N-Irvine-a

2008-12-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks Mayor Krom

2008-12-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

As she prepares to hand over the Mayoral gavel to Sukhee Kang tonight, let's not forget what a wonderful job Beth Krom did as mayor from 2004-2008. She has set the bar high for performance and results. And I'm happy she'll continue to serve citizens of our city in the next four years as a city council member.

Shea Ticket Libels Todd Gallinger

2008-10-31T10:56:00.001-07:00

My Maverick Photo

2008-10-06T17:17:00.001-07:00

KeepIrvineGreatin2008

2008-08-05T16:17:00.001-07:00

Group Photo

ComicCon 2008

2008-07-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

another year, another ComicCon. Here are some pics from the 2008 evet

MAPA

2008-06-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Support Measure M

2008-05-08T16:22:00.001-07:00

2007-12-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

Thank you firefighters

2007-11-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

My daughter's Brownie Troop thanked the firefighters from Station 27 at Portola Springs in Irvine for their hard work during the dangerous Santiago Fire that broke out on October 21.

The firefighters were treatede to a hot meal of baked ham, mashed potato casserole, green beans, salad, rolls and dessert from Troop 808.

Hillary Leads in California

2007-08-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Clinton top pick of state Demos
LEAD OVER OBAMA GROWS, POLL SHOWS
Article Launched:08/17/2007 06:08:05 AM PDT
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is red-hot in California, driven by her wide popularity among the state's female and Latino voters, according to a new poll released today.
The New York senator has opened up a 30 percentage point lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, challenging earlier predictions that California would be a competitive battleground for the Democrats ahead of the Feb. 5 primary.
"Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, that's what this poll is all about," said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.
The Field Poll shows that 49 percent of likely Democratic voters plan to vote for Clinton, up from 41 percent in the March poll. Support for Obama has dropped from 28 percent in March to 19 percent in the new poll.
And former vice presidential candidate and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards now has dropped to 10 percent of the vote, down from 13 percent.
Yet, the race among Clinton, Obama and Edwards remains much closer when measured by polls conducted in the key early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
In California, it is Clinton's appeal to women and Latino voters, strong from the start, that is crucial to her lead, DiCamillo said. But she has seen gains since the March poll in a fairly long list of sectors: Bay Area voters, college-educated voters, non-Hispanic white voters and younger voters. She has captured at least 40 percent of those subgroups, "an enviable profile," DiCamillo said.
Women typically make up at least 55 percent of the electorate in the Democratic primary. Latinos are less reliable to vote in the primary, but Clinton enjoys 63 percent of support from that group. And their growing influence in statewide politics could mean increased participation.
Key endorsements
Unlike her rivals, Clinton also has built a well-staffed operation in California, and has nailed down important endorsements, including several high-profile Latino and women leaders. Even though her public events have been scarce, her campaign is disciplined, with the candidate appearing at carefully crafted events and dozens of fundraisers.
Over the summer, Clinton also has seen her popularity grow in national polls after a series of debates and forums in which she received good reviews. And a spat with Obama over foreign affairs policy is playing into her campaign theme of experience.
If Clinton "is hitting on all cylinders" in California, as DiCamillo described it, Obama has seen some early support erode.
"In March, Obama was the new kid on the block," DiCamillo said. "But now, as voters get to know a little more about him," fewer are sticking with him.
Obama's strategy
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt downplayed Clinton's lead, predicting it won't hold. He suggested almost everyone knows her, but have yet to learn about Obama. "Name ID is king right now," he said. Obama on Thursday announced his first California campaign director, Mitchell Schwartz of Los Angeles, an experienced political veteran who has worked for Bill Clinton.
LaBolt said the Obama campaign's strategy is to build a large grass-roots organization to spur enthusiasm and turnout, and in recent months held so-called "Camp Obama" sessions to recruit volunteers in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Meanwhile, Clinton's campaign credits her lead to the large amount of time and effort she and her staff have spent in California.
"We're going to run like we're behind," said Luis Vizcaino, the Clinton campaign's California spokesman. "The more people hear her, the more people understand she has the experience to lead."
That's the message that has won over Barbara Halloran, a Democrat who lives in Redwood City. Halloran is choosing Clinton because of her experience. "I feel that before someone runs for president, (that person) has to have world connections."
Jason Belcher, a Santa Clara real estate broker and Democrat, likes the idea of getting "a team with Bill and Hillary."
"It wouldn't matter if Bill was re-elected for a third term or she were elected for a first term." And, he added, "having the first woman president would be really great."
But Peter Leroe-Munoz, a Democrat from Gilroy, said he is having a hard time choosing among the three front-runners. "It's a dead heat for me."
And what he's most concerned about, he said, is restoring the nation's global reputation and getting a Democrat in the White House.
That sentiment is shared by a majority of Californians, the poll found. In hypothetical November general election matchups, the three leading Democrats out-poll the top GOP candidates, with significant backing from voters who decline to state a party affiliation.
DiCamillo said he was surprised by Clinton's ability to draw about one in five Republicans when matched up against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the leading GOP candidates.
The perception that Clinton is an intensely polarizing figure is dissipating somewhat, he concluded.
Maybe.
GOP voter Annette Cook of Livermore has yet to make up her mind about which Republican she'll support, but of Clinton, she said, "I'd rather die and go to hell than see Hillary Clinton win. I wouldn't trust her to take my garbage to the street."

ComicCon 2007

2007-07-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Took the kids to Comic Con...here are the pics; and yes, that's actor Michael Madsen (Sin City, Kill bill and Reservoir Dogs) with the kids.

Bill Clinton comes to the OC

2007-06-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

President Bill Clinton delivered a fantastic speech in Newport Beach. Some pics below...

More Finding Nemo

2007-06-11T12:54:00.001-07:00

While celebs might be one thing at Disneyland, nothing compares to watching my kids enjoy it. With Alex home cramming for finals, Maddie had mom and dad all to herself at Disnelyand.

The Blue Carpet at Disneyland; Finding Nemo Ride Opens

2007-06-11T12:40:00.001-07:00

Dawn, Maddie and I attended the media preview for the new Finding Nemo sub ride at Disneyland; we made it to the Blue Carpet to see the celebs get their peek too. Here are a few photos.

Actress Geena Davis from "Commander-in-Chief"

Thomas Jane (The Punisher) and Patricia Arquette

Friends actress Courtney Cox

NBA Star Kobe Bryant from the Lakers was there with his family.

Actor and director David Arquette.

Checking in

2007-04-26T09:10:00.001-07:00

see my posts over at www.theliberaloc.com

Family Letter

2006-12-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays - 2006

For those of you Internet-enabled, I'm forgoing the copying and folding of Holiday letters to truly go paperless this year.

We've had a great year and we're really looking forward to 2007.

I'll start with the kids. Madison is in 2nd grade at Canyon View Elementary; we just wrapped up our soccer season and she is now playing basketball (she loves it). Maddie is very competitive and hates to lose, so its going to be a real challenge workig with her as she progresses. Maddie is also missing her two front teeth this Christmas. I'd pay anything to get that song out of my head. Maddie is also active in Girl Scouts and has more friends than I can count. She also spent 2-1/2 weeks in Florida with her Nanny, Silvia.

Alex is in high school. I'll type that again. Alex. Is. In. High. School. His hair looks like it came from the 1970s. He finished her first season of high school football playing fullback, defensive end and was on the special teams. He started a game against Huntington Beach and even caught a pass. He's way taller than Dawn now and wears a size 11 shoe. Alex continues to play guitar, collect warhammer figures, and hangs with a good group of kids.

Dawn had a great year at the LA Times; she racked up 18 page one stories and has really gotten off to a super start. She is going to CES in a couple of weeks and will moderate a panel. The TV show she signed for is on hiatus until they can find a home in syndication or on cable somewhere. She also competed in her first triathelon this year and is in training for her next one.

My business is going very well. I'm up to more than 10 retainer clients and actually have four people working for me on different aspects of the business. I put in a lot of late nights and weekends, but I honestly love it. I coached basketball for Alex last spring and was soccer commissioner for the girl's U7 division this fall. I also blog regularly for www.theliberaloc.com.

Both Dawn and I were selected at Raymond Simon Institute's 2007 Alumni of the Year at Utica College; we will be going back to UC in mid-April to accept our awards, spend time with students and see some old friends.

We took a family vacation to Maui this year and loved it. Dawn and Alex learned to surf. Alex did some parasailing too. Maddie got her hair braided and I got food poisoning. We snorkeled in a couple of spots and just enjoyed relaxing.

We wish each of you the best this holiday season can offer and hope you have a wonderful 2007.

Maui

2006-08-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Maui after a short vacation with the family. Getting caught up on everything.

More Comic Con photos

2006-07-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

This is the only chracter Maddie wanted to see; Wonder Woman. Love that smile on my daughter.

To Boldly Go where everyone at ComicCon has gone before

2006-07-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Q from Star Trek: the Next Generation. He was actually a very nice guy. The kids have no idea who is he, but I did.

ComicCom photos IV

2006-07-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

The kids meet Jango Fett...or his clone

ComicCom photos III

2006-07-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

I canonly post one pic at a time; so be patient with me.

Hard to tell which one has more hair.....

ComicCon 2006 photos, part II

2006-07-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

My son Alex with actress Carrie Fisher at ComicCon 2006 in San Diego; he's a huge Star Wars fan

ComicCon 2006

2006-07-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

Spent two days at ComicCon 2006 in San Diego and had a great deal of fun. The highlight: meeting Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia from Star Wars. Also met David Prowse, the actor in the Darth Vader costume. The actor who played Jango Fett, Q from Star Trek: TNG, and Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk. Seth Green from The Italian Job and Scooby Doo 2 ran by us (he's wicked short). Lots of fans and pro models dressed as superheros or SciFi charaters. I am trying to remember how to post some pics....stay tuned while I figure it out.

Read the Paper

2006-07-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

I spend considerable time reading Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin and listening to Limbaugh and Hannity when I can. I will take in O'Reilly on occasion. And I also read Krugman, Dowd, Rutten, Alterman and Boehlert (his current book, "Lapdogs" is a must read.)

I remember when Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 came out and a number of my conservative friends blasted the film as "full of lies" without having seen the film. This is why I read and listen to and watch conservative media; because you can't criticize it unless you know it.

