Fraud or no?

Monday’s OC Reg story about the curious way that Saddleback College receives state funds for Emeritus (for-the-elderly) PE courses (Is college cheating state for seniors’ fitness classes?) has legs, I guess. As of this morning, the story, which was occasioned by the persistent complaints of Laguna Woods Woods resident Doug Goforth, has attracted 64 comments, almost all of them indignant and angry. That’s not counting comments that the follow-up piece, including a brief response from Saddleback College’s Jennie McCue, has attracted.

On the other hand, only five comments were posted in the last two days, and so reader interest is flagging.

"They're free, Pops!"

In that follow-up piece (which appeared only hours after Monday’s initial article), the college had been asked to respond to Mr. Goforth’s claims, and McCue did so, but her remarks did not respond to important aspects of Goforth’s objections—essentially, that fraud is afoot.

Further, the Reg reporter, Teri Sforza, stated that “we’re still waiting on dollar figures for the Emeritus physical education program….”

Naturally, since Monday, I’ve been keeping up with the Reg, hoping to see those dollar figures and any further explanation or defense by the college. As far as I know, after five days, none has appeared (at least in the Reg).

Yesterday, the Reg posted the article again (Laguna Woods man skeptical of classes), this time essentially combining the original article with the follow-up.

Sforza repeats that:

We could be way off base here, but the entire episode sounds hauntingly similar to the “phantom classes” investigation done by our colleagues at the Register five years ago. They found that the state's community colleges artificially inflated enrollment by counting high school athletes – at their regular high school sports practices – as community college students.

Yeah. The worry here is that, once again, a kind of fraud is afoot.

Naturally, one must keep these matters in perspective: the state's community college system is huge, and the occurrence of instances of fraud simpliciter are pretty rare. Instances of systemic unselfish fraud (i.e., fraud for the sake of programs, not perpetrators' gain) are, I suppose, less rare, but by no means epitomize the system.

By Friday, had Sforza received any financial data?

We have asked Saddleback, and the state of California, for dollar details of these “Emeritus” physical education classes, both locally and statewide. We are waiting for those figures, and we'll keep you posted.

Sforza also quotes from a petition “for Eliminating Clubhouse One Saddleback Emeritus Classes,” which was presented to an LWV governing board weeks ago:

“This class is not a traditional class environment in that it is not designed for group instruction. Since there is only one Saddleback College instructor present for the class, most of the students never receive individual instruction either. The Fitness Center Staff is used to assist in the operation of the facility while these classes are in session. Most workout programs of residents are prepared by this staff outside of class. This same staff operates the Fitness Center in the afternoon and evenings without a Saddleback instructor because there is no additional benefit to the residents in having an instructor there.”

Sforza once again notes that, despite the petition, LWV’s governing board decided that residents liked the classes, though the board evidently recognized the need for some changes, including adding another instructor per course.

Some critics of Saddleback's Emeritus PE courses are pretty clueless about public education and, too often, they offer the simplistic demagogic rhetoric of the “government is the problem” crowd. But it seems to me that, at bottom, they do have a point here. Are we (i.e., the two colleges of SOCCCD) getting state funds for courses that aren’t really courses or that aren’t sufficiently course-like?

Seems so. It'll be interesting to see where this goes. Let's hope we won't once again become the poster child for some idiocy or scandal.

How do you spend over $200 just driving to and from board meetings?

[Note: see UPDATE at the end of this post.]

The June meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees will be on Monday at the "Gipper" room down at Saddleback. The agenda is available at the district website, as per usual.

I haven't had a chance to peruse it, but I did notice one minor item:

5.14 Reimbursement to trustees for mileage to and from required board meetings

It's for the period from July 2008 to the end of June 2009: one year.

How much could that be per trustee? Lemme ballpark this. Figure about a gallon to and another gallon from the Reagan Room. That's 2 gallons per board meeting, and there are twelve of those. So that's 24 gallons. (There're maybe half a dozen "special" meetings, but some of those happen on the same day as regular ones. I'm just ballparking here, so I'll leave 'em out of the calculation.)

