"Weighing all of the allegations"

A NEW VIDEO (click on the ARROW):



WATCH:

• Mathur's cronies try to string words together!
• Dale Carranza inexplicably perform a Perry Mason impression!
• Allanah Rosenberg tell it like it really is!
• Laura Uren channel a friggin' TV commercial!
• the student government kid give Raghu credit for every dang thing! (Gosh, where'd he get that idea?)
• Howard Dachslager invent a new word & accuse some faculty of trying to "destroy" the colleges!

But why would they do that?

He doesn't say!!!

Terrell Fletcher at Saddleback College

In yesterday's OC Reg: Pastor, former NFL player speaks at Saddleback College:

Saddleback College recently presented a speech by pastor and former NFL player Terrell Fletcher honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fletcher was running back for the San Diego Chargers for eight years, and is a senior pastor at City of Hope International Church in San Diego. He spoke at Saddleback College on Jan. 24….

One student posed the question of whether the greatest threat to minority populations is minorities themselves. Fletcher responded, saying that some elements of black popular culture can be self-destructive and harm the community's image.

"We fill our communities with so much negativity about ourselves that it is very difficult to not believe it after a while," he said. "In one hand, we can say it's just music. On another hand, you can say it's very destructive."

Another man later responded, saying that negative themes in hip-hop are a reflection of disadvantages the artists experience. He asked Fletcher what black celebrities like him are doing to reach young children who know nothing but their community's underprivileged situation.

Fletcher responded, saying that many prominent blacks are giving generously to their communities, but that the media tends to focus only on negative images.

"We're not going to bring a whole bunch of cameras when you write a check for scholarships so that kids can go to school… but if you get caught on your third drugging offense, we're going to load you up," he said.

He added that the responsibility of raising children is on parents, not artists or entertainers….

Especially less-than-excellent

NOW, A WORD FROM OUR ACCREDITORS. The Accrediting agency (ACCJC) sends out its letters on January 31—tomorrow—so we’ll soon learn their assessment of our two colleges. It’s hard to predict what they’ll do. I’ve heard no rumors.

Toward the end of our last cycle, Mathur and the board seemed to do everything in their power to mess things up. It’s as though they were trying to prove that they are precisely the bastards they are widely suspected of being. But the Commissioners can be way political and self-serving and all the usual shitty and depressing things. Will they actually do their job? Will they wash their hands of us? Who can say?

MATHUR UNLEASHED. So far, it looks like the power shift from Lang to Wagner (board president) has meant that Mathur is now allowed to roam freely, scaring children, torching fields, poisoning wells, and so on. (The leash that master Lang wielded was weird and long, but at least he used one.) For instance, recently, Mathur and his team of hounds have racked up quite a record of peeing on policies with regard to hiring committees. What? There are rules re committee membership? Screw that! There's no third-level interview for deans? There is now!

Luckily, thus far, watchdogs have used effective counter-measures against Mathur's dictates re faculty hiring.

WHAT ABOUT BEEFING UP FACULTY SALARIES? We’ve heard next to nothing about our unfolding 50% problem, the MASSIVE Mathurian Fuckup that dares not speak its name. It was barely mentioned at last week’s board meeting, the meeting in which Nothing Happened.

But my guess is that things will get ugly. Great pressure will be applied to slash non-instructional costs. All the creative bookkeeping in the world isn’t going to bring us up to 50%. (See Look at the data.)

If you read Dissent, then you know that Trustee Don Wagner—our new board president—has expressed an odd perspective about the 50% problem, namely, that we should just hand back the money to the state. Hmmm. Why would he propose such a thing?

Because, dear readers, the 50% problem is precisely this: that we are spending too little on instruction compared to other things. And instruction means faculty salaries. Now, normally, you can comply with the law without resorting to huge faculty salaries, but things ain't normal, cuz Mathur's an idiot, and so everything's a rush job. In this emergency, all we can do is beef up faculty salaries.

But there’s no way that certain trustees—Wagner, Fuentes, Lang—are gonna sit for ad hoc faculty raises, since, as you know, faculty work only 36-hour weeks for ten months of the year while pulling down on average about $100K a year. (Who says? Tom Fuentes says. See Fuentes bashes faculty.)

That’s the word in some circles, anyway.

RED, RED HERRING. Even though the 50% law has been around since, like, 1960, Fuentes and company have been running around as though it just came down Main Street like Godzilla. Fuentes and other district officials recently met with the other OC community college districts to carp about that law. Or so said Mr. Fuentes during his report at the last board meeting.

Fuentes’ efforts are, of course, a red herring. See, we’re not supposed to notice that, unlike the SOCCCD, all those other districts are complying with the 50% law, and are liable to do so well into the future. We’re not supposed to notice that, because Mathur blew off the law for years, we’re destined to be out of compliance for some time. —Either that or some serious pain will be dispensed in the district.

Mathur won’t feel any pain. He makes $300,000 a year.

UPDATE: yesterday, I included here brief mention of an IVC administrator about whom we've been hearing for years. I stated that the latest story (it came to us from a reliable person) concerned her over-spending her budget. Certain knowledgeable persons contacted me and suggested that the matter in question is more complex than the story suggests and that the assertion that the dean over-spent her budget is inaccurate. Dissent regrets any factual error regarding that administrator and her actions re budgeting.

Declined to Endorse

WORTH NOTING is an article from today's Los Angeles Times, California in Brief section. The headline: Teachers Disagree on Endorsements. Now the text:

The state's largest teachers union bucked its elections committee and declined to endorse Hillary Clinton for president at last weekend's delegate meeting in Los Angeles.

Supporters of rival Barack Obama characterized the indecisiveness of the 340,00-member California Teachers Assn. as a strategic victory.