A letter in today's OC Register (a paper that will never be accused of having a liberal bias) from G.W. Carlyle of Newport Beach states:"The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have failed to enunciate a standard by which to judge when a story involving national security should be published and when it should not be."I have to wonder if G.W. reads either paper, because the editors of both papers co-wrote two editorials explaining their decision to publish the banking surveillance story.

The program itself isn't really a secret because President Bush openly discussed efforts to track terrorist financing more than a dozen times dating back to mid-September 2001. Both papers also regularly withhold publication of specific stories based on national security concerns (the NY Times sat on the NSA telephone spying program during the 2004 presidential election).

I have to conclude that G.W. didn't read the paper and didn't read either editorial.

The banking surveillance story, like the NSA surveillance program, may have overreached. From the a GulfNews.com story about SWIFT: "But privacy campaigners fear that the sheer amount of data submitted to US authorities indicates a massive trawling exercise of financial records across the globe. It means Washington may have access not only to financial data on its own citizens but everyone else's too. Privacy International, a campaign group, has now filed simultaneous complaints with 33 national data protection and privacy regulators, in an attempt to uncover the scale of the exercise. Simon Davies, the group's director, said: "We know very little, but it seems that the data are being sent regardless of people's nationality. If blanket authorisations are being given for millions of records, it would be impossible to separate them out." Privacy International argues that the monitoring was carried out illegally, and that "the scale of the operation, involving millions of records" showed that it was "a fishing exercise rather than a legally-authorised investigation".

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), current chairman of the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security (a post once held by former Rep. Chris Cox), has accused the NY Times of treason by publishing details on this story and believes the editors should be prosecuted under provisions of the 1917 Espionage Act.The problem with that is in September 2004, Rep. King co-chaired a hearing where U.S. Treasury Department officials explained how Treasury Department programs were driving Terrorists from the banking system.

USA Today reported that Terrorists are now financing their efforts largely through cash based transactions.MSM bashing and accusations of liberal media bias are long standing attack techniques of the right wing. Ann Coulter can attack the Jersey Girls for cutting campaign commercials for John Kerry but President Bush can certainly use 9/11 widows and children in his own ads without a problem. Conservative media bias never seems to be a problem with these people.

Now, more than ever, we need the press to have a strong backbone and truly serve its watchdog function.

From Justice Hugo Black: "The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of an informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic."

N-Irvine-a

2006-07-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

I am now a blogger for the Liberal OC. www.theliberaloc.com

Fact checking Frank

2006-06-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Been exchanging emails with Frank Mickadeit on his column in yesterday's OC Register (a link is provided in an earlier post).

Frank didn't talk with Mayor Krom (or anyone else on the city council, through there is a specific reference to Choi's awareness).

Frank won't say why he quoted a Republican candidate for city council on demographic information on the number of Taiwanese living in Irvine rather than use US Census statistics.

Frank asked for my reaction to quotes by the Mayor in today's story saying the "defied logic and common sense." This specific language is used by Republican operatives on a regular basis but Frank still insist's, as a columnist, he can't be spun. My own opinion is that ship has already sailed.

I read Frank regularly. He is a good columnist. And most of the time, I find him very fair. In this case, his column helped to manufacture ill will towards a mayor who is not at fault for a city administrator who signed a document she shouldn't have. He didn't contact the Mayor for comment. He made a connection to the Great Park that is a stretch at best. And there will be fireworks tonight at the City Council meeting because of this.

Response to Mickadeit's Column on Irvine's "Great Blunder"

2006-06-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

I like Frank Mickadeit. I really do.

He's a rare columnist who will actually admit when he's made a mistake. But lately, Frank's columns lean decidedly to the right.

Here's a link to today's column (6/19/06)

I emailed Frank and asked if he spoke with Irvine Mayor Beth Krom on the column, because it was clear he had spoken with Irvine councilman Dr. Stephen Choi. Frank admitted he hadn't. In a nutshell, the column makes it look like Mayor Krom tried to pull a fast one on a sister city program with Mainland China and its going to upset a high number of Tawainese residents in Irvine. Frank goes on to quote a Republican politician on the high number of Taiwanese residents in Irvine. The numbers don't hold up.

Below is my response to Frank's email to me...

Frank --
Thanks for the response; a lengthy rebuttal to follow with some questions/comments.
See below
Dan

From a 2004 State Department Press Release... http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive/2004/Oct/26-277540.html
Headline: "One China" Policy Stabilizes Asia-Pacific Region, Powell Says But U.S. will sell weapons as necessary to support Taiwan's self-defense
The United States' "One China" policy has created conditions of stability and security throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an October 25 interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV.
Powell, on a three-nation trip to Japan, China, and South Korea, forcefully affirmed the U.S. government's commitment to the policy, set forth in three joint communiqués signed by the governments of the United States and China between 1972 and 1982.
"[O]ur policy is clear," he said. "There is only one China. Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation, and that remains our policy, our firm policy."
*****
Quotes from Condi... http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/21/content_426672.htm
Rice said the US Government's position on pursuing the one-China policy and abiding by the three US-China joint communiques will not change, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.
During her meeting with Hu, Rice said the US Government attaches great importance to developing US-China constructive and co-operative ties, and that people around the world are watching the "remarkable transformation" that is going on in China.
She said the United States is ready to join hands with China in exploring new fields for co-operation.
Win-win trade
On the bilateral trade disputes, Wen said China and the United States should take each other's concerns into consideration and handle conflicts in trade co-operation to achieve a win-win situation.
http://www.fas.org/news/taiwan/2000/roc-000824-prc.htm
Nicholas Berry, senior analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, wrote in a commentary that "one doesn't have to be a devotee of Beijing to realize the one-China policy serves American interests and, over the long term, serves the interests of Taiwan and even the mainland Chinese."
He pointed out that understanding how the one-China policy affects the policies of Beijing and Taipei confirms its usefulness:
-- Reduces possibility of war. Virtually no analyst believes that the PRC leaders are not serious when they talk about the necessity of territorial integrity. And the fact that national unification is a deeply cherished dream by virtually all mainland Chinese is widely recognized. People's Liberation Army leaders are extremely patriotic, fiercely supportive of unification, and deeply suspicious of foreign meddling what they regard as "China's internal affairs."
President Lee Teng-hui's 1995 pro-independence speech at his alma matter, Cornell University, mobilized PLA officers to press Beijing's political leadership to hold military exercises off Taiwan's coast. "Quite simply, Taiwan independence means war. No government in Beijing could tolerate the permanent division of China. Peace, therefore, depends on maintaining the one-China principle which the US one-China policy supports," wrote Berry.
-- Compels PRC modernization and democratization. As long as the one-China principle is maintained, the PRC is obliged to pave the way towards reunification by becoming more like Taiwan.

From Wikipedia (not entirely unreliable...)
The One-China Principle is also a requirement for any political entity to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The PRC has traditionally attempted to get nations to recognize that "the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government of all of China...and Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China." However, many nations are unwilling to make this particular statement and there was often a protracted effort to find language regarding one China that is acceptable to both sides. Some countries use terms like "acknowledge", "understand", "take note of", while others explicitly use the term "support" or "recognize" for Beijing's position on the status of Taiwan.
The name "Chinese Taipei" is the only acceptable name in most international arenas since "Taiwan" suggests that Taiwan is a separate country and "Republic of China" suggests that there are two Chinas, and thus both violate the One-China Principle. Most countries that recognize Beijing circumvent the diplomatic language by establishing "Trade Offices" that represents their interests on Taiwanese soil, while the ROC government represents its interests abroad with TECRO, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. The United States (and any other nation having diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China) does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Instead, external relations are handled via nominally private organizations such as the American Institute in Taiwan or the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
In the case of the United States, the One-China policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position." Thus, the United States's One-China Policy is subtly different from the One China Principle that China imposes on the rest of the world in that Washington has not expressed an explicitly immutable statement regarding whether it believes Taiwan is independent or not. Instead, Washington simply states that they understand China's claims that the country claims Taiwan as its own. In fact, many scholars agree that US One-China Policy was not intended to please the Chinese government, but as a way for Washington to conduct international relations in the region, which Beijing fails to state.
When President Jimmy Carter in 1979 broke off relations with Taiwan in order to establish relations with the PRC, Congress responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act, which while maintaining relations, stopped short of full recognition of the ROC. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan also saw that the Six Assurances were adopted, the sixth being that the United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Still, United States policy has remained ambiguous. During the House International Relations Committee on April 21 of 2004, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, James A. Kelly, was asked by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) whether America’s commitment to Taiwan’s democracy conflicted with the so-called One-China Policy. He admitted the difficulty on defining the U.S.'s position: "I didn’t really define it, and I’m not sure I very easily could define it." He added, "I can tell you what it is not. It is not the One-China principle that Beijing suggests."
Comments:
1. Thanks for the name; Valerie Lareene works for the city's manager's office handling the sister cities program. So she signed this document, not the mayor or members of the city council, and she is accountable to Sean Joyce, city manager. The questions I have are: did she have the authority to sign this on behalf of the city and did she fully understand/previously reviewed what she was signing? Contracts almost always favor the entity who writes them.
2. You didn't speak with Krom, but the column implies she knew the contents of the document Chinese officials had signed, but it looks like you did speak with Choi. Please tell me you at least called her and she didn't call back. Because fairness dictates that you get her side of this story.
3. Do city census figures have such refined demographics on Chinese-Americans that we can accept Jack Wu's 90-95 percent of Irvine's Chinese residents are Taiwanese statistic? I have Chinese neighbors from Taiwan and Hong Kong alike.
And look who shows up in the photo at Jack Wu's city council launch party on Flash Report last week; that would be Stephen Choi over to the left and Councilman Chuck DeVore in the middle: http://www.flashreport.org/blog0a.php?postID=2006061612323262&post_offsetP=0
So Jack's creds here on this story is...what? He's Republican? He's Chinese (Taiwanese)?
Per the city's Wiki description, people of Asian descent make up just under 30 percent of Irvine's 170,000 residents; rounding up, that means 51,000 are Asian and per Wu's low-ball estimate, that means about 45,900 would be Taiwanese. However, per this site: http://www.epodunk.com/ancestry/Taiwanese.html
Which has this text....
"In the 2000 census, 192,973 people in the U.S. claimed Taiwanese ancestry.
Means that Irvine has nearly 24 percent of the US Taiwanese population, per Wu, instead of the 2.4 percent, per the US Census.
4. With China looming as one of the great economic powers, establishing a sister city program to encourage trade between Irvine companies and firms in Xuhui. As are sister city programs between Irvine and Taiwan are going to help companies in Irvine. Hopefully someone at the Irvine Chamber can offer better information.
Frank, I'm sorry to be a pain, but your column raised more questions for me that had no answers. And I take great offense to the notion that Irvine is the "People's Republic of" just because the Republican's don't control it. I certainly don't mind you taking shots at any politician as long as they get a chance to comment. If they decline comment, that's one thing.
I gave Marty grief for his column today too.
I'm still pissed at the headline in the Letter's section of Sunday's paper declaring Ann Coulter a Prophet (they spelled it wrong; P-R-O-F-I-T).
Dan Chm....

election day in California

2006-06-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Vote early. But whtever you do, vote. I will be keeping my eye on the Congressional race in San Diego. Hoping it goes Blue.