OK. Figure $3 a gallon. That's $72. At $4 a gallon, it's still under $100. Tom Fuentes drives a Cadillac (natch), and he's claiming about that much. Makes sense.

Yeah, but some of these trustees are claiming over $200.

Gosh, what are these people driving? A Hummer full of fat Republicans?


UPDATE: thanks to DtB readers, who have posted informative comments, I think my query/accusation is essentially answered. Receiving 55 cents per mile for travel (to and from board meetings) adds up to more money than I figured, and the "55" rate seems in the ballpark of reasonable, when all (including wear 'n' tear) is taken into account.

So I withdraw any implied "gotacha's."

See? I can be nice!

Placement SNAFU

Snafu: a confused or chaotic state; a mess

ORIGIN 1940s: acronym from situation normal: all fucked up.

This morning, Jay Matthews, an education reporter for the Washington Post, carps about The Community College Placement Mess.

Matthews was sent a two-year-old report—“Investigating the Alignment of High School and Community College Assessments in California”—by Richard S. Brown [a Saddleback College alum!] & David N. Niemi. Despite the “sleep-inducing” title, for Matthews, the report is a “must-read.”

I have wondered, without ever stirring myself to investigate, how community colleges decide who gets to take their for-credit courses, the ones that can put a student on a path to a degree, and who will be consigned to their remedial courses….

The answer, of course, is that incoming students take placement tests. But this is where things get worrisome:

I assumed that a big state like California with long experience running community colleges … would have a well-proven system of placement tests and qualifying scores that was fair to everyone. Brown and Niemi startled me by revealing this to be far from the truth. They looked at California’s 109 community college campuses and found 94 different placement assessments. Try to enroll in two different community colleges, and the chances are that not only will you be given different placement tests, but the magic number of right answers that gets you into for-credit courses will also be different. 
... A student who qualifies for credit courses at one community college could, conceivably, fail to qualify for credit courses at the community college in the next town with the same score on the same test (if by some weird chance they gave the same test)....


I was surprised that the community colleges, and their students, were tolerating such a situation, because so far they are not having much success in qualifying new students for credit classes. Over 70 percent of them are forced to take remedial math, and 42 percent must take remedial English.
…
The high schools have to do a better job, a frequent topic of this column. But it would help if the community colleges could get together and decide on a set of tests, and a consistent set of passing scores, so students sent off to remedial work have a clearer idea of how much they have to improve. I would also like to hear more about efforts to get students near the passing mark over this hump more quickly and cheaply....
…
…Brown and Niemi say “one suggestion for improving the disjunction between high school and community college is to make clear to students early in their educational careers, perhaps as early as middle school, what is expected of them upon enrollment at the community colleges by developing continuity across the high school, community college and four-year college systems.” [All emphases added.]

I don't know about you, but me, I keep finding myself asking: how could this be allowed to happen?

FOR THOSE WHO APPRECIATE CONCISE HUMOR:

TigerAnn and I went outdoors and examined some flowers.

The Tige took the time to sniff some of 'em.

Do likewise.

Remember Dan Froomkin?

• OC Weekly’s Nick Schou reports (Washington Post fires ex-Register scribe turned White House watcher) that former OC Reg reporter Dan Froomkin has been let go by the Washington Post:

Dan Froomkin...who is best known as the author of the Washington Post's widely-read White House Watch blog, is out of work. According to a story today by Politico blogger Michael Calderone, the Post apparently decided to let Froomkin go because it no longer felt the need for his column. Froomkin drew ire from the Post's conservative readers for his tough coverage of the Bush White House as well as his perceived pandering to President Obama.

