Trustee to spend four days in June at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa—on the public dime

I'VE BEEN TRYING to catch up with the May meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, which occurred on the 26th. I was unable to attend, for I was in Utah, becoming a Mormon. I'll start with something relatively trivial but fun. During her report, Marcia Milchiker explained that she had attended something that is “always a tear-jerking event.” Well, that's not the fun thing. I noticed something on the agenda (5.10): a request by a trustee (or trustees) to attend the June “Learning Summit” in Phoenix, Arizona. It will be held at the Biltmore Resort and Spa (evidently, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria "collection"). Cost per person: $1,900.

Trustee Nancy Padberg pulled the item from the consent calendar, usually a sign that she suspects that “Orlando Boy”—aka John Williams—plans to attend a questionable “junket” somewhere, a phenomenon that, invariably, the transparency of which she seeks to optimize (i.e., she wants the public to know when John is sucking once again on the public teat). When the item finally came up, Padberg asked for specifics: How many are requesting money for this trip? Just what is this “summit” anyway? Information please! Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur, who has long enjoyed Williams' support, immediately shut the discussion down, declaring that he had sent an informative email earlier that day at Trustee Lang’s request. (For some reason, Mathur adopted the voice of a frog.) Oh. Call for the question.

The upshot: the public was prevented from learning just who sought to travel to a fancy schmancy resort in Arizona on the district’s dime. The item passed unanimously. Here's another "fun" BOT factoid: the new student trustee spells her name "Bi’anca." I am impressed. No, I am inspired. I hereby change the spelling of my name to "Kech'shmoo B'chch." Pronunciation like always.LATE NEWS: UCI freezes faculty hiring as deficit grows to $55 million (OC Reg) A week after saying it had to slash spending by $40 million to help balance the state budget, UC Irvine today announced that the figure is actually about $55 million and that the huge research university had frozen all faculty hiring.

Showing up on our door

Tangerine, brat

• CALL THE PSYCHOBABBLERS!

THE VETERANS ARE COMING!

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Vets May Bring Extra Baggage

…A new report, “Health and Health-Related Behaviors: Minnesota Postsecondary Student Veterans,” provides a glimpse of the health issues an influx of veterans are likely to bring to college when the Post-9/11 GI Bill takes effect in August. While the sample was limited to one state, it serves as an early portrait of a population that is expected to grow rapidly on college campuses in the coming years.
…

…Edward Ehlinger, director and chief health officer of Boynton Health Service at the University of Minnesota…, who authored the study of more than 8,000 veterans, said he was somewhat surprised to see that veterans’ health issues largely mirrored those of other college students. There were notable exceptions, however….

Of those surveyed, 43.5 percent of female veterans reported being sexually assaulted in their lifetime, nearly 14 percentage points higher than female students overall….

As for PTSD, 14.1 percent of females said they’d been diagnosed with the condition, compared with 5.4 percent of women overall. Male veterans had a lower rate of PTSD – 9.1 percent— but still outpaced the general male student population by 6.3 percentage points.
…
College-going female veterans also reported higher incidences of domestic violence than their female classmates. Nearly half of those surveyed – 46.4 percent – reported such abuse, compared with 37.8 percent of women overall.
…
“It’s a population that is going to be showing up on our door,” [Ehlinger] said. “They have every right to an education. The GI Bill is a great thing for society … We have an opportunity to take a whole new set of folks and provide them post-secondary education, which is only going to be a benefit to society.”

• REGULARIZING K-12 EDUCATION

—AT LONG LAST?

In this morning’s Washington Post:

46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education Standards

In Texas, 2 + 2 = 5

Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools.

The push for common reading and math standards marks a turning point in a movement to judge U.S. children using one yardstick that reflects expectations set for students in countries around the world at a time of global competition….
…
Led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the states, including Maryland and Virginia, are aiming to define a framework of content and skills that meet an overarching goal. When students get their high school diplomas, the coalition says, they should be ready to tackle college or a job. The benchmarks would be "internationally competitive."
…
The nearly complete support of governors for the effort–leaders in Texas, Alaska, Missouri and South Carolina are the only ones that have not signed on–is key. Many Republicans oppose nationally mandated standards, saying schools should not be controlled by Washington….

In Alabama, sixth graders must demonstrate the ability to "bust up a chifferobe."

