Somebody give Scott Baugh a dictionary!

      It’s another banner day for Neanderthal (i.e., Orange) County.

     LOCAL REPUB LEADERS DON'T KNOW WHAT "INTENTIONALLY" MEANS. Apegate (aka Chimpgate) opened a new and perhaps final chapter today. According to the OC Reg,

     The Orange County GOP official who sent an email portraying President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee was censured this morning by the county party’s executive committee in a 12-2 vote.

     The censure of Marilyn Davenport, an elected member of the county GOP’s governing Central Committee resulted from the finding that she violated bylaw provisions prohibiting action that “intentionally cause(s) the embarrassment” of the party. It is the strongest step the county party could take under its bylaws. According to state law, it was not an offense that qualified for her removal from the committee.

Baugh

     She intentionally caused the party embarrassment? That means that she acted, knowing that her action would cause embarrassment to the party.

     Does anyone believe that? Don’t think so.

     So either these local Repubs don’t know what “intentionally” means, or they’re just making shit up—that Davenport had an intention that, obviously, she did not have—for whatever reason. Um, what could that be?

     Luckily, Party Chair Scott Baugh explained the committee’s action:

     “She was censured because she knew the email she was sending out was controversial,” Baugh said after this morning’s vote. “After it went out, she downplayed it as a joke. Instead of owning up to her error, she immediately sought to blame others. ¶ “That resulted in a three-day barrage of negative media attention.”

     OK, there is evidence that Davenport passed around an email that she knew was controversial. Among her many goofy remarks in the days after the email surfaced, that admission was included, although, as I recall, she also said she refrained from sending the email to those among her friends she thought would be upset by it. But knowing that it is controversial and knowing that it will cause controversy and embarrassment are two very different things. Perhaps she knew that it was controversial. We have no reason to think she knew that it would cause a major controversy and that the controversy would embarrass the party.

     The Reg reminds us that, at first, Davenport was defiant, and generally pointed a finger of blame at others. A couple of days later, she issued an evidently sincere apology.

     According to Baugh (says the Reg), thing then took a turn for the worse:

“Her subsequent press conference and media tour only served to reignite the controversy,” he said.

Davenport

     Well, I guess that’s true. But reigniting controversy is not the same thing as intentionally causing embarrassment. Davenport reignited controversy because she is clueless--she clearly has trouble understanding what was offensive about her email--and she is not ready for prime time, what with her daffy loose-cannon allusions to her birther beliefs.

     According to the Reg, Davenport’s handler, Tim Whitacre, declared that Baugh and Co. had misinterpreted the GOP bylaws. How so, we’re not told.

     Whitacre takes a swipe at Baugh:

     “Once again, Baugh and company totally misuse the bylaws to extract their ounce of blood from their target,” said Whitacre, who unsuccessfully challenged Baugh for the chairmanship in January. “I think he perceives this as sending a message to people to not step out of line and that it deflects criticism of his leadership. But this censure means nothing coming from him.”

     The Reg notes that GOP anti-Muslim poster girl Deborah Pauly  and Zonya Townsend voted against censure. Natch. 

Baugh: "a three-day barrage of negative media attention."

     MORE "SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE" ACTION. The OC Reg also reports that a “local activist” in Los Alamitos—J.M. Ivler—objected Monday night to the City Council’s practice of beginning meetings with “prayers that address ‘heavenly father.’”
     According to Ivler, the prayer is pushing Christianity in a setting that is supposed to be “secular,” what with our nation’s embrace of the principle of separation of church and state:

     "We are not a Christian nation any more than we are an Islamic one, we are a secular nation," Ivler said. ¶ "I understand that you may be people of faith, and that you may rely on that faith to lead you in your decisions on the dais," he told the council during Monday's oral communications. "But public displays of piety specifically those that follow Christian dogma do not belong in this secular hall. In doing so you are teaching our children a lesson that something that is very wrong is okay and the law is to be flaunted [sic]. And our children are learning that wrong lesson."

     OC Reg readers lived up to their reputation with such comments as

• If you don't like what is going on in the room just leave the room, but don't make everyone stop what they are doing because you don't like it...
• J.M.Mer [?] should remove himself from the chamber if prayer offends him. I do believe the majority still rules.
   As far as I know America is still a Christian Country, but does not condemn other religions nor deprive them from practicing what they believe. So why does he want to deprive the Christens??
• I hope this idiot gives up all their money since it says "In God We Trust". [?]

