Right-wing mob forming, conservative leadership AWOL

It's a treacherous thing, guessing just what is afoot, historically. But it has seemed to many of us for some time that the conservative hoi polloi (i.e., the Republican "base") has been descending into new and stunning depths of mob-like irrationality. One watches the angry-man-in-the-street news stories, reads the uncouth letters to the editor (or to this blog!): these people do not distinguish between fact and opinion. They do not discriminate between sources of information. They offer no arguments. They appear not to be amenable to reason.

They believe what they want to believe, and they want to believe some ugly and frightening things.

Conservative leadership? For the most part, they seize the opportunity to demagogue*, encouraging the phenomenon. Good grief!

One good thing: there's a growing recognition of this (apparent) development and a call to conservative leadership to do something about their unruly herd.

Frank Rich’s piece in yesterday's New York Times:

The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers

WHEN a Fox News anchor … warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.

The anchor was Shepard Smith, speaking after Wednesday’s mayhem at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington…. ¶ What he reported was this: his e-mail from viewers had “become more and more frightening” in recent months, dating back to the election season. From Wednesday alone, he “could read a hundred” messages spewing “hate that’s not based in fact,” much of it about Barack Obama and some of it sharing the museum gunman’s canard that the president was not a naturally born citizen. These are Americans “out there in a scary place,” Smith said.
…
What is this fury [against Obama] about? In his scant 145 days in office, the new president has not remotely matched the Bush record in deficit creation. Nor has he repealed the right to bear arms or exacerbated the wars he inherited. He has tried more than his predecessor ever did to reach across the aisle. But none of that seems to matter. A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies….
…
This homicide-saturated vituperation is endemic among mini-Limbaughs. Glenn Beck has dipped into O’Reilly’s Holocaust analogies to liken Obama’s policy on stem-cell research to the eugenics that led to “the final solution” and the quest for “a master race.”….

But hyperbole from the usual suspects in the entertainment arena of TV and radio is not the whole story. What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment….
…
The question, Shepard Smith said on Fox last week, is “if there is really a way to put a hold on” those who might run amok. We’re not about to repeal the First or Second Amendments. Hard-core haters resolutely dismiss any “mainstream media” debunking of their conspiracy theories. The only voices that might penetrate their alternative reality — I emphasize might — belong to conservative leaders with the guts and clout to step up as McCain did last fall. Where are they? The genteel public debate in right-leaning intellectual circles about the conservative movement’s future will be buried by history if these insistent alarms are met with silence….

LOCAL VOCAL YOKELS:

• OC's Reverend Wiley Drake Prays for Obama's death

• Night of the Nazi (the SOCCCD, a decade ago)

MORE IRRATIONALITY:

Irrationality about health seems to attract people from across the political spectrum. Consider Oprah Winfrey, who resides, I suppose, somewhere on the left. Her advice and influence concerning health issues is disastrous.

Check out a recent article in Newsweek magazine:

Live Your Best Life Ever!

Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live Your Best Life Ever!

…[T]he truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn't good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode wasn't an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can't seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

*Yes, I know, only a barbarian would use this word as a verb.

UPDATE:

This isn't really an "update," since the article below was published four days ago. But its relevant:

Conservatives going after Shep Smith

You bet. The delightful Mr. Charles Krauthammer seems to be the ringleader. You know what he's like.

My guess: Shep's days at FOX are numbered.

Good for him.

The Great Depression as experienced in the OC

A WPA breadline in Santa Ana

This morning, the OC Register offers a lengthy piece, by Eugene Garcia, entitled "The Great Depression in O.C.: Are the hard times back?"

The article begins unpromisingly:

Have we avoided another Great Depression? Many think the worst has passed. But some long-time Orange County residents are less hopeful. They lived in and around Orange County through the relentless Depression of the 1930s, a period with stark differences and similarities to the current recession. So how do the two crises compare?

OK, this is confused. Obviously, unlike most of us, "long-time OC residents" can tell us how bad it was in OC in the 30s. They can, I suppose, compare those days to these days.

But surely the current recession hasn't yet played out: we've witnessed only the early chapters of a long saga. The big question is: where is this heading? Have we seen the worst? How bad will this get? Hence the talk of "hopefulness" or the lack thereof.

My point: the Depression experiences of OC oldsters does not provide them with superior insight regarding that, contrary to Mr. Garcia's assumptions.