"What impact the endorsement has now doesn't measure up to the potential damage if the endorsed person doesn't win," said Michael day, president of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach, who attended as an observer.

Other teachers unions, including the California Federation of Teaches and the United Teachers of Los Angeles, have also declined to endorse a candidate.

Rebel Girl can only imagine what the scene was at the CTA State Council meeting when this went down. Reb served as a State Council delegate for many years, as some of you may remember because you voted for her and helped oust Sherry Miller White.

Rebel Girl can't recall another time when the CTA State Council floor failed to support the recommendation coming out of the committee, especially one of such import. Whenever the call was close, then the meeting room doors were closed and the mood grew tense and the rhetoric was ratcheted up and up. The status quo, which likes itself so much, generally prevailed. You know how it is.

But something else happened last weekend in the Grand Ballroom of some stuffy airport hotel. Rebel Girl sort of wishes she had been there for that one.

Primary day in California has been moved to February 5th (don't get Reb started on that one or she will fill your ear with her complaints about Fabian Nunez).

Vote.

How It Happens (Rebel Girl)

     The characterization confused Rebel Girl at first. She recognized the name but the out-of-bounds skier killed by the avalanche was also described as "veteran character actor" and "age 60." That didn't seem right. Then she did the math. She considered the fact that he had been acting since before she met him nearly 25 years ago. She considered what 25 years could do to one's age and career status. So, he had probably reached "veteran status" and considering he never became a leading man, "character" seemed about right too. It was him all right. The husband of a handsome Santa Monica acting couple who had employed young Red Emma as child care provider for their son, also dubbed Red Emma. Rebel Girl and Red were in their salad days then, finishing up undergraduate work, taking jobs here and there. The handsome acting couple paid well and, when they went out of town, Red and Reb housesat for them in their handsome Santa Monica craftsman house, north of Wilshire, a walk to the beach.
     Rebel Girl wanted their life, or a version of it: the dust-free house, the wood floors, the light through the clean windows, the down comforters on the bed, the day planners filled with rehearsals and dinner parties, trips to Santa Fe and New York and yes, if she thought about it enough (but she didn't), the young handsome son, too. Rebel Girl would press the pump dispenser of the wife's lotion (once, twice, no more than that) and rub the fragrant lotion on the backs of her hands. She wanted to smell like that.
     Time went by and the handsome couple broke up and married other people and had other children. The break-up managed to surprise Rebel Girl despite her own mother's eight failed marriages. Red and Reb stayed in touch with the wife and saw the husband's face or name now and again in some production. Their handsome son grew up and learned to write poetry. He showed up at the summer writers conference where Rebel Girl and Red work and was brilliant and all grown up. Now he is finishing up his dissertation at USC. He married last year.
     And then last weekend, sitting on Chunk's living room floor, safely evacuated from their dusty canyon house with its wood floors and generally sunlight-flooded windows, their own handsome young son asleep on the couch, Rebel Girl and Red Emma watched as the handsome actor's body, wrapped in a bright yellow tarp, strapped to a sled, was pulled down the mountain. -RG

Whew!

Pacific storm much weaker than forecast

The North Pacific storm that blew ashore Saturday night drenched Orange County but dropped less than half of the rain forecast by the National Weather Service….

On the other hand:

"This is going to be unbelievable"

From this morning’s OC Register: Canyon residents urged to evacuate:

.....Canyon residents are being urged to leave their homes this afternoon as Orange County braces for what is expected to be the largest in a wave of storms that has walloped much of Southern California this week, soaking fire-scorched hillsides and turning streets into rivers.
.....With even more rain and snow preparing to batter an already water-logged Southern California, public works crews went into damage-control mode Friday, racing to shore up canyon hillsides saturated by two heavy storms that pummeled the region this week.
.....
.....Facing grim weather predictions, county officials will order voluntary evacuations for thousands of residents living in canyon areas affected by fire and are in danger of mudslides and debris flows beginning at noon today, said Capt. Mike Blawn of the Orange County Fire Authority. Voluntary evacuations will be ordered for Modjeska, Santiago, Silverado, Harding and Williams canyons. Residents with special medical needs as well as large animals in those areas will be under mandatory evacuation orders.
.....Evacuations for residents could become mandatory if the National Weather Service issues a flash-flood warning.


.....Even with the warnings, it is unclear how many people will choose to leave their canyon homes. During one of the last evacuations that residents faced, only 90 people are believed to have left the canyons.
.....“Our fear is that people will become numb to these notices and look at us like the boy who cried wolf,” Blawn said. “But what we want them to remember is that in the end, the wolf came.”
.....County emergency officials huddled at a strategy session Friday afternoon, preparing for a wintry blast that weather forecasters are predicting could drop as much as 8 inches of rain in nine hours. Expected to arrive in Orange County this afternoon, the rain is forecast to pick up around 9 p.m., with the heaviest downpours expected to hit between midnight and 3 a.m., dropping between an inch to 1.25 inches an hour, said Dan Atkin, a weather service forecaster.
.....“If the weather patterns holds, this is going to be unbelievable,” Blawn said.
.....Heavier-than-expected rains drenched Orange County early Friday, making the soil mushy.
…..
.....County repair crews raced to bolster unstable hillsides behind several Modjeska Canyon homes after rains caused small amounts of mud and debris to come cascading down overnight Wednesday. Crews worked to clean up the mess and put up barriers behind a handful of Modjeska Canyon properties, hoping to prevent more severe slides, Blawn said.
.....Extra search-and-rescue crews and road-clearing equipment will be on standby overnight tonight, bracing for the worst-case weather picture and should the forecasted rains cause mud and debris to come crashing down into canyon homes.