"This is the beginning of a new day for education in our country," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. "A lot of hard work is ahead of us. But this is a huge step in a direction that would have been unimaginable just a year or two ago."

Duncan has said that today's patchwork system amounts to "lying to children and their parents, because states have dumbed down their standards."….

• IN CALIFORNIA, STUDENTS WILL HAVE A NEW WAY NOT TO READ!

In this morning’s San Bernardino Sun:

Digital textbooks coming to state high schools

As society continues to move toward a digital era, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to expand California's education system by being the first state in the nation to offer free digital textbooks for high school students….

• LIKE WE BEEN SAYIN' ALL ALONG

From Paul Krugman’s column, yesterday:

Reagan Did It

…[T]he more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.
…

"I think we hit the jackpot," he said

The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain [the S&L derelgulation bill] … was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.

But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down....

Heeeeeere's Johnny: policies in "shambles," "out-of-control" practices, ineffective and inefficient functioning—and more!

Better call the "guardian," eh?

Recently (May 6, 2009), an OC grand jury issued a scathing report regarding the operation of the county “public administrator/public guardian” (PA/PG) office. (See OC grand jury to John Williams: you stink.)

Owing, it seems, to political connections that materialized after trustee Tom "Mr. GOP" Fuentes’ back-door arrival to the SOCCCD board in 2000, long-time trustee John Williams, a staunch Republican and former cop, managed to secure (and to create) that combo county position.

Like so many of Mr. Fuentes' political cronies, without benefit of talent or experience or integrity, the newly-connected Mr. Williams quickly went from obscurity to...well, these days, he's sittin’ in high cotton.

Whatever might be said about John qua trustee, qua PA/PG, he’s an unmitigated disaster. That’s the only conclusion possible if one accepts the grand jury report as the product of an honest and competent investigation—and I can see no grounds for supposing otherwise.

You can judge for yourself. The report is available here (as a 12-page pdf file).

The report—entitled “The Guardian of Last Resort”—has been available since May 6. I’ve finally found some time to read it. (I added the highlighting in red.)

WHAT THE PA/PG DOES; WHY THE PA/PG WAS INVESTIGATED; WHAT THE REPORT CONCLUDED:

The report begins with a summary:

…The … [PA/PG] is charged with the task of administering the estates, totaling over $38 million and the lives, or deaths, of over a thousand people each year. These people have the misfortune of being … alone to the degree that they do not have anyone willing or able to care for them when they can no longer care for themselves.

Review of the Public Administrator/Public Guardian resulted in many concerns by the Orange County Grand Jury. Those most evident are in the areas of financial accountability, policies and procedures, personnel administration, information technology and case-load management. The investigation revealed a general need to improve organization and adhere to County policies. While these issues alone are damaging enough, the additional workload being placed on the employees has created a morale problem prompting letters to the Grand Jury.

This report explains how the agency has failed to keep its promise to the taxpayers of Orange County to cut costs and improve services. The annual base salary of management has increased over 96% since 2005. The policies and procedures are disorganized and outdated, illustrating that this business, which is mandated by law to attend to the details of people’s lives, is not following its own policies. The agency has interpreted the Orange County Human Resources (OCHR) rules and regulations to promote individuals into management positions that were, according to the OCHR, beyond what is accepted policy. Compounding every aspect of the inability of the PA/PG to function fully and efficiently is its aging, inadequate case management software system. It is with these issues in mind that the Grand Jury provides this report. [Boldface in the original.]

REASON FOR THE INVESTIGATION:

The next section of the report provides the “Reason for Investigation,” namely, (1) “information from numerous and varied sources that there were activities within the PA/PG that appeared to be inappropriate”—and (2) the expected rapid increase in the aged population in coming years.

Cats are always watching.

And some have superpowers.

BLOATED AND PROFLIGATE BUREAUCRACY:

Foes of bloated and profligate government will be plenty steamed by Mr. Williams' operation as described by the report. The latter explains

The office of the Public Guardian was a department of the Orange County Health Care Agency. The PA was a department of the Coroner’s Office until 1965. A proposal by the PG on May 3, 2005, in an Agenda Staff Report, requested that the office be combined and the PG separated from the Health Care Agency. According to the report, this action would save the taxpayers of Orange County $300,000 over the next three years. This separation was approved by the Board of Supervisors.