Still, if you're like me, you'd love to hear from these people about what things were like in the OC during the Depression. In this regard, Garcia's piece manages to be interesting and informative, especially when it describes the fate of local artists and the behavior of bank customers.

Also, in the article, some of these OC oldsters worry about the preparedness of current youth for an increasingly severe downturn. Very wise, that.

So check out the article.

The article is accompanied by five videos, evidently produced by Mr. Garcia, some of which offer images of OC's past that we rarely or never see. These videos are generally excellent:

Let Them Eat Lobster
Hobos descend on the county as breadlines cope with the local unemployed.

Running to the Bank
'Dirty tricks' help close one third of O.C.'s banks during the Depression.

Will Paint for Food
Laguna Beach's early impressionist painters take desperate measures to make ends meet.

Dancing for Dollars
The first reality shows in Orange County could have been called 'So You Think You Can Keep Dancing?'

Is History Repeating?
O.C. residents weigh-in on how the Depression compares to the current crisis.

(All descriptions, and the photo, from OC Register article.)

WEEKEND BRATS:

Natalie, 20 mos.

Catherine, 20 mos.

TigerAnn, six years old

Will fee increases lead to a steep decline in enrollments?

Readers sharply divided on raising community college fees

The OC Reg’s Gary Robbins reports that readers “reacted strongly” to the recent LAO report that said “that lawmakers could roughly triple student fees at California community colleges without causing major hardship or a big drop in enrollment.” Robbins rewrote some reader comments as questions, which he gave to Judy Iannaccone, communications director for the Rancho Santiago Community College District. Naturally, she takes the position that fee increases would cause massive enrollment drops.

I’m especially interested in one question and answer:

Q: The California Community College (CCC) system says that a fee hike could result in a very large drop in enrollment. The CCC says this happened earlier this decade, when fees were increased. The Legislative Analyst’s Office seems to disagree, saying in its report: “Our analysis suggests that this claim about fees being the sole or even the major cause of enrollment declines is exaggerated. In fact, there are several explanations for the enrollment declines.” What’s true?


A: When enrollment fees rose from $11 to $26 between 2003 and 2005, student fee increases and uncertain community college budgets triggered a decline in enrollment of more than 300,000 students statewide. Unemployment was not pervasive at that time. With families and individuals facing very difficult economic times today, a steep increase of community college enrollment fees would likely lead to a significant drop in college enrollment. Students would simply not be able to shoulder the increased economic burden.

Now, I don’t claim to know the truth of the matter—whether there are grounds for supposing that a large fee increase would lead to a sharp drop in enrollment. One thing, however, is clear: from the fact that, several years ago, when fees increased, enrollments dropped dramatically it does not follow that the fee increase caused the enrollment drop. Logicians call this kind of fallacious reasoning “post hoc ergo propter hoc”—“after this therefore because of this.” The point is that the mere temporal pattern (first event A, then event B) does not by itself establish that A caused B (just as correlations between facts [vegetarianism, better health] does not by itself establish a causal connection.)

When this kind of temporal pattern occurs (A, then B), we need to consider all possible explanations of B, one of them being that A (the initial event) caused B (the subsequent event). The LAO seems to be saying that, when we consider all of the relevant facts (surrounding the enrollment decline of 2003-2005), the “fees increase caused drop in enrollments” (FICDE) explanation is not particularly good compared to alternatives.

It is not entirely clear that Ms. Iannaccone understands the nature of the LAO’s reasoning, for, to counter it, she must show that the FICDE explanation is best among alternatives, and I don’t see that she has done that.

She does note that there is an important difference between 2003-2005 and the present. There is another factor that affects enrollments, and it is rates of unemployment. Unlike the period earlier in this decade, today, “unemployment is pervasive.”

It does seem reasonable to view much greater unemployment as a cause of some decrease in enrollments. But it doesn’t entirely answer the LAO’s point, which, in essence, is that several other factors, besides fee increases (etc.), can cause enrollment declines.

I’ll try to dig up the factors they are referring to.

UPDATE: I've gotta run, but I did dig up those "factors":

The LAO report, dated June 10, is entitled California Community Colleges: Raising Fees Could Mitigate Program Cuts and Leverage More Federal Aid.

Here are some excerpts that provide the alternative explanations of the enrollment decrease that occurred between 2003 and 2005:

Crackdown on Concurrent Enrollment. Much of the decline in enrollment from 2003–04 to 2004–05 was an intended result of statutory and budget changes to address systemic abuses involving concurrent enrollment….