I know I am way behind. I will have more to say about quite a few things. But spend time with one of my favortie sites: www.crooksandliars.com

Cheney's got a gun

2006-02-17T18:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Mark has a "way back" machine on his blog. I wil turn my wayback machine on to 1804, the last time a sitting VP shot someone.

My dad and brothers and uncles and cousins all hunt. I know that cooler ins't for game; it's for beer. My only time hunting was one of sheer terrori and I was on the lookout, not for game, but for drunk hunters.

Cheney has two DUIs.
He was booted from Yale for heaving drinking
He said he was drinking beer before the accident.
He didn't say how much.
The cops didn't talk to him until the next day.

Was he drunk?

Proposed Ethics Ordinance in Irvine

2006-01-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

I've written a response to the Orange Grove column in today's OC Register. No idea if they will run it, but its perfect to post here.

Dan

Adam Probolsky is right about the city of Irvine’s proposed ethics ordinance (Orange Grove, January 5) that it might be politically motivated. Unfortunately, it’s not for the reason he believes.

Probolsky perceptions are nicely written, but its whiny opinion writing devoid of facts. . For example, he writes: “The ordinance … is written with all the depth of a spoiled 8-year-old. Clearly its language was crafted with heavy influence from an elected official who has an elevated view of him or herself… the first sign that the author believes he or she is somehow better than the rest of us.” And lastly, “The fact that none of the council majority finds themselves today in the business of advocacy as defined by the ordinance is convenient.”

To use Probolsky’s definition, I’m an uninvolved observer. I’m just a voter and a citizen who remembers quite clearly that the Irvine First Team ran a nasty city election campaign in 2004 by questioning the ethics of the Great Park Team, specifically Beth Krom and Larry Agran. Dr. Stephen Choi, the only member of the Irvine First team to be elected to the council, appointed Mr. Probolsky to the Irvine Planning Commission. I find it odd that Dr. Choi ran for council citing ethics as a reason but is against this ordinance.

My mom used to tell me, be careful about what you ask for because you might get it. The Irvine First team published a newspaper called the Irvine Chronicle, which carried articles from the Register, the Los Angeles Times, the OC Weekly and the Irvine World News, all highlighting alleged unethical behavior by the Great Park team. Compare the articles in the mailer against the originals in the newspaper, and the stories in the flier were significantly edited to make them even more damaging and more negative to the Great Park team. And what’s worse, the articles were republished without permission. Reprint permission policies, posted on the papers’ websites, bar editing for space requirements.

So what we had was a slate of candidates using articles procured without permission, edited to change the context, but leaving the bylines in to garner the credibility of the newspaper. In short, doing something illegal and unethical to call attention to alleged unethical behavior that never took place, because the issue (a city run electric utility) was never voted on and no political allies of the Great Park team benefited financially.

The proposed ethics ordinance seems to be exactly what the Irvine First team would want. Stronger city ethics policies that affect all elected officials and their staff should be seen as positive, especially in light of the Abramoff lobbying scandal in Washington. Political self-dealing and trickery indeed.

Councilor Christina Shea has a record to be proud of and has served the residents of Irvine well. But the fact of the matter is that she – and all public officials in Irvine – serve at the will of the voters. There’s no lifetime appointment here. All candidates for office are required to meet certain eligibility requirements and restrictions already exist. I believe active duty police officers are barred for running for city office.

Let me offer some remedies to shore up complaints about the ethics ordinance:
1. Put some teeth in the ordinance by being able to remove an elected official for violating this ordinance. Perhaps a judge handles it or a panel of retired judges, but someone independent, but no slap on the wrist for violators of the ethics policy.

2. Grandfather councilor Shea from this ordinance until she is termed out of the council. But if she runs for mayor again, it sticks.

3. Ms. Shea should update the copy on her website to specifically cover the services she offers for her political consulting work and the kind of client she works for.

4. Barring any contractual reason for not doing so, Ms. Shea should list her clients on her website. This would remove any doubt that her business and work on the council don’t conflict.

It's official; my wife works for the Los Angeles Times

2006-01-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

Go here to see a post in LAObserved about Dawn being hired by the Los Angeles Times. Her first byline appeared today as well.

Dawn Digital Duo TV segment

2006-01-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

Click here, and you can view a clip of my wife Dawn in a guest spot on Digital Duo, which airs on PBS.

It's 2006; let the midterm races begin

2006-01-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

I think I've struck a cord in my fun debates with some of my right wing conservative pals. Despite all evidence to the contrary that Iraq is a total disaster, the high cost of war, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, scandals in the White House, and a deliberate vilation of the 4th amendment of the Constitution with surveillance of American citizens without a warrant, the White House as launched an investigation into the leak -- not the criminal act they committed, but the leak of this to the press. Whistleblowers, go Cheney yourself!

What I've decided is that the conservative Republicans are so committed to supporting their president, that they are just like Michael Jackson fan s who stood by the singer during his trial last year. OJ had his fans too. DNA evidence..doesn't matter. Eye witnesses. Nope, don't believe them.

And why should Republicans believe what's really going on out there in the real world; they have people like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter to tell them just how to think. And it just doesn't matter as lonmg as they get their minimum daily requirement of talking points.

Dawn makes LAObserved.com

2005-12-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

Someone leaked a memo from the Mercury News to LA Observed about Dawn joining the Los Angeles Times. (It wasn't me).

Click here for the link.

Rejected Holiday Photos

2005-12-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

Dawn didn't care for these

2005 Holiday Letter

2005-12-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone –
This is about the latest I have ever been able to get this letter out. Partially because I was in New York and Boston the week of December 12 and partially because we have some good news to share than came in on December 16. I wanted to let you know that you can find an online version of this letter with more pictures on my blog at http://n-irvine-a.blogspot.com/

Whenever I write this, I am always amazed by the number of new families I am adding to the list. It’s a challenge to get this out every year; our list is about 120. For our friends Back East, it’s a glance at life in Southern California. For our friends here in Orange County, it’s sometimes a review. In any event, we love getting email: dchm@cox.net or dawnc1@cox.net.

Everyone is well. It was a busy year for our family and here’s a quick summary for all of you. We started our first home remodeling project in February and turned the third bay of our garage into an office/spare room. The original plans on the house we have offer it as an option, so we went ahead and had the work done. So now, out of town guests have a place to stay. It took about two months from start to finish and while I still need window treatments and one chair, the room it pretty much done. We also spent time in Palm Springs with our friends the Greenman's and visited family back east in August.

Madison is now a first grader. She just got a pair of eyeglasses to help with school work and she has more friends than I can count. Some weekends, we have three birthday parties to go to. There is always a friend (or two) over the house after school. She is a Brownie now (which means we will be knocking on the doors of all those families we’ve bought cookies from over the years). Madison scored 5 goals on our Pink Diamonds soccer team this fall. It was a great team (every player scored at least two goals) with a great group of parents and we’ve made lots of new friends as a result. Madison’s anticipation of Christmas is one of the best things about the holiday season. She attended a youth ballet performance of the Nutcracker and loved it. The next time you hear Gwen Stefani’s “Love, Music, Angel, Baby,” album, think of Madison singing every word of “Hollaback Girl.” We spent lots of time at the Universal Studios theme park. Maddie loves Disneyland and we usually stalk the princesses when we go. “Small World” is her favorite ride.

Alex is 14 now (he’s 14!) and very much the teenager. His long curly hair will remind my family and old high school friends of my hair in the 1970s (yes, the 70’s are back!). Alex is taking guitar lessons and he dramatically improved over last year. He took in his first real concert this summer with his friend Brian Pione (Coldplay) and is rarely seen without his iPod. Alex had a great year; he got a personal tour of George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (we’re barred from posting photos online) and saw many of the actual props used in all of the Star Wars movies. He was able to see Star Wars Episode III about two weeks before it opened due to his mom’s studio connections. He and I attended the ComiCon convention in San Diego and met a number of B-list celebrities, most notably, Kenny Baker (the man inside the R2D2 costume), the voice cast of Red vs. Blue (and online Halo event), Margot Kidder (Superman movies), and Aaron MacGrudder (The Boondocks). Alex also met Todd McFarlane, the creator of the “Spawn” comic books.

Dawn has had a great year as well. The big news is she is leaving the Mercury News to join the staff of the Los Angeles Times. She will cover convergence technologies, so it’s a combination of stuff the movie studio, record labels, game developers, consumer electronics manufacturers and Internet technologies all into one. Earlier in the year, Dawn became a columnist at the Merc. Besides making fun if me in print from time to time, her column worked hard to connect technology to a person’s everyday life. In addition, Dawn did some TV work on the nationally televised PBS program, “Digital Duo.” She has signed on as the co-host for the 2006 season but served as a special correspondent for the final six episodes of the 2005 season, which I think is airing now. I was Dawn’s guest at a Grammy’s Party at the Beverly Hills Hotel; we saw Bonnie Raitt, Issac Hayes, Anita Baker and Janet Reno (promoting her “Nothing But Love Songs” CD, no doubt). There’s nothing quite like a Hollywood Party. Dawn got to see the Rolling Stones from the good seats and is often invited to attend movie premiere screenings (no red carpets, but advanced showings). She is supposed to go to France in January to moderate a panel at an International Music conference, but we will see.

