Commencement: platitudinous and sans hitch

Great weather, happy students

Wagner seemed distracted (possibly by a wedgie); the student trustee seemed really pissed

.....(Update, 5/23: I'm told that the Saddleback College commencement ceremony, held earlier in the day, went well. About eleven people participated in a silent protest of the invocation, given [by Nancy Padberg] at the start of the ceremony. Faculty and students held banners and signs. Except for Tom Fuentes, all trustees were present.)

.....Just a few notes about yesterday’s commencement at Irvine Valley College, which commenced at 4:00 p.m. and then seemed to slow time to a crawl. I do believe time stopped a couple of times.
.....As usual, the students were in high spirits. There were lots of smiles, lots of cute little kids running around loose. I do hope they all found their parents eventually.
.....The war on photographers continued: this year, the VPIs were housed in an odd tent structure, making its residents dark and removed and unphotogenic. The arrangement inspired unfortunate feelings in the audience, which sweltered whilst looking up at shaded people who, despite their elevation, generally had nothing much to say.
.....As I recall, the only no-show among trustees was Tom Fuentes, which was a positive, although the first thing that happened after everybody marched in was headbowing and a lugubrious prayer to the Lord (by Nancy Padberg).
.....Don Wagner looked distracted; the student trustee looked positively pissed-off; Marcia Milchiker smiled in all directions; and John Williams hid, motionless, behind dark sunglasses. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

That's the new Business Science (haha) building in the background. During the design phase, trustees insisted that the building exemplify the famed Quansetta style, so popular in the early-to-mid forties.

Students were told that money is only a means to an end; that end? More money. (Well, no)

I do believe this fellow was the part-time teacher of the year.
To the right, smiling, is the full-time teacher of the year.

.....Raghu Mathur’s speech was delivered with zero passion, which makes sense, since it is precisely the same speech he has given many times before. It combined the platitudinous with the clueless. Platicluediless.
.....The state chancellor, who arrived late, offered more platitudes. Money is just a means to an end, he said.
.....Glenn offered statistics. A few students got out their calculators.
.....The student speaker majored in business, I think, and her speech reflected that. My prediction: she’ll become the Governor of California, a Republican. I’ll be dead by then.
.....I spoke with John Edwards for a while, and that went well. I think he has a bad cold. (If I get it, I’m gonna be pissed.) At one point, some guy next to me said, “didn’t they say all this last year?” The weather was great, the blue and white balloons were festive, and things pretty much went off without a hitch.
.....The students noticed none of this. They just smiled.

It was like a musical or something, with faculty occasionally breaking into song.

Mathur offered old material, sans passion. Then he sat down

This little girl (at right) is going places

Wagner and Mathur managed to sit next to each other without incident

Waving from within the Tent of Darkness to the hoi polloi

Williams poked his head up

Blaming an "awkward and inaccurate payroll" system

CLEARED? Well, judge for yourself:

Administrator/Public Guardian Cleared by Auditor (Voice of OC)

.....Orange County Internal Auditor Dr. Peter Hughes has cleared County Administrator/Public Guardian John Williams of any wrongdoing for traveling to community college district conferences while on duty for the county.
.....In a May 18 letter to County Executive Officer Thomas G. Mauk, Hughes said Williams "complied with County payroll reporting policy for exempt employees."
.....Hughes blamed an "awkward and inaccurate payroll" system for putting Williams in the position of signing required time sheets while traveling to conferences for the South Orange County Community College District...
.....The payroll system cannot accurately reflect the bifurcation of duties where one individual has both elected and exempt employee components taking on two distinct job duties. The timekeeping system required John to account for 80 hours every two weeks to be paid as an exempt Department Head irrespective of time devoted to fulfilling his elected position.
.....The confusion was eliminated, the letter said, in 2007 when the Board of Supervisors named Williams ex officio Public Guardian.
.....The letter said for 40 years before that, Orange County had concurrent Public Administrators and Public Guardians, and the person who held the posts received two paychecks each payday

Oddly enough, though I sent the letter that caused the "audit," the above letter (report of findings) was not sent or forwarded to me. (It has been forwarded to others however.)

Pretty unprofessional.