Reduced Course Offerings. In a 2005 report to the Legislature on enrollment changes at CCC, the Chancellor’s Office suggested that an unknown amount of the enrollment decline can be explained by districts having reduced the number of course offerings. This reduction was in response to concerns by districts about possible cuts to the CCC system budget during this period….

Impact of Fees on Nonneedy Students. Although all financially needy students are eligible to receive a fee waiver and CCC fees remained the lowest in the country, it is likely that some students chose not to enroll in a community college as a result of the higher fees imposed in 2003–04 and 2004–05. As we discussed in our 2006–07 Analysis of the Budget Bill (page E–252), however, data collected by the Chancellor’s Office in 2005 and 2006 revealed no disproportionate effect on students from low–income areas or historically underrepresented racial groups….

In summary, a combination of factors likely contributed to earlier CCC enrollment declines, with fee increases having an unknown effect. Similar to that period, however, it is likely that this year some fee–paying students who would have attended when fees were $20 per unit would choose not to enroll when fees are higher (even if they qualified for a full or partial reimbursement from the federal government). Because these students by definition are not financially needy, their decision not to enroll should not be considered a denial of access, but rather a choice they made about the benefit they would have received from a CCC course.

Noontide Press and von Brunn; what Fuentes' Regnery publishes

Just a brief update on yesterday’s blog re Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn and the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a local Holocaust denial organization with which one-time SOCCCD trustee Steve Frogue was associated. (Frogue praised IHR’s publications, especially the “Journal for Historical Review,” old issues of which are currently sold by IHR’s Noontide Press.)

In 1983, von Brunn was sentenced to prison for attempted armed kidnapping of members of the Federal Reserve board. After von Brunn was released from prison in 1989, he traveled to Southern California to work for the IHR. More specifically, he worked for the publishing arm of the IHR, Noontide Press, which evidently had (has?) a bookstore.

But where? The address given for Noontide Press these days is Newport Beach (same as for the IHR). But at one point (probably at least through the early 90s), Noontide Press was located in Torrance, a coastal town in southern LA county (not far from us). Torrance was also the initial home of IHR.

Noontide Press was founded by notorious anti-Semite Willis Carto in 1969. Carto founded IHR nine years later.

By the early 90s, Carto was “fired” from IHR, owing to alleged mismanagement/corruption. (Carto bought his wife a Cadillac, using IHR money, etc. The big issue was who controlled a big chunk of money that had been donated by the heir to the Edison fortune.) Eventually, there was a lawsuit, filed in 1993. Carto has been hostile to IHR ever since. Nevertheless, evidently under the direction of Mark Weber, IHR and Noontide Press have continued to pursue their original “populist” (i.e., racist) vision.

It appears that von Brunn ceased his employment with IHR/Noontide in the early 90s, right about when Carto’s relationship with Weber and crew soured. Carto claims not to have known von Brunn, which seems highly unlikely. IHR’s current leader, Mark Weber, also denies having known von Brunn, though he acknowledges having known of him.

There are reports that von Brunn has continued subscribing to IHR publications/newsletters.

Think of it! No doubt our boy Steve visited IHR's bookstore in the late 80s or early 90s. Picture him served by and talking to Mr. von Brunn! Yikes!

The loonies in our midst. Troubling, ain't it?

I do believe that most of the nuts who are drawn to racist organizations and publications are neither violent nor would they condone violence. I'm pretty sure that Frogue was in the non-violent category.

He's just a deluded fool. (It was troubling, however, to watch him fail to condemn the Nazis who descended upon board meetings in 1997 and 1998. What was that about?)

—Yeah, Frogue was "just a harmless nut"—or maybe not so harmless. People like Frogue—people in positions of power or authority who cozy up to racists and racist themes—make it easier to be a racist nutjob.

In any case, he was one of our trustees (until 2000)! Good Lord!

FUENTES AND REGNERY

To examine the publishing company with which Frogue's replacement, Tom Fuentes, is associated (along with the likes of Pat Sajak, Tom is an "external director" of Eagle/Regnery), visit Regnery Press and its very special catalog, which includes the titles listed below.

(Naturally, I'm not equating Regnery with Noontide, though it is surely scandalous that a college trustee is associated with the incompetent and dishonest "scholarship" presented in some of these books. I suppose that global warming denial and evolution denial are not as egregious as Holocaust denial. But what about Muslim bashing?)