…At the time of separation, there were seven employees with management responsibilities including the agency head and one at-will employee. As of November, 2008, this number had risen to ten, an increase of over 40%. The total hourly base salaries, without fringe benefits or pension payouts, were calculated using information received from Orange County Human Resources (OCHR). In 2005, the combined hourly wages for the seven employees was $254.71. These wages calculated for one full year totaled $529,796. In November, 2008, the combined hourly wages for the ten individuals in the same category was $501.36. The total payroll for these ten individuals now amounts to $1,042,828. This is an increase [payroll] of 96.8% during the three years that the PG projected to save Orange County $300,000. The increase is attributable not only to the additional 40% now in management positions but also to the numerous promotions made by the PA/PG. Several of these promotions were called unwarranted by OCHR due to the limited size and scope of the agency. This calculation does not include two additional individuals in at-will clerical positions that have added at least $100,000 a year to management overhead or employees classified as supervisor. During this period, while the number of managers and their payroll increased, the number of total employees has remained approximately the same. [Boldface in the original.]

The report also describes “questionable” pension practices:

The Grand Jury reviewed the case wherein an employee was promoted to a top management position within a year of retirement. The position was at will and there were no education and experience requirements. That one year of promotion is costing the taxpayers of Orange County an additional $56,674 per year in pension benefits and … the taxpayers of Orange County will pay at least $1,453,100 in additional pension benefits. This figure does not include statutory cost of living increases.

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES: CONFUSION

The report finds serious problems with the existing PA/PG “policies and procedures.” When asked for the P&Ps, Williams produced two manuals, both labeled P&Ps. The older manual (pre-Williams) is complete and well-organized. The second, Williams-era, manual is profoundly disorganized.

The grand jury found several examples of confusion re these newer P&Ps:

Jurors, attending a decedent’s home during a final property inventory, observed that the agency’s own procedures were not being followed. They were informed that this was a second and final search for documents possibly revealing the names and addresses of heirs. During this search there was a surprise discovery of a wallet containing a driver’s license and cash under a pile of mail on a counter top. The Jurors were informed that the search concluded the PA/PG’s handling of the personal property of this estate and it would now be turned over to a sub-contractor. At the time of their departure, papers remained throughout the house, such as the ones that had been concealing the wallet on the counter top. The PA/PG has a policy instructing the deputies to remove the papers from the home. That policy contains a procedure instructing the reader to refer to yet a second policy. The second policy gives clear directions for the Deputy to sort, label and box important papers and destroy junk mail. It goes on to also describe the process for storing the boxed papers so they can be delivered to an heir or used when settling the estate. However this policy contained a purple “sticky” note stating that it had been deleted and the reader should now refer to yet a third policy. Complicating matters even further, this third policy does not address the sorting, storing or discarding of papers at all; it only addresses warehouse security.
…
Interviews with management revealed that there was no one authorized to make serious life and death decisions in the absence of the Public Guardian (PG). When questioned what the procedure was during an emergency situation the Grand Jury was told that the PG could always be reached even while out of the country on vacation. After further investigation into the written procedure, it appeared that management was unaware or did not adhere to its own policy and was placing the conservatee at risk of serious complications or death. The procedure designated to deal with this matter gives this responsibility to the deputy presently on duty, the Officer of the Day and the Supervising Deputy. There is no mention of the Public Guardian having that sole responsibility.

Fiendishly inscrutable

Maddeningly reticent

AN EVER-CHANGING (UNDEFINED?) ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE:

The report portrays Mr. Williams as a bit fuzzy about his agency’s organizational structure:

Four organizational charts were provided to the Grand Jury over a period of four months. These charts were different each time they were produced and the titles of the individuals were constantly changing.

The report describes various “flawed personnel administration policies”:

In March, 2008, a senior management position, although occupied at the time, was removed from the organization chart. In August, 2008, the position reappeared and was filled by a different employee who received a temporary promotion into that same position. Some employees interviewed believed that the temporary promotions were numerous and were often not based on competency. “We never knew a position was even open,” an employee stated. This practice is, according to many, demoralizing.
…
When the time came to fill a permanent non-technical management position, OCHR [Orange County Human Resources] produced a list of over thirty candidates. The individuals were divided into two categories. The PA/PG directed OCHR to refer only applicants from their own organization for potential selection. This action made it impossible for anyone not currently employed by the agency to qualify. The request produced one candidate from the lower classification category. Consequently, other applicants who had scored higher on County placement tests were not referred, because they did not work in the PA/PG office. By doing this, a management position was filled by a PA/PG employee who otherwise may not have been considered.

