Mr. Moon tonight

Those mountains to the east are empty—of people. They seem so far away, so desolate. Someone told me once that there's an old building in some canyon over there, abandoned and falling apart. I truly hope it is true. I dream about it, Mr. Moon.

Soon, Mathur's mysterious "consultant" will pay the colleges a visit

• Irvine Valley College faculty, if you consult the Flex Week handbook (which, this year, sports several of my photographs!), you’ll find that, on Tuesday (August 19), from 4:00 to 5:30, IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore and Ac. Senate Prez Wendy Gabriella will be holding another “accreditation update” (in B209).

I’m told that board President Don Wagner will be there too.

I sure hope everyone will make an effort to attend!

• A couple of days ago, senators of the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate received the agenda for the first senate meeting for Fall ’08, which will be held on Wednesday (August 20), from 10:00 to noon in B102.

I finally got around to reading it. Some elements are predictable enough. We’ll be informed of the progress of our accreditation task force, etc. We’ll hear about new faculty orientations.

But one item caught my eye:

Consultant Site Visit: September 02 and 04, 2008

Evidently the “consultant” will attend a special meeting with the senate’s Representative Council (i.e., the senate) on Sept. 4.

Our ever-wiley Chancellor, Raghu P. Mathur, has long promoted the fiction that this person has been hired by the district to help us out somehow. That’s why he’s called a “consultant.”

Yeah, but, as we’ve reported previously, that’s bullshit.

I’m told that Saddleback College will be “site visited” on two other days by this “consultant.”

The consultant will be writing a report. My guess is that the report will be written quickly and will be sent somewhere up north. 

Maybe Novato, CA.

Some newsberries:

• O.C. sheriff vows to arrest reservists if they're lying about lost badges: Sheriff Sandra Hutchens calls a mandatory meeting of reserve deputies designated by ex-Sheriff Michael Carona. 42 have reported missing badges or ID cards, which are now recalled.

• Chancellor Mathur looks like asshole, is asshole, says blog

How come nobody's talking about McCain and the Savings & Loan scandal?

OK, I'm just a philosopher. But tell me this. How come nobody’s talking about the Lincoln Savings scandal and John McCain’s part in it? It’s pretty relevant to the issue of McCain’s judgment, wouldn’t you say?

Essentially, businessman Charles Keating, chairman of American Continental Corporation (ACC was the parent company of Lincoln here in Irvine), had contributed to the campaigns of several senators, including pal John McCain, and when what was left of the feds’ regulatory mechanism (Saint Ronald had deregulated the S&L industry in the early 80s) commenced closing in on Keating’s corrupt operation, five of these senators, including McCain, met with regulators on Keating’s behalf in 1987. In the end, Keating’s riverboat gambler ways led to bankruptcy and seizure of ACC in 1989.

The episode cost taxpayers $2 billion. Over 20,000 elderly investors lost their life savings. Keating went to prison, but he was released after only five years.

As I recall, when he was asked whether his campaign donations had bought influence, Chuck said: “I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so.” (See Political Corruption, p. 43.)

The larger Savings and Loan crisis cost the taxpayer over $120 billion. And the government let it happen. John McCain was in the thick of this FUBAR.

Gosh, John, that doesn’t show much judgment on your part!

McCain was fifty years old at the time of the 1987 meeting with regulators.

Tryin' to out-Jesus each other

In today’s edition of What’s New, the U of Maryland’s Bob Park rants ‘n’ rails indecorously (à la Jeremiah, as per usual) about tomorrow’s Saddleback Church shindig, among other things:

All right, it was stupid to think the [Presidential] candidates might be willing to debate scientific issues just because the survival of civilization is at stake. Tomorrow, at the 22,000 member Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA, they will appear separately to talk about "values" in a nationally televised "Civil Forum on the Presidency"…. The moderator will be famed evangelical mega pastor Rick Warren, author of the bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, and a passionate opponent of choice. Warren is seen by many as the successor to Billy Graham as the nation’s pastor in chief.

Let me put it this way, of those who click on the Civil Forum rather than the preseason Jets game …, most will do so to see Rick Warren rather than the two presidential candidates trying to out-Jesus each other….

Todd Bentley, 32, is a revival preacher from British Columbia, who for several months has been conducting a twice-daily revival he calls the Outpouring in Lakeland, Florida. His gimmick is one of the oldest in the revival profession: Todd Bentley is a reformed bad boy. … Bentley says he gets visits from the apostle Paul, but who is to say he doesn’t? …

But this week Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries announced that he is separating from his wife and will be ending his Florida revival.