My business is growing and my phone is ringing off the hook these days (www.madisonalexanderpr.com). I have four retainer clients, two project clients, and anticipate signing another 3 or 5 retainer clients by January. Besides the joys of running my own business, I served as commissioner for two girls soccer leagues in AYSO (Girls U6 and Girls U7) and am wrapping up my last year of Irvine Youth Basketball (my third as commissioner); my 2004-2005 team finished in second place overall. The 2005-2006 team is short but scrappy. We are 1-3 at the moment, but two of our losses came when we were very short handed. My celebrity sightings this year include former Reds/Mariners/Devil Rays manager Lou Pinella, Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis (Goggling himself from a hotel’s public Internet terminal in Boston!), Erin Gray (Buck Rogers and the 25th Century), Judd Hirsch (at JFK), Charles Barkley (at O’Hare), and Elvira, mistress of the Dark (at ComicCon). And I almost forgot, I met Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser; which doesn’t score lots of points with my neighbors in Irvine. I am active in the community as a Legislative Action Rep for Sierra Vista Middle School and was able to get back to radio by participating in a radio spot that aired all over California against the Governor’s special election.

Again, apologies for the tardiness of the letter. I will be posting rejected Xmas card photos to the blog so you can see the kids and some tacky holiday decorations. Have a wonderful Holiday season and a fantastic 2006.

The Chmielewski Family

Mike, Campbell's seat is all yours

2005-12-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Now that State Senator Bill Campbell has been elected to Congress on a platform of "I'm the Republican candidate" and nothing else, I am pleased to announce that I will actually write a check -- a campaign contribution -- for Mike Parham to run for the seat. Mike is an Irvine Unified Trustee and Governor Schwartzenegger's biggest fan in Irvine. Well, as a State Senator, Mike would be in a better position to serve the Governor's interests and we could get a new board member (yes, I'd settle for an appointee) who places the interests of Irvine's schoolchildren ahead of the Governor's. Mike, here's your chance to fix that broken system. Go for it....just tell me where to send the check.

From Rep. Murtha: he has done his homework

2005-12-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

Rep Murtha repsonses to President Bush's recent speech on the strategy to win in Iraq. (you mean we *didn't have* a strategy to win in Iraq?)

MURTHA: Let me start by going through a timeline and then get to what the president said.
In May 1, 2003, the president declared it was a major -- end of major operations. Then he sent John Hamre to Iraq. John Hamre was undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration. And he found all kinds of problems. He said: You got three months, three critical months to get this thing under control if you want to control the security; 12 months at the most, but three months are crucial, the first three months.
He said small things like sewage and water and things that a lot of people don't pay attention to -- I pay attention, because in my district that's important. But a lot of people paid no attention to that report.
MURTHA: I went there -- now this was July that Hamre made his report and it was a very prescient report. I mean, it was a very accurate report about the predictions of what was going to happen. And we have a copy of it here for you.
In August 16th, I went to Iraq, from August 16th to the 20th. When I came back, I said to Secretary Rumsfeld: We require immediate attention of body armor. They said they were prepared. They said they had what they needed.
Forty thousand troops didn't have body armor. They needed armored Humvees. They needed jammers and Kevlar blankets they asked for. This was all levels of people in Iraq at the time.
And then I wrote to the president on September 4th and I said, "I believe you have miscalculated the magnitude of the effort we are facing. We should energize, Iraqitize and internationalize this effort."
And we have copies of that letter in there.
Then we had the $87 billion supplemental in October of 2003.
I said on the floor that I felt the most important part of that supplemental was the construction money. A lot of people voted against it because they didn't think we should be spending money in Iraq for construction when Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz, had said: It's going to be paid for by oil money.
So a lot of people opposed it on the floor, but it passed handily.
Then I went back to Iraq and I told Ambassador Bremer, General Sanchez and General Odierno and the young general that was their public relations guy, "You guys are way too optimistic about this."
MURTHA: "You're not being honest with the American people."
They took umbrage. I got some nasty letters, as I usually do when I say something like this.
Now, you remember, I wrote to the president in September 4th of 2003. I got a letter back in April 6th, 2004. The president didn't write back. I received a response from a deputy undersecretary -- paints a totally rosy, unrealistic picture, saying 200,000 Iraqis -- now, hear what I'm saying -- 200,000 Iraqis under arms, reconstruction projects and 70 percent of Iraqis feel -- or 2,200 reconstruction projects -- 70 percent of Iraqis feel life is good.
The irony is that this was the month with the most U.S. deaths; 137 were killed. But that's what they wrote to me.
Then we have Abu Ghraib that very year.
Now I said to the secretary of defense: You have got a shortage of people in specialty, MOS specialties, that's a military specialist. We had truck drivers who couldn't back up a truck. We had security guards who weren't trained in security at all. We had National Guard security people without radios -- couldn't talk to the front, the back of the convoy, endangering their lives.
We got radios over there and we tried to address this very problem. And we had a press conference. Nancy Pelosi and I did. We said, "the military's overstretched and there's poor planning." And I said at that time I did not think we could win this militarily.
I got a lot of criticism. DeLay got up on the floor and said I was a traitor. What I said to him, publicly, I won't tell you.
Now, here's the way I measure progress. The president said we got slow progress. We want to help the government of Iraq -- this is the State Department -- provide essential services, crude oil production.
MURTHA: Now, the green line you see here is the goal -- and they got charts here that you can get copies of. This is what we actually had in oil production.
Now, you remember, Secretary Wolfowitz said, we're going to have oil -- going to pay for this. And this is all we've gotten. We didn't get up to prewar level in oil production.
Today they said we're making progress.
I can only measure progress by what I see and the things that I can actually measure, not by what they say are brigades and so forth and so on.
Now, water production: We put $2.1 billion into water production. They're short of water all over the country. And they have only spent $581 billion -- or $581 million.
Now, that's why Hamre's report was so important. You had to get this insurgency under control immediately. You had to win the hearts and minds of the people. That's the key in a guerrilla-type war.
This is electricity overview. This is the demand. The yellow line is the demand. The red line is the prewar level. And you can see that occasionally you got up to prewar level. That's the way I measure progress.
Now, there's one other area where I measure progress, and that's incidents. Incidents have increased fivefold in the period of time that -- well, a year ago. A year ago there were five times less than today.
And at Abu Ghraib -- now, again, we didn't have the right people in the right kind of specialties. We didn't have them trained. So at Abu Ghraib, we had people untrained that were taking care of prisoners. And you see the result of that.
The secretary offered to resign at that time. I would have accepted his resignation, because I think this was a Defense Department responsibility. And we had many other (inaudible).
Right now, GAO says in a report of November -- November? -- November -- we have 112,000 shortages in critical MOSs. Now, what are those shortages?
MURTHA: Number one, they're in demolition experts; number two, special forces people; number three, intelligence experts, which are absolutely essential; and fourth is translators.
Now could there be any more important specialties than that? And we're short in every one of those fields.
And you know what? We're paying someone to go into the Army. When I was in, they paid $72 a day. I volunteered in the middle of the Korean War. They are now paying $150,000 for somebody that's in special forces, in one of the specialties, in order to get them to re- enlist.
They missed their goal. And one of the biggest reasons that I'm so concerned about this -- and I talk to the military all the time -- is the future of the military. They missed their goal in recruiting by 6,600 this last time.
But you have to look at that, because there's a retention, there's a stop-loss, plus the problem that we had with the people not in the right specialties. And they enlisted people in the higher levels who were probably going to enlist anyway that they wouldn't normally have re-enlisted.
They have lowered the standards. They're accepting 20 percent last year in category four. Now, this is a highly technical service we're dealing with, And yet they lowered the standards to category four, which they said when we had the volunteer army, that would eliminate all the category four.
Now, let me tell you the major problem we have. You heard the president talk today about terrorism. Every other word was "terrorism."
Let me separate terrorism from insurgency. When I was in Iraq in 1991, president -- or King Fahd said to me -- this was an early morning meeting, like two or three o'clock in the morning, when he normally met with people during the air war.
And he said: Get your troops out of Saudi Arabia the minute this war's over. You're on sacred ground. You're destabilizing the whole region. I reported that back to the State Department and, as you know, we didn't get our troops out of there. We left our troops there.
Bin Laden said he attacked the United States because of the troops in Saudi Arabia. That's terrorism. Terrorism was in London. Terrorism was in Spain. Terrorism was, obviously, in the United States.
MURTHA: That's completely separate from what's going on in Iraq. Iraq is an insurgency. At one of the hearings early on, Secretary Rumsfeld denied there was an insurgency. He said it was a gang of something or another. But they wouldn't admit that they were having real problems over there. They kept being unrealistic, illusionary about what was going on in Iraq.
One of the major problems we have in fighting an insurgency is the military and the way they fight. And I adhere to the way they fight. They send in massive force. They use artillery, they use air and mortars. And they kill a lot of people in order to suppress fire and protect our military. I'm for that.
But it doesn't make you any friends. That's part of the problem. For instance, in Fallujah, which happened about the same time -- the first Fallujah happened about the same time as Abu Ghraib -- we put 150,000 people outside their homes in Fallujah.
If you remember in Jordan, the bomber said that the reason she became a bomber was because two of her relatives were killed in Fallujah. We lost the hearts and minds of the people.
Hamre said: You've got three months to win the hearts and minds of the people, to get this under control, to get the looting and so forth under control.
We didn't do that. There's been poor planning from the start by the Defense Department. The Defense Department fought to keep this planning under their control. State Department had entirely different reasons for wanting it. And we even voted in the House to give it to the State Department.
And finally, in conference, we had to agree to let the president make the decision. He made the decision to give it to the Defense Department.
Now, in an insurgency and nation-building -- what did President Bush say when he ran for office the first time? "We are not into nation-building. And we're not into nation-building because of the way our military has to operate." It's that simple. We've got to go in and level the place, destroy a place. And when we destroy a place, we lose the very thing that's absolutely essential to winning the insurgency.
MURTHA: Now, let's talk about terrorism versus insurgency in Iraq itself. We think that foreign fighters are about 7 percent -- might be a little bit more, a little bit less. Very small proportion of the people that are involved in the insurgency are terrorists or how I would interpret them as terrorists.
And we don't have enough troops to guard against the border. The generals in charge of that part of Anbar said, "I don't have enough troops. They've given me a mission to protect against the Syrian border. I don't have enough troops to do that."
They have never had enough troops to get it under control. They didn't have enough troops for the looters. And they haven't had enough troops ever since then to get the place under control.
But the key elements, as I see it -- you heard him say that 70 percent of the Iraqis were satisfied, in that paper they sent me. Now, you'll see a document that's in this package here that told me six months before -- well, in the victory document he says we have 212,000 people trained now, Iraqi security people. Last year, we had 96,000.
Yet, they wrote to me six months before the last year's statement that said they had 200,000. Now, why don't I believe them when they say anything? They said we got weapons of mass destruction. They said we got an Al Qaida connection. They said we got nuclear weapons. They said we cross this red line which surrounds Baghdad and we're going to have a war with them.
Eighty percent of the people, according to a British poll reported by the Washington Times, says we want the United States out; 77 percent of the people in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt say there's a better chance of democracy if the United States is not there because we're considered occupiers; 45 percent of the people in Iraq think that it's justified to kill Americans. They even had an official communique that says it's justified to attack Americans.
So in this country, when I made my initial proposal to redeploy the troops and to make a diplomat effort and the only way I think this will work -- I don't think you can continue to draw down the way they're talking about. They're going to withdraw. There's no question they're going to withdraw. I predict a big proportion of the troops will be out by next year.
MURTHA: But the problem is they're just as vulnerable. The biggest vulnerability we have in Iraq is the convoys. Every convoy is attacked. When I was in Anbar, at Haditha, every single convoy was attacked that goes there to bring the logistics and supplies that they need. That's the most vulnerable part of our deployment.
And if you have half the troops there, you're going to still have to supply them, resupply them on the ground and they're going to be attacked.
When I said we can't win a military victory, it's because the Iraqis have turned against us. They throw a hand grenade or a rocket into American forces and the people run into the crowd and they -- nobody tells them where they are.
I am convinced, and everything that I've read, the conclusion I've reached is there will be less terrorism, there will be less danger to the United States and it'll be less insurgency once we're out.
I think the Iraqis themselves will turn against this very small group of Al Qaida.
They keep saying the terrorists are going to control Iraq -- no way. Al Qaida's only 7 percent of the people in Iraq and doing this fighting. The terrorists -- there's several factions, but let's say Al Qaida is 7 percent at the very most.
Iraq will get rid of them because they'll tell the Iraqis where they are and it will be the end of the terrorist activity.
Now, my plan says redeploy to the periphery, to Kuwait, to Okinawa, and if there's a terrorist activity that affects our allies or affects the United States' national security, we can then go back in.
I'm not talking about going back in if there's civil war, because we're in a civil war right now. We're caught in between a civil war right now.
MURTHA: And with that I'll end and answer any questions you may have.

