Archive riches!

Yesterday, I added a dozen or so old blogs (i.e., old Dissent articles) to the ARCHIVES. You might find some of them worth reading. Check out October 1999. There you’ll find entertaining coverage of my court victory over the District. (For those new to the district saga: I was forced to defend myself against the District’s charge that Dissent—and thus I—had violated district policies concerning violence and discrimination. See Roy Bauer's 1st Amendment Battles.) For instance, there’s a transcript of the often-amusing court discussion between Judge Feess and the two lawyers, Carol Sobel and David Larsen. At one point, Feess ridicules union Prez Sherry Miller-White’s “fear” that I might drop a two-ton slab of granite on her head. Check it out. In response, the district's desperate lawyer, David Larsen, sputters forth a series of ridiculous instances of alleged Bauer "violence":

MR. LARSEN: [Bauer once told someone:] "You fucking asshole." [He's] violent in other people's face. [This is a reference to an incident, described in a declaration by Ken W, in which Bauer, upon being treated to one of W’s infantile needlings, muttered, “You fucking asshole,” as he walked away.] FEESS: Well, "You fucking asshole," if that's an assault, then the courts of the state system would be filled to overflowing…

I’ve added a separate account (You had to be there) of that 1999 court hearing. It ends with a scene on an elevator. Right after the hearing, all six of us—Carol and David, Sampson & Mathur, Wendy and me—end up together in that uncomfortably cramped space--and with that 800 pound gorilla of our having just kicked the district's ass:

Soon, we were out in the hallway, and, as luck would have it, all six of us ended up alone in an elevator, headin’ down. I smiled pleasantly. Dave turned to Carol and said, “Well, Carol, you did very well with the judge, as usual.” Without missing a beat, Carol responded by saying, “Yes, you did well, too, Dave.” Then she got that impish look. Gesturing toward Cedric and Raghu, she added: “—Given what you had to work with.” Wendy and I smiled, and maybe even snorted. Raghu glared. I’m not sure what Cedric did, ‘cuz I didn’t look at ‘im, but, later that evening, at the board meeting, he looked like a bloodless Halloween corpse, the poor fellow.

Those were good times! In one blog from 1999, Red Emma goes after an Old Guard apologist (Curt McLendon) in his usual amusing manner, only with lots of cool Spanish. Another blog relates some mailroom hijinks by two of the Old Guard’s best, namely, Walter Floser and Lee Walker—two remarkable instructors who’s names continue to come up whenever the subject of simultaneous chewing & walking arises. Two old blogs describe Andrew Tonkovich’s celebrated offer to provide security services for Raghu (Not-so-secret-service and In security). Tonkovich is a remarkably close (ahem) friend of Red Emma’s. His take on Raghu’s crocodile fears is amusing. The latter escapade was highlighted by our pals over at the OC Weekly, who, in 1999, gave us four bullets in their “best of” edition (We’re just the best). Check it out. Lee Walker’s infamous “fife and dumb corps” (to use Red’s memorable phrase) inspired several blogs, including Red Emma’s Poetry Korner and my Club WASP. The latter concerns Lee’s proud membership in the “Sons of the American Revolution,” a Tupperware kaffeeklatsch for dwarfs. I guess that some of these old blogs (e.g., The Chancellor’s opening session & the FA lunch AND Miss Fortune’s guide to holiday giving AND Tales of Mathurian Pettiness and Ruthlessness AND He keeps secret files on faculty!) are arguably mere historical records of distant absurdities. If you expect to live another 80 years, do be sure to read them before you're carted off to the boneyard. I came upon one very special blog, namely A quotational tour of recent district history (98-9). Just about anything that anybody said that’s worth repeating from those days is right there! Here’s an example of this blog’s many delights:

Krugel to Frogue: “Do you trade pictures of little girls with Joe Fields?” Williams: “Sir, I don’t want to hear any more comments about little girls.”

—From an exchange among Barry Krugel (of the JDL), trustees, and visitors during the June 15, 1998, board meeting. As Red and Reb like to say, “You can’t make this stuff up!” The “quotational” blog is a thousand points of blight—it’s a lengthy litany of preposterousness and shriekitude. On the other end of the spectrum are such concise nuggets as Rebel Girl’s Consultin’ Collegially, Raghu Style, which is 25 words long. 25 words? Hell, I’ve got more than 25 references to "rat bastards" in some of these pieces!