Teach methods, not beliefs

A prominent new OC billboard

     Our pal Matt Cocker reports that “An Orange County secular group has put up a billboard at a busy Huntington Beach corner informing atheists they do not walk alone in their lack of faith.” (See above.)
     Evidently, the group seeks to “spread[…] the idea of non-theism.”
     Do you suppose they just want to create a fun club of like-minded atheists?

     I don’t like the idea of promoting beliefs, including my own beliefs. I like promoting methods—such as scientific method and good, logical thinking, sans fallacies.
     Teach that. And where it goes, it goes.
     Be not afraid.

Not sure what to do about this "big emotional thing"

Over here! Look at me!

Why They Cheered (Inside Higher Ed)

     When President Obama announced at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday that U.S. military agents had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, a crowd gathered outside the White House – largely composed of students from Washington-area colleges such as George Washington and American Universities – erupted in cheers.
     At the same time, students from Columbia and New York Universities and the City University of New York filled out the crowds at Ground Zero and Times Square in New York, and rallies popped up across the country at institutions such as the Universities of Michigan, Delaware, and Texas at Austin, and at Iowa State University.
     Penn State University, Wake Forest University, the U.S. Military Academy, Radford University, and the State University of New York at Brockport were some of the other institutions that saw impromptu rallies. The crowds sang patriotic songs, waved American flags, and engaged in the type of revelry more commonly associated with football and basketball national championships. Many of the events drew hundreds of students – far more than turn out for many scheduled and promoted campus events….
     The celebratory reaction among college students – counter to the stereotypes of campuses as so far left-leaning that they are always anti-military – raised questions about the current generation of college students and why so many reacted the way they did, and several experts on student behavior and attitudes were surprised by the spontaneous throngs. Many researchers point to 9/11 and say it had a broad impact on how young people view the world; others say it is the nature of the Millennial generation to want to gather at major historic moments….
     Some researchers and students said Sunday night's news helped bring closure to one of the most significant events in the lives of many college students, and evoked emotions that students might not have even recognized days earlier.
     Suzanne Goodney Lea, a fellow with the Interactivity Foundation and a former professor at Trinity Washington University whose scholarly focus was violence in America, said the events of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred when many current undergraduates were between the ages of 8 and 12, an impressionable time in a child's life.
     “It was an event that really came to define the world that students live in today,” Lea said. “At the same time that they were becoming aware of their own vulnerability, they learned that their country was vulnerable in some significant way.”
     Alexander Astin, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles who has studied college students' attitudes, said that he was initially surprised to see college students celebrating violence, something they traditionally oppose.
     But he said students' actions on Sunday can actually be described by the traditional narrative. "College students are generally idealistic," he said. "To them, bin Laden represented a cold-blooded killer, a menace to society in general. Because of that, they're delighted to see him removed from the scene."
. . .

     That might be the reason that individuals have been giving for the last 36 hours, but it does not necessarily sync with other work that has been done on student views. Sunday's events came as something of a shock to Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, who has conducted various studies on students’ attitudes.
     In a recent set of focus groups designed to study the effects of 9/11 on college students, Levine said he and a colleague found that few students named 9/11 when asked about the most important events that had occurred in their lifetimes. Students were more likely to cite events that resulted from 9/11, such as the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The widespread adoption of the Internet was the most commonly cited.
     Levine attributed students' responses to their hope that bin Laden's death could signal progress in America's military efforts in the Middle East and the need for good news at a time when bad news, economic and geopolitical, seems constant. “I think it’s more a matter of patriotism,” Levine said. "This has been a matter of frustration for the country, and now it is resolved.”
     Before bin Laden's capture, most Americans had given up hope that he would be caught.
. . .

     "It seems like the celebration at the White House was in part an acknowledgment that something was done by the executive branch that was unambiguously positive," Astin said. "People want to believe in the government and that it does the right thing and is competent."
     Another theory is that Sunday’s news was the type of historic event, like national championships or elections, around which young people want to come together in significant locations.
     Angus Johnston, a professor at the City University of New York who runs a blog on student activism, drew parallels to the verdict of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. Both events captured the public imagination and are likely to be recalled many times throughout the lives of those who lived through them.
. . .
     But just because they were clustered together in public places doesn’t mean they all felt the same way, Johnson said.
     “This is one of the times when you’ve got 300 people gathered in a room and 100 people chanting ‘USA! USA!’; it looks like 300 people are chanting,” Johnson said. “But what you’re not seeing is that people are figuring it out in their own way.”
     During a campus conversation at Boston University on Monday afternoon, students recalled traveling to Boston Commons because they wanted to be with other people, but not necessarily because they wanted to celebrate.
     “I was really struck by the fact that it felt like a lot of people recognized that this was a big emotional thing but they were not sure what to do about it,” said one student.
     Professors said there would probably be more formal discussions like the one at Boston University in the days to come, with students trying to understand why they reacted the way they did, as well as what bin Laden's death means for their own lives.