The Bible Is History

The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House,

God, Guns & Rock and Roll

Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption Into the Catholic Church

How to Survive Your Doctor's Care

Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?

In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror

Invasion Within: Overcoming the Elitists’ Attack on Moral Values and the American Way

Inventing the AIDS Virus

Kill It and Grill It: A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish

How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror

Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America

The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos

The Myth of Heterosexual Aids

Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West

Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage

The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life

Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity

The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Darwinism and Intelligent Design,

The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Global Warming and Environmentalism

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)

Power Grab: How the National Education Association is Betraying Our Children

Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America

Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't

The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion

Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country

Who Killed the Constitution? The Judges v. the Law

Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster

IN THE NEWS:

GLOBAL WARMING DENIER ROHRABACHER FROTHS ON (OC Weekly)

Half who died driving [Live Oak Canyon] road were 18 or younger (OC Register)

...Of the 189 fatal or injury crashes along the road, 66 percent of the drivers were 25 years old or younger. Twenty percent of drivers were found to be between 26 and 40, while 14 percent were over 40.

Of the 12 people killed on the road since 1999, one was 16, two were 17, and four were 18 years old. Three people were 25 years old, one was 40, and the oldest was 48....

Big community college fee increases recommended by LAO

State hints at big fee hike for community colleges (OC Register; Gary Robbins)

The state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) says in a new report that lawmakers could increase community college fees up to 3 times their current level without greatly affecting enrollment at the schools, which include nine colleges in Orange County.

The report does not recommend a specific increase, but says: “If the state were to increase fees to up to $60 per unit (or $1,800 for a full–time student), eligible students taking 30 units per year would be able to take full advantage of the tax credit—while leaving room to receive some reimbursement for textbook costs.”

The LAO report drew an immediate protest from the California Community College (CCC) system, which said any significant fee increase could have a devastating impact on enrollment, forcing tens of thousands of students to forgo an education.
…
The new analysis says: “New federal tax credit provisions allow the state to tap potentially hundreds of millions of new federal dollars for higher education. Because these tax credits will fully reimburse most California Community College (CCC) students for the fees they pay, the state could raise those fees (and revenue for CCC) with no net impact on most students. The purpose of this brief is to provide additional information—in a question-and-answer format—related to our recommendation.”

[CCC’s Paige Marlatt] Dorr added that previous fee increases had led to major declines in enrollment, a claim the LAO report disputes. The report says, “Our analysis suggests that this claim about fees being the sole or even the major cause of enrollment declines is exaggerated. In fact, there are several explanations for the enrollment declines.”….

Our tenuous "connection" to the (alleged) National Holocaust Museum shooter

[Note: this post inspired an OC Weekly story.]

File this one under “perhaps interesting” and also “probably trivial.”

But who knows.

You’ll recall that Holocaust denying and conspiracy theory-loving SOCCCD trustee Steve Frogue (of Lake Forest), who resigned from the board in 2000, was a fan of

(1) the “Institute for Historical Review” (IHR), a major supporter of Holocaust denial “scholarship,” and

(2) the publications/reports of Liberty Lobby, a publishing group run and funded by notorious anti-Semite Willis Carto.

Frogue was particularly interested in the Orange County-based IHR, which had been founded by Carto in the late 70s, though IHR management later had a falling out with the fellow (some time in the 80s, as I recall).

Frogue, of course, was very nearly recalled. Arguably, his serious troubles began when, as a trustee, he organized a Saddleback College “forum” on the JFK assassination/Warren Commission Report. The forum comprised four guest speakers, including ace Liberty Lobby “reporter” and tanning-booth enthusiast, Michael Collins Piper. Some of these guests, including Piper, seemed to express, or were associated with publications that did express, Holocaust denial, among other conspiracy theories. Piper had just written a long and silly book attributing the JFK assassination to the CIA and Israel (with the involvement of the Anti-Defamation League, as I recall). Some of the other speakers had equally incompetent views about the JFK assassination (ex-Nazis killed JFK, etc.).

On the day that approval for travel expenses for Frogue's four guests was on the board agenda, I phoned the ADL's Joyce Greenspan (her office was in Long Beach), alerting her to Piper’s association with Liberty Lobby (I had become familiar with LL and Piper while researching Frogue and his curious interests; Frogue, of course, had been supported in the 1996 trustees race by the Faculty Association). She did some of her own research and consequently came to the board meeting, urging trustees to not approve travel expenses for Piper and the other three "forum" speakers, whom she judged to be unsavory.

