UPDATED WITH RESPONSE FROM LAWYER FOR THE DISTRICT . . .
A lawsuit has been filed in U.S.
District Court for the Central District of California against the South Orange County Community College District over official prayers during public ceremonies, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today.
UPDATE: University of California Regents voted for a 32 percent tuition increase today, with a dissenting vote coming from the student-regent. The vote was taken and debated over loud protests outside from hundreds of demonstrators. Our big sis' LA Weekly reports one arrest today.
See also the Los Angeles TimesLA Live blog post and their photos here.
Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange.
No one will think twice about South Korean filmmakers, dignitaries and hangers-on traipsing across a red carpet Friday evening for the opening of the Chapman Pusan West film festival in Orange.
But have this be a South Vietnamese film festival with any hint of red on the carpet, posters or frames of film and cries, shouts, kicks, punches and overall bad mojo will fly from Little Saigon wheezers convinced it's some kind of Commie brainwashing hatched in the North.
The Quiksilver-produced, Jamie Teirney-directed documentary Clay Marzo:Just Add Water screens for free tonight as the cinematic collaboration between the Newport Beach Film Festival and Sage Hill School continues on like sun-kissed waves.
All eyes from the University of California system, and some from outside it, will be on UCLA today and tomorrow. No, not to observe the Bruins licking their wounds from Monday night's embarrassing loss to Cal State Fullerton on the Pauley Pavilion hardwood. It's at UCLA where the UC Board of Regents, the governing body over the 10-campus system, will vote today on whether to implement 32 percent tuition hikes in the face of massive budget shortfalls. On Thursday, the board is scheduled to vote on putting the plan into action.
"This is a historic moment," writes Jesse Cheng, a fourth-year Asian American studies major at UCI and student-regent designate, for the New University campus newspaper. ". . . If the increase passes, UC Irvine students will face the brunt of the public's failure to invest in the University."
She's urging her classmates to join more than 1,000 students planning to descend on the Board of Regents meeting to protest the fee increase. Trips to Westwood are being organized both days by the Associated Students of UCI; email here if you want to participate and vist the ucregentlive.wordpress.com blog for updates.
"I will be there both days, on one side of the velvet rope, sitting at the table with the Board of Regents, speaking for the future of an affordable and quality UC," writes Cheng. "I hope to see you on the other side."
Um, not so fast. As part of the California Teachers Association's "Stand Up for Schools" campaign, instructors statewise are choosing to commemorate Education Week by warning of the harm being done to students by massive state budget cuts.
That harm includes the elimination of 20,000 teaching jobs.
After generating about $15.5 million at the box office in its opening weekend, The Fourth Kind starring Milla Jovovich only took in a disappointing $4.6 million in its second, this past weekend. Adding insult to insult, Universal has been stung with criticism for fabricating news articles to bolster the alien abduction movie's "based on a true story" claim.
Even if you've joined the millions and millions avoiding this steaming pile of celluloid, chances are you've seen the trailers or TV commercials that open with grainy footage of a woman being interviewed with the Chapman University logo superimposed in the lower right corner. Thinking that might have been the result of a technical malfuction that mistakenly overlapped video of the new horror movie over KOCE/Channel 50's Dialogue With Jim Doti, Clockwork reached out to the Orange institution of higher learning Doti presides over to ask, "Hey, what 'da scoop?"
Senior research scientist Walt Scacchi of the UCI Institute for Software Research
Walt Scacchi, the director of research with UC Irvine's Center for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds, seeks live bodies rather than virtual ones for a lecture he's sponsoring this afternoon.
A still from the video mentioned in the lawsuit. Watch the full thing here.
We reported back in September that the American Civil Liberties Union had settled a lawsuit against Newport-Mesa School District and Corona del Mar High School administrators brought by the Orange County Equality Coalition and the Ketchum-Wiggins family, whose daughter Hail was harassed via Facebook video and who said administrators didn't do enough to punish the harassers. The lawsuit came in the midst of controversy over a school production of Rent--originally spiked by the school's administration, some allege, because it depicted homosexuality--which featured Hail Ketchum-Wiggins as lead.
It's November now, which means all the high-school seniors involved in the case, including Hail Ketchum-Wiggins and the three boys who "joked" about raping and murdering her, aren't at CDM anymore. But Karyl Ketchum, mother of Hail, is still losing sleep. She tells the Weekly that she believes the school has failed to follow through on a few terms of the settlement agreement, and that she fears for the safety of her daughter when she returns from college for the holidays.
