The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
.....Two Dissent readers have contacted me because they can't open the blog with Internet Explorer. No doubt this is a widespread problem among IE users. [UPDATE, 8/2: one IE reader says he can now open DtB. How about others?]
.....Reminder: I have started a new blog: Contra PalaVerities. You will not be surprised to learn that it is the finest blog of its kind in the entire universe. Or not. The url is
contrapalaverities.blogspot.com
.....So far, CP behaves as though it were nearly invisible. I think I'm having technical problems there, too. Plus, these new glasses are shit. Boy am I feeling old.
Especially since Randy Pausch’s death, there’s been lots of buzzage about “last lectures.” The Reg’s Science Dude (Dying scientist’s “Last Lecture” inspires O.C.) explains that “Pausch [was] a terminally ill Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist who gave a deeply inspirational ‘last lecture’ that was videotaped and placed on the Internet, where it became wildly popular.”
The Reg asked OC scientists what they’d say in a “last lecture.”
I’ve gotta say, last lectures, at least the ones this crew would offer, aren’t what they used to be—er, they won’t be (in future) what they used to be (relative to now). Whatever.
UCI astrophysicist Greg Benford would offer this: “A simple rule, whether in the ‘Province of Professors’ or the broad plain of Real Life: Pay attention not to what’s thought to be in good taste, but to what tastes good, to you.”
I dunno. In the wrong hands, this could lead to chocoholism and worse. Plus what’s with that last comma?
Retired UCI criminologist Gil Geis would “admonish the listeners to stop pretending to the extent possible that they are going to live forever.” Sounds good. But then Geis veers off in Benford’s disastrous direction: “I’d also tell them that in the end nobody really cares what you do or don’t do, and that your obligation is to — after measuring the pros and cons — do with your limited time those things that most please you.”
I know guys who would attach themselves permanently to an orgasmatron. Plus I don’t think we oughta be telling kids that it doesn’t matter what they do and so they should just wander off into a corner and please themselves. C’mon.
Chapman’s James Doti offers a cliché: “…find your passion and then convert it into a career.”
Well, at least he didn’t say “seize the day,” like that awful Robin freakin’ Williams. (Even carpe diem sounds like bullshit after you hear it 100,000 times—or just once if it’s comin’ out of the insufferable Mr. Patch Adams.)
CSU Fullerton’s P. Cuajungco, a mathematician, already tells his students to be courteous, to view things from others’ perspective, to empathize, and to be honest. OK.
UCI neurobiologist James McGaugh quotes Alan Alda, who urges us to find out what our values are and then to live by them so we can have a sense of purpose. Not bad, I guess.
Not sure why, but I hate that TV show MASH. Wait, I know: MASH, produced mostly by people who never experienced war, “taught” us about the evils of war and the experience of war every goddam week for, like, ten years, even though the war only lasted three.
I’m as anti-war as anybody, but that crew was shameless.
Not that that takes away from Alda’s Existential bromide about finding purpose. (Apparently, Mr. Alda teaches philosophy, too. Boob.)
UCI’s R. Duncan Luce, another mathematician, would explain about the “interplay of forces” that he encountered early in his career: personal luck, perceptive mentors, passion, and elation. Sounds like apples and oranges to me. Plus he spells “quanderies” incorrectly (that could have been the Reg). And what kind of advice is it to say “lotsa luck”?
Famed UCI psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, the memory expert, recalls her regret at not having been kinder to her dying mother. That one was pretty good. Hope I don’t forget it.
UCI chemist Greg Weiss explains how he altered the course of a student’s life—helping her succeed in her Chem class—just by sitting down with her and helping her out.
Yeah, but how does he know she won’t use her power for evil rather than good? —Just kidding. Weiss seems like a good egg.
Pamphlets found in a coffee shop in Santa Cruz make threats against researchers at the University of California campus there who do research with animals, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. The material, which included researchers’ home addresses, said: “Animal abusers everywhere beware; we know where you live; we know where you work; we will never back down until you end your abuse.”
—OK, I’m an animal rights guy, but once you start acting like a Republican running for President, you’ve pretty much lost the war.
If a bill’s impact or importance were measured by its length or the amount of time Congress spent working on it, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 … would be one for the ages. At more than 1,150 pages, the bill is about 20 times longer than the Higher Education Act of 1965 that it modifies, creating 64 new programs and touching on issues as diverse as the availability of Pell Grants and illegal downloading of digital music and video. And the legislation, which finally passed both the House and the Senate by overwhelmingly margins on Thursday, has been in discussion on Capitol Hill, in one form or another, for most of this decade. It is five years overdue….