Told you I met her

2005-10-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

My friend Jeff Goudie (run Maggiano's in Plano, TX) says, "meeting someone famous? Be brief, be brilliant and be gone."

I told Hillary I'm from Rome, NY; I thanks her for her work in the Senate to bring 600 jobs to Rome as part of Rome Air Redevelopment. She said she appreciated that someone knew something so detailed on her work in the Senate.

We posed. Nice shot. She'd be a great president. Why does the Right hate her so much?

Yikes..has it been that long?

2005-10-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

I spend more time posting to Mark Urbin's blog than my own.

Some things driving me nuts these days. Mike Parham, school board trustee at IUSD, came to our legislative action meeting in May and pledged to work against Prop 76 on the California ballot and special election. If Prop 76 passes, the Governor gets more power to suspend funding rules for education; IUSD will get $600 less from the lowest funded district in the state. The school board voting to condemn Prop 76 by a 4-1 margin; the holdout, Mike Parham.

Mike, you're supposed to represent our kids, not the governor. Shame on you. And yes, its a flip flop.

Sharon Wallin has emailed me asking for my endorsement in the 2006 school board; she is the current president. Way too early.

I did meet Hillary Clinton on Saturday. Fun!

Post Katrina

2005-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Stunning article by Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau. It's taken Bush a week to get to New Orleans. Condi is New York shopping for shoes. And we have rapes and murders in lawless New Orleans; a sort of anarchy that makes Bagdhad look civilized by comparison.

See the story here.

There was a funny letter to the editor in the OC Register yesterday suggesting that New Orleans be bulldozed and rebuilt somewhere else. The writer was froim Laguna Canyon. Obviously, his house didn't go tumbling down the hill. By his logic, all of SoCal should relocate, because after all, we live near fault lines.

pre-Katrina

2005-09-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

this article was published this May in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT; it's chilling in its accuracy

Thinking Big About Hurricanes
It's time to get serious about saving New Orleans.
By Chris Mooney
Web Exclusive: 05.23.05

Print Friendly | Email Article

Standing atop the levee that protects Metairie, Louisiana, a satellite of New Orleans, from Lake Pontchartrain to the north, everything seems normal at first. But scanning your eyes across the horizon -- as I did last November, when I visited my hometown for Thanksgiving -- you suddenly glimpse the city's startling vulnerability. It's simply a question of elevation: On one side of the levee, the lake's water level comes up much higher than the foundations and baseboards of the nearby homes on the other side. Only the most expensive houses, those sporting third-story crow's nests, have rooftops that clear the levee's height.

In the event of a slow-moving Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane (with winds up to or exceeding 155 miles per hour), it's possible that only those crow's nests would remain above the water level. Such a storm, plowing over the lake, could generate a 20-foot surge that would easily overwhelm the levees of New Orleans, which only protect against a hybrid Category 2 or Category 3 storm (with winds up to about 110 miles per hour and a storm surge up to 12 feet). Soon the geographical "bowl" of the Crescent City would fill up with the waters of the lake, leaving those unable to evacuate with little option but to cluster on rooftops -- terrain they would have to share with hungry rats, fire ants, nutria, snakes, and perhaps alligators. The water itself would become a festering stew of sewage, gasoline, refinery chemicals, and debris.

I thought of the city’s vulnerability recently, when the latest news came out from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: We can expect another very active Atlantic hurricane season this year, beginning on June 1 and stretching to the end of November. Last year, four hurricanes devastated swaths of Florida. One of the biggest ones, Ivan (a Category 4 storm) seemed to have New Orleans in its sights for a while. Ivan triggered a mass evacuation -- members of my family scrambled to Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Houston -- but ultimately missed the city. Now, however, New Orleanians are in for another nail-biting fall and once again must contemplate the possibility of the dreaded "Atlantis scenario" becoming reality.

A direct hit from a powerful hurricane on New Orleans could furnish perhaps the largest natural catastrophe ever experienced on U.S. soil. Some estimates suggest that well over 25,000 non-evacuees could die. Many more would be stranded, and successful evacuees would have nowhere to return to. Damages could run as high as $100 billion. In the wake of such a tragedy, some may even question the wisdom of trying to rebuild the city at all. And to hear hurricane experts like Louisiana State University's Ivor van Heerden tell it, it's only a matter of time before the "big one" hits.

Currently, pretty much every long-term trend cuts against the safety of New Orleans. Levees are subsiding; coastal wetlands (which can slow storm surges) are continually disappearing; and sea levels are rising. And then there's global warming -- a warmer world with warmer ocean temperatures should theoretically experience worse hurricanes. Most importantly, the Atlantic Ocean appears to have entered an active hurricane cycle, with the potential to fling storms at the Gulf Coast for years to come. This puts New Orleans on the vanguard among U.S. coastal cities (including New York) that will have to think hard about their growing vulnerabilities in the coming years. The process of deciding how to save an entire coastal metropolis has begun, but the discussion has largely been confined to experts, and not nearly broad or ambitious enough yet.

It's time to make it that way -- before the next battery of hurricanes arrives, rather than afterward.

New Orleans already boasts some of the most powerful hurricane defenses in the world, yet the city will have to greatly amplify their strength. That engineering feat will take years, prompting talk of more radical short-term protections. Joseph Suhayda, a retired engineer and hurricane expert from Louisiana State University, has seriously proposed creating "community havens" by erecting massive concrete walls down the middle of New Orleans. In the event of a storm surge, the walls would protect hospitals and historic areas, even as those on the wrong side of them would remain unprotected. Where to build the wall would obviously pose a massive moral dilemma.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers and others have considered the notion of armoring the I-10 twin span, near the mouth of Lake Pontchartrain, with a miles-long bulwark rising out of the water. If tall and strong enough, the sea wall, dubbed "Operation Block," would knock down any storm surge rising out of the Gulf of Mexico before it hit the lake -- in short, stopping a hurricane with concrete.

And that's just part of the multibillion-dollar program officials with the Corps have envisioned, which would include strengthening huge swaths of the Louisiana gulf coast. New Orleans would be the "only city in the country or even the world" with Category 5 hurricane protections, Corps' senior project manager Al Naomi told me last November. But these ideas are in little more than a brainstorming stage at this point; whether the bureaucratic Corps can lurch into action quickly enough to protect a city faced with ever increasing vulnerabilities remains a serious question. "Twenty years will be too late for New Orleans," says LSU's Van Heerden, who favors a specially funded congressional project more akin to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Shockingly, even in the wake of the Asian tsunami catastrophe, there has been little widespread discussion of scenarios in which the United States could find part of its home territory devastated by the sea. Chatter in New Orleans itself has largely focused on improving evacuation plans and reducing gridlock as a storm approaches. These are necessary conversations to have, certainly, but bigger-picture perspectives have rarely surfaced in broader public discussions. That has to change -- and fast. Whatever other natural catastrophes we may be willing to tolerate, the possibility of losing an entire city, and especially the legendary (if also infamous) New Orleans, ought to be out of the question.

Chris Mooney is a Prospect senior correspondent whose TAP Online column appears each week. His book on the politicization of science will be published in September by Basic Books. His daily blog and other writings can be found at www.chriscmooney.com.

Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Chris Mooney, "Thinking Big About Hurricanes", The American Prospect Online, May 23, 2005. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org.

A Year Too Late...

2005-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

From ThinkProgress.org, a liberal web site.

George W. Bush’s overall job approval ratings have dropped from a month ago even as Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president are turning more optimistic about their personal financial situations according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 33% approve and 62% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 38% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 56% disapprove, and 36% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 60% disapprove.

For a little perspective, recall that Richard Nixon’s approval

For those on the Right

2005-08-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

You support the War in Iraq and you support President Bush. If you are under the age of 34, please enlist in the armed forces. If you have children approaching the age of 18, please let me know which branch of the service they will enlist in.

But please don't give me a bullstuff answer about how you have some injury, you have a family, or your kids needs you. All those answers apply to the soliders dying in Iraq daily.

