1971: Mount Whitney

     Our two-week family backpacking trip of the summer of 1971 ended with a climb to the top of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental U.S. (14,496 feet; see not below).
     The peak is extraordinary. The top is somewhat flat, but the flatness ends in spectacular sheer cliffs such as the one above. As I recall, there are many places from which one could (if one were inclined to) throw a rock that would land thousands of feet below.

     The trail to the peak starts at a very high pass (well, you've got to hike to that, too) and continues along a "sawtooth ridge." As I recall, the ridge is very narrow, and one encounters sheer cliffs on either side. It's a very unusual and unusually dangerous trail. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

         Annie, sitting atop one of the "teeth," I guess, of the sawtooth ridge that leads to the peak.

     Looking west, I think. The weather was mercurial, and sometimes bad, though it could have been worse. At one point, there was a thunder storm. 

     You don't want to be on a high peak during a thunder storm. We got the hell outa there pretty fast.

     The highest point is (or was) marked by this metal plate.

     Not sure about today, but forty years ago, there was a rock structure on the peak, constructed, I believe in 1909. I do believe that it was permitted to exist (most such structures were destroyed by law) as shelter from the typically bad weather on the peak.

     Looking to the east (the Owens Valley)

     Looking down to Guitar Lake, just to the west of the mountain.

     My dad was still using his old Retina camera, which he bought while a teenager in Germany (c. 1948).

     At a camp later on our trip. We look pretty dusty. 

     Shelter from the rain or hail.

     Sun-bathing at some falls along the way.

     Annie takes the plunge. (She met her future husband on this trip.)

     At the beach, down in San Felipe, Mexico, I think

     A contemporary photo of the "Smithsonian hut." Wikipedia explains that, in recent years, the estimated elevation of the mountain has been adjusted to over 14,500 ft.

My dad's Retina camera, purchased c. 1948. He used it exclusively until the mid-1970s. (It has a Schneider-Kreuznach 50 mm lens.)

Dead Man

One of my favorite films. With Johnny Depp and Robert Mitchum (1996)

Glenn Beck establishes his own ivory tower

Introducing Glenn Beck University (Inside Higher Ed)

     Glenn Beck, the controversial broadcaster, has decided to introduce his own education service: Beck University.
     "Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics," says the announcement on the Beck Web site….
. . .
     There is no tuition for Beck University, but to enroll, you must be an "Insider Extreme" subscriber to a variety of Beck products (for at least $6.26 a month).
     Two of the three original faculty members (all called professors) are not traditional academics, but one is: James. R. Stoner Jr., a professor of political science at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge….
. . .

     The circles in which Beck is popular tend to regularly criticize academe as dominated by the left. Stoner, while not disagreeing, suggested that the ability of the Beck team to identify one of its first scholars from within academe suggested that scholars don't all think alike. "There are a huge number of people who teach, and certain opinions that tend to be dominant in the academy, but there is diversity in the academy," he said.
. . .
     The arrival of Beck University has not gone unnoticed by his critics. …Mother Jones has come out with suggestions for additional courses Beck U. might offer, including "Semiotics of Tricornered Hats," "Wilde, Proust, and Other Homosexual Europeans," "Middle Eastern and Arab Cultures: What's Up With That?" and "Underwater Conspiracy Weaving."

• This morning, the OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano presents parodies of that familiar "watch for people running across the highway" sign. On top is Arellano's fave:

Writes Gustavo: "My all-time favorite parody, the logo of the Orange County Dream Team, the group of undocumented college students and their supporters who successfully hounded Loretta Sanchez into supporting the DREAM Act. This sign encapsulates their cause perfectly, plays off the original's notoriety, and is a divine chinga tu madre to those Know Nothings who say illegals never bother with education."

You say "potato," I say "spud"; let's call the whole thing awful

     Yesterday, I alluded to Vern Nelson’s post about San Juan Capistrano’s 4th of July “Tea Party.” According to Vern, only about 140 people (including vendors) were present at the event’s peak. [See correction below.]
     In her report (Tea Partiers gather in SJC Sunday), the OC Reg’s Cindy Yamanak arrived at a very different figure: 375.
     They can’t both be right.

     [UPDATE/CORRECTION: as an anonymous reader points out (see comment below), there were two distinct "Tea Party" events over the weekend, and this accounts for the apparent discrepancy regarding attendance. Yamanak was reporting on the Sunday (4th of July) event. Vern Nelson was reporting on the Saturday event. Both were at San Juan Capistrano. Both featured, among others, Don Wagner.
     The anonymous reader blames Vern and (OJ Blog's) Art Pedroza for the confusion, but it seems to me that the confusion is entirely on me, since Vern made clear (now that a reread his post) that the event he was discussing occurred on the 3rd, not the 4th. In his piece, Pedroza was clearly referring to the July 4 event. Sorry for the confusion.
     The reason I mentioned "this" event was Don Wagner's participation. Naturally, that Don attended and spoke at two, not just one, Tea Party events last weekend is a better indication that he embraces the benighted and disturbing "Tea Party" movement.]