… Norman Borlaug, who is credited with having led the Green Revolution, offered a warning in his 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Address. "We are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and biologic power of human reproduction." Reproduction always wins.

Runoff of phosphorous and nitrogen fertilizers produces algae population explosions in coastal waters. Dead algae sink to bottom where they feed masses of oxygen-depleting bacteria. A global survey of the resulting dead zones finds they are doubling every ten years; more evidence that we are already past the point of sustainable population.

But science has also given us cheap, effective, contraceptives, the easy availability of which must be made a part of all humanitarian aid.

It’s not like we have a choice; our planet is finite.

OTHER NEWS:

2 sentenced to death for 1995 Irvine slaying --Victim Linda Park was a freshman at Irvine Valley College.

More than 40 sheriff's reserve badges handed out by Michael S. Carona are reported missing --Including, of course, Fuentes’ pal Mike Schroeder’s. He lost two of ‘em.

Juice (web TV for the OC) --Fluffy, daily video headlines—in the style of “Extra”—about all things OC (for the brain dead). Still, fun. And who ain't brain dead on Friday?

WARREN AIN'T NO SCHULLER --More carping, this time from Gustavo Arellano, about tomorrow’s Saddleback Church extravaganza.

About teaching—and blogs and public discourse

I’ve pretty much decided that the name of my other blog—Contra PalaVerities—sucks. Evidently, everyone is too polite to say that, but there are numerous indications. I suspect that the repeated question, “What does it mean?” is indirect evidence of massive suckage.

Got any ideas out there? I’m considering “OC Philosopher,” but, obviously, there are other OC philosophers, lots of ‘em, and they’re all pretty much smarter than me, so that idea ain’t such a hot one, I guess. (You’ve got to admit, though, that, essentially, a blog name is an ad. Special considerations apply.)

The blog name issue is forcing me to think about what it is that I do generally—and what I do, specifically, here on DtB and on CP.

I have the obnoxious notion that I am a teacher.

(“Why, the unmitigated arrogance of the fellow!”)

As a teacher, I see myself primarily as a “modeler of clear and reasonable thinking.” Now, before you climb all over me, let me offer this point: that one can be a model of X without being a fine example of X. Whether I am a fine model of “clear and reasonable thinking” I will leave for others to judge. But, again, I don’t have to be a fine model. As a teacher, and especially as a community college teacher, I face a student population that, for the most part, is logically sans clue. In truth, the same came be said about UC students, for I’ve taught them too, long ago.

Do I really need to unpack or defend the "sans clue" thesis? I hope not.

If students are logically clueless (please note: students who arrive in our classrooms generally have learned nothing about logic and fallacies—unless they’ve learned that from a writing instructor, in which case—well, let’s leave that for another day), then being a good model for them does not require that I be the smartest guy or the most logical thinker on the block. What is required is this: that my thinking (that I “model” in class, etc.) is fundamentally sound and that it clearly and consistently illustrates and clarifies sound principles and procedures of reasoning and discourse. 

In the course of my many years as an instructor, I have become increasingly conscious of my role specifically as a modeler (that’s an ugly word, I guess, but it’s logically spot on). And so, generally, I make a real effort to avoid eccentric or dubious logical moves in class.

There are lapses, like the day I announced to a class that I had decided to “teach homosexuality.” If I’m gonna be accused of it, I said, I may as well do it. "All of you who are thus inclined," I said, "please get off the goddam fence." "Think of the benefits to future generations!"

Maybe it’s just me, but when I think about teaching, I always think back to that awful setup in Kafka’s “The Penal Colony” in which the criminal’s sentence is slowly etched into his flesh. Evidently, Kafka thought his stories (some of them, anyway) were hilarious, and, in a way, I see them that way too. 

But I (an inveterate foe of the use of torture) see myself as a version (black humor here) of that torture machine. Over time—a semester is 16 weeks—students are getting the moves of logical thinking carved into their brains, like it or not, painful or not. I don’t care. I’m gonna keep modeling these moves until there’s nothing left for these students to do but surrender to the dance. (OK, I'm switching metaphors now.) I can usually tell that, by the end of the semester, some of my students find themselves dancing, and happily so.

More or less.