In addition to the promotion previously mentioned, a surprisingly rapid promotion from an Administrative Manager I position to an Administrative Manager II position in a four-month period was documented. Further, two Administrative Manager III positions were awarded over the objections of OCHR. The Grand Jury learned from OCHR that the promotions to Administrative Manager III in the PA/PG were not warranted due to the level of responsibility within that agency. The PA/PG made one of those positions permanent in spite of the objections of OCHR by finding a budget loophole in the system.

Endless and appalling machinations apaw

I.T. FUBAR:

Re “information technology”:

…At the beginning of the review of the PA/PG, items of interest to the Grand Jury were requested. Very often they responded that they did not have the information readily available. Pertinent information that should have been easily gathered with a few key strokes proved to be beyond their current capabilities.

The current ePAGES computer program used to manage conservatorships and guardianships is no longer supported by the software supplier, and is inadequate for its intended task. As of January, 2009, the PA/PG has failed to correct numerous, serious deficiencies in case management that were identified in a May, 2005, County Internal Audit. These issues were to be corrected by implementation of a replacement computer system.

The same County Internal Audit report recommended that the Public Administrator/Public Guardian replace its aged inadequate ePAGES software program. The PA/PG responded by indicating the deficiencies would be corrected and the old software system would be replaced by June, 2008. The Grand Jury was informed by the PA/PG in July, 2008, that this had not taken place; in fact a software provider had just been identified. At this time the PA/PG indicated that project delays were partially caused by a lack of funding. However, County purchasing records revealed that the project was fully funded during this period. For the next several months the Grand Jury observed that steps were taken to initiate this system. At the time of this report, the implementation of the successor program to ePAGES is at least thirteen months behind schedule. It is probable that this project will not be completed in July, 2009, as forecasted.

DOUBLE THE USUAL CASELOAD:

Re “Caseload Management”:

The size of the individual caseloads of the deputies was a concern expressed in complaint letters received by the Grand Jury. The writers pleaded for help for the deputies doing the hands-on work. In response, the Grand Jury made repeated requests for information regarding the number of cases each deputy was assigned. Due to an inadequate computer records system, there was no list of assigned cases that could be retrieved. Repeated attempts to view statistical data from both the PA/PG and Probate Court produced little usable information for the Grand Jury to review. An authoritative study identified that the usual caseload for a Public Guardian Deputy was 45. The PA/PG, though unable to identify the caseload size for each caseworker, has stated that deputies on average handle between 70 and 80 cases each.

Unapologetically arresting

CONCLUSION:

The report’s conclusion:

This investigation revealed that the PA/PG’s ability to provide services according to its mission has been reduced by management’s inability to function effectively and efficiently. They have failed to deliver on their promise to save Orange County taxpayer’s money. The road map for the job at hand, the Policies and Procedures Manual, is in shambles. Out-of-control personnel practices have created an organization top heavy in management and riddled with unhappy workers, required to do much more work than what is considered typical. Additionally, the aged, inadequate software system cannot produce the basic information needed for timely completion of everyday business. The need for change is evident. The Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations provide the Board of Supervisors with what is considered necessary to enable the PA/PG to fulfill its mission.

FINDINGS:

The report issues a series of “findings”:

F.1: The management of PA/PG has become top heavy which complicates communication with employees, increases costs and lowers morale and department performance.
…
F.2: Personnel practices at PA/PG have used temporary promotions and selective exclusion criteria to circumvent standard hiring procedures.

F.3: The current ePAGES computer program is no longer supported by the software supplier, and is inadequate for its intended task. Implementation of a replacement system, recommended by County Internal Audit in 2005, is severely delayed and is now scheduled for release in July 2009.

F.4: Evidence of questionable pension practices was found at the PA/PG, which could cost taxpayers nearly one and one half million ($1,500,000) dollars.

F.5: Public Administrator/Public Guardian policies and procedures are outdated, confusing and are not being adhered to as written making it difficult to effectively implement the PA/PG stated mission.

F.6: The lack of business metrics used to measure the effectiveness of PA/PG internal operations and its delivery of those services described in their mission statement makes it difficult to manage and continuously improve agency operations.