Some of you will recall that Froomkin was the reporter who exposed student and parent complaints concerning Steve Frogue’s teaching at Foothill High. According to numerous students, Frogue, a history instructor, repeatedly denied the Holocaust and made racially insensitive remarks. Actually, I think that Froomkin’s article came after Ked Francis’ interview of Frogue, in Irvine Valley College’s Voice, in which Frogue expressed approval of the Institute for Historical Review’s publications and voiced skepticism of the usually-reported extent of the Holocaust. That’s right. IVC used to have a newspaper, and it occasionally did some great work. Let's hope Froomkin finds another gig soon. As I recall, according to former SOCCCD trustee Harriett Walther, after Froomkin's article came out, during board meetings, Frogue would refer to Froomkin, enunciating his name in a deliberately leisurely fashion—allegedly to draw attention to its Jewishness.

• REMEMBER KIMBERLY KINDY? I noticed that, these days, Kimberly Kindy is a staff writer for the Washington Post. For several years, as the OC Reg "education" reporter, she covered the various scandals and issues regarding our district, especially stories concerning Raghu P. Mathur.

• REMEMBER THE ECONOMY?

UCI workers face possible 8% pay cut (OC Register)

UC Irvine faculty and staff could have their pay cut by 8 percent, unless they earn $46,000 or less, in which case the cut would be 4 percent, says University of California President Mark Yudof. Yudof issued a letter … that says the cuts are needed at all 10 UC campuses to help balance the state budget, which currently has a $24.3 billion deficit. It’s possible that the pay cuts would be smaller; the Legislature could raise taxes and create other forms of revenue to soften the blow. But that would take a two-thirds majority vote by lawmakers, and the public soundly defeated ballot initiatives in March that would have raised some additional public revenue….

• REMEMBER THAT EMERITUS STORY?

As of 5:00 today, the number of angry comments that Monday’s story about Emeritus fitness courses has garnered is over 40. Sheesh.

REMEMBER CHIP BERLET?

In a post earlier today (On the alleged importance of presenting "opposing points of view"), I noted that the “experts” that Trustee Steve Frogue had invited to his 1997 “Warren Commission” (JFK assassination) forum were, well, crackpots. I recalled that noted author, Gerald Posner, for one, had made that point in an LA Times article. I decided to look up the article. Found it. It reminded me that Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Boston’s Political Research Associates, expressed the same view: LA Times (front page) 8/21/97 O.C. College Course Claims JFK By Michael Granberry

…Chip Berlet, who has studied the assassination extensively and is a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a nonprofit think tank in Somerville, Mass., that examines authoritarian thinking, laughed upon hearing the names of [Frogue’s] panel of experts. "Oh, get out of here!" Berlet said. "You couldn't find ... more embarrassing conspiracists in America. Even among conspiracy theorists, these people represent the outer limits." … The speakers, [author Gerald] Posner said, "are not even mainstream conspiracy theorists. This is the very edge of what passes for somewhat sane discussion, and I find it even more egregious based on the sense of false history they espouse. Clearly, this is the most inflammatory and least supportable edge of that false history."

Well, oddly enough, as I was driving home from the gym tonight, I tuned in to Fresh Air, and Terry’s guest was none other than Chip Berlet: Extremism, Conspiracy Theory And Murder Fresh Air from WHYY, June 18, 2009 ·

Chip Berlet has studied extremism, conspiracy theories and hate groups for more than 25 years. In a recent report for PublicEye.org, he says that the murders of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen T. Johns exemplify the potential for violence that often lurks within extremist groups. Berlet argues that right-wing pundits share some of the moral responsibility for the actions of their followers. He summarizes the analysis in his report in a June 10 Huffington Post article about Johns' murder: "Apocalyptic aggression is fueled by right-wing pundits who demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation."

You can hear the whole interview by using the above link. Check it out!

On the alleged importance of presenting "opposing points of view"

SUBSCRACEFUL!