Willis Carto

Led by John Williams, the “board four” (Teddi Lorch, Williams, Frogue, and Dorothy Fortune) approved the funding anyway.

I made some phone calls. Perhaps Greenspan did so as well. Within one or two days, Saddleback College was in the news around the country: "College to hold forum including conspiracy nuts and Holocaust deniers." (That was the gist of it.)

During one board meeting, Frogue described visiting Piper in Washington, D.C., where Carto's Liberty Lobby is headquarted. During another board meeting at about the same time (in 1997), Piper came to an SOCCCD board meeting to defend his views and scholarship--but his presentation was lost in the noise and chaos caused by clashes and tensions between his racist, conspiracy-loving Liberty Lobby/IHR pals and the equally loony but perhaps more dangerous Jewish Defense League (JDL) crowd, including its founder, Irv Rubin. (See A motley crew of Nazis VS. JDL thugs: oh, what a night! and Night of the Nazi.)

(Horribly, Rubin later committed suicide--or was murdered--at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles awaiting trial.)

It didn't help that, during the same meeting, I read aloud a letter to me from Piper in which he offered veiled threats and repeatedly called me a "m*ther f*cker."

"Gosh, I don't know any scholars who use that word," I noted. (Something like that.)

So why do I bring all of this up? Because the Reb just sent me an article from the Lede—Noam Cohen’s “Traces of Gunman’s Online Life Begin to Vanish”—which, among other things, explains that the internet record of James von Brunn, the guy who shot a guard at the National Holocaust Museum yesterday, is being erased--presumably by those who'd rather not be associated with such infamy (or maybe they don't want the FBI on their doorstep).

Von Brunn, it turns out, has long been a member of this country’s racist, anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering, black-helicopter-dodging community.

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

Cohen refers to another blogger: Zachary Roth. According to Roth (of the TPM blog), “Von Brunn tried to use Wikipedia to promote the work of Willis Carto, the right-wing Holocaust denier and founder of the Liberty Lobby.”

In an update, Roth notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) added Van Brunn's website “as a hate site last year….”

Adds SPLC (according to Roth),

In the 1980s or early 1990s, von Brunn was employed by Noontide Press, a part of the Holocaust denying Institute of Historical Review [IHR], which was then run by Willis Carto, one of America's most prominent anti-Semites.

Did you get that? The loony Mr. von Brunn was associated with--evidently indirectly worked for--the very Orange County organization (IHR) that Steve Frogue promoted a dozen years ago in the midst of the controversy surrounding his Warren Commission "forum."

What does it all mean? Dunno.



ALSO IN THE NEWS:

Silverado Elementary holds last graduation (OC Register)

By RASHI KESARWANI

The big yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot of Silverado Elementary School for the final time today. ¶ The school, which serves 75 students from Silverado and Modjeska Canyon, will be shuttered by June 19 … due to budget cuts facing the Orange Unified School District.

Next year, some students will be bussed from the Canyons to Chapman Hills Elementary, which parents say is at least an hour bus ride that may begin as early as 6:30 a.m….

Parents and teachers said the closure of Silverado Elementary, a school that first opened over 100 years ago on Santiago Canyon Road, is a great loss to the community.
…
Lisa Alvarez, [a] parent, said she feared the effect that a long morning bus ride to Chapman Hills would have on young students' performance and behavior.

"I know the last thing my 7-year-old boy needs is a one-and-a-half hour bus ride in the morning," Alvarez said. "That's setting him up for failure."

Alvarez also criticized Prop. 13, the 1978 California ballot initiative that capped property taxes, a move which critics argue led to a reduction in school spending.

She called on corporate property owners to pay more in taxes. "These people should be facing higher taxes so we don't have to close down a century-old school," Alvarez said….

Overcoming sheer ugliness and total ergonomic perversity

NOT LONG AGO, the Reb and other members of Irvine Valley College's League of Obdurate Peevitude (LOOP) noted that, though our campus is looking wondrously spiffulescent these days, the major exception, superficially, is the butt-ugly dandelion zone just outside our own building—A200, the home of Humanities and Languages faculty, among others.

We squawked about it. Remember?