Moody Trabuco Canyon morning

Chunk's house.
Chunk's hill. Well sorta.
Just above the workshop. The structure burned down in 2001 but was rebuilt.
By 10 a.m., most of the moisture had burned away. It's a beautiful day!
5 minutes ago.

Boobs in space & making the big time

Do you like boobs a lot?
Gotta like boobs a lot
If you like boobs a lot tag-a-long

The Fugs, 1965

I tend to think of institutions of higher learning as places where young people are brought up to speed regarding humanity's hard-won attainments in understanding and expression. Sure, community colleges must be something else, too; they've got to help train the workforce. But there's still that noble college idea that's not about just making a buck and giving people "what they want."

Evidently, administrators at our colleges do not share my perspective.

Consider the magazines that the district and colleges leave out for students to read. Dissent has featured some of these in recent months. (See SOCCCD's magazine for women and Upchuckery.) They're pretty awful. Lots of pretty pictures. Lots of slick ads. Nothing challenging.

At IVC, the latest freebee is something called Saturday Night Magazine, a glossy and flashy mag targetting the young college crowd, which makes sense. Its articles are about--what else? They're about TV stars, music, film...

--and making big bucks.

The publisher, one Michael H. Ritter, tells us that he is "excited about...the new section [of SNM] called Destination Success."

Success? Just what is, or what should be, success? Let's really think about this...

SNM doesn't ponder. Success, of course, is making a huge pile of money. This month's "Destination Success" is described in this way:

Tired of seeing people your own age and younger hit the big time? Then you might not want to turn to this brand new section.

Naturally, I turned immediately to this brand new section. It was on page 45. Here is what I found:


The article celebrates the success of one Joe Francis, the youthful "owner and operator" of Girls Gone Wild. You know what that is. It's about T&A. (See Baby, give me a kiss.)

In case you can't make it out, the article starts with a remark by Mr. Francis:

For the first time, we're taking naked girls and making them weightless. Boobs in space. It's a great sight, worth the nine bucks all in itself."

Now, I'm all in favor of boobs, weightless or otherwise. Still, I'm not convinced that our colleges should be joining in on the youthful obsession with Boobery. Don't we represent another sort of yearning?

Silly me.

For years, on Thursdays, the back wall of IVC's administration building would fill with the latest Irvine World News and OC Weekly. Nowadays, the Weekly is gone.

I guess I understand that. Those nasty ads are a bit much. But who decided to banish nasty ads in favor of "boobs in space"?

Tales of SNAFUery

WAYNE’S WORLD

About a year ago, I noticed that nobody seemed to have anything good to say about IVC’s new Director of Facilities and Maintenance, Wayne Ward, who was hired in 2004.

Then came the first week of the fall 2006 semester: the CEC portable classrooms weren’t ready for use, and that caused huge problems.

The CEC’s are Wayne’s responsibility.

I looked up his bio on IVC’s website, and it says that he received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Phoenix. Uh-oh. (See U of Phoenix Loses [fraud case] in US Court.)

So I’ve been trying to keep an eye on this Wayne fella. Recently, a colleague complained that, among other vices, Wayne has some seriously high-handed ways.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, like he thinks he can park just anywhere he wants. He’s a real asshole.”

I did not pursue the matter. Today, however, I happened to be walking past the Facilities and Maintenance office, and I spotted a snazzy silver Camaro. It was parked next to a storage bin near a sign saying, “Do not enter.”

I walked closer. The license plate said, “XXX WARD.” (I’ve obscured the 1st three letters.)

Well, whatever.

Later in the afternoon, I was in my office. A guy walked in and started unscrewing the plate that holds the lock assembly on my door. He did not explain himself. I stared at him. He removed the lock and replaced it with another one. He left.

OK. I mean, it's IVC.

A few minutes later, I left the office, closing the door behind me. After a few steps, I realized that I had left my camera in the office, so I returned to retrieve it. But my key wouldn’t work. I was screwed.

Plus I’ve got a class tomorrow morning. I'm gonna need to get into my office!

