Muldoon is forced to correct his candidate's statement

     As you know, Don Wagner’s tenure as SOCCCD trustee is coming to a close. His last meeting will be in November, only three months away!
     Two men have declared their candidacy for the Area 2 office: former assistant DA and bankruptcy attorney Kevin Muldoon and educator “TJ” Prendergast.
     A while back, we posted both men’s candidate’s statements. Oddly, Muldoon, who has already been endorsed by the OC GOP, described himself as a “Business Owner/Educator” in his statement.
     We get the "business owner" part. But educator? There is nothing about his various biographies that explains that assertion. In what sense is he an educator?
     Earlier today, a reliable source called me and told me the following:
     He had called Muldoon and asked him about his “educator” claim.
     “Yes, I am an educator,” said Muldoon.
     “Yeah? Who do you teach for?”
     To make a long story short, Mr. Muldoon eventually stated that he teaches for the Lord. He is, it turns out, a Sunday School teacher. That's why he gets to call himself an "educator."
     My friend then suggested to Muldoon that his claim wouldn’t pass muster with the Registrar. Muldoon assured him that he had consulted an attorney, and it would.

     Well, according to my friend, Mr. Muldoon’s competitor, Mr. Prendergast, then contacted the OC Registrar of Voters and inquired into the koshertude of Muldoon’s "educator" claim. Evidently, the Registrar judged that Mr. Muldoon’s claim is south of kosher, and so now, I’m told, his “educator” self-description is to be deleted from his candidate’s statement.
     I just checked (here). It has indeed been deleted.
     Oh my.
     I wonder if Muldoon's Sunday School lessons ever cover the topic of lying?

On "t*ts" and "teats"

     No doubt you’ve heard all about the Alan Simpson “tit” story:

Alan Simpson: Social Security Is 'A Milk Cow With 310 Million Tits' (HuffPost)

     Among others, NOW has called for Simpson to step down from that Commission. Then AARP piled on, calling his remark “offensive.”
     Now, don’t get me wrong. Ever since the Clarence Thomas hearings, I’ve considered Alan Simpson an asshole.
     But the reaction to his “milkcow” remark baffles me.
     I’m not referring to the proposition that his remark was used to convey. He’s against Social Security; I get it. So he’s a Republican. That’s objectionable, I guess, but nothing to squawk about.
     The big reaction seems more about his way of expressing the proposition—i.e., his use of the word “tits.”
     Simpson's from Wyoming and likes to express ideas in a folksy manner. I don’t especially care for folksy blather, but it isn’t intrinsically objectionable.
     So he went off the rails a little bit. Shoulda said “teats” but said “tits.”
     Teats, tits. –They’re practically the same word!
     My dictionary defines “teat” as follows:

a nipple of the mammary gland of a female mammal, from which the milk is sucked by the young.

     And “tit”:

a woman's breast or nipple (vulgar)

     But then my dictionary lists phrases with “tit” in it, including this one:

suck the hind tit  informal: receive less of something than others who are competing for it.

     OK, now correct me if I’m wrong, but the “tit” of “suck the hind tit” is in fact a teat. You don’t really have “hind tits” on a woman—not in my experience. This “hind tit” business is about cows, man. Not women.
     So sometimes “tits” means “teats."
     Thus, even though Simpson is an asshole, I’m gonna defend the guy with regard to this whole “tit” brouhaha.
     The correct response to Simpson’s remark is not: "You said 'tits'! My God!" No, it is this: “So, Al baby, what’s wrong with a cow havin’ all those tits—er, teats?”
     Nothin’.