Wacky, sunshiny day

LUNATIC. There’s a Santa Ana resident who thinks that Huntington Beach helicopters have been following him for nearly two years: Man claims helicopter harassment, wants $25 million

A Santa Ana man is asking the city of Huntington Beach for $25 million claiming that helicopters and planes are following him, according to city documents. ¶ Michael Lucchese, 57, filed a claim against the city Monday saying he is under "constant surveillance" by aircrafts that have followed him about 20 times a day since June 2008. The alleged harassment has caused him distress and has ended some of his relationships, the claim said.

I bet Lucchese is a Tea Partier. That reminds me,

WAGNERIAN. The unfailingly mediocre Matt Cunningham opines today that Donald Wagner is doing well in his Assembly race. “Wagner seemed to have commanded mucho momentum for the last several months,” says Cunningham. Too bad that Cunningham is so mediocre. But maybe he knows what he's talking about. Dunno

SCIENCE’S B-DAY. The always interesting Bob Park (What's New?) reminds us today that next Friday (May 28) will be Science’s birthday. It will be 2,595 years old:

On May 28, 585 B.C. the swath of a total solar eclipse passed over the Greek island of Miletus. The early Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus, alone understood what was happening. The world's first recorded freethinker, Thales rejected all supernatural explanations, and used the occasion to state the first law of science: every observable effect has a physical cause. The 585 B.C. eclipse is now taken to mark the birth of science, and Thales is honored as the father. What troubles would be spared the world if the education of every child began with causality?

Meanwhile, most Orange Countians have their doubts about global climate change.

Tom discusses tomorrow's commencement

KOCE’s Inside OC "is a half-hour program featuring interviews, discussions and field reports with government, business and community leaders; as well as pundits, celebrities and special guests."

Unrelated:
RAGHU MATHUR'S SALARY: 38th highest

.....Here’s a list (the link immediately below) of the highest salaried community college CEOs around the country. It’s from a public radio “marketplace” story—in January, I think. The data seems to come from a report done earlier by the Chronicle of Higher Education. ("100 Miles" passed this along to us.)

Community College CEOs Ranked by Total Compensation

.....Mathur is #38. They have him down for $276,870.00.
.....Los Rios Community College District’s Chancellor Brice W. Harris is down for $370,590.00
.....LA’s Marshall E. Drummond (former state chancellor) is down for $358,937.00
.....Rancho Santiago’s soon-to-retire Edward Hernandez Jr. is down for $340,988.00
.....Santa Monica College’s Chui L. Tsang makes $331,475.00
.....City College of San Francisco’s Don Q. Griffin makes $295,004.00
.....El Camino College’s Thomas M. Fallo gets $290,405.00

Don "Spanky" Wagner is peevish

.....Amusingly, Don Wagner is relying on my judgment in his efforts to persuade voters to vote for him. See the mailer above. (Click on it to make it larger.)

.....I believe that it is reasonable to infer from Don's message that he likes being described as an "anti-union, liberal-bashing, prayer-making right-winger."

.....His reasoning (in the blue strip) is shaky. That "liberals" (I am apparently one of those) describe Don in this way hardly establishes that Don will "do a great job" for right-wingers in the State Assembly. It's one thing throwing red meat at the camera once a month at CC board meetings; it is quite another pursuing legislation where compromise is unavoidable. And, so far, he's only made promises. 

.....But talk is cheap. Really cheap. On the reverse side of Don's mailer, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt is quoted as saying, "It's time we started electing principled conservatives to office, not politicians who will say anything to get elected."

.....My guess, though, is that Don more or less means what he says and will try to live up to his promises. 

.....That's the problem with Don, mostly. And I don't see him compromising much. How effective can such a guy be (for his right-wing constituency)?

.....Plus he likes to toss red meat at his Neanderthals. He embraces demagoguery, which, of course, is always a matter of degree. So far, I give Don a "C."

.....And he's peevish.

.....I call 'im Spanky. You know why.

.....One of Don’s opponents is Democrat Melissa Fox, who, according to R. Scott Moxley, recently argued that the Republican “no tax” pledge is a serious problem (OC Democrat Asks Republicans To Drop 'No New Tax' Pledge):

....."The problem with Sacramento has been the Republicans have just said 'no' to budgets and taken a blanket pledge of no new taxes," Fox said at a UC Irvine candidate forum this week. "They focus on saying 'no' to everything."
. . .
....."I ask that if it's a Republican who goes to Sacramento [after the November election], they don't take the 'no new taxes' pledge," she said at the candidate forum. "We need somebody up there who will play the game and bring money back to the district."