Yesterday, John Dean, author of the Watergate exposé “Blind Ambition” and a guy who nowadays appears on liberal TV and radio shows, gave a lecture at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. The Nixon Foundation, which earlier pledged $150,000 to support Library events, is, well, not liberal, for it is dominated by Richard Nixon fans and Nixon was a Republican. Further, since Dean was the guy who blew the whistle on Nixon’s “Watergate” excesses, it's fair to say that the Nixon-loving foundation folks are particularly peeved about Dean and his writings.

They’re unhappy about the Dean visit, so much so that they’ve even decided to withdraw their $150,000. That’s their right.

According to the OC Reg (Last straw: John Dean still riles Nixon group), “Foundation officials” say that they do not object to Mr. Dean’s appearing at the Library.

Really?

According to the Reg, they object “to a lack of opposing viewpoint.”

Much fun could be had attempting to describe those viewpoints. Pro-corruption? Anti-Constitution? Pro-cocker spaniel? Anti-telegenic?

It’s clear that at least some foundation officials do object to Mr. Dean and his ideas, and not just to his failure to be accompanied by, say, G. Gordon Liddy, or maybe Beelzebub. For instance, Sandy Quinn, the foundation’s assistant director, is quoted as saying

"He's disgraced and has been disbarred…He's so controversial … and [Blind Ambition] is not a new book. It's 33 years old. It would have been more serving and non-partisan it [sic] would (have been) point-counterpoint.”

That’s a mighty strange thing for Quinn to say.

It is by no means clear that Dean is still a “disgraced” figure. He’s definitely changed since his bad old Nixon days. And isn’t Dennis “Abramoff” Hastert, a former Library guest, also a “disgraced” figure? (Hastert has been involved in numerous scandals and controversies going way back.) Did Quinn carp about Hastert’s visit too? Doubt it.

More importantly, if ever a President were “disgraced,” it would be Richard Nixon himself. He had to resign, remember? (Plus, he said all those nasty things about blacks and Jews and Jane Fonda.)

And don’t forget: Dick Cheney was invited to speak at the Library. Surely that fellow's standing by now is lower than a barefoot rattlesnake. He's a sub-disgrace—a subsgrace.

You’d have to agree that Dean is a “controversial” figure—at least among Republicans. But consider this: according to the Foundation’s Nixon Library fact sheet, the "Nixon Library’s ongoing Distinguished Speakers Series has brought lively lectures and discussions from such leaders as

Vice President Dick Cheney;
Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz;
former Secretaries of State and White House Chiefs of Staff Alexander Haig and James Baker;
former Vice President Dan Quayle;
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert;
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright;
former U.N Ambassador Vernon A. Walters;
Sean Hannity,
Bill O’Reilly,
Larry King,
Laura Ingraham,
Mike Deaver,
Charlton Heston”

Obviously, the views of at least some of these "leaders" are as controversial as Dean’s views. Gosh, did Quinn object to the appearance of all these folks too?

Quinn obviously doesn’t care about a speaker’s being “controversial.” C’mon.

That “Blind Ambition” is 33 years old is irrelevant. It is an important work in the oeuvre of works about Nixon’s White House.

POINT/COUNTER-POINT

But what about this “counter-point” business? Is Quinn suggesting that inviting a speaker without throwing in a contemporaneous “counter-point” speaker is somehow inappropriate? That’s absurd. And I doubt very much that the Library has bothered to follow that goofy practice in the case of past speakers. Did Quinn object to Cheney’s showing up sans opponent? I don’t know, but I can guess.

There is such a thing as “balance,” I suppose, though it can never be more than a rough approximation that will inevitably be judged unsuccessful by some. Now, in most situations, balance is not achieved by imposing it on discrete things (a visit, a seminar, a lecture, a purchase, etc.). Rather, it is achieved by imposing it on a series of discreet things spread over time, or a set of discreet things, viewed as a whole, spread across a zone.