Yes, it’s really quite ruthless and awful, I guess, but I relentlessly immerse (further metaphor switchage!) my students in a world of thinking informed by logic and scientific method. It comes at them all the time like Niagara Falls. I make a real effort (mostly) to know what I’m talking about and (always) to admit error when I commit it. (That is, of course, a great teaching opportunity.) (Don't you just hate writers [and others {like today's edition of Roy}] who use lots of parentheses? Say it or don't say it, I say. Don't quasi say it!)

(As I've explained previously, I do not teach conclusions; I teach methods. I don't need to go into all that again, do I?)

Now, this wouldn’t work if I were boring. Am I? Check out my page on Rate My Professors. About half of the students who offer opinions there say I’m some kind of breath of freakin’ fresh air. The other half think that I drone and pontificate. It’s fascinating. Reading that page is like watching a ping-pong game: he’s brilliant (no he’s the Borg!) he’s funny (God he’s so boring!) he’s a really nice guy (he’s offensive!) his allegiance is only to the arguments/evidence (he spouts PC crap!), etc.

OK, so, to a certain extent, my posts on Contra PalaVerities are an extension of the "modeling" thing. Even my posts on DISSENT the BLOG have, in my mind, generally modeled what I, as a philosopher and appreciator of science, view as good, clear thinking, especially in the back-and-forth of comments/responses. (See below.) 

I love the back-and-forth. I love the opportunity to model such principles as that “evidence and argument” is prior to belief (i.e., at no time and in no sense should one form beliefs independently of the indications of a review of the available evidence/arguments, properly considered). Sometimes, readers err in that regard. What do I do? I relentlessly go back to the evidence, the arguments. Someone writes, “Typical lefty sh*t, you pig-f*cker!” I essentially ignore the ad hominem. I say: OK Porky, where’s your argument?

Obviously, I do sometimes find that I am the one in error. Recently, I wrote a comment (I’ve written several) on the Red County blog and someone noted, none too politely, that I and others needed to update their info (the issue was OC Treasurer Chriss Street's record). Well, clearly that person was correct, and I backed off. I love that about me. Have I mentioned that I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me?

Two further points: no, I don’t view my colleagues or many among the public who read these blogs in the same way that I view my students, who are almost always young and only half way through their education. (On the other hand, generally, the public is about as ignorant and logically clueless as my students—just read the relevant polls. My God! —My colleagues? It’s not my job to “instruct” them, of course, but I do wish many of them were more conscious of their lack of “background” [heehee] re evidence and argument. How many of them could explain induction vs. deduction or the very idea of an argument as understood by logicians?)

Second, I have tremendous respect for most of my colleagues, including (and in some respects especially) those in writing and literature; and I do view myself as one who can benefit from their training and perspective. Obviously, the voice of Rebel Girl is very different from the voice of Chunk Wheeler. I love that. The Reb brings things to “the conversation” that I cannot duplicate (I’ve tried) and that I admire and value. Often, I marvel at her pieces. And I have no idea how she does what she does, which is invariably far warmer and more inviting than what I, a gruff logical bastard, do.

Chunk (Roy) focuses on critical thinking:

• ”It’s all subjective,” he said [No it isn't.]
• Human folly is so very entertaining [Thinkin' 'bout cause 'n' effect: stretching before exercise.]
• In defense of name-calling [Not necessarily fallacious.]
• How we know that homeopathy doesn’t work [An assumption about nature.]
• Is the truth liberal? [Often, it is.]
• Without data, we only have a bloke [On the rhetorician's advice about "ethos."]
• Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit [I think this is about bullshit.]
• Knowing, not knowing, and confident boobery [Confident boobery is killing us. I have nothing against boobs, however.]
• Teaching and revealing beliefs [Contra Fish's extreme view re advocacy in the classroom.]

The ol’ back-and-forth (see especially "comments"):

• Stupidity and cell phones [Lots of back and forth here re conservatism.]
• Huntington Beach and God
• The Bible as literally true
• Give cats ‘n’ dogs the vote

Philosophy, more or less

• Acting like a vicious human (notes on free will) [Odd thinking; a puzzle about moral character.]
• Clueless [Seeking knowledge w/o the prospect of seeing the Promised Land; can/should mindless processes dazzle?]
• Where are the conservatives? [None to be found 'round here.]
• The lives of moral soldiers [The focus on purity is morally silly.]
• Manifest falsity: why do we embrace stupid ideas? [Ruminations on "moral character"; attacking the "self-esteem" philosophy.]
• Why morals cannot be rooted in religion [Why philosophers have rejected the Divine "roots" idea for 2400 years.]