     The Reg has a picture of the crowd (which looks small in each picture I've seen) getting all solemn and quiet during the “invocation” of the Lord (above).
     Who do you suppose led that?
     Why yes, it was our own trustee Don Wagner!

Don serves Teabonics to the moronics

     The Orange Juice blog’s musical progressive, Vern Nelson, posted today about San Juan Capistrano’s Fourth of July “Tea Party.” [CORRECTION: Vern posted about a "Tea Party" event that occurred in SJC a day earlier--on Saturday.]
     Vern reports that what he experienced today was “darkly fascinating.” Check out his piece.
     One of the Tea People (or, anyway, one of the purveyors of tea) is our own trustee Don Wagner, who is running for State Assembly. Reports Vern:

     For the first time I was able to hear [him] speak. His heavily Glenn Beck-influenced history lesson, centered on tough-guy Jefferson quotes and standard calls-to-arms-against-tyranny, was most notable for his innovative use of the word “encrosion” – apparently a Jabberwocky-style conflation of “encroachment” and “erosion” – as in “their encrosion of our borders.”
     Or was it just “Teabonics,” as Gus Ayer calls it?
     One theme sounded in nearly every speech was the eerie similarity between the circumstances which drove our Founding Fathers to rebellion against the British, to what we patriots are facing now under President Obama and Speaker Pelosi.
     As I observed to my traveling companion, “That is so true! Remember all that access to healthcare King George tried to foist on the poor colonists?”
     Snarked he in response, “Yeah, they must have felt like right fools, having elected him after he campaigned on that issue!”

     Well, OK, if you wanted to know what Don squawked about at this Tea thing, that doesn’t tell you much, but you should read the rest of Vern’s piece anyway. It provides a pretty good picture of who these local Tea People are. They ain't much.
     Evidently, at its peak, the crowd today comprised one hundred “patriots,” including (by Vern's count) about a dozen rednecks. (Not included: 40 vendors.)
     That’s just pathetic. Maybe Lindsey Graham is right: this Tea Party thing is just gonna peter out for lack of coherence--or too much Sleepytime.
     But they’re not over yet, and our Don has decided to serenade ‘em while they're still hopped up.
     That’s too bad. Don’s a smart guy. It’s sad to see him wooing a bunch of illiterate, racist morons.

Baja California, late 1970

The beach of San Felipe, on the western shore of the Sea of Cortez,

nearly forty years ago.

(Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

This (U.S. military) amphibious vehicle was used for shrimp fishing.

Don't know what the sub was for

Fabulous beaches, warm water, gorgeous sand dunes

I was fifteen at the time. Ray, at right, would have been nine.

Downtown San Felipe

Church in the background

Yes, we really did drive through the sand in a '65 Lincoln Continental—the kind with the clever suicide doors.

One time, on the freeway, Ray reached over and opened the door (in back). It flew open with great force—cuz it was a suicide door! I caught Ray (he wasn't in a seat belt--maybe we didn't have them; don't remember). The kid never stopped squirming around. Sheesh.

I've simplified the map to match my fifteen-year-old concept of Baja

"Modern" San Felipe: a different kettle of fish entirely

The quiet transformation of American higher ed

Tenure, RIP: What the Vanishing Status Means for the Future of Education (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     Some time this fall, the U.S. Education Department will publish a report that documents the death of tenure. ¶ Innocuously titled "Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2009," the report won't say it's about the demise of tenure. But that's what it will show. ¶ Over just three decades, the proportion of college instructors who are tenured or on the tenure track plummeted: from 57 percent in 1975 to 31 percent in 2007….

     Yep, in many sectors of higher ed, essentially, tenured professors will grow older and retire, and as they leave, by degrees, tenure will leave with them. As we all know, for many years, instruction has trended toward reliance on adjunct (part-timer) instructors, who have few rights and little authority.
     So it's a movement toward de facto top-down-itude, and that will continue, only at a faster pace.
     Meanwhile, the for-profit institutions are donning ever-brighter clown pants and ever-snidelier grifter smiles; they'll sell more and more miracle online snake oil. They're luring more of the "customer base"—those millions of marks with their expensive loan money, made possible by Uncle Sam, a clueless shill, and the ultimate mark.
     It doesn't look good for American higher ed.