For instance, though, as an academic, I am no fan of instruction that emphasizes advocacy of controversial positions (I’ve discussed this previously), I do not object to “advocacy” instruction per se. In itself, an instructor’s “teaching” liberal (or conservative or radical) views is not a problem for me (though I would recommend a somewhat different approach). On the other hand, I might object to it if, upon surveying the pattern of instruction at the college, I find that it adds up to a strong bias in favor of some controversial position. (Here, I am referring to controversy relative, not to society, but to academia and expert [“discipline”] communities.)

For instance, if one finds that every instructor in an economics department expressly or tacitly presumes a strong laissez-faire stance regarding the economy and this perspective is incorporated in their teaching, one might worry that students who take economic courses at the college will leave with an “unbalanced” or one-sided view regarding that important matter. One would be relieved were the next hire to recognize regulation of industries as necessary or prudent.

If the Nixon Library were interested in “balance,” it would seek a schedule of lectures including guest speakers representing a range of perspectives. Until two or three years ago, the Nixon Library was private, and it clearly made little effort to provide “balance.” Look at the list of guest speakers above. With two exceptions, they’re all Republicans.

As of two years ago, the Library is a federal facility, and so, nowadays, its director is obliged to pursue guest speakers with an eye to "balance."

It seems to me that, in objecting to the Dean visit, the Nixon Foundation people no longer have a leg (or a pumpkin) to stand on.

THE CASE OF FROGUE'S "FORUM"

Remember when then-trustee Steve Frogue arranged a “forum” or “seminar” on the Warren Commission Report on the JFK assassination? Frogue invited four speakers, each of whom took an arguably incompetent, and certainly a marginal, position regarding the assassination. Further, some of these speakers inspired moral outrage. One speaker was the chief reporter for the notoriously anti-Semitic “Liberty Lobby,” and another speaker contributed to that organization’s publications.

To make a long story short, Frogue had organized a crackpot forum. This was explained to the board on the night that the vote approving traveling expenses was taken, but the board majority (John Williams, Steve Frogue, Teddi Lorch, and Dorothy Fortune) were unmoved. The forum went forward. The press learned of the details, and, owing to a public outcry, the forum was soon cancelled and abandoned.

I believe that, when the board approved this daffy Nutcake Forum, they erred. In my view, it is not a simple matter arguing that they erred, for colleges are supposed to be bastions of free speech.

On the other hand, colleges are supposed to have high standards--they do not regard all opinions as equally valid--and so, if one seeks to enrich the community’s reflections on some event such as the JFK assassination, one ought to organize forums comprising competent experts, not crackpots. So this was a case of conflicting values (or desiderata). Which value should prevail?

At the time, many who objected to Frogue's forum explained their objection by appealing to the need for “balance.” As I recall, then-Chancellor Robert Lombardi took that view, though he waffled a bit. He found fault with the forum owing to its lack of differing points of view. On the other hand, eventually, he said that “free speech” means that the forum should be allowed. “I think it’s terribly important to allow differences of opinion to be voiced,” he said.

Yes, but that can’t mean that a college should provide a forum for any group expressing any idea—for instance, that the Earth is flat or, say, that President Obama is a Manchurian candidate or a mujāhid. Remember: Frogue and his guest speakers were crackpots from Hell (crells). Even among conspiracy theorists, this crew was viewed as subpar. (I recall that that point was nicely made by noted author Gerald Posner.)

In an editorial that appeared in August of 1997, the LA Times weighed in on the issue of whether the forum should be allowed:

The seminar was thrown off campus only after the district received more than 200 calls of protest Thursday. The callers had more wisdom than the trustees. There is a difference between airing seemingly crackpot ideas in an intellectual, substantive manner on a campus devoted to academic freedom and giving legitimacy to bigoted ravings with no balance from opposing speakers. [My emphases.]