For-profits (including Argosy) targeted by Justice Department

U.S. Government to Join in Whistle-Blower Lawsuit Against For-Profit College (Chronicle of Higher Education)

In a rare move, the U.S. Department of Justice will join in a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by a former employee of a college owned by the Education Management Corporation, which is accused of illegally obtaining federal student aid by paying its admissions recruiters commissions based on the number of students they enrolled. The company, which operates Argosy University, South University, Brown Mackie Colleges, and the Art Institutes, also disclosed on Monday that it expected several states to join the lawsuit as well. According to Bloomberg News, the suit, which is still under court seal in Pittsburgh, is different from another whistle-blower suit filed against the company by a former South University employee.

     Argosy, eh? The coldly remembered (at the SOCCCD) former Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur has long been associated with that dodgy for-profit. He is presently the chair of the School of Education at Argosy University in Orange.

These are not my people

The usual OC morons shouting the usual idiocies (“U.S.A, number 1!”) down at the Orange plaza last night

These are not my people no
These are not my people
And it looks like the end my friend
Gotta' get in the wind my friend

—Joe South’s "These are not my people" (1968)

     I happened to be in downtown Orange the day we attacked Iraq back in 1991. I witnessed essentially the same thing then: people driving around the plaza, honking, waving flags, shouting stupid things. USA, number 1!
     That night (or about then) I saw Country Joe and the Fish at the old Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. I was appalled when someone in the band (Barry Melton?) started telling anti-Arab jokes.
     Good grief.

     PENN STATE: Onward State, an online student newspaper, described the rally as celebratory, but noted that some inadvertent damage had occurred: "A dozen students were seen jumping vigorously on an unfortunate Audi car parked near Cedarbrook apartments ... that is, until the roof of the car started to cave in, sending the partygoers sliding off in all directions like an avalanche." (Chronicle of Higher Education)

MEANWHILE:

Inside "Westphal v. Wagner," Part 1: Judge Gandhi glowers at Nancy Padberg and crew!

Feb. 17: scene of settlement conference

     NOW that “Westphal v. Wagner” is history, I can report the interesting—and sometimes amazing—events that occurred in the course of this case.
     The lawsuit was filed way back in November of 2009. It was settled 17 months later, at the end of March, 2011. For today, I’ll describe a relatively recent episode—starting this January.

THE JANUARY RULING

     Late in January, 2011, we received a mixed ruling from Superior Court Judge Gary Klausner, a conservative, seventy-year-old Bush appointee and ex-Marine. (Back in the 90s, he drew attention when he set S&L kingpin John Keating's bail at $5 million. More recently, he has played the heavy in some high profile cases.)

Judge Klausner

     With such a judge, we expected to have trouble, and we were not disappointed.
     On the one hand, Klausner held that Chancellor Raghu Mathur’s notorious “Jesus” slideshow (in 2009) and Don Wagner’s obnoxious scholarship awards ceremony rant (in 2008) were indeed unconstitutional. Heck, the judge even issued an injunction against the district that required that it comply with its policy according to which prayers can’t be hostile and sectarian!
     Team Westphal viewed the latter as quite a bonus.
     On the other hand, Klausner held that the board’s non-sectarian invocations are not offered with a Constitutionally impermissible purpose, effect, or entanglement. —That is, the board's generic prayers are kosher, as it were.
     We didn’t think much of his reasoning to that conclusion.
     Naturally, we could appeal the latter decision. And we knew we had a good chance of prevailing in the 9th Circuit.

Judge Jay Gandhi

     But, in the meantime, the district indicated a willingness to pursue a settlement of the case (a settlement conference had already been in the works), and that process would be handled by Magistrate Judge Jay Gandhi (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California), formerly of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in Orange County. (The thirty-nine-year-old Gandhi is somewhat special; he's quite young and he’s only the second Indian-American federal judge in the country’s history.)
     And so we prepared for the settlement conference, to occur at Judge Gandhi’s digs, way up in the U.S. District Court Building in downtown LA, right next to the famous LA Courthouse.
     Judge Gandhi chose the date of February 17th at 10:00 a.m., a Thursday. That was pretty inconvenient for most of us. Nevertheless, he made clear that all plaintiffs and defendants would be required to attend, and anyone who failed to attend would be sanctioned by the court!