All I am saying is put your ass where your rhetoric is. And if you won't, then admit the war is a huge mistake.

Hypocrisy is BiPartisan

2005-08-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

as I post this, I am reminded that there are likely a number of quotes from the left that could be found in support of President Clinton's military action in Kosovo. Myself, I was largely disconnected from it. But its fun to read this list to know that hypocrisy is in fact bipartisan and that even Republicans can talk from both sides of their mouths.

Here's what Republicans said about Clinton and Kosovo

Why did they second-guess our commitment to freedom from genocide and demand that we cut and run?

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be
away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

Why did they demoralize our brave men and women in uniform?

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

Why didn't they support our president in a time of war?

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."

-Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)

"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Why did they blame America first?

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"
Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)

"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage

"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)

"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R )

"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty. For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will
either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia."

-Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media

funny press release

2005-08-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Can't resist posting this....

Campus Progress Announces Winner of Inexcusable Misquote Contest

Washington, DC - Fighting back against repeated efforts by right-wing media to smear its successful July 13 National Student Conference, Campus Progress, a division of the Center for American Progress, announced today the winner of its Inexcusable Misquote Contest - a competition aimed at highlighting distortions in conservative news reports.

More than 650 students attended the Campus Progress conference, which featured a keynote speech by President Bill Clinton. Conservative website CNSNews.com reported that commentator Paul Begala "created a stir" at a conference panel when he said, "Republicans 'want to kill us.'" Campus Progress quickly demonstrated that Begala actually said "they want to kill us," and that he was referring to terrorists, not Republicans. Begala then published an essay at CampusProgress.org entitled, "Right-Wingers Don't Want to Kill Me; Just Lie About Me." But even after Begala and Campus Progress set the record straight, right-wing media continued to publish the erroneous report -- the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, the Washington Times, and many others.

In response, Campus Progress launched its best contest since the widely-reported "Name Ann Coulter's Next Book Contest." Contestants were invited to submit a short fake news blurb that distorted a real quote for no reason other than to make the speaker look bad.

The numerous entries were reviewed by Campus Progress staff as well as Begala himself, and the winner is: Duncan Stevens of Vienna, Virginia, who offered the following fake blurb:

Abraham Lincoln: I Hate America
Illinois Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln revealed yesterday that he loathes his country. Describing the nation as a "house divided," Lincoln admitted that he "cannot stand" the United States.

The complete contest rules, as well as the winning entry and honorable mentions, can be found at http://campusprogress.org/misquote

Honorable mentions included:

Gingrich Unveils Plan to Kill Entire Population; Admits He Has "Contract" On All of America

Catholic President calls for Americans to empty Treasury for foreigners
Massachusetts liberal John F. Kennedy has declared that the United States will surrender its operating funds to any and all foreign governments. "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price," President Kennedy said to a stunned audience.

Republican Party Faithfuls Shocked by Former First Lady's Endorsement of Gay Marriage
During a speech to a group of students, First Lady Barbara Bush gave a surprising endorsement of same-sex marriage: "And who knows? Somewhere out there in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!"

Macarthur Acknowledges Occult Membership in Army
General Douglas MacArthur shocked members of Congress today when he intimated that members of the U.S. Army are, in fact, inhuman apparitions, otherwise known as ghosts. MacArthur raised the disturbing possibility that the national defense is controlled by satanic agents when he stated that, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

France to Become New US State
The people of France, tired of being rude, arrogant cowards, have decided to seek US statehood. "We are all Americans now," gleefully exclaims the headline of Le Monde, a French newspaper.

VACATION in the Summer Sun

2005-08-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Vacation in the Northeast in August. Hot, muggy, sticky. The saving grace is seeing family and friends. Just spent a few days with my mom and her husband Mike (Red Staters in a Blue State of PA) and will be in the Adirondacks with Dawn's family Thursday through Saturday. We will see friends from Irvine Sunday at Cooperstown.

Mr. Goldberg's getting out of the kitchen

2005-07-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

Bernard Goldberg used to be a respected journalist. But he's totally sold out to the Far Right. His current book, "100 People Screwing Up Amercia" is a homage of hate and -- dare I say it -- BIAS to the political left. #95 on the list is Courtney Love. Goldberg's reason consists of a single word -- "Ho." To be honest, Courtney Love is in greater danger of screwing up Courtney Love than she is America. There are 3 conservatives on the list (Michael Savage is one).

Goldberg's rationale is the people on the list need to have done something outrageous to make it. So Michael Moore is #1, Al Franken is in at #37. Tim Robbins, Barbara Streisand, the publisher of the NY Times and the head of the ACLU all make the list. No Ann Coulter. No Bill O'Reilly. No Sean Hannity. No Karl Rove. No Randall Terry. No Alan Keyes. I could go on.

The set up above is for this below. Goldberg went on a CNBC show and the Daily Show, which were less than welcoming than his nine appearances on Fox News or his interview with Rush Limbaugh (who isn't in the book but should be). Goldberg responded to one question by the media critic of the New York Post by telling her to shut up (How very O'Reilly of him). Goldberg seems surprised that people on the left are upset with this one-sided, not Far-and-Balanced, book.

I thought he was smart than that.

On Limbaugh, Goldberg has basically disavowed himself of being a member of the lefty liberals. He doesn't want to be associated with lefties anymore. Bernie, speaking for the left, you can go.

We don't want you. BTW, you can buy a copy of "Bias," Bernie's first book, used on Amazon.com for a nickel. Let me saze you some postage. The book should be subtitled, "Dan Rather is a Big Jerk."

Bernie is still somewhat bitter about his resignation from CBS News.

He can make his living by pandering to the right.

Joe Conason on Carl Rove

2005-07-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Can't spell "Cover Up" without R-O-V-E. See this column from Joe Conason.

some photos from ComicCon 2005

2005-07-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

My son Alex and I are big fans of the comics; we went to ComicCon in San Diego last week and took some pictures of the event. In fairness, I also am posting this to try and figure out how to post photos to my blog.

75,000 people in San Diego over a 4 day period. The autograph booths were cool. A lot of B and C list celebs and some former A-listers. It was scary to see almost no one at some of the actor's tables (these would be some of the supporting characters from the original Battlestar Gallactica and from Farscape.

It was hard to tell which folks dressed up were employees and which we're just fans. Scary.

Cool note, Alex got to meet Kenny Baker, the actor inside the R2D2 suit for the Star Wars movies. He hugged me several times (Alex, not Kenny) to tell me how glad he was tro be there.

On the photos above (it looks like it worked), upper left hand corner is Alex with Todd MacFarland, creator of Spawn; upper right, Alex with Boondocks creator Aaron MacGruder; lower left, Alex with Kenny Baker; lower right Alex with Margot Kidder and ....er....."Jimmy Olson." (I can't remember the actor's name).

Howard Bryant on NPR

2005-07-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4736039

Here's the link to Howard Bryant's NPR interview.

Joe Wilson's New York Times essay

2005-07-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here it is.....

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_07/001678.php

Bernard Goldberg's book; Howard Bryant's book

2005-07-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

Egads, is it July 11 already?

The New York Times gave a hearty endorsement to Howard Bryant's "Juicing the Game" about baseball and steroids. Howard is a good friend; Dawn worked with him at the Patriot Ledger in Quincy and they have been friends since. He has a great gig at the Boston Herald. Buy his book; it's the fact-based account oif steroid use in baseball, not the Canseco-driven rumor-fest.

A book to ignore is Bernard Goldberg's new one about the 100 People Most Hurting America (or words to that effect); count em, three conservatives. Goldberg is still carrying an axe that needs constant grinding for his firing at CBS. His fans will point to the "bad behavior" required to make this list (AL Franken is #37, Courtney Love is #95), so if that's the case, where is Ann Coulter?

In a way, I feel sorry for this guy

2005-06-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is exactly why I came to leave the Republican Party and join trhe Democrats. Read this story: http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/26/ed.col.chaney.0626.html

Mark's Blog

2005-06-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm posting more to my friend Mark's blog than I am my own.

The big question I have of Mark and his friends, since they swing so far to the right these days, is why? What makes George W. Bush such a great president that he and his policies are defended so much?

We're in a war we shouldn't be in, gas is a dollar more a gallon than when he took office, we've gone from record surpluses to record deficits, the tax cuts haven't stimulated the economy or created the jobs they thought, and to move toward one party rule where dissent is crushed reminds me of the good old days of the USSR. We're America. Aren't we supposed to be better than all this?

the spot

2005-06-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Here's the link to the web site where the "Broken Promises" spot has been posted online. http://www.protectstudents.org/radio.html

Hope the Governor is listening. But let's be honest, any checks I write will be toi the school district and not the governor. So the man who has raised more than twice the money Gray Davis raised in their first 12 months in office after decalring he is not for sale, is very much in fact, for sale. The Governor is a poster child for checkbook democracy.

would someone tell Rush to get back on his meds...

2005-06-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

An excerpt of Rush Limbaugh's show, courtesy of www.mediamatters.com. The audio file has much angst and hand-wringing and the rattle of papers.

But Rush, America's anchorman as he calls himself, has already uncovered the culprit for the next terrorist attack on America -- you guessed it, it's the American Left and the Media.

Here is what he said.
LIMBAUGH: Let me tell you something, folks, if we are hit again, if we are hit again, we need to hold these people in our country who are undermining our efforts responsible. It ain't going to be the FBI's fault next time. It isn't going to be the CIA's fault next time. It isn't going to be some bureaucracy's fault next time. It's going to be the fault of politicians, left-wing groups and the like who have names and identities and spend their every waking moment trying to obstruct our ability to secure intelligence information for our own national security.

You want some names: [Sen. Patrick] Leahy [D-VT], [Sen. Joseph R.] Biden [D-DE], [Sen. Richard J.] Durbin [D-IL], [Sen. Barbara] Boxer [D-CA], [Sen. Edward] Kennedy [D-MA], [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-NV], Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Amnesty International. If we get hit again, these are the names of the people and organizations we need to look at when we're trying to find out why and how it happened."

I have a real problem with people who refer to themselves in the third person as often as Rush does.

I supposed Bush's invasion of Iraq, the abuses at Abu Gharhib and Gitmo, and our quest for more oil would have nothing to do with it.

Will the DA in Florida please indict this man on drug abuse charges?