F.7: Management practices used since the separation of the Public Guardian from the Health Care Agency have significantly increased administrative management costs.

F.8: The combining of the PA and PG in 2005 has not produced the anticipated administrative cost reductions. The administrative costs have actually increased without any apparent improvement in decedent estate processing or conservatee care. The agency has made ineffective decisions that have cost Orange County taxpayers and conservatees a significant amount of money.

Annoyingly enthralling

WILLIAMS MUST RESPOND:

According to the report, “Responses to Findings F.1 through F.8 are required from the Public Administrator and requested from the Public Guardian…. The responses are to be submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court.”

Page 7 of the report presents 15 “recommendations,” closely tied to "findings."

* * * * *

Incompetence and corruption in government are routine, of course. Typically, however, we never get a clear view of them. Perhaps this time we have that.

In the end, Mr. Williams will have been undone—if he is indeed undone by this stunning report (some are skeptical)—by having angered his employees, no doubt a largely earnest and hard-working crew (unlike Orlando Boy). His employees appear to be the instigators of the GJ investigation.

For many years, I assumed that that would be Chancellor Mathur's undoing also. The best of SOCCCD have long complained about Mathur's ruthlessness and incompetence, which makes life difficult (sometimes hellish) for decent employees who simply want to do their job and to do it well. But Mathur has always been protected in this regard by his "bosses," the dominant trustees, the most powerful of whom prefers that those over whom Mathur has power be as unhappy as possible.

Mr. Fuentes' hatred and contempt for district personnel, especially faculty, is undisguised.

I doubt that any such protection is available to Mr. Williams.

My guess: as the PA/PG, he's toast.

Last week: in Bryce Canyon

(Ever the optimist!)

Laughing at danger and awash in unmitigated felinity in his new "Best Friends" cap

All or most of the cats pictured are available for adoption at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in lovely Kanab, Utah

Dinner and forgiveness in Kabob (Kanab)

Kanab's Rocking V Café by night

On three of the five nights I spent in Kanab, Utah, I and my companions (my sister Annie and our old friend Kathie) dined in a very good and fun restaurant literally a minute’s walk from my motel room—the Rocking V Café and Rafters Gallery.

Way cool, man. The restaurant, which occupies an old building in a quiet part of town (well, there are no other parts of town), looks great—there’s artwork, most of it local 'n' good, on every wall—and the food is as good as any I’ve eaten. Somehow, the music—mostly vintage rock—is perfect too. We generally ate on the top floor, the gallery, looking out on one of Kanab’s busiest streets (ha ha).

Kathie, who’s been coming out to Kanab (to teach U of Redlands students at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary) for ten years now, knows the owner, Victor (his wife is Vicky, hence the “Rocking V”), and so we always seemed to get the royal treatment, although nobody in the restaurant was doing any complaining.

I noticed an exotic restaurant worker, a beautiful young girl that I took to be French.

“Nope, she’s Russian,” said Victor. In Kanab, young people don’t do this kind of work, he said, and so businesses are forced literally to import workers from Russia and elsewhere around the globe.

OK, I get that. But exotic young Russians in Mormony old Kanab, Utah? It made me smile.

During one of our dinners at the Rocking V, the voluble Victor mentioned a recent New York Times article that said nice things about his place. Today, I decided to look it up.

AMERICA'S OUTBACK:

East of Calf Creek, the landscape becomes even more strange and unearthly. The Creator was having fun out there. Canyons yawn. Arches sprout from nowhere, not to mention spires, buttes, towers and pinnacles. The earth erupts and convulses. There are raw desert lookouts where not one single man-made light distracts from the stars. — Tony Perrottet

This must be it: back in April, Tony Perrottet wrote an article for the Times about the untouched natural wonders of southern Utah. It is entitled, "America’s Outback."

He starts with this:

If the name Dry Fork Coyote Gulch doesn’t give fair warning that this is not your average hike, then the haunting drive to the trailhead will remove all doubt. The sandy Hole-in-the-Rock Road is one of the few routes that even attempt to enter the biblical expanse of desert in southern Utah called the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and when I made a pilgrimage there last summer, I didn’t pass a single car, let alone a sign of human habitation.