Two Capistrano Unified trustees, including the school board president, were found in the superintendent's office looking through papers on a day when all district offices were closed, a district official confirmed Thursday.
The Reg has the juicy details. The trustees in question are “Board President Ellen Addonizio and trustee Sue Palazzo.” They were “found” last Friday (the 25th), in Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter's office.
According to the Reg,
Addonizio and Palazzo are part of the five-trustee bloc on the Capistrano Unified school board whose campaigns were endorsed by – and largely funded by – the CUSD Recall Committee parents group. Addonizio was elected in 2006; Palazzo was elected in June's recall election that ousted longtime trustees Sheila Benecke and Marlene Draper. ¶ The five so-called "reform" trustees on the seven-member school board have been outspoken critics of the district's administration, calling for increased scrutiny over district affairs and aggressive investigations to get to the bottom of a number of controversies that have dogged the district in recent years.
Now, who do you suppose got these people elected?
Well, that would be Education Alliance, on whose board SOCCCD board president Don Wagner sits.
Naturally, this incident has not gone down well:
“I’ve been in this business for over 50 years, and I’ve never, ever in my entire career seen this behavior by a trustee,” said trustee Duane Stiff, who found out about the incident Monday. “It’s horribly unprofessional. They knew he was out of town and the building was closed. If they needed to talk to the superintendent, they have his cell number.”
Stiff needs to get out more. Some of our trustees in the SOCCCD are at least as unprofessional as these two women. Remember Dot Fortune glowering and fuming at the state investigator through a window? Remember the board's "persistent and defiant" misconduct re secrecy? Remember the time Frogue mooned Milchiker?
PERKS FOR JERKS. At Monday’s meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, Trustee Nancy Padberg requested a report on trustee travel expenses (2007-08). For years now, she has been trying to cast a spotlight on some questionable expenses, such as trustees—and the Chancellor—attending conferences in Orlando when the same enlightenment is dispensed at conferences nearby.
Republican John Williams seems to be her chief target. As I recall, at one point, Williams defended these junkets by appealing to the trustee code of ethics, according to which trustees ought to attend conferences—you know, to keep informed about "student learning objectives" and new and improved "hypervacuous educationist palaverities." [OK. I'm officially claiming "palaverities."]
His reasoning seemed to be thus:
1. Trustees have a duty to attend conferences. 2. By junketing to Orlando, John attends a conference. 3. Thus, by junketing to Orlando, John (merely) does his duty as a trustee.
This reasoning is valid only if the first premise means or implies something like: "trustees have a duty to attend conferences irrespective of considerations of waste or usefulness." Naturally, if that is what premise 1 is saying, then premise 1 is false and his reasoning is unsound. (Arguably, Williams was arguing for a stronger point: that he would be failing in his duty (aka doing wrong) by not sunning his ass in Orlando. The reasoning to that conclusion, of course, would be more fallacious still.)
John, who is also the County of Orange Public Administrator/Guardian, is not the brightest bulb on the tree. ("Stop living in an Ivory Castle!" he once roared.) It's a good thing his county job only concerns corpses, cuz he can't do much harm to them, I suppose.
In today’s “OC Watchdog” (Jet Set Club: Your Congressmembers hit the road), we learn that our local Congresspeople, too, can be big travel spenders. In their case, however, the dubious travel is often international.
The writer consulted a “nifty function” on the Center for Responsive Politics website and determined that Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and his staff “have racked up more than $33,684 in trips since 2005.” They’ve been to “Albania, Bangkok, China…my favorite is watching a satellite launch in Miami.”
Florida again. Cheesy politicians seem drawn to Florida. I don't get it.
Next comes Republican Ed Royce, who represents Fullerton: $18,501. He likes it down in Cuba, South Africa, and Holland.
POSH POL GABFEST. As you know, John McCain and Barack Obama will appear at the Saddleback mega-church on Saturday, August 16 (part of its “Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion”). The event will be televised live.
According to the Reg (McCain, Obama event ticket info available Aug. 1), tickets will be available on the 1st of August. Check it out. And check out the digs. I always tell students, "The really big money is in religion."