Schiavo autopsy

2005-06-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Just woindering how Frist, Hannity, Limbaugh and Coulter will respond to the details announced today of Terri Schiavo's autopsy results. Her brain weigh half the size of a normal human brain, she was blind, and had irreversable brain damage.

So much for Hannity's experts claiming she could recover with the right stimuli, or that she tried to speak "I want to live..." Before the Christian Right jumps in to say, No one deserves to starve to death," let me say she was technically alive, but had no quality of life.

How will the Right spin this one?

2005-06-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Schiavo autopsy results are in. She was blind. Her brain weighed half of what it should. She had massive brain damage leading to a progressive vegetative state (much like Sean Hannity's journalism background).

Wonder how the Coulters, Malkins, Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world will explain themselves here.

Can you hear me now Arnold?

2005-06-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I was behind a mike, but you can hear my voice on a radio spot airing throughout California today about the governor's proposed education reforms.

I'm the only male on the spot besides the announcer.

a wise man once said....

2005-06-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mark Felt

2005-06-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

Is a hero.

Who was he going to report corruption to: the FBI director who threw documents over bridge into the Potomac or the AG who was in on the conspiracy. Look at thow the Bush Administration treats its own whistleblowers, Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke. They are villified and dismissed as liars for pointing out or disagreeing with the president.

And then Karl Rove puts the right wing attack media to work to savage their reputations. Where are the Mark Felt's of this administration?

We get the Government we deserve.

Koran abuse at Gitmo

2005-06-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

I wonder if White House spokeshole Scott McClellan will apologize to Newsweek Magazine for the confirmation of Koran abuse at Gitmo. I also find it hysterical that the Bush Administration is citing the Geneva Convention to prevent the ACLU from gaining access to Abu Ghrahib photos and videos. The right wing media has been railing that these terrorists do not warrant Geneva Convention protections, yet will fall behind the GC to save their own ass. Let me play Jeff Gannon for a moment and ask Scott McClellan a question: "So Scott, are you guys the pot or the kettle?"

McClellan's treatment of Newsweek as the mouthpiece ofthe president is a disgrace to our profession (I'm in PR too of course).

But I'm sure Rumsfeld and Bush will declare all of our forces in Gitmo as "good men" and "good women" and, as usual, there will be no accountability.

and like a Good Republican.......

2005-06-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

what's that phrase? The friend of my enemy is my enemy....

from today's Irvine World News...

Board member defends role in TV ad
By PEGGY GOETZ IRVINE WORLD NEWS

School board member Mike Parham has taken flak from some quarters for his appearance in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s TV ad that calls for more careful spending and fiscal reform in the face of the state’s financially tight times.
Some have been critical of Parham for appearing in the ad because they say the governor’s financial proposals shift more costs to already lean school districts and eliminate
guaranteed
levels of state funding provided in Proposition 98.
Parham spoke last week at a meeting of the district’s Legislative Action Committee to explain his position regarding the governor’s financial proposals.
He said he does not support the governor’s proposal to eliminate Proposition 98 funding guarantees. The TV ad, he said, was not about education but about everyone being more fiscally responsible.
“I agree with him on that. We have to spend more carefully in all state programs,” said Parham.
Dan Chmielewski of the Sierra Vista Middle School Legislative Action Committee, said he is not happy about Parham being in the commercial. He said the school board should present a united front on the issue of the state’s education spending.
The ad was filmed at Allergan in Irvine and was aired on TV last month. In it, Parham is sitting next to the governor, which gave the school board member an unusual amount of time to talk to Schwarzenegger. Parham said he used the time to talk about the need for equalization of school funding and the needs of education in general.
“He really seemed to understand,” said Parham. “I had a rare opportunity.”
Chmielewski said he commends Parham for getting the ear of the governor, noting that he had gotten closer to the governor than other representatives of the district. However, Chmielewski said that by supporting the governor’s overall fiscal reform package, Parham is indirectly supporting the governor’s squeeze of funding to kindergarten-through 12th grade education.
“He is being a good Republican and supporting the governor, but he is not representing our children and the school district well,” said Chmielewski.
Parham contends he is serving the interests of the district by talking to the governor. He also says that helping improve the business climate in California will improve the fiscal situation statewide and thus will help education. The methods of funding public education in California are broken and need to be fixed, Parham added.
School board members Sue Kuwabara and Sharon Wallin have said at board meetings that although Proposition 98 provisions are not without fault, they are at this time the only guarantee the schools have that funding will remain stable.
Both said that Proposition 98 should not be eliminated before something better is proposed.
Parham said at last week’s board meeting that he does not want to eliminate Proposition 98 funding guarantees, but does want to change the system.

Hurray for Deep Throat

2005-06-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

and where are the Mark Felt's in the Bush Administration? Oh yea, they get fired (Paul O'Neill) or quit (Christie Todd Whittman).

Since I know Mark checks in, I offer this fun link on my Blog.

http://www.newshounds.us/

LA Times gets it right

2005-05-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

...and I'm quoted!

I spoke with Mike P after the meeting; he thanked me for keeping him honest. But Mike needs to understand that getting a seat at the table means squat if you're not heard. What's worse..being heard and ignored. I also got a nice email from him this morning. I still think Mike is on the wrong side here. But I have to give him credit..he's gotten further and gotten closer to the Governor than any other member of the school board. Too bad the governor will probably remember what Wendy Bokota said to him more than Mike.

Governor Making Politics Local
State issues usually play out in Sacramento. But initiatives shift the battle to communities, where lines form on both sides.
By Jean O. Pasco
Times Staff Writer

May 30, 2005

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to take his plans for changing state government to the people, he probably didn't think about how it might set colleagues at odds.

But that's what happens when real people become campaign spokesmen.

Mike Parham, an Irvine Unified School District trustee, is the man in the blue shirt sitting next to Schwarzenegger in a television commercial as the governor touts his ideas as essential to the state's financial health.

Wendy Bokota, who chairs the Irvine PTA's legislative action committee, criticized the governor in Newsweek magazine after attending a rally at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim to denounce the governor's plan to alter the equation for school funding.

And when Parham dined in March with Schwarzenegger as a guest at an Irvine fundraiser, Bokota stood outside in the rain with 2,000 other protesters shouting, "Shame on you!" Her sign read, "Protect Prop. 98," an initiative passed by voters in 1988 that set aside 40% of state revenues for schools.

Schwarzenegger is proposing to change those minimum-funding guarantees, one of three proposals his allies have sent to the secretary of state for placement on a ballot.

The governor has said he would decide by June 10 whether to have a special election on the measures this year, or wait until the June 2006 primary.

Parham and Bokota represent both sides of the political coin Schwarzenegger flipped into the crowd in January when he pledged to take his plans directly to voters.

Usually, the political machinations of crafting and adopting laws play out among the professionals in Sacramento. But by unilaterally drafting his ideas as initiatives, the governor shifted the debate from the Legislature to local communities, a strategy that has caused both sides to take to the streets.

When the governor filmed one of his TV commercials hawking his positions, he chose the lunchroom of an Irvine biotech company as his backdrop. And there, sitting at Schwarzenegger's left elbow, is Parham. He is not identified and he doesn't say anything, but many people in Irvine certainly recognized him as one of their school trustees.

And in short order, Parham, 35, a vice president of an investment banking firm, was asked to explain his support for the governor at the Irvine PTA's legislative action committee meeting. He had already piqued PTA members and others by voting in the minority to oppose a school board resolution to protect Proposition 98.

"I support the governor's efforts to change the system," Parham told 15 volunteers at the PTA meeting.

"Companies that I work with are deciding that instead of buying in Arizona or Nevada, they're going to stay in California because they're comfortable with what the governor is trying to do," he said. School funding will benefit by such corporate decisions to keep their business here, he said.

Parham, whose children are in first and fourth grades, prefaced his half-hour remarks by saying that he too was disappointed that a $1.3-billion revenue windfall announced this month was earmarked for roads and prisons, with none for education. But he said one idea he pushed — paying master teachers and administrators to help under-performing schools — was included in the governor's proposed budget.

"The governor is operating in a real world with a real pie that's finite," Parham said. "Parents are paying taxes for a lot of reasons, not just education."

Diplomacy aside, Bokota, 39, a mother of three, said parents must be warned that the governor's spending proposals would "decimate" Proposition 98. One proposal, for example, would prohibit spending in good years from being set as base funding for future years.

Schwarzenegger introduced his initiative, the "Live Within Our Means Act," even as he was being lambasted for reneging on a pledge to repay $2 billion taken last year from schools.

The governor countered by saying schools would get $3 billion more this coming year than last year.

The threat of future education cuts should be enough to get parents out onto street corners and holding picket signs, Bokota said.

Public confrontation is uncommon in the business world, she said, but is appropriate in policy debates. "We're telling them, 'You're messing with our kids,' " she told Parham. "You have to show them some passion."

The discussion distressed Jane Cashell, who said after the meeting that she felt powerless and frustrated in the face of a pending vote because there was no way to change what was going on the next ballot. About the only thing she can do is protest, she said — something she hasn't done since the Vietnam War ended.

"I hate government by initiative," said Cashell, the mother of three boys and a member of the Stone Creek Elementary PTA.

"This has made me feel like all I can do is be negative."

PTA volunteer Dan Chmielewski said he believed Parham was sincere in wanting to raise Irvine's profile with the governor by appearing in the commercial. Though located in one of the wealthiest areas of the state, the district receives only about $5,000 per student annually in state education money, far less than the state average of about $7,000.

"If Mike can get a seat at the table, I hope he can make a difference for Irvine and other underfunded districts in the state," Chmielewski said. "But what can Mike offer the governor that will help Irvine? I don't know how it will benefit us in the end."

Despite the negative attention he has received, Parham said he would go on TV again for the governor.

Tit-for-Tat

2005-05-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm engaged in a his fit email spat with IUSD board member Michael Parham over his appearance in the Governor's reform commercial.

I'm sure Mike would sue me for reposting his email, so I'll paraphrase. He did a time-honored anti-union diatribe about the PTAs being aligned with the California Teacher's Association (wrong, but the right wing does need an enemy and how can all those well-heeled rich people compete with unions dollar for dollar?) And then he asserted his first amendment rights to appear with the governor on TV.

Snarky.

As a voter, I can assert my rights to push for a recall. After all, Arnold's hosting a special election anyway, and recalling politicians a year after they were elected is NOT unprecedented in this state.

Mind you

The older I get....