Ketchum is considering her options. One of them involves YouTube.
The office of state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) sent out an email containing the flier attachment above for the "Pathways to Higher Education Conference," a free event for high school students and their parents set for Nov. 21 at Coastline Community College in Garden Grove.
The conference will feature a legislative update and information on financial aid, preparing for college and leadership-skill building. But the politician--or, more likely, the staffers who throw this stuff together--seem in need of a remedial geography lesson.
Anna, James, Maya: All reminders of a simpler time.
Remember 2007? M.I.A. released a really good album, the surge in Iraq was all the talk, Anna Nicole Smith laid to rest her gentle head and everyone assumed Hillary Clinton was going to be the next President.
It was also the year in which James Fleming, the former superintendent of Capistrano Unified School District, was indicted for allegedly creating an "enemies" list of parents and students and then lying about it.
He still hasn't stood trial. Indicted in May '07 and originally scheduled for trial in October of that year, the case has since been delayed eight times. Wait, strike that. The Register's Scott Martindale reports that it happened a ninth time today.
"Being president of the University of California is like being manager
of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is
listening" -- Mark Yudof, UC President, to theNew York Times Magazine.
Clever quote, but perhaps not so amusing for the people compared to corpses--you know, every teacher, student and administrator at a University of California.
(Aside: If you take the time to read the NYT interview, you understand why Yudof isn't popular. He sounds like an irrepressible asshole.)
And so, students at UCI dressed the part and protested yesterday. The blog for the school's literary journalism program has arty, creepy photos of the event here and here.
Got you in the mood for more costumed political activism? We have an event for you right here.
When news broke of an Anaheim teacher molesting students earlier this week, we had no choice but to go with the headline "Oh Look, Another Teacher-Student Sex Crime." This sort of thing seems to happen a lot in Orange County, see. But we're running out of ways to communicate that via headline.
This time, there's no student involved. And at least the guy had the decency to (allegedly) whip his pencil out in venues that weren't classrooms. Mark Gerard Petras, 42, teaches at Serrano Intermediate School in Lake Forest. He used to teach at Mission Viejo High School. He's being arraigned today on two counts of indecent exposure and one count of false imprisonment.
Here's what he allegedly did, according to the DA's office:
Some people suck at driving. If you do not suck at driving, you probably dislike these people. But now you're not allowed to, according to UC Irvine scientists: After all, you can't hate someone for what they're born with.
Science Daily reports that UCI's Dr. Steven Cramer recently published a study in the journal Cerebral Cortex, showing that poor driving skills may be tied to a gene variant that affects memory.
How'd he figure it out? By putting people behind the wheel:
The DA's office just previewed today's arraignment of a substitute high school teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student in an empty Fullerton classroom and inappropriately grabbing another.
The Register's Scott Martindale reports that the lovably liberal UCI Law dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, will help represent James Corbett in his appeal of the ruling earlier this year that he violated the Constitution by criticizing Creationism in a Capistrano Valley High School classroom.
Corbett called Creationism "religious, superstitious nonsense" while teaching AP European History in 2007. Student Chad Farnan sued, alleging religious descrimination based on that comment and 21 others. A judge this year found Corbett liable only for the "nonsense" remark.
My journalism school's mantra was "relevant, differentiated storytelling." This site is all of those things, but something tells me the administration might not have liked it. And that's why journalism school is pointless.
Orange County isn't exactly "Brown Country," but ol' Governor Moonbeam himself, Jerry Brown, is coming here to speak about his 40-year political career and California's future.
That could be helpful, seeing as how your state Attorney General--Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. is the full name, in case you've missed it--just happens to be running for governor again.
They are nicknamed the "Young Invincibles." Thus tagged by the health insurance industry, they are the demographic of strapping 19- to 29-year-olds who, at 13.7 million strong, constitute the largest group of uninsured in America. Among the least likely to be able to afford coverage, Young Invincibles are more likely not to buy insurance for another reason: it simply has not crossed their minds.
But what happens when an uninsured student's blurry vision is suddenly diagnosed to be the onset of permanent blindness?
Just another day of learning at Kinoshita Elementary School.