Maybe the all-time best movie scene about career advice:
REMEDIATION DOESN’T WORK? A new and seemingly-impressive study on the efficacy of remedial education (e.g., in Math, Reading) has cast assumptions of efficacy into doubt. According to Inside Higher Ed (Questioning the Value of Remedial Education), a pair of scholars—Juan Carlos Calcagno of the Community College Research Center, at Teachers College of Columbia University, and Bridget Long of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University—have analyzed 100,000 community college students in Florida and they’ve found only “some positive impact.”
In looking at the impact of remedial education, the study found that — among those on the edge of needing remediation — being assigned to remedial math and reading courses has the effect on average of increasing the number of credits completed and the odds that students will return for a second year. But while those are important factors, the report finds no evidence that remedial education increases the completion of college-level credits or of degree completion.
In light of the cost of remediation, the authors think we should reconsider it.
THE MEREST OF RUMORS. I hear that Raghu Mathur is doing everything in his power to be invited onto "Dancing with the Stars." Just a rumor. Reminds me of another illiterate hoofer wannabe:
SPIES AMONG US? According to this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Big Argus Is Watching You), “The National Association of Scholars announced on Tuesday the launch of the Argus Project…to recruit volunteers to monitor college campuses nationwide. The volunteers, a mix of faculty members and private citizens, ‘have begun to look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students,’ said the association’s announcement.”
Actually, I've been spied upon already. A certain well-known operative of the local "Republican Mafia" (The Schroeder-Fuentes crew) took my summer philosophy course a couple of summers ago just so he could see my indoctrination methods in the flesh. Unfortunately for him, I do not indoctrinate, I teach, and so he disappeared after a few weeks.
NAKED PERSON ROCKED AT IVC. Meanwhile, over at our pal Marla Jo Fisher’s “College Life” blog, we read about how things went in a live drawing class at Irvine Valley College during yesterday's earthquake: You don’t want to be doing this during an earthquake. Evidently, the model will be getting a seatbelt soon.
• Meanwhile, over at the OC Reg, R. Scott Moxley informs us that, a little more than an hour after this morning’s earthquake, Buena Park’s “Reverend Wiley Drake named the seismic event, ‘the California Queer Quake,’ and announced via email to his nationwide followers that ‘another queer quake [is] trying to get California's attention.’”
(Above: there was an earthquake. Naturally, everyone phoned someone. And they kept doing it.)
WE’RE STUPID PEOPLE. If you’ve been following the science news, then you know that there’s been a mysterious lull in seismic activity around here lately. It's portentous.
The Reg’s Science Dude now reports that “Scientists have found a way to detect changes in rocks that precede small earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, a possible step toward creating an early warning system for Southern California.”
That’s great. But the Science Dude goes on to say, “The southern branch is of particular concern because it could cause massive death and destruction in Orange County, about 60 miles away.”
Yeah, massive death. We knew that. But we don’t like to talk about it much, do we? The Reg buries its seismic stories in blogs like “Science Dude.” Nobody but me reads "Science Dude." And I forget everything I read there. I'm going to the beach.
UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): about five minutes ago, we felt a pretty strong earthquake. Lasted at least five seconds.
CELL PHONES ARE STUPID, BUT THEY’RE NOT KILLERS. In this morning’s New York Times, John Tierney lists 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List, including “killer hot dogs,” “killer sharks,” and “carcinogenic cellphones.” Turns out, the “nitrite” weenie worry was a bust, as was the grilling-killing freakout. According to new research, weenies aren’t even a big threat re saturated fat. (But I bet tofu dogs are much better for you.)
Guess how many people died from shark attacks in the world last year? One.
Do you watch Mythbusters? Then you know that, as far as fuel economy goes, you’re better off using you’re A/C rather than driving with your windows open. According to Tierney, “After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.”
Thanks to the reliably unreliable Larry King, who seems to select guest experts with a randomizer, lots of people are afraid of their own cell phones, but, in truth, nobody can identify a way that those stupid things could hurt you, and “epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer and cell phones”—i.e., there is no reason to suppose that there is a correlation between cell phone use and cancer.
I’m pretty sure that the Reb and I are the only Orange Counties who do not own one of these gadgets. We hate ‘em. At least I do. That’s got nothing to do with cancer, though.