One things is clear: one does not achieve “balance”—or at least one does not achieve a rationally desirable kind of balance—simply by having “opposing speakers” at one's forum. In fact, Frogue's four "experts" had strongly divergent views. One attributed the assassination to renegade Nazis. (Yep.) Another blamed Israel's Mossad. Another favored Jim Garrison's long-discredited views. Frogue’s pick was the CIA or the ADL or the Brownies (my memory is fuzzy). These people were clearly not on the same page.


OK, so the forum already had a kind of “balance” in that it presented opposing views. On the other hand, it did not include the view that the Warren Commission was correct: there was no conspiracy. That’s “imbalance,” I suppose.

It’s clear, then, that presenting opposing views does not by itself ensure the quality of the discussion/forum. The views presented might all be lousy. And one can assemble opposing views while leaving out the view that is in some sense best or most defensible among alternatives.

Further, sometimes, rationally speaking, an issue is not controversial and so opposing views don’t exist. For instance, though there are people who insist that the Earth is flat, among those who can reason, there is no controversy regarding the shape of the Earth. It is spherical. Case closed. Imposing “opposing sides” to the “discussion” of the shape of the Earth (or to whether there was a Holocaust or to whether AIDS is caused by HIV) would actually diminish the quality of the discussion.

That's right. Sometimes, bringing in the "opposing views" just muddies the waters, rationally speaking.

I think that the JFK assassination verges on being an uncontroversial “issue” (or non-issues) that really has only one "side." Evidently, amongst the general public, how JFK was killed is controversial. But, among the relevant experts, the basic facts are not disputed, and the consensus (namely, that the Warren Commission essentially got it right) seems to have grown stronger over the years.

Still, I would not be opposed to a forum on JFK assassination conspiracy theories at a college. That so many Americans—a handful of whom are intellectually estimable, I suppose—suspect a conspiracy might be a reason to arrange or allow a college “forum.”

But you'd better be darned careful who you invite. No crackpots. (That a guest "expert" is anti-Semitic doesn't strike me as relevant to the quality of his view about the JFK assassination. You wouldn't want your sister to marry the guy, but, hey, even a bigot can have a good theory.)

Should the forum be “balanced”? (In this case, we’re talking about a one-shot event. Hence, any balance will have to be a balance within the event, not some pattern the event fits into.)

BALANCE SCHMALANCE

I think “balance” is overrated. I would not object to inviting one solitary speaker on a controversial topic if the speaker were sufficiently impressive in his/her intellectual attainments and abilities. After all, whether a position should be accepted is not ultimately a matter of comparing views. A view is worth believing if and only if the grounds for it are logically compelling. (This, of course, is often a matter of degree.)

There’s room for talk of “balance,” I think, for those who seek to promote sound discourse. But surely one betrays misjudgment—a kind of error in proportions—if one approaches a “forum” about X by focusing on “presenting opposing points of view.” Ultimately, we should be judging, not the winner of a debate, but evidence and arguments. There are standards for such things, and, by those standards, some thinkers and some positions just don’t rate. So don't include 'em.

We need to find a way to encourage “forums” that honor the authority of those standards. That's the crucial thing. If we do that, we won't be yammering so much about "balance" and the need to present "opposing views" and debates.

But, of course, I’m talking as though the public would even know the difference.

Silly me.

(Note: I'd next like to consider J.S. Mill's view concerning the benefits of allowing expression and advocacy of even false and absurd views.)

Summer Reading: This Lovely Life

The author of This Lovely Life, Vicki Forman, is a loyal reader and sometime commentator on this blog (aka Special Needs Mama and Leighton Girl) — and Rebel Girl's dear friend. They first met in graduate school. Rebel Girl has followed this book's journey to be for a long time now. Through the years, she has learned much from Vicki about writing and making one's way through life.

from Publisher's Weekly (starred review):