Don has responded to Fox’s suggestion:

.....In reaction to her request, conservative Republican candidate Don Wagner shook his head and rolled his eyes. Later, Wagner said, "I think [the state] is still spending way too much."

.....Ah, yes. Eye rolling. That’s Don all over.
.....According to Moxley,

Wagner … delighted a minority of the crowd when he encouraged California police officers to follow Arizona's new, controversial anti-illegal immigrant policy.

.....And there’s your red meat.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "Go now into summer"

Today is the final day of finals.

Tomorrow is commencement.

Monday, summer school begins.

But before that can happen, here's a poem about the end, a poem that imagines it is only the beginning.


First Year Teacher to His Students

by Gary J. Whitehead

Go now into summer, into the backs of cars,
into the black maws of your own changing,
onto the boardwalks of a thousand splinters,
onto the beaches of a hundred fond memories
in wait, where the sea in all its indefatigability
stammers at the invitation. Go to your vacation,

to the late morning cool of your basement rooms,
the honeysuckle evening of the first kiss, the first
dip and pivot, swivel and twist. Go to where
the clipper ships sail far upriver, where the salmon
swim in the clean, cool pools just to spawn.
Wake to what the spider unspools into a silver

dawn dripping with light. Sleep in sleeping bags,
sleep in sand, sleep at someone else's house
in a land you've never been, where the dreamers
dream in a language you only half understand.
Slip beneath the sheets, slide toward the plate,
swing beneath the bandstand where the secret

things await. Be glad, or be sad if you want,
but be, and be a part of all that marches past
like a parade, and wade through it or swim in it
or dive in it with your eyes open and your mind
open to wind, rain, long days of sun and longer
nights of city lights mixing on wet streets like paint.

Stay up so late that you forget day-of-the-week,
week-of-the-month, month-of-the-year of what
might be the best summer, the summer
best remembered by the scar, or by the taste
you'll never now forget of someone's lips,
and the trips you took---there, there, there,

where snow still slept atop some alpine peak,
or where the moon rose so low you could see
its tranquil seas...and all your life it'll be like
some familiar body that stayed with you one night,
one summer, one year, when you were young,
and how everywhere you walked, it followed.

*

The rope-a-dope dope

.....My dictionary defines “rope-a-dope” as follows:

a boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes, goading an opponent to throw tiring ineffective punches.

.....At about 6:00 p.m. today, someone wrote a comment to the recent “Williams” piece in the OC Voice that asserts that the timesheets are not really timesheets. They mean virtually nothing. (You can read the details at the end of the last post.)
.....Well, maybe. Certainly, that would explain Phil Greer’s (that’s Williams’ shyster lawyer) recent remark that the “discrepancy” situation that we’ve pursued is "much ado about nothing."
.....When I first read that, I recall thinking, “well, if it’s easily explained, why not explain it?” Why not put an end to the concerns?
.....Well, maybe this is just some kind of rope-a-dope.
.....If so, then, if the point was to protect Williams (by hurting his critics?), it would appear to have backfired badly. For it is reasonable to suppose that Vern Nelson would not have posted his damning overview of the scandal that is Williams’ county career were it not for the piece in “OC Voice” about the apparent timesheet discrepancy.
.....My guess: people in the know are aware that Williams is an incompetent and a buffoon whose antics are tolerated by virtue of the odd loyalty code of the OC Republican rat pack, soulless Fuentes division. But, for that kind of guy, the worst thing that can happen is people stopping to pay attention to him and his miserable record. It just stinks from beginning to end: outrageous travel expenses, cronyism, incompetence, inefficiency, stupid remarks, unfortunate associations, disastrously faithful official headshots, trails of drool, malapropisms, transparently idiotic explanations, an unseemly love of “pie” (see pic above), and so on.
.....The Orange Juice Blog ain’t much, but everybody around here in politics reads it. And today’s litany of Williams’ record of buffoonery and cheesy excess has got to hurt. Usually, one only catches glimpses of Bailiff Boy: his clown pants, his clown nose. His clown face. His clown toes.
.....Today’s OJ blog post brought it all together into one big horrible clown portrait, with “Republican” written across the top.
.....Maybe it was all rope-a-dope.
.....If so, Williams is the rope-a-dope dope.

Photos: Williams is "pleased as punch" about being served pie by Raghu "Toady" Mathur; Williams clowning around at the office; Tom Fuentes giving me a lethal look.