Goofy "Kaplan" deal nixed

California Community Colleges End Controversial Deal With Kaplan U. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     California's community-college system has canceled a controversial agreement that would have allowed students at some colleges to earn credit for discounted online courses at Kaplan University.
     The 112-campus community-college system is severely overcrowded, and officials saw the November agreement as a way to make it easier for students to get classes they need. For Kaplan, the agreement promised a boost of credibility and a ready pool of new students, who would be able to take certain online courses at a 42-percent discount.
     But at a time of intense scrutiny of for-profit colleges, the arrangement between the nation's largest public-college system and a prominent for-profit college drew complaints from faculty groups and others. Critics argued the system was endorsing Kaplan, and they said it could be difficult for students who transferred to the state's public universities to receive credit for Kaplan courses.
     The agreement was more an idea than reality: In nine months, few colleges, if any, had cleared Kaplan courses for students to take for credit under the deal. In a letter last week canceling the agreement, a community-college official said the community colleges had failed to secure agreements with California State University and the University of California to automatically accept the Kaplan courses.
. . .
     Some who had criticized the agreement cheered the decision to cancel it, saying that even at a discount, the Kaplan courses were a bad deal for students. Community-college courses in California cost $26 per credit hour, the lowest in the country, while Kaplan's discounted courses would have cost about $216 per credit hour.
     "It certainly is odd that a system that is so proud of its affordability and low fees would encourage students to pay $216 a credit," said Deborah Frankle Cochrane, program director at the Institute for College Access and Success.
     The agreement was a smart business move by Kaplan, said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, a lobbying group for the community-college system. The company intended to use its discounted price for online courses as a loss leader to make students familiar with Kaplan, he said….

Special interests

Community Colleges Want Changes in Proposed 'Gainful Employment' Rule (Chronicle of Higher Education)

The American Association of Community Colleges is urging its members to weigh in on the Education Department's "gainful employment" proposal, warning that the draft rule could "negatively affect some certificate programs." In a letter sent to community-college leaders today, George R. Boggs, the association's president, acknowledged that the proposed rule—which would cut off federal aid to institutions whose students carry high debt-to-income ratios and have low loan-repayment rates—would have a "limited" impact on community colleges, but added: "Our goal in shaping these regulations is not just to ensure that community colleges remain eligible for federal aid, but also that clearing the bar will be simple and straightforward as possible." The letter suggests that colleges ask the department to clarify that the rule would not apply to one-year certificate programs that lead to associate degrees and to exempt from the rule programs in which fewer than 35 percent of students borrow federal loans, among other changes.

300 Million Downloads From iTunes U (Inside Higher Ed)

Apple released data on Tuesday demonstrating the dramatic growth of iTunes U. In three years of operations, downloads have topped 300 million. More than 800 colleges and universities have active sites, with more than 350,000 audio and video files posted.

From the archives

My little brother Ray, who died in 2001, was born in '61. Smart, funny, extremely creative. But wild.

I'll leave it at that.

These old pictures seem to present a perfect little guy, and that's what he was.

Ray was by far the best singer in the family. Kind of a crazy player, though, like me.

Loved kids. We've always suspected that a certain kid of a certain former girlfriend was his, but dunno. But he sure did love playing with that kid. Had lots of serious girlfriends, but he never seemed to drop out of their lives. When he died, lots of 'em came out of the woodwork.

Loved animals. Rescued lots of 'em. Two of 'em--Paco and Max--ended up with my folks. They became beloved family pets, along with all those cats that Ray left.

In the early 80s, he decided to become a Marine. At first, he flourished there. Spent time in the Philippines and "the Rock." Don't know where else.

I think he was always proud of his time with the Corps.

I came across these pins kept in a Manila folder.

I found poetry too.

And crazed essays.

Ray was an avid hang-glider pilot. He once flew above Mount Whitney, which is crazy, of course.
He invented an elegant device that helped fliers determine wind direction for landings, but he could never get his act together to market the idea. Plenty of interest, though.
Once, I went with him to Mt. Laguna down in San Diego County to watch 'em fly. Took this pic.

Here are some odd documents that I came across. First: my grandmother's green card, I guess.

Well, anyway, it is green. And it's a card.

Evidently, I purchased this fishing license in 1970. I would have been 15 years old.

Here's a curious shot of my mother and my grandmother sitting on the hood of my parents' Ford in Niagara Falls, Canada, 1953.

This is my dad, circa 1950.

One of my sister Annie's paintings from the 80s, I think.

That's her sense of humor all right.

"It's a political decision"

     Remember Republican challenger to Rep. Loretta Sanchez Tan Nguyen? Back in 2006, during the campaign, his senior political advisor was our own Tom Fuentes, SOCCCD trustee.
     But then the Nguyen campaign sent that infamous letter. It was kind of a "Fuentes" thing to do.
     After that, Tom got real scarce.
     Well, the case against Nguyen is still in the courts:

Prosecutor calls congressional candidate a liar (OC Register)

     Former congressional candidate Tan Nguyen was behind a controversial campaign letter to Latino voters from start to finish, federal prosecutor Gregory Staples told jurors Tuesday in opening statements during Nguyen's trial for obstruction of justice.
     Nguyen faces charges of lying to investigators about the letter and asking an uninvolved campaign worker to take responsibility for the mailing sent out to support his failed 2006 challenge of Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana.. . .
     The Spanish-language letter, sent on a letterhead that mimicked the name of a prominent immigration reform group, was mailed to 14,000 voters with Spanish last names who'd been born abroad....
     That mailing had warned that "emigrados" could go to prison if they voted. "Emigrado" is ambiguous in Spanish. It can generally mean an emigrant – who may or may not be a U.S. citizen eligible to vote – or specifically a non-citizen in the country with a green card.
     The letter also warned that "a new computerized system" would track new voters and could be accessed by "organizations that oppose immigration.". . .
     During the investigation, Nguyen said he had read an initial draft of the letter in English but had no further involvement with it. He told investigators it was paid for and sent out by a long-time friend and campaign helper, Mark Nguyen, without his knowledge.
     Steward told jurors that the idea for the letter initiated with campaign advisor Roger Rudman.
     But Staples promised jurors he would produce a series of emails showing Tan Nguyen making decisions about the letter and the letterhead, and ordering the database of voters the letter was sent to.
     Staples described a meeting with Rudman, Mark Nguyen and Tan Nguyen, in which Rudman instructed Mark Nguyen on sending out the letter.
     "'Tan doesn't need to know about it,'" Rudman said, according to Staples. "Then both the defendant and Roger Rudman laughed."
     According to prosecutors, Tan Nguyen initially blamed the mailer on 23-year-old office manager Chi Dinh and asked her to take responsibility.
     Dinh was engaged to Mark Nguyen at the time, and they subsequently married. Both are scheduled to testify for the prosecution.
     "Why are you throwing my fiancé under the bus," Mark Nguyen asked Tan Nguyen, according to Staples. "What (Tan Nguyen) said was, 'It's a political decision.'"….

Big, pious apple at the rotten orchard

     Looks like the king of for-profits is claiming that it will be good from now on:

A New Leaf at Phoenix? (Inside Higher Ed)

    When it comes to marketing and recruiting, the University of Phoenix is turning over a new leaf, or so its executives said at a briefing here Monday.
    “We’re doing what we think is right,” said Gregory W. Cappelli, the co-chief executive officer of Apollo Group, which owns Phoenix and other for-profit colleges and schools. The company, he said, is shifting “from a recruiting mentality and culture into one of a long-term relationship” between potential students and recruiters, who’ve been renamed "counselors.”
    The briefing was framed as a discussion about Apollo’s position paper,“Higher Education at a Crossroads,” which touts the for-profit sector as playing an essential role in President Obama’s access and completion goals. But the scrutiny facing the sector, and Apollo’s attempts to push back, dominated the hour or so that Capelli, his co-CEO Chas Edelstein and Joseph L. D’Amico, president and chief operating officer – along with a cache of public relations people – spent with a few reporters.
    In the debate over the role of for-profit higher education, where the good apples/bad apples dichotomy has come to dominate discussion (though some Congressional Democrats have said they see something resembling a rotten orchard), Apollo is actively working to brand itself as an organization chastened and determined to do better, especially after being identified in the Government Accountability Office's "secret shopper" investigation of recruiting practices.
. . .
    In September, Phoenix will stop compensating recruiters based on the number of students they enroll and whether those numbers are on an upward trajectory, criteria that accounted for 32 percent of their evaluations. Instead, performance will be judged entirely on factors such as teamwork and attitude when interacting with students.
    “The purpose of marketing is to inform,” Cappelli said. Edelstein chimed in: “We feel there is an imperative … [in] reaching as many as we can who can benefit” from higher education.
. . .
    Though the executives wouldn’t say quite say that they were trying to frame the company as the good in a sea of bad, that was very much the subtext of what Edelstein and other Apollo executives told a small group of reporters. Going forward, Apollo seemed to be pledging, we’re going to do our best to be honest with you, our students, Congress, everyone. “Transparency is very important,” Edelstein said. “We’re trying to lead the industry.”….