THE FEB 17 SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE

John Vogt

     Our attorneys made every effort to get all of us to the session, but one among us, a former Saddleback student, now lived in the Bay Area, and she couldn’t afford the trip. So, on the 17th, six of us—all but one of our number—attended the conference, held in Judge Gandhi’s courtroom. We were accompanied by AUSCS legal director, Ayesha Kahn, and local attorney, Chris Murphy (of Mayer Brown).
     And the defendants? Well, defendants were represented by two attorneys (John Vogt and his partner) with the famously pricey firm Jones Day, which had defended former Sheriff Mike Carona at his corruption trial. (Carona's now in federal prison, natch.)
     But, in Judge Gandhi’s courtroom on the 17th, only ONE of the defendants was present: trustee Nancy Padberg.
     Uh-oh.
     When the judge entered, he saw what there was to see. He looked at Nancy's tiny crew. He glowered. He sat down. He said, “What is it about ‘you are required to attend the hearing’ that is unclear?" (Something like that.)
     He stared silently at Padberg and her two shiny attorneys. He was pissed. Seriously pissed.
     He lectured at us (well, mostly at Padberg and Co.). He threatened sanctions.
     This went on for a while.

Chris Murphy

     In the end, Gandhi decided to go ahead with the “conference,” though it would not include the usual initial session with everyone in the room. Nope. He separated the two sides. He left us—the plaintiffs—in his courtroom. He sent Padberg and Co. to another courtroom down the hall. For the rest of the day—this went on until maybe 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.—Judge Gandhi would spend two hours or so haranguing one side, and then he’d walk down the hall to the other courtroom and harangue the other side. It was a kind of shuttle diplomacy—er, shuttle hectory.
     “Be realistic!” “You must be kidding!” “You’re dreaming!” –Such were the remarks (more or less) that punctuated our time—and no doubt the other side’s time—with Judge Jay Gandhi.
     Gandhi was smart and extremely focused. And he was ruthless. He’d browbeat us. Sometimes, when one among us wouldn’t bend sufficiently to his urgings, he’d seem to be disgusted; he'd head for the door, declaring that his time was being wasted. “I’m calling this whole thing off,” he’d roar.
     That always worked. Somebody would cave, or somebody would promise to make the person who needed to cave cave. And then they’d cave.
     It was amazing.
     At the end of the day, we had a tentative settlement. I was pretty pleased with it, but some of us were not. Their grimness prevailed, at least in my Chrysler as we rolled home for Orange County on that long freeway ride. I don’t think anybody said a single word.

Ayesha Kahn

TROUBLE HERDING CATS

     But "Westphal v. Wagner" wasn’t over yet. Far from it! After all the Sturm und Drang we—i.e., those of us who bothered to show up—endured on the 17th, when the board met eleven days later—at its scheduled February 28 board meeting—guess what happened!
     They failed to ratify the agreement!
     D’oh!
     We were pissed. Judge Gandhi, too. This wouldn't have happened had defendants showed up for the settlement conference like they were supposed to.
     It was back to the drawing board.
     The next month would be yet another wild ride.

     (To be continued….)

Don Wagner's obnoxious Scholarship Award Ceremony comments

What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine? (Rebel Girl)

Magic Tricks or How On his 9th birthday, in his Public School Classroom, Rebel Girl's Son is Told He is Going to Hell by his Substitute Teacher 

     Thursday was the little guy’s ninth birthday and despite her packed schedule, Rebel Girl made time to drive home for an intimate celebratory dinner before heading back to the college. 

     They had celebrated big earlier: a Saturday party of seven nine-year-olds and twin 12-year-old party crashers; a birthday morning breakfast of homemade pancakes and presents including a year’s subscription to Mad magazine. Good times. 

     The Little Guy spent the day at his school, the little school where Red Emma volunteers every other week to read in class. Rebel Girl imagined that the Little Guy’s class would have sung to him the special birthday song they sing at such times. She asked him while driving home. 

     No, he said. His regular teacher, much beloved, was absent. In her place was the much-admired occasional substitute, let’s call him Mr. Sub. He didn’t know about birthdays. 

