room" for chrissake.

Back in March of 2003, the OC Weekly’s Matt Coker chronicled some of our local color as follows:

Anyone who has attended meetings of local boards, councils and commissions is used to the superfluous public ass-kissing elected officials give one another. Taking such manufactured passion to new depths is the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees, which governs Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. At a recent meeting, board president Don Wagner paused at one point to congratulate trustee Tom Fuentes for being re-elected to a 10th term as Orange County Republican Party chairman. Fuentes had earlier toasted fellow trustee John Williams for being sworn in as Orange County's new public administrator—the part-time elected official who oversees conservancies for feeble-minded folks who can't care for themselves and have no next-of-kin. But what Fuentes did next says a lot about Orange County Republicans, county government and that particular school board: he congratulated fellow trustee Nancy Padberg for being appointed to Williams' professional staff. The same board awarded a plum district administrative job to the trustee Padberg replaced—even though her qualifications were questionable. The funny thing—not funny ha-ha, but funny as in ironic—is Williams was first swept into his trustee seat as a reformer who would protect South County taxpayers by ending rampant cronyism on the part of faculty and administrators. Dissident trustee David Lang has long complained of cronyism practiced by Fuentes, Williams, Padberg, Wagner and Dorothy Fortune—Republicans who cast identical votes so often you'd think they trained at the old Soviet Politburo. We would have asked Padberg if she foresees any conflicts, but she was too busy nominating her new boss Williams to a seat on the California Community College Trustees board of directors.

Lately, here on Dissent, we’ve been following a minor aspect of the machine—namely, the availability of valuable cash prizes and other perks for local GOP Bozos. Trustee (and OC Public Administrator) John Williams’ curious lodging expenses (over $500 a night) at conferences that he attends as trustee in such places as Tampa, Orlando, and Palm Springs—well, something doesn’t add up here, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it. But it isn’t easy, ‘cause these Republicans stick together and protect each other.

For instance, when this matter came up during the November meeting of the SOCCCD board, board president Don Wagner—you guessed it, another Republican—went out of his way to defend Williams and the value of the information that he brings back from his Florida conferences.

That was absurd on its face. Even Wagner knows that Williams is too stupid to understand anything he hears at one of these community college trustee cluster-f*cks.

My favorite fragment of the Mean Machine is the way that Fuentes inserted former Sheriff Mike Carona into the life of the colleges/district. When, a few years ago, Larry “Dolt” King anointed Carona as “America’s Sheriff,” Fuentes wasted no time getting Mikey named Irvine Valley College’s “Hometown Hero.” Ever after, one could find Carona showing up for Veterans’ and 9-11 ceremonies at the college, looking very pious and righteous and upright.

Naturally, at every opportunity, I pointed out that Carona is manifestly corrupt and so are the rat bastards he continue to sing his praises. To the bitter end, Fuentes presented Mikey as God's gift to law enforcement. Literally.

Well, nowadays, the Mikester is being tried for corruption. It's the gift that keeps on giving. According to this morning’s Times (Witness tells how donors to former Sheriff Michael Carona got reserve badges),

An Orange County businessman testified Friday that five people received sheriff's reserve badges in exchange for contributing $5,000 each to the campaign of former Sheriff Michael S. Carona.

The testimony came in the sixth week of a federal corruption case that centers on accusations that the former sheriff sold off the powers of his office for thousands of dollars in cash and gifts and conspired to hide political donations that exceeded county contribution limits.

On Friday, government witness Gabriel Nassar said he made a $100 bet with Carona and former Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo during Carona's first term that he could raise $25,000 by selling sheriff's reserve badges for $5,000.

After being informed of the $1,000 local contribution limit by Carona and Jaramillo, Nassar said, he told all five people that each of them had to come up with separate checks totaling $5,000.

"It was a simple bet," he said.

Nassar said Carona and Jaramillo came to his Lake Forest business afterward to thank him. He said he asked them to pay up the bet, and that one of them -- he said he didn't recall who -- pulled a $100 bill out of his pocket. He said Carona and Jaramillo signed it: "We will never doubt you again."

The jury was shown two pictures taken that day, one with all three men holding up the $100 bill....

(See also the OC Reg’s Carona trial: Businessman tells of money-for-badge wager.)

It's all part of Tom Fuentes' Orange County.