On the way out to my car, I ran into a few acquaintances. Evidently, lots of faculty have had their office door locks replaced today. No keys were provided. Lord only knows when we’ll get them.

IF we get them.

Wayne’s in charge of locks, I suppose.

Or maybe nobody is. (Is it Owen K, chief of police?)

DEAD PLANTS

Today, I ran into one of our likeable crew of biologists. The full-time biology instructors at IVC are like some kind of eccentrics club, like birders or spelunkers. They’re close-knit. They’ve got their own corpse.

They’re fun.

This particular biologist, Mr. D, had a sad story to tell. It concerned our little greenhouse.


Perhaps you’ll recall that, several years ago, our biologists decided to construct a greenhouse for students. Well, after much effort and expense, they did so, and, with typically dry biological humor, they held a ceremony in which they solemnly christened the little structure “The Terry Burgess Greenhouse.” There was a plaque and everything.

Burgess, of course, had been the college’s first biologist and, later, its VPI. He also happened to be one of then-President Raghu P. Mathur’s least favorite people in the whole world. And that’s sayin’ somethin’, baby, cuz Raghu’s got lots of enemies. (He carries a list.)

Raghu heard about this greenhouse stunt and was pissed. But he’s a clever little fellow. Back at Hah-vud, he had studied Saddam’s treatise on effective management, and Saddam’s a big one for occasionally taking some poor slob and making an example of him. You know, set fire to ‘im, boil 'im in oil--that sort of thing.

So Raghu thought: “Are there any members of the School of Life Sciences who are untenured? Mu-hu-hu!”

What about Jeff K! Prepare the oil!

Now, in fact, Jeff had nothing to do with naming the greenhouse. But that was OK. When you zap a guy to make an example, it doesn’t much matter who you zap. (For the rest of Jeff's "greenhouse" story, see Mathur goes after Jeff for naming a greenhouse.)


Well, that’s ancient history now. But Mr. D’s tale concerned that very greenhouse. As you know, not far from IVC's greenhouse, in what used to be a lovely orange grove, the college is constructing a Performing Arts Center. Well, naturally, over the weekend, construction workers managed to cut the power line that goes to the little house of plants. I guess they just figured that was OK. (Do you suppose they called Wayne?)

You know how these greenhouses work. You’ve got to condition the air, cuz, if you don’t, it’ll get blazin’ hot, especially this time of year. So when Mr. D and his colleagues visited the greenhouse on Tuesday, they found that the temperature inside had risen to a lethal 160 degrees. All the plants—including some expensive ones—were yellow and withered. They were dead.


CLUELESS

Each year, faculty retire. As you know, it is common for instructors to retire mid-year.

Well, when new VC of Human Resources, Bob King, found out that one of our psychology instructors wanted to retire in December, he declared that that simply wasn’t possible. How come? Because, said Bob, faculty teach a year at a time, and so a guy’s gotta teach the whole year or none of the year. He can’t teach half of it!

Huh?

--He said something like that. I don't know the details.

I’m told that Bob was brought in to head HR because the Director of Human Resources, Teddi Lorch, is, well, clueless. Naturally, when Bob’s position was created, she got seriously pissed about it. She didn’t want a boss.

Well, it turns out that her boss is clueless too.

Distant storm clouds

Nothin' much happened today at IVC--not at least where I was standing.

Last week, I heard something about some scheme afoot according to which students can take 90 units of courses at our colleges (or was it just at SC?) and then they can transfer over to Indiana U--yes, Indiana U--to take just 30 more and then pick up a Bachelor's.

That sounds pretty wacky. Isn't Indiana one of those states with nothing in it, aside from Chevys and a noisy racetrack? Yeah, that's it. I guess they're real desperate for customers over in those dopey empty states.


Plus shouldn't they run this daffy Hoosier thing past the Academic Senates for their approval? Don't faculty get to have a say when it comes to academic stuff?

The weather sure was nice and I took some pics. Sunlight is the photographer's friend. And distant storm clouds are the photographer's Santa Claus.
.

There was some kinda hoopla out in front of the Student Services Center. (See pics.) I saw smoke, and it turned out to be the usual scorching of animal flesh in the blazing sun. There was music, but I couldn't make head nor tail of it.