California Teachers Association (CTA) is taking credit for three elementary schools in Orange County improving enough academically to escape vulnerability to sanctions or forced conversion to charter schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Melrose Elementary School in Placentia, Martin Elementary School in Santa Ana and Kinoshita Elementary School in San Juan Capistrano are among eight California schools where significant Academic Performance Index (API) growth has allowed them to exit their federal "Program Improvement" status for the school year.
Aren't we all past this stuff? The Register's Annie Burris reports that last night's Huntington Beach city council meeting saw a former Westminster school district trustee reading aloud a graphic child-rape scene from Maya Angelou's autobiographical I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. Judy Ahrens performed the reading and was joined in her effort by Ocean View School District Trustee John Briscoe. The point was to gross-out everyone to the point where the book could be banned from school libraries.
The really censorious thing is that they seem to be getting traction:
Briscoe and Ahrens did a similar reading of Angelou's book at an Oct. 13 Ocean View trustee meeting.
"Administration
and other board members are unable or unwilling to take action to
remove inappropriate material immediately," he said.
However,
another Ocean View trustee Debbie Cotton told the Register that all
five board members were shocked that the book was in the library after
the reading. During the same meeting, the board directed Superintendent
Alan Rasmussen to look into the matter.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger surprisingly flip-flopped on his previous opposition and signed the state Senate bill establishing May 22 as "Harvey Milk Day," much to the chagrin of the Orange County Board of Education.
Ken Williams, who was president of the board when it voted unanimously to damn the legislation honoring the California gay icon, called it "social engineering" to encourage students to learn about Milk's career. Williams later handed the president's gavel to Alexandria Coronado, who was more blunt in her opposition to Harvey Mild Day: "If you want that lifestyle, don't make my tax dollars pay for it, and don't make me teach it to my children."
Coronado was no less fiery after the Orange County Register reached her for comment on Schwarzenegger signing the bill: "I don't understand how Harvey Milk could have a day before people like
Ronald Reagan and Pat Brown who did so much more for California. Why this is a civil rights issue? I don't know when a homosexual
had to sit on the back of a bus like Rosa Parks, or was forced by law
to attend a different school like the Mendez family in Westminster."
Of course, such rhetoric is to be expected from flag-waving Bible thumpers who have infiltrated, overrun and infected school boards all across Orange County. Why Schwarzenegger is getting crap from gays for endorsing Harvey Milk Day--on the same day he signed another Senate bill which requires California to recognize same-sex couples' marriages performed in other states--is more surprising.
Back in April, we brought you a heartwarming tale of civic involvement, governmental responsiveness and corporate accountability that's just the kind of thing we all thought we'd see more of in Barack Obama's America 2.0.
We're talking about the case of Huntington Beach's Harbour View Elementary School, where T-Mobile sought to build a cell-phone tower disguised as a tree.
The city council had given T-Mobile the OK without alerting most of the school's parents -- including, full disclosure, Weekly editor Ted Kissell -- and so the parents flipped out when they saw tractors and cranes moving onto the park right next to the place their children played every day. A few moms stood in the parking lot and blocked construction before HB mayor Keith Bohr held a town hall pow-wow, called an emergency city council meeting, and listened to dozens of residents express fears about the potential carcinogenic effects of cell tower radiation. The council ending up announcing it had struck a deal with T-Mobile: The cell tower wouldn't be built in the park, and the city would reimburse the company for $50,000 to make up for reneging on the contract it had approved months before. Parents had their fears assuaged. The council avoided the further wrath of angry parents. T-Mobile... got some free money.
It seemed like things were copacetic. But you didn't think that would be the end of it, did you?
Kirby Dick is coming to Irvine to screen "Outrage," his documentary on closeted gay politicians.
UC Irvine's Film and Video Center was late in releasing details of its fall program because the FVC's tiny and tireless staff was unsure whether there would even be a program. (Thank you, UC system across-the-board budget cuts!)
Not only will the show go on, it will feature an impressive lineup of new, classic and experimental fare. Included are a 41st anniversary screening of the late, great Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Orange County premiere of The Yes Men Save the World, a brief residency by Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, an appearance by the leading exponent of Taiwanese Second Wave cinema Tsai Ming-Liang and a documentary on closeted gay politicians introduced by its Oscar-nominated writer-director, Kirby Dick.