Forman’s enormously affecting memoir—winner of the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference Bakeless Prize—about the drastic disabilities of her extremely premature child poses challenging questions about parenthood and human compassion. Having given birth to twins at just six months’ gestation (23 weeks), due to an undetected infection she learned of only much later, the author, living with her husband and three-year-old daughter in Southern California, and aware of the daunting health issues facing these babies, begged the doctors to “let them go.” However, the doctors refused the “do-not-resuscitate” order, offering the infants every form of neonatal intensive care available, and while one of the twins died within days, the boy, Evan, survived, spending six months in the hospital before the family could take him home. Evan was plagued by severe developmental difficulties, including seizures, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, congenital heart defect and blindness, and the author writes with unflinching honesty about her raw fear and conflicted feelings. With time, Forman persevered as Evan’s advocate, finding solace in friendships with other mothers of special-needs children and open to experimental therapies that might prove helpful. Numbed by the crass exigencies surrounding the burial of one child (cemetery plots, tax forms), and hardened by what she terms post-traumatic stress syndrome, Forman portrays herself (sometimes shockingly) as deeply flawed and forgivingly human.

Meg Wolitzer, author of The Ten Year Nap and Surrender, Dorothy:

It would be difficult not to be stirred by Vicki Forman’s story; but what makes This Lovely Life so good goes well past story and into idea, with which her book is so rich. The idea of love; of choice; of ambivalence; of imperfection; of purpose: these are all here, in a narrative that is propulsive, startling and vivid, like motherhood itself.”

Tom Bissell, author of The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son and the Legacy of Vietnam

“This is a story about children born into circumstances medicine cannot currently prevent and no parent could possibly prepare for. It begins with a scene of almost unendurable horror. When the worst (one assumes) has passed, the reader awaits the various authorial balms, tonal coolants, and narrative stand downs demanded by such a trauma-splashed opening. But the reader quickly staggers into another, even more intimate horror, and then another, and then another. A tiny, cherished hope somehow endures that things will eventually improve for the author, Vicki Forman, and her increasingly devastated family. Such hopes are repeatedly incinerated in reality’s unforgiving atmosphere. By the end, the long-delayed first steps of a five-year-old child will seem the fist-pumping stuff of a more traditional triumph narrative. And yet This Lovely Life is not at all depressing. When I finished this book I felt, rather, an electric, wide-awake sadness, as though I had lost and made a close friend on the same day.”

In the upcoming weeks and months, Vicki will be reading throughout the country and in London (!) but those of you in the So Cal area can look for her at Vroman's in Pasadena on Thursday August 27th at 7 PM. Mark your calenders.

For more information, check her website by clicking here.

Elephant in the room (+ cheery videos)

Yesterday: TigerAnn up a tree

UCI fall enrollment to plunge 14 percent (OC Register)

In a move to cope with deep budget problems, UC Irvine is reducing the size of this fall’s freshman class to about 4,056, a roughly 14.2 percent drop from a year ago, when the university enrolled 4,730 freshman, according to the UC Office of the President....

Awesome criminal of the week (OC Weekly)

…John Yoo, Orange County's favorite torture enabler, may be back in deep doo-doo over his role in providing the legal justification for the Bush administration's practice of torturing terrorist suspects. Ever since President Obama stated that no government official was "above the law," speculation has abounded that Yoo, a former Berkeley law professor who fled the Bay Area People's Republic for Orange County's friendlier, more conservative shores, might face criminal charges for basically serving as a mafia-style consigliere to the Bush administration.

According to a story that ran yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor, a San Francisco federal judge has ruled that Yoo can "be held personally responsible for the indefinite military detention and alleged torture of an American citizen who was suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda." The U.S. citizen in question, Jose Padilla, is the alleged "Dirty Bomber" who was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002 and charged with plotting to blow up buildings in that city. Although no evidence ever emerged that Padilla intended to carry out any such plot, Padilla acknowledged having visited terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

Yesterday: colorful varmint outside my window

After being held for two years in solitary confinement at a Navy brig in South Carolina, he was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to commit murder. During his two-year imprisonment, Padilla reportedly had no contact with the outside world except with his interrogators…. He had no window or clock in his room and therefore had no idea whether it was day or night. Guards also subjected him to sleep deprivation via loud noises and the fact that he slept on a cold steel bunk with no mattress.