     “But he did do a magic trick,” said the Little Guy. 

     The Little Guy is a big fan of magic. Last year the family celebrated his birthday at the world famous Magic Castle. 

     “That must have been fun,” replied Rebel Girl. “What kind of magic?” 

     The Little Guy, a fine storyteller, proceeded to tell a doozie involving Jesus and his devoted apostle Paul who traveled the world after Jesus’ death talking about Jesus to the unbelievers who often persecuted him. One time Paul was imprisoned and challenged by the guards to construct a cross from a single piece of paper. The guards gave him no scissors (it was, after all, a few years A.D.) and a stack of paper. 

     Where do prison guards at that time acquire paper anyway, Rebel Girl wondered. Office Depot? Kinko's? But no matter. After all, verisimilitude is not the goal of this storyteller - magic is. 

     The guards instructed Paul that he must create the cross by folding and tearing the paper only once. That was, apparently, the "magic trick."

 

     Rebel Girl imagines the scene now – Mr. Sub with the kids gathered around folding and tearing until he made the miraculous cross. He asked for volunteers and the Little Guy (who Reb has been encouraging to participate more in class and who is an origami aficionado) volunteered. 

     Mr. Sub finished the tale by producing the cross and then, from the scraps of discarded paper, unfolding selected letters which formed two words: first LIFE and then HELL. As the third grade volunteers held up each letter as directed, Mr. Sub told the class that those who believe in Jesus Christ will have eternal LIFE and those who don’t will go to HELL. 

     The Little Guy said that the girls in the class squealed at the mention of hell. The Little Guy held one of the L's. 

     Now Rebel Girl doesn’t say this often but she is not a Christian. Neither is her husband. Neither is her son, the Little Guy. She says this now because she feels attacked, assaulted. She realizes that her reluctance to say this fact aloud is related to a sense of shame she has carried all these years, as if her lack of faith, and, in particular lack of Christian faith, somehow reduced her value as a person. That sense of shame has lingered, despite everything she has learned about herself and the world. 

     On Thursday April 28, on his ninth birthday, her son, the Little Guy, stood in front of his classmates in his public school and was told by a teacher that he, as an unbeliever, was going to hell. 

     Rebel Girl asked the Little Guy a couple questions: How’d you feel when he said that? Do you think he should have done that? The Little Guy had mixed feelings. He likes Mr. Sub after all. But yes, he knew it was wrong. Yes, he felt sort of bad. No, he didn’t say anything. If he did, he would feel worse, that nine year old holding a piece of hell in hands. 

    He didn’t want to say anything, not his truth, not his family's - so he didn’t. 

    As he talked, Rebel Girl could tell that he carried this heavily, that he knew it meant something. Rebel Girl teaches her son about religions, about why some people believe and why some people do not. Some of her most admired heroes are Catholic Worker types. There are several Bibles in the house. The Little Guy owns a copy of Tomie de Paola’s Bible stories that they consult from time to time. 

     He knows about Budhha, about the Hindu gods, about Mohammed. They have attended sedars, celebrate Christmas, Easter. His favorite song to play on the piano is “Joy to the World.” 

     When they visited New Mexico recently he was most impressed by the “spirit holes” in the floors of a Pueblo dwelling that allowed the spirits of dead to join the living during special ceremonies. 

     However, his favorite deities remain the Greek gods. There's no competing with Zeus, apparently. 

     Mr. Sub’s "magic trick," of course, was an abuse of power, an abuse of privilege, an abuse of children who trust and admire their teachers. A violation. A hit and run magic trick that has made that classroom a crime scene. Rebel Girl imagines that some children in that class are, like her family, atheists or agnostics. She knows that at least one family is Jewish. She is herself, she reminded her son, a teacher too and one who takes her responsibilities seriously. While she has views, she knows her students have their own and she is hired to teach them, not her views and values, but her particular discipline. So she does. 

     Rebel Girl will be writing more this morning: letters to the principal, the board of trustees, other interested parties. She will do what a Rebel Girl does.

       Last night as the Little Guy blew out his candles on his birthday cake, he made his wish and Rebel Girl made hers: she wants Mr. Sub to return to that classroom and stand up in front of the class with her son at his side and tell her son and the class that the Little Guy is NOT going to hell and neither is anyone else.

 

She wants more, much more, but that’s a start.

* By the way, the story of the "magic trick" has been 

confirmed via a phone call to another family. *