Best of all, in these budget-crunched times, it's cheap! Admission to Dick's Outrage and afternoon seminar-screenings with Costa are free, while per-screening tickets to the other evening shorts and features range from a measly $3 to $6. Series passes to all nine evenings are only $15-$25. Full details on the program, tickets and locations follow after the jump . . .
Comedienne Happy Slip performs tonight--and you can see her free.
The B HERE campaign that raises awareness of the life-threatening disease hepatitis B launched Thursday, but it really swings into high gear on the UC Irvine campus today.
First, a free art exhibit featuring works by up-and-coming artists working in a variety of mediums to explore the many facets of the "silent killer" that impacts up to 2 million Americans opens at 10 a.m. in the Pacific Ballroom inside the Student Center at Pereira and West Peltason drives.
Those who check out the exhibit before 5 p.m. get a free ticket to live performances from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Barclay Theatre at 4242 Campus Dr. (Parking for the art exhibit at the live show is available in the Student Center Parking Structure.)
Entertainment will be provided by young, Asian-American singers, musicians, dancers and comedians, including stand-up comic Happy Slip and KABA Modern, an award-winning Hip Hop dance act that originated at UCI and rose to national fame on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. The emcee is "YouTube sensation" KevJumba.
The events are sponsored by Gilead Sciences, a leading maker of medicines for chronic hepatitis B, with support from campus partners Alpha Phi Omega and the Chinese Association of UCI. There's an Asian flavor to the events because though the liver disease can strike anyone, it disproportionately effects Asians. It is believed as many as two-thirds of Asian Americans with chronic hepatitis B do not know they are infected, putting their health and that of their loved ones at risk.
John Huston channels William Mulholland and Jack Nicholson clueless Angelenos in Roman Polanski's classic Chinatown.
UC Irvine's revelation that it would host free "water-and-film" events Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon immediately produced visions of a giant kiddie pool plopped in front of a movie screen erected in the middle of Aldrich Park.
When it was further disclosed that the first flick screened would be the 131-minute-long Chinatown, visions of pruny appendages danced in your water-logged reporter's head.
As it turns out, these films will not be shown in H2o, they are about H2o--or the critical lack of it.
Irvine's Don Wagner, the hard-core conservative president of the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees, kicks off his bid for state Assembly this evening with the help from one of the other hard-core conservatives on the college board's dais, "Chairman Emeritus of the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee" Tom Fuentes.
Wagner hopes to win the GOP nomination for the 2010 race for the Assembly seat currently filled by Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), who is termed out and now seeking his party's nomination to square off against U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) next year.
Among the conservative heavy hitters the Wagner campaign lists as supporters are: Chapman University law school dean John Eastman; Orange County Board of Education president Ken Williams; Williams' fellow trustee Alexandria Coronado; Irvine Values Coalition president Scott Peotter; and frequent state/municipal campaigner, OC Young Republican for life and newspaper columnist Jim Righeimer.
But it is Fuentes, the "Don Wagner for Assembly Campaign Kick-Off Party special guest and master of ceremonies," who will be tonight's star attraction.
As reported by the student Daily Titan coverage here and here, administrators seemed to be behind protests against budget cuts, tuition hikes and employee furloughs as they sprawled across Cal State Fullerton much of Tuesday's daylight hours.
But, as evidenced in another Daily Titan story here, the official kumbayas dissipated by that evening, when about 40 students staging a Pollak Library "sit-in" were threatened with arrest by campus security.
A "social media rock star" is giving a free lecture in Orange County Tuesday evening.
Chris Brogan, who Chapman University bills as "one of the new media industry's brightest stars," is scheduled to talk about why blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and probably some stuff you haven't heard of matter. One of the world's top 50 bloggers, Brogan advises businesses and
individuals on how to use social media and networks to build influence,
improve reputation and earn trust.
One of his recent kicks is advocating the use of social media for positive social change, as he recently told Maria De Los Angeles at our Village Voice Media sister paper, Miami New Times.
He also explained why a new media superstar would wrote an old-fashioned book, in this case, the new bestseller Trust Agents he co-authored with Julien Smith.
Ah, the first day of school. Time to roll out of the dorm-room bed five minutes before class, throw a cap on to cover up the bed head and quickly jaunt to class . . .
. . . So you can storm out of it in protest.
UC Irvine faculty, students and staff will stage a walkout today--the first day of school--to protest budget cuts to the
state's higher education institutions.
Information about the day's activities have spread like a canyon fire.
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