Turns out, the southern Utah area is a largely ignored but fabulous land of remoteness and jaw-dropping beauty, or so says Perrottet. From what I’ve seen, he’s right.


Perrottet has long been intrigued by one writer’s account of his adventures, in 1872, as a young man in this then-unknown frontier:

Frederick Dellenbaugh, fresh from high school in Buffalo in 1871, heard that John Wesley Powell was looking for men to join his second expedition down the Colorado River. Powell had become a celebrity for conquering the Grand Canyon in 1869; this time, the white-water trip would be combined with the mapping of the Colorado plateau. … Dellenbaugh…became the expedition’s artist.


The adventure lasted nearly 18 months and involved plenty of near-death encounters on the river. But its most striking achievement came in May 1872, when Powell sent his second in command, Almon Thompson — a self-taught surveyor nicknamed the Prof — on a monthlong horseback trek through the unknown deserts of southern Utah. Dellenbaugh went along, and 36 years later, in 1908, he published his classic account of the Thompson expedition, “A Canyon Voyage,” which became an American bestseller.

Our man Perrottet wanted to cover the same ground as Thompson and Dellenbaugh, and so, last summer, off he went:

My journey began in Kanab, a tidy little Mormon outpost of mowed lawns and municipal buildings framed by glowing red bluffs. Powell set up his winter base there, in wood-floored canvas tents not far from a fort. Kanab in 1872 was no Deadwood: “Not a grog-shop, or gambling saloon, or dance-hall was to be seen,” Dellenbaugh wrote. Liquor was in such short supply that one of the photographers actually made cocktails from his photographic alcohol.

Life has loosened up slightly in Kanab today. You can buy alcohol [well, near-beer], from the State Liquor Store, including the Utah brew Polygamy Porter (“Why Have Just One?”). After dark, I found a brand new bistro filled with stray Europeans enjoying quinoa salads and sauvignon blanc.

That’s the Rocking V, I think.

The Rocking V by day

Perrottet fills out his account of Kanab (dubbed “Kabob” by Annie):

In the heyday of the western movie, Kanab became an unlikely boomtown as Utah’s Little Hollywood, a film location for dozens of famous movies. Photographs of forgotten black-and-white stars in Stetsons line the main street in a Western Walk of Fame, and you can find a whole theme park of cinematic relics like Clint Eastwood’s cabin in “The Outlaw Josey Wales.” (For true nostalgia buffs, the remains of the “Gunsmoke” set are quietly decaying on private land a few miles out of town, visible from the road).

That Kanab was a “Little Hollywood” visited by famous movie stars is amazing, given that, until fifty years ago, there were no major roads to the town. It was seriously remote.

Inside the Rocking V (New York Times)

Turns out Kathie is a big fan of John Wesley Powell, having read extensively of his exploits mapping the Grand Canyon. Even Annie had heard of him. As a one-time employee of the USGS (in the case of my sister, all employment is “one-time”), she was aware that Powell was the “father of the USGS,” a factoid she insisted on repeating at every opportunity.

Well, anyway, the article mentions places to eat and stay in the area:

You may have to search, but a surprising number of decent restaurants are hidden away in southern Utah. In Kanab, the Rocking V Cafe … is a bistro and art gallery where the eclectic menu includes Thai curry and garlic lemon shrimp (around $80 for two, including wine). On weekend nights, you actually need a reservation.

This little mention was enough to keep Victor happy for over a month, so far.

THE SHITHOLE MOTEL:

But where to stay? Well, Annie and I didn’t get our acts together until too late, and so we were forced to make reservations at Kabob’s little-known Shithole Motel. (That’s not really its name.) We wanted to stay at the famous Parry Lodge, but it was booked. Perrottet writes:

Since the 1930s, … the place to stay has been Parry Lodge…. It has 89 rooms (rates start at $62), including seven comfortable, retro-chic suites with kitchenettes. Western films that were made in the area are shown in the old barn on summer evenings; I caught Jack Nicholson’s little-known 1965 performance in “Ride in the Whirlwind.”

$62 a night! OK, now that really cheeses me off. I paid $65 a night at the Shithole, just down the street, and it was, um, a shithole.

Cabin used in filming Gunsmoke

Why do I say this? Well, during our stay (Annie and I stayed there; Kathie had her own place a mile away), not once did anyone clean anything or change the linen. At one point, Annie asked the motel lady for another roll of TP, and the lady (upon restoring her teeth to her mouth) demanded a reason. “Well, I need more,” said Annie. "Well, you should be using only two or three squares each time," scolded the lady.