Peevitude 'bout Warren's switcheroo

.....Looks like I'm not the only one peeved about Rick Warren/Saddleback Church's handling of tickets for Saturday's Obama/McCain forum. (See our It's the old Saddleback Church shuffle.)
.....The OC Register just posted about the anger that it has inspired (Saddleback ticket distribution angers some):

.....When...26-year-old [Greg Burger] found out about the John McCain-Barack Obama forum at Saddleback Church this Saturday, he did what a lot of people did: He checked the church Web site as often as he could to get the most up-to-date ticket information.
....."I knew my only chance to receive tickets would be to act fast," Burger said.
.....For the past couple of weeks, the general public had been told via the church's Web site that ticket information would be forthcoming.
.....Then last week, the message changed and said a limited number of tickets would be available this Wednesday. Monday night, the message was revised again, saying all tickets had been distributed.
.....The switcheroo left many people like Burger feeling like they were deceived.

.....You bet. Nobody likes a switcheroo.
.....And what about those absurdly high ticket prices ($500 for the cheap seats)?
.....According to the Reg, "The high prices raised eyebrows."
.....Warren had better get his act together. Soon, he's hosting an event with former British Prime Minister Tony B. Watch 'im mess that up too.

Thinking about Sterling Hayden

Perhaps you’ve heard about the release, today, of tens of thousands of top-secret personnel files for the OSS—the WW II forerunner to the CIA. (Newly released files detail early US spy network.)

Naturally, we’ll hear lots about Julia Child’s file. But I wanted to focus on another former agent: character actor Sterling Hayden (1916-1986).

Most will remember him, I suppose, as the actor who played General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. He was a good actor, a terrific screen presence. He did a fair amount of film noire and lots of westerns.

Hayden started out a seaman, but, after nine years at sea, somehow, he switched to modeling and acting, which he hated. According to Wikipedia:

His first film starred Madeleine Carroll, with whom he fell in love and married. But after just two film roles, he left Hollywood to serve as an undercover agent with William J. Donovan's COI office. He remained there after it became the OSS. Hayden also joined the Marines under the name John Hamilton…. His World War II service included running guns through German lines to the Yugoslav partisans and parachuting into fascist Croatia. He won the Silver Star and a commendation from Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito.

His Yugoslavian experience led to his briefly joining the Communist party. According to his IMDb biography,

he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, confessing his brief Communist ties. Ever after regretted this action, holding himself in enormous contempt for what he considered "ratting".

I always assumed that Hayden wasn’t interesting except as an actor and squealer. But a perusal of his biography debunks such notions. He was obviously a complex, literate man. Loved sailing. Acted to pay for that.

IMDb lists some Hayden quotations:

• [On his films] Bastards, most of them, conceived in contempt of life and spewn out onto screens across the world with noxious ballyhoo; saying nothing, contemptuous of the truth, sullen, and lecherous.

• [On confessing his Communist ties] I don't think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself since the day I did that thing . . . It's the one thing in my life that I'm categorically ashamed of.

• [After shooting Johnny Guitar (1954)] There is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money

• [On acting] You don't need talent to star in a motion picture. All you need is some intelligence AND the ability to work freely in front of the lens. Why do I always freeze? I went through the war. I jumped out of bombers. I played kick-the-can with E-boats when all we had was a lousy 40-foot dragger with six machine guns and a top speed of six knots. Yet whenever I get a closeup in a nice warm studio, I curl up and die.

• [On the Yugoslavian Partisans] It seems to me the people in the [Communist] Party not only know what's going on in the world but they have the guts to determine a course of action . . . In Yugoslavia . . . when the going got rough and it was time to be counted, it was the Communists who stood up and fought.

• [On director Stanley Kubrick] By the time of [Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)] [Kubrick] had become very human -- maybe it was the power that came with successes like Lolita (1962) -- for he is now very strong. My first day was torture. I was nervous, scared, did 48 takes. I expected Kubrick to explode but instead he was gentle, calmed me, convinced me that the fear in my eyes would help the character.

• [On director Bernardo Bertolucci] Bertolucci is not like most directors I've worked with; there's something beautiful, crazy, special about him. He's funny, too. He operates like a writer. No one knows what he's going to do. Several million dollars are riding on him alone. He has the power, he goes ahead, upsets those who plan schedules, takes his own time, follows his own genius.

Hayden in Strangelove: "precious bodily fluids" (1964)


Trailer for "Crime Wave"/"The City is Dark" (1954)