WAIT. CELL PHONES ARE KILLERS. This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports a curious element in the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s new student orientation program: they are “adding warnings for new students about the dangers of “ped-texting” — sending cell phone text messages while walking.” Apparently, some of these kids just walk out into the street like zombies.
Of course, we all know what happens when you talk on your cell phone while driving. People are bad enough drivers as it is. Teenagers should not be allowed to talk and drive. Well, they should not be allowed to drive. Or talk.
SHOT IN ASS. DON'T KNOW WHY. According to the OC Reg (Man found shot in the butt in Stanton), well, a man was found shot in the butt in the city of Stanton.
Authorities don’t know how this happened to the guy. They’ve interviewed him, and “He’s doing his best to cooperate,” or so says a cop. But he’s so goofed up, he’s no help.
I bet the guy has a cell phone. They should check it for nitrate residue.
COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL. Yesterday, the Reg reported that two Tesoro High School seniors would be appearing in court (See). Recently, these kids were charged with “altering public records, computer access and fraud, burglary, identity theft and conspiracy in what prosecutors described as an elaborate plot to better their odds of getting into college.”
They’ve retained a celebrity lawyer—Larry King regular, Mark Geragos.
Looks like these kids were way out of control. One of them “altered his Advanced Placement exam scores, stole an English test he was caught cheating on, and pilfered master copies of tests, some of which were e-mailed to dozens of Advanced Placement students.”
No word on whether these kids have cell phones.
Why I hate cell phones
I recall one night maybe a year ago in a parking lot. Seemed like nobody was around. Maybe there was one guy about forty yards away, where it was dark. But somebody was madly talking to somebody. It was creepy. How could this be?
It be all right. It was this solitary guy, walking across the parking lot, unapologetically yammering at full volume on his goddam cell phone. I hated that guy. I hated how he weirded me out and he never even knew or cared.
You’ll be talking to somebody and then, wham, something starts buzzing on the table; or maybe some goofy calliope music plays; or maybe there’s the sound of nuts cracking coming from somebody’s pants.
Your companion suddenly looks at a spot on the wall and then reaches for their goddam cell phone. They look away from you. You’re gone. You’ve been forgotten. You shuffle away like Puff the freakin’ Magic Dragon—only to run into somebody else walkin’ and yackin’ on the phone. You step out of their way. You’ve always gotta step out of their way, ‘cause, when they’re talking, they’re morons, and they think they own the fuckin’ universe.
Hate ‘em. Cell phones I mean.
Why do people—especially kids, but adults too—always embrace popular new gadgets? It’s the kind of thing little kids should do, not adults. New modes of life—IMing, going through your day listening to music and utterly ignoring everything and everybody around you, suddenly startin’ up a phone conversation while you're in the bathroom—you’ve gotta take a beat, man. Don’t just jump in there! How do you know this isn’t just ridiculous? I mean, it’s new, so how would you know?
It’s this endless enthusiasm for jumping right in there and feeling really good about being part of the mindless horde who doesn’t think about anything but just does stuff—that’s what pisses me off. If that’s the way people are, there’s no hope. None at all.
I swear, soon somebody will find a way for two people to drink the same Coke—serially, I mean—probably with weird-assed straws shaped like Ronald McDonald and comin' out of your neck—or maybe they'll figure out a way to surgically exchange ears, and everybody will be all over it with their "new" ears and punctured necks. They’ll smile and laugh (through their neck hole) and think you’re obviously an asshole if you’re not into it too.
See, this has to do with how conservatism does not exist in this country. If you’re conservative, you’ve got this idea that things barely work as it is. And that means, mostly, you don’t wanna just shuffle the deck just for the sake of shuffling. Things could get worse. We could lose what we've got.
But, in this country, everybody’s into shuffling. Everybody's moving around and doing new things. And it’s all about commerce and somebody with something new to sell. The money people: they’ll change everything around without a thought, except the thought of how to make money and more money. And everybody goes along with it, ‘cause they’re morons, and they don’t think about how the most valuable things might just be imbedded in away of life. So you don't want to mess with it too much. You gotta be careful. Take it slow, if you can.
.....Two Dissent readers have contacted me because they can't open the blog with Internet Explorer. No doubt this is a widespread problem among IE users. [UPDATE, 8/2: one IE reader says he can now open DtB. How about others?]
.....Reminder: I have started a new blog: Contra PalaVerities. You will not be surprised to learn that it is the finest blog of its kind in the entire universe. Or not. The url is