There were no electric outlets on the walls near our beds, and so we were forced to plug our CPAP machines (Annie and I suffer from sleep apnea) into the walls across the room—so we had to sleep backwards. None of the outlets could take a three-pronger, and so Annie couldn’t charge her laptop. The sink was not in the bathroom but in the closet. The AC unit generally didn’t work.

Nevertheless, when we decided to stay an extra night, I insisted that we just stay at the Shithole, since we were by then used to it, and who wants to go to all the trouble of moving? All we had to do was switch rooms. But when we arrived at our new room at the Shithole late on Wednesday night, we found that my bed (in Annie World, the crummier or less convenient bed is always my bed) had been slept in, the shower had been used, the toilet was, um, full, etc. Soon, the little girl at the desk came around and made things right, apologizing profusely and promising to arrange for some kind of discount.

She was amateurish but sweet. We actually sat with her and gave her some career advice. Which college to go to? When to go? How about out-of-state? “Cosmetology is my dream,” she said. "Excellent," I replied. It's good to have a dream and then a plan.

Old Kanab movie set (New York Times)

She left. An hour later, she called, informing us that we were staying “for free” that night. I thanked her. The next morning, I dropped by the office to get the $65 taken off my card, and the old lady with dentures was there. She apologized profusely. She explained that she is forced to hire people from “other countries” to do work, and she flat can’t understand them sometimes. “I just didn’t make things clear to the boys!” she said.

I wasn’t about to give her a hard time. Sure, sure, I said.

Then she grabbed my right hand with her two hands. She looked into my eyes, pulling me toward her. She said, “Do you forgive me?”

I did. That’s when we left Kabob.

"Yes, I forgive you."

Deceived by cats, raised by wolves, surrounded by cheapskates

Speaking of cats, Paul MacInnes of the Guardian.co.uk reports that

...Scientific American looks again at the history of feline domestication. It has long been held that cats were first tamed in ancient Egypt some 3,600 years ago. Thanks, however, to the discovery of a cat-shaped corpse buried some 9,500 years ago alongside their human associate in a shallow grave in Cyprus, the game has been changed. The new thinking is that wildcats of the type Felis silvestris lybica began to dwell alongside humans as farming developed in the fertile crescent of the Levant. Wildcats were tempted into human settlements by the prospects of scraps and, crucially, a ready supply of Mus musculus domesticus, aka the house mouse, an ancient Jerry to their pre-classical Tom. ¶ In other words, we didn't domesticate cats, they domesticated themselves….

I’m not sure, but I do believe that the Scientific American article also explains that, pre-domestication, cats cleaned their own litter boxes.

The truth slowly emerges.

Now: money. When I was an undergraduate, I was endlessly disgruntled about the portion of student fees devoted to competitive sports, about which I had no interest whatsoever. Of course, in those days, UCI’s teams were, well, shittay. I guess that's changed.


Evidently, increasingly, students are coming around to my former way of thinking. In yesterday’s New York Times, we read that

Since March, students at three California universities — Sacramento State, Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton — have … voted down fee increases to help pay for athletics.
…
Already facing steep tuition costs, students seem to be growing more reluctant to pay additional fees for everything from athletics to health care to transportation, according to the United States Student Association, which is based in Washington…. (As Costs of Sports Rise, Students Balk at Fees)

Naturally, this development likely reflects the possibly transient fact that money is tight. Or maybe it reflects the possibly transient fact that students are tight. Dunno.


This reminds me of a childhood incident. I was raised in a German family guided by overprotective parents. These parents, being German, did not understand American football. It was, they said, a brutal and stupid sport.

They didn’t put it that way. They would see it played on TV, stare at it, and then declare something like, “Look! Those guys are fat and mean and stupid!” Once a thing received this Bauer family seal of disapproval, acknowledging anything whatsoever in its favor was regarded as betrayal of the family. This led to many an absurdity, including the infamous “Barbra Streisand” rhubarb of 1967. But never mind that.

So, anyway, I was discouraged from having anything to do with football, even in high school. As it turns out, during a PE flag-football game, I was injured via a pile-up upon my person. Off I went to the doctor’s office. “You have a hairline fracture,” said the doctor. He got out the plaster, wrapped on the cast. I loved it.

Later that day, my dad came home from work and saw the cast. He found out what was up.

He was not amused. Why were you playing football? he asked. And why did you (the “you” now included my mother—it is a Bauer family tradition [alas, to the present] to use pronouns with spectacular imprecision) go to the doctor? Hairline? What kind of break is that?!

He mightily disapproved of everything I and we had done.

After a few weeks, it seemed to me that it was time to remove my wonderful cast. We (i.e., my mother and I) didn’t dare go back to the doctor. So, one day, I went out to the garage and cut off the cast with a pair of tin-snips. I hid the pieces in the trash.


Nobody ever mentioned the injury again. Indeed, I once heard my dad declare that none of his kids had ever suffered a broken bone. He pointed at me: "This one has never missed a single day of school in nearly 12 years!" That was true. I shared this distinction with some other kid, a girl.

One day, at school, I was told to go to the principal's office, to meet her.

I arrived, sat down. There she was. We just stared at each other, uncomprehending.

She looked OK, I guess. Not me. I was sick with a cold.

First picture: three cats at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary near Kanab, Utah. The female kitty at left (Toby) has a condition which makes breathing laborious. The two other cats (Solomon and Tucker) always sleep with her, watch over her. Selfish bastards! The other cats are also at Best Friends. Took these pics three days ago.
P.S.:

A couple of days ago, our pal Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly (Lee-ving out crucial OC civil rights history in the Anaheim walk of stars) reported an incident that many would rather forget:

Legendary Olympian and longtime Orange County resident Sammy Lee was honored two days ago with a spot on the Anaheim Walk of Stars, and it was fascinating to see history in action…. The story in the Orange County Register mentioned his back-to-back gold medals in platform diving during the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, and that he served for years afterward as a coach. But it didn't even hint at Lee's involvement in one of the uglier moments in Orange County history.

In 1954, Lee—an Army vet, licensed doctor, two-time gold-medal winner and recent recipient of the Sullivan Award as the best amateur athlete in the United States—tried to buy a house in Garden Grove but was refused. Twice. All because he was Asian. Garbage Grove's racism was condemned worldwide for the obvious reasons, and even Ed Sullivan and then-veep Richard Nixon spoke publicly in favor of Lee, who eventually did buy a home…. His struggle to buy a house was an important step in the battle to end housing segregation in Orange County that ultimately culminated in the Mulkey v. Reitman Supreme Court case.

About 8 or 9 years after the unfortunate “Garden Grove” episode, my mother took Annie and me to swim classes at a place, if I recall correctly, near Collins and Tustin in the City of Orange. My memory tells me that it was a “Sammy Lee” facility. I seem to recall seeing his name emblazoned (in cursive) on the outside wall of the building. I’ll see if I can find evidence that my memory is correct.

See also biography and video of Sammy Lee

P.P.S.:

I found this at OC History Roundup:

Today's photo shows U.S. Olympic divers Sammy Lee and Vicki Manolo Draves at the London Olympic Games in August 1948. Dr. Lee won a gold medal that year, and again in 1952 at Helsinki. But much of Orange County knows him as the man who taught them how to swim. Lee's swim school was a fixture in Anaheim for many years, beginning in the 1950s. Today, he received the 11th star on the Anaheim/OC Walk of Stars, in front of Disneyland....

I also found a reference to one of Lee's schools in Santa Ana.

Palling around with feline beasts at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in south Utah

This kid really liked to play. He especially liked the "chase the mouse" (blob on the end of string) game.

(All pictures taken two days ago at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary near Kanab, Utah.)

This guy kept climbing on my shoulder. Wadda sweet kid.

This little girl(?) just liked to hang around with me. Followed me. Didn't say much.

Cut kid, eh?

Volunteers come by just to interact with all these brats. That's what I did, anyway.

There's a section for so-called "feral" brats. I think this cutie was one of 'em. With some effort, some "wild" cats can become very affectionate.

One of Annie's special friends.

A "rafter" cat.

Commencement photos, etc.

Check it out! Tracy Daly’s office (district PIO) provides photos (click here): of Saddleback College Commencement and Irvine Valley College Commencement

IN THE NEWS:

UCI holding public talk on how to cut $40 million

California could be the first state to cut student aid while hiking fees