I wandered into Helen L, who pointed back at the hoopla and invited me to grab a burger--I guess they were givin' 'em away out there. I said thanks, but then I explained that I was a vegetarian, and she said that maybe they should make sure to have some veggie burgers next time. Somethin' like that.


That was nice.

I kept looking at those distant clouds. And the blue sky.

Have you checked out Tracy's new SOCCCD Update? It's pretty snazzy.

It includes a fine photo of some charity event at ATEP. Here's the pic, showing Chancellor Mathur, Park Ranger Kopecky, Trustee Padberg, a cute little girl, and "Bandit the Biker Dog."


There's some kind of ATEP/Bandit connection--go check out ATEP's website (Here.) I couldn't make out the dog, so I blew up the picture a few thousand times:


OK, that doesn't look like a Biker dog. I could be wrong, but it looks more like a Biker cat.

Will the scandals never cease?

Sunday morning images

Rohrabacher pissed off at anti-war protesters on his goddam lawn

... protesters started shouting: "Bring them home! Now!"

As the pitch rose, the congressman ran out of his grey stucco home. He was barefoot.

"You just woke my babies!" Rohrabacher said....

"I am going to get all of you arrested if you don't leave right now."

"My son is in Iraq!" responded Tim Kahlor, 48, whose son is on his second tour of duty in Iraq until January 2007. "And he does not get much sleep!"

High School girls show freshmen how to wriggle & writhe to the festive aroma of scorched animal flesh

Fullerton Union High School senior Xanat Hernandez grabbed chips and a hot dog, surveyed the crowd of freshmen and zeroed in on a circle of boys.

She marched up to them, her hoop earrings swinging.

"Are you guys excited about the school year?" she asked.

Incoming freshman David Medina, 14, nodded.

"My name is Xanat," she said, and stuck out her hand. Medina shook it. "But everyone calls me 'X.'"

Two bewildered women avoiding rednecks at the Orange International Street Fair

The batter goes into skillets the size of waffle irons, with semicircle cavities in which nine [Danish] aebleskivers can cook.

Erickson-Falcioni demonstrates. She puts a teaspoon of vegetable oil in one basin. She pours the batter and waits, then flips frequently for five minutes.

Flip it. Poke it. Add the jam and powdered sugar, and one of the thousands is done.

"It's a healthy—" she stops. "OK, we don't really worry about that."

Remedial math? But I graduated from High School early and stuff! Plus I'm a math whiz!

At first, Michael Walton, starting at community college here, was sure that there was some mistake. Having done so well in high school in West Virginia that he graduated a year and a half early, how could he need remedial math?

Eighteen and temperamental, Mickey, as everyone calls him, hounded the dean, insisting that she take another look at his placement exam. The dean stood firm. Mr. Walton’s anger grew. He took the exam a second time. Same result.

“I flipped out big time,’’ Mr. Walton said.

Because he had no trouble balancing his checkbook, he took himself for a math wiz....

SUNDAY EVENING IMAGES
(I AM VISITED BY FINE YOUNG WEASELS)












A conversation with 3 1/2 year old Sarah:

Uncle Chunk: "Hi, Uncle Sarah!"

Sarah: "I'm not an uncle. I'm a girl."

Uncle Chunk: "You're a girl? What kind of girl?"

Sarah: "I'm an Iguanadon. An Iguanadon mother."

(Evidently, an Iguanadon is some kind of dinosaur. Sarah's a "mother" Iguanadon, and so she has babies, she says. Sarah showed them to me. They are invisible.

(She's got "friends" too. They're not invisible. They're a bunch of teddy bears and shit, which she drags around with her. Mostly bunnies. Plus a coupla mice.)

Sunny said "let's go outside"

Got home maybe an hour ago and Sunny the cat wanted to go outside, so I went out there with her, and I took my camera (a D70). Took a few snaps.


Sure was a great day. Looks like it'll be a great night, too.

This one looks out toward Trabuco Canyon, I think.


The one below is looking out toward Rancho Santa Margarita. Somewhere back there on that hill is the Ramakrishna Monastery, which was built by Aldous Huxley and his pals in the early 40s.


Sunny noticed the jet before I did. She heard it and looked up. I like to take pictures of small or distant objects and then blow 'em up. They can look mighty weird. Have a good night everybody.