All of this treatment was endorsed in writing by Yoo, according to Padilla's attorney's, who therefore bears responsibility for what happened. US District Judge Jeffrey White, who wrote the ruling announced yesterday, apparently agrees. "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," he argued….

Trustee Troubles (Inside Higher Ed)

Plenty of community college presidents say they know board members like those described in The Rogue Trustee: The Elephant in the Room.

The new monograph, just released by the League for Innovation in the Community College, was penned by Terry O’Banion, president emeritus of the group and current director of community college leadership at Walden University. The work is based upon the anonymous comments of 59 community college presidents from 16 states who experienced significant conflicts with their governing bodies, largely due to the influence of one troublemaking trustee….
…
The study attempts to answer the unanswerable by asking the anonymous presidents to guess as to the motivation of their “rogue trustee.” Some of the more popular responses included “championing personal agendas,” “expressing pathological behaviors” and “working against the president.” The most strident motivation offered by the presidents was that their “rogue trustees” were acting in ways that would help them politically. Most believed that their troublemaking trustee was only on the board to leapfrog to higher political office.

“The trustee said to me, Look, I am going to be out of here before you know it,” reads one anonymous comment. “I want to go to the state house then to Washington, D.C., and this is just a stop along the way.”….

Higher Ed and the Third Reich (Inside Higher Ed)

A new book examines American colleges’ ties to Nazi Germany in the 1930s – and chronicles a record characterized by indifference, complicity and collaboration....

Despised chancellor continues to blight district (SoCoLuddite.com)

…I found [Saddleback College Art History instructor Lon Moore] in his office, his head down upon his desk. He appeared to be sick or sleeping or even dead….
...
“This used to be a happy place with lots of exciting things happening. Now, well—not,” said Moore emphatically. “It totally blows.”
…
I looked more closely. On his door were signs that said, “Checks not accepted” and “Go postal.”

“Yeah,” said Moore. “I’m a big supporter of the USPS.”....

New UC Davis chancellor says she wasn't aware of admission process at current school (The Sacramento Bee)

"Her response is absolutely incredible," he said. "Here you have someone who is the person in charge of admissions and there is a separate admissions policy and a way to get in she didn't know about."

TOO DREARY FOR YOU?

THIS'LL CHEER YOU UP.

A rose by any other name would still poke and stink as good

A man's right to be a woman; the oppressiveness of reality

Neither a Luddite nor a philistine be:

a scene from one of my favorite movies

The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed

Orson Welles (as Harry Lime)
Joseph Cotton (as Holly Martins)
Alida Valli (as Anna Schmidt)

Post-war Vienna: Author Holly Martins learns that his old friend Harry Lime is dead. He isn't. In fact, Lime has become a black-market racketeer who has made a fortune stealing and diluting penicillin, with tragic consequences. When Martins and Lime meet (on Vienna's famous Ferris wheel), Lime offers his, well, philosophy. Welles' Lime embodies evil and charm.

This is a great movie. The cinematography and music alone are enough to inspire repeated viewings.

To see what I mean, check out the film's famous final scene:



To you young people out there: Be thou not a knucklehead. See what you've been missing!

THIS JUST IN:

Eddie Bauer Files for Bankruptcy, but Roy Bauer doesn’t (New York Times)

Eddie Bauer, the outdoor-clothing chain that sold goose-down coats to Mount Everest mountaineers and college students alike, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday afternoon, and said it planned to sell itself for $202 million to CCMP Capital, a private equity firm....

ALSO: You might wanna read the comments attached to Monday’s Reg story concerning “Emeritus” PE courses at Laguna Woods Village:

Is college cheating state for seniors’ fitness classes?

See also our

Emeritus PE: the dawning of a BIG FAT scandal?