Conspiracy fans will recall that H&L faculty have been at the forefront of criticism/protest of our rotten Chancellor (Raghu P. Mathur) and the clueless, right-wing trustees who support him (including recent Grand Jury poster boy John Williams and Tom "inexplicable liver recipient" Fuentes).

Some prominent Mathur/board critics are of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, and much of that school, too, is kept in sorry old, penicillin-producing, A200.

Well, as it turns out, as we squawked, administration was planning to remedy the situation, 'cause, the next day, our Corner of Crumminess turned into a veritable Garden of Eden. Teams of workers, working around the clock, carried in hundreds of rectangular chunks of turf and just plunked 'em into place like tiles on the Space Shuttle. They straightened out and polished that scrawny Twig-o-Tree, too. See the pic above.

They did a good job on that turf. Can't see the seams. The lawn is practically natural.

Heck, the last time I checked (yesterday), students were sittin' in the grass, discussing philosophy, grimacing into the sun, smoking doob, and so on. Well, not smoking doob, but they seemed to be way mellow and they sure did like that grass.

OK, they weren't talkin' philosophy either. But they were talking.

I ran into my dean and she reminded me that our Library is another area of our fine campus that looks positively splendiferous. It looks best on the inside, we noted.

Inspired, I went into the Library and took some pics.

I never noticed before, but, in our Library, they've even got a sled so students (well, one student) can slide down the stairs to the ground floor in the case of a snow storm or something. Gosh, they think of everything.

Did you know that there's a "Freedom Shrine" on the top floor of the Library? I think they've pinned up some old OC Register articles about french fries and water-boarding. Very staunch.

The library is teeming with manifest (yet oddly unnoticed) UFOs, ever-hovering above iPod-encrusted studentry and drowsy Pecksniffian librarians.

Got clocks, windows. Nice view. I like the chairs.

Check this out. Going up the stairs is like taxiing down an aircraft carrier runway in an F-22 Raptor. Modern! Reckless! Delightful!

Very brick-and-mortery. Hey, if you don't actually talk to the students, the Library will make you think that IVC is the "Harvard of the West"!

—I kid. Many of our students are very bright. We do have some knuckleheads, but they don't hang out in the library. I think they're in student government or the Honor Society. That's just a guess, based on personal observation.

A REMAINING ZONE OF SHITITUDE

Gotta say, though, that, just across the sidewalk from our new Garden Zone is a remaining sector of abject shititude. Follow the arrow above.

Luckily, it looks like that's now getting a nifty makeover too. That's 'cause they're rapidly redoing building A300, which in some sense comprises the above-mentioned Sector of Weedery.

You know A300. It is legendary. More than ten years ago, one of Mathur's favorite hires (a notoriously inept and unprincipled dean whose trail of devastation, inappropriate touching, and failed pipe-dreamery occasioned construction of our famous "Faculty Mental Health Center" with its innovative "Narcissism Clinic") decided to turn A300 inside out. (That's how the Reb always puts it.) His loopy innovations utterly destroyed the place. Recently, its sheer ugliness and total ergonomic perversity led to abandonment and condemnation. Dogs wouldn't even pee on it. Rats eschewed it.

Yeah, but now they're totally revamping the interior! I snuck in there yesterday and took these snaps:

More alien craft and landing modules, but that's cool. Do we get to keep the little black cart?

Very spacey. The angles point to the exit, into the light, beyond IVC.

I like the blue pillar, which reminds one of the monolith in 2001 a Space Odyssey. Cool. Forbidding! Sublime!

No doubt somebody thinks these wavy wall elements improve the acoustics. What's that you said? I can't freakin' hear you.

TIMES ARE BAD, BUT THEY LOOK GOOD

I noticed some students sketching the Performing Arts Center or maybe the Beefsteak Bldg. (See below.) They were sprawling happily across the new Garden Spot and Live Modeling venue.

One student, upon confronting the wonder that is now IVC, seemed discombobulated by the excessive beauty and excellence.

I know how she feels.

Well, that's it. Things are looking up. And it's summer, too.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.

—Walt Whitman

OC Preacher prays for Obama’s death
Rev. Wiley Drake prays for Obama’s death (OC Weekly)

Somehow, we here at Weekly HQ missed that the Rev. Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park not only declared last week that the murder of Kansas abortion Dr. George Tiller had been the answer to his "imprecatory" prayers, but that the so-called Man of God later announced he'd made a similar prayer of death for President Barack Obama....

Hear it for yourself: