An experiment in weirditude

Did you see this story in yesterday’s OC Register?

Parents, kids to pray for Capo school district

Things aren’t looking so good for the CAPO district. As the Reg explains, “Capistrano Unified officials are bracing for an anticipated $24.5 million shortfall in the current 2008-09 school year and a projected $32 million deficit next year.”

Plus they've got trustees from hell.

Things really are tough, fiscally. Gosh, at a time like this, each of us has got to do anything we can. And so 37-year-old Ann Marie Jennison of Ladera Ranch is organizing an hour of public prayer on behalf of the Capistrano Unified School District.

The event is planned for Monday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The Reg didn’t indicate if spotters have been organized to watch for positive changes in the district during and immediately after this time of prayer.

Naturally, the Reg has concocted one of its polls, which accompanies the article. The question: Will praying for public schools help?

You’d think readers would be allowed to choose between “No” and “Yes.” I woulda voted “No.”

But those aren’t the choices.

Here are the choices:

Yes, schools need all the help they can get.

No, it’s up to government to solve the problem.

Sometimes, I feel that I have been placed here in Orange County as some sort of experiment in weirditude.

(Above: the sky, last night.)

Chain overreaction started by reading from Bible and dictionary

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

The Alliance Defense Fund has sued the Los Angeles Community College District on behalf of a student [a Mr. Lopez] at Los Angeles City College who charges that his public speaking professor [a Mr. Matteson] called him a “fascist bastard” for a speech during which the student read a dictionary definition of marriage and two Bible passages.

The suit, which charges censorship of “Christian speech” in violation of the First Amendment, said that the instructor also refused to grade the speech, writing on an evaluation form that the student should “Ask God what your grade is.”
…
A letter from the college to the Alliance Defense Fund, sent prior to the lawsuit being filed, said that “action is being taken” against the professor involved, but that privacy rules barred the college from disclosing what was happening. The letter ... said that the college viewed the incident as “extremely serious.”

The letter, from Academic Affairs Dean Allison Jones, fills in some details:

I received statements from two students which were signed by several members of Mr. Lopez’ class. Contrary to Mr. Lopez’ assumptions, these classmates were deeply offended by his speech. One of the students stated that “His speech was not of the informative style that our assignment called for, but rather a preachy, persuasive speech that was completely inappropriate and deeply offensive. I respect his right to freedom of speech, but I also do not believe that our classroom is the proper platform for him to spout his hateful propaganda.”

The second student said “I don’t know what kind of actions can be taken in this situation, but I expect that this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom.”

Where do we go from here? Regardless of the other students’ reactions to Mr. Lopez’ speech, Mr. Matteson will still be disciplined. First amendment rights will not be violated as is evidenced by the fact that even though many of the students were offended by Mr. Lopez’ speech, no action will be taken against any of them for expressing their opinions….

I don't get it. Why would action be taken against these students?

It's hard to see how Matteson's calling Lopez a "fascist bastard" could be appropriate in a classroom. It would be understandable, I suppose, if Lopez had just called Matteson a "mother f*ckin' t*tty s*ckin' two ball b*tch with a ping pong p*ssy and a rubber d*ck."*

That stuff will piss a guy off. 

The "ask God" note seems plainly unprofessional, but, again, I'd like to know the context. Maybe Lopez had just picked up a phone, listened to it, and said, "It's God, you h*mo atheist rat bastard. He wants to know my friggin' grade!"

Context is important, you know.

*In grad school, one colleague's lovely and sweet Christian wife would occasionally use this phrase. Wow. I never forgot it.

Liar, liar pants on fire

AS YOU KNOW, the SOCCCD has once again spent big bucks mailing South County residents a glossy new "report to the community," featuring big smiley pictures of Raghu, et al.

The booklet opens up to a letter "from the chancellor." (See.) It's mostly the usual Mathur Blather.

But one paragraph caught my eye. It explains our "basic aid" funding:

...Because the district is located in south Orange County, the property taxes collected are beyond the state funding formula. The board has chosen not to seek additional taxes in the form of "bond" measures because residents are already paying more. ... We consider "basic aid" dollars equivalent to "bond" money. [My emphases.]

Well, yes. That's exactly right. The board doesn't pursue bonds because our citizens already pay more than they would if we were a normal district that pursued bonds, owing to our Basic Aid gravy train (high property taxes revenue).

Just sayin'. But do remember that Tom Fuentes' based his reelection campaign on the claim that he

• Led District to one of the Highest Transfer Rates of students to four year colleges
• Produced a Balanced Budget with No Debt or New Bonds

Led? Naturally, the board had no role whatsoever in achieving our high transfer rates.

Elsewhere, Fuentes even more clearly implied that our not pursuing bonds showed that he and the other trustees are the taxpayers' friend.

Well, no. Like I keep sayin': we don't need to pursue bonds cuz we are already getting and spending sh*tloads of the people's money.

Taxpayers' friend my ***.

IVC twice as good as Saddleback

Here’s a curious report that appeared in today’s OC Register:

Saddleback College reports surge in enrollment

Saddleback College officials are reporting a seven percent enrollment increase from last year – attributing the surge to state college cuts and the faltering economy….

7%, eh? Good for them.

What’s curious is that, though the article mentions that the SOCCCD includes IVC, it doesn't mention that, at Irvine Valley College, enrollments have increased much more.

Shitloads more.

If you go to the district Almanac, you’ll find that, at least as of mid-January, headcount is up 7.3% at Saddleback.

But it's up 14.4% at IVC.

Headcount shmedcount

—More importantly, FTES (full-time equivalent student) is up 8.0% at Saddleback.

But it's up 16.4% at IVC. 

OK, I'll say it. IVC is twice as good as Saddleback College. Nyah!

They don't even know how to spell 

"Library" at Saddleback College

Hey, there's no dang School of 

Micromanagement at Irvine Valley College.

We have standards!

IVC students are generally acknowledged to be

twice as attractive as Saddleback College students

Saddleback College has long been plagued with large vermin.

Meanwhile, vermin-free IVC has remained on the cutting edge of innovation and all manner of whiz-bangery

Saddleback College professors publish such tripe as Econo-Prof Howard Gensler's notoriously juvenile Avenger of Blood

IVC faculty, however, have organized the internationally acclaimed festival of helium known as "Blue and White Balloon Day."

Torture boy at Chapman

In this morning’s LA Times:

Bush policymaker escapes Berkeley's wrath

In Berkeley, city leaders branded him a war criminal and human rights activists put up a billboard to denounce him. But in suburban Orange County, Professor John Yoo—the primary architect of the Bush administration's policy on harsh interrogation techniques that many consider torture—has found relatively calmer waters.

Yoo is a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, on leave from his tenured post at UC Berkeley to teach foreign relations law.

Although a handful of protesters, one in a Statue of Liberty get-up and another in an orange Abu Ghraib jumpsuit and hood, demonstrated against Yoo on campus recently, law students said they appreciate the prestige and exposure he could bring the law school.

But a small group of local activists said they hope to stir up anger at the 14-year-old law school in the thick of conservative Orange County.

"Our aim is to get the man fired -- he has no business being in our community," said Pat Alviso, 56, of Huntington Beach, who heads the Orange County chapter of Military Families Speak Out. Her son is a Marine serving in Afghanistan who completed two tours in Iraq.

Chapman law school alumnus Michael Penn agrees: "I think it's a black eye to the school. . . . To me, he's a war criminal."

Yoo, a former Justice Department attorney, achieved notoriety by crafting memos -- later withdrawn by the department -- that narrowly defined torture and argued that Bush's authorization of controversial interrogation tactics against Al Qaeda did not violate the Geneva Conventions. The memos justified harsh treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, including the controversial waterboarding technique.
…
"I think it's interesting to have him there," said Billy Essayli, a second-year law student who heads the campus California Republican Lawyers Assn. Still, Essayli conceded that he was surprised there wasn't a greater public outcry at Yoo's arrival in January.
…
For his part, Yoo has stayed true to form since arriving at Chapman: Last month, he wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal criticizing President Obama, saying he had opened the door to future terrorist acts in the U.S....

And now, a word about distance ed, that wave of the future...

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the results of two surveys conducted by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges reveal widespread skepticism about the effectiveness of online education.


excerpt:

...online education doesn't translate into better learning outcomes, said respondents in the faculty survey. More than 10,000 faculty members at 67 public campuses responded to the survey.

While 30 percent of faculty members surveyed felt that online courses provided superior or equivalent learning outcomes when compared with face-to-face classes, 70 percent felt that learning outcomes were inferior...

... a majority of faculty members felt that institutions provided inadequate compensation for those taking on the additional responsibility of teaching online courses. And many respondents said that students needed more discipline before they could benefit from online instruction. Low retention rates among students and the lack of consideration of online teaching experience in tenure-and-promotion decisions were also cited as barriers to faculty interest in online teaching...

For the rest, click here.

OC sets the pace for the nation

I noticed that the OC Register has made available a brief video segment from CNBC's House of Cards. It concerns Orange County, the "birthplace of the sub-prime mortgage."

In the video, with the help of a Register reporter, we're introduced to one Daniel Sadek, a guy with a 3rd-grade education, who owned Quick Loan Funding, a seriously sleazy operation that specialized in giving loans to people who shouldn't get loans.

Click here to see the video. (You'll have to endure 15 seconds of a commercial first.)

Here's a recent (January) OC Register article about Sadek: How Citi bailed out an O.C. subprime lender:

..."There's a big irony, when thousands of people are struggling to get affordable loan modification offers from servicers that aren't responsive, that someone who has perpetrated harm would get a loan modification," said Paul Leonard, of the Center for Responsible Lending. "It's incredible."
…
Quick Loan Funding, which Sadek founded in 2002, wrote about $4 billion in subprime mortgages before it collapsed in 2007. Sadek made, and eventually lost, a fortune through Quick Loan. He bought a Newport Coast mansion, a fleet of exotic cars and a condo in Las Vegas where he became a high roller at the blackjack tables.
…
In May 2007, The Orange County Register reported that Sadek took out a $1 million marker from the account of his escrow company, Platinum Escrow, to gamble in Las Vegas.
…
"The Feds just worried that [Citi is] so big, so interconnected with the rest of the financial industry, that they can't let it fail," said Kurt Eggert, a Chapman University law professor and former advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank.

"It's poetic justice that Citi was in bed with this guy [Sadek] and they're stuck with him," Eggert said. "But why is it so hard for regular Joes to get loan mods when this guy, who seems like a terrible loan risk, can do it?" ....

Sadek made a film starring his girlfriend. It was called Redline. I think he spent his—or somebody else's—last dime on it. It stunk and tanked, losing tens of millions.