2005-05-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

The more Liberal I become. Proof positive: I am not shocked by my five year old daughter singing "I ain't no Holla back Girl..." from Gwen Stefani's "Love, Music, Angel, Baby" album.

Yeah, she sings all the bad words too.

Crooks and Liars

2005-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Governor's May budget update contains no new money for schools. None. Zip. Nada.

The governor has proven himself to be a convincing and sincere actor while running for office, and at the end has proven that his word is no good. Not trustworthy. Backstabbing. And a liar.

A number of us (parents in my neighborhood) are beginning to question the sincerity of the IUSD board's biggest Arnold support, Michael Parham. Mike says he's all about education, and he is convinced that Prop 98 is broken. Yet there is no other constitutional means for funding the schools, and the Governor's reforms don't spell out how Prop 98 can be reformed. Parnham continues his passionate support of the governor, so can aspirations of higher office be far behind?

Since so many of us in PTAs and PTSAs are working so hard to fight the Governor's reforms for education, here is Mike, on the school board, offering no help to parents but not offering any answers other than to say "prop 98 is broken." I will say publicly what many of us said privately. Mike -- who's side are you on?

Michael Parham gets a guest shot on the Governator show

2005-05-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.globalarnold.com/video/arnold_tv-ad.mov

stay with this; at the end of the commercial, the man sitting at the Governor's left is Michael Parham, school board member for IUSD.

Our district stands to be crippled by the governor's failure to keep his promise on Prop 98 funding, and Michael is here in a spot supporting the Governator. Hope the voters remember.

Busy, busy, busy

2005-05-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, has it really been three weeks since I've posted?

I have picked up two new clients and had a major trade show in Vegas. On top of that, we're remodeling and the new office should be ready soon .

In the meantime, things that make me crazy: Time Magazine profiling Ann Coulter on the cover. Tom DeLay is still in office. John Bolton's nomination to a body he cannot stand is on hold.

Making me happy these days: Arnold's "reforms" are biting the dust and he is losing serious clout. The dems need someone serious and resourceful. Cannot wait to see Mike Parham at a legislative action meeting to ask some pointed questions about his support for the Governor.

still waiting....

2005-04-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

Well, now that Governor Arnold's "reforms: are watered down significantly so he can still claim victory even though he's being thumped by special interests (that would be active PTA parents), I am still waiting for IUSD school board member Michael Parham to answer a question I asked weeks ago..mainly, "how much more money would IUSD get should the governor's education reform ballot measure pass." No answer. He's either forgotten or he just doesn't know. And if he doesn't know, then shame on him for signing something based on pure partisanship.

Missing Palm Springs

2005-04-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

No Hannity. No Rush. No Colmes. And no Ted Kennedy (thanks for emailing me Mark), though I would buy the senior Senator from Massachusetts a drink for peering down my wife's shirt when she interviewed him once (during her days at the Quincy Patriot Ledger). As I told Dawn then, "Hon, he's a Kennedy and he has a heartbeat. What did you expect?" I got even by spying Rep. Loretta Sanchez's toe cleavage during a meeting a former company of mine had with her two years ago (now where is thast photo of Loretta and I?).

Many thanks to our friends the Greenman's for hosting us at their condo/timeshare. Our boys get along so well together.

What a blast.

Palm Desert

2005-04-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

It's school Spring Break for the kids and Dawn and I are joining the Greenman's in Palm Desert. Free WiFi and Free Sunshine! Life doesn't get better than this!

If I see Rush or Sean H, I'm pushing them in the pool.

still waiting

2005-04-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've emailed both Michael Parham, IUSD school board member, and John Campbell, state senator who represents Irvine, for explanations on how Arnold's, a-hem, the Governor's "reform" proposals will bring more money to IUSD.

Of course I am still waiting.

Campbell's office lauded the Governor for his courage in taking on the status quo, battlling special interests, and for the claim that California will spend more than $10K per student. That said, I know IUSD would be thrilled to have half that. We're weighing in at about $4300 per student now....

Where They Stand

2005-03-31T09:25:00.000-08:00

I pinged 4 of the 5 members of the IUSD school board (I have no use for one member in particular). I asked where they stood on signing the Governor's education reform petition.

It's a simple yes or no.

Both Sue Kuwabarra and Sharon Wallin said they wouldn't sign. Michael Parham has already signed it (no surprise there). Gavin Huntley-Fenner wouldn't answer. He acknowledged my contribution to 3rd grade class size reducation, but did not answer the question. So I will take that as a "yes" he signed. Since Carolyn McInerny has previously voted in favor of NOT blasting the Governor for breaking his word on Prop 98 funding, I'll go out on a limb and say she'll sign the petition too.

Nice.

Three of the five IUSD board members support the Governor's "reforms" for education whic is exactly the opposite position of the PTA in Irvine. Nice....

Recall election anyone?

My friend Mark.....

2005-03-30T16:56:00.000-08:00

Mark Urbin is one of the best pals I have in technology.

I remember having a idea for a new product and asking Mark how long it would take to build. He pondered and said "about nine engineering months." Which I replied, ""Great, if we can get you nine engineers can we get it in a month?" And Mark, in his dry wit, grinned and said, "No Dan. Nine pregnant woman can't produce a baby in one month."

I use that story often.

Mark plugged my blog, so I will plug his and given insight to my friends and neighbors in the OC how someone from Beantown perceives us.

http://eclipseweb.blogspot.com/2005/03/plugging-for-my-friend.html

Keep challenging those Birchers surrounding you. It's for their own good. :-)

And Mark used to be Liberal, but the Clinton's got to him. Still, Mark is a good friend. Friends help you move. Good friends help you move bodies.

Hannity: repeat a lie long enough and its true

2005-03-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

Listened to Sean Hannnity's pathetic rant on the Schaivo case. He claims there is a medical dispute in regards to Teri's condition and with the right treatment, she can recover. Where was this guy for the past 15 years?

The woman is alive not not living. No higher brain functions (which qualifies her to be a conservative radio talk show host).

But Hannity is like a terrier; he grabs hold of something (even if its wrong) and refuses to let go. It's true because he says so. Too bad Sean keeps forgetting to bring up how the GOP controlled House cut medicare funding that would have benefited patients in a progressive vegetative state. Would stem cell research help Teri? Oh, Sean's on the "wrong side of history" for that too. But the cool thing was listening to Sean praise Jesse Jackson for intervening on behalf of Teri's family even though it was killing him to say something (anything) positive about Jesse Jackson.

I actually hope that the Clinton's come down and voice support for the family so Hannity can choke on his own bile for a change.

Arnold skates today

2005-03-30T09:07:00.000-08:00

Getting lots of email from my PTA groups on protesting the Governor's appearance at the Pond in Anaheim this afternoon. The Govinator wants signatures for petition initiatives for his ballot measures that will change pension systems, redistrict legsilative areas, and screw over the school system.

The Governor, like many Republicans and Conservatives, need an enemy. So its him and people against the special interests, which just happen to be Teachers, Nurses, and Parents with kids in public school.

The problem with Arnold is simple: He's a liar. He went back on his word to back the Prop. 98 funding deal he brokered with educators last year.

He's a hypocrite: he rails against special interest while collecting more special interest money than Gray Davis ever dreamed of. If you have a checkbook out, the Governor will see you. If all you have is a vote, he's not interested because he can use his star power to get votes he needs.

In public appearances, he hams for the camera and says "I want to hear from you, California," and as soon as the speech is over he's out the door before he can hear a word.

It's Arnold's way or the highway. The voters need to hold him accountable.

Parham: No Ethics violations

2005-03-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote to IUSD the other day and asked about Board member Michael Parnham accepted what amounted to a $1,000 donation by being a businessman's guest at the Governor's fundraiser in Irvine last week (netting $3.1 million).

Mike was cleared and even wrote me that my questions were fair and then went on to document all his filings (don't get defensive Mike, it was just a question).

Mike then proceeded to let me know about a meeting he was involved in with Arnold and other community leaders. While Mike is taking every oportunity to lobby the Governor here, let's be honest. The Schwartzenegger isn't listening and only wants to hear from people who will support what he wants to do.

I've had a number of email chats with Mike over the past few months and I believe his heart is in the right place, but I am not convinced he hasn't gone to the Dark Side when it comes to going to bat for Irvine's kids. Tough to do that when you're telling people how passionate the Guv is....

p.s. This is what I get for voting for a conservative Republican; Chuck DeVore's whining editorials about wasteful taxpayer spending on tourism and no action from him on schools. But should a hardened criminal want conjugal visits in jail, Chuck is all over that one.

who's side is he on? The Passion of the Governor

2005-03-24T11:29:00.000-08:00

IUSD school board member Michael Parham has already voted to not condemn the Governator for breaking his promise to schools on Prop 98 funds. Now, per today's Irvine World News, we find that Mr. Parham attended the $1,000 per plate fundraiser for the Governor in Irvine (as the guest of a businessman). In the IWN, Parham spoke about the passion of the Governor and how passionate he is on issues and how passionate the parents and teachers who were protesting in the passionate rain were. How he wishes everyone could have heard what the Governor had to say. I only wish the governor would hear what we have to say.

Parham went on to identify the "who's who" of OC Republican leaders in the room. All of which wound up donating $3.1 million to the Governor's coffers to "reform" education. Imagine what an extra $3.1 million would do for IUSD. I think Michael ought to focus on his job and not fawning all over the governor.

Just wondering

2005-03-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

In the Schiavo case, and it's a total tragedy no matter what the outcome, I was just wondering if stem cell research might be useful in helping people in a progressive vegative state? Just asking. Because that would be in conflict with the Bushies approach.

The woman may be alive, but she has no quality of life. If I ever get that way, my family can yank the plug and have doctors harvest what's left that someone else can use.

Blog Upkeep

2005-03-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

What's that phrase again, being busier than a one armed coat hanger?

The regular season for IYBL has wrapped up and now we're mobing on to all-star stages. I had lots of last minute running around to do to take care of missing paperwork and new photos for players. But, Irvine will have 4 boys 7th grade teams competing this weekend.

My team has three games. Versus Yorba Linda at Yorba Linda. Versus Tustin at Tustin. Versus Santa Ana at Santa Ana. Just who did we piss off?

I like our team and our chances to make it to San Diego.

Caught up with Pat DiCaprio from Rome, NY recently. He has been in Orange County for a number of years. We both played high school ball for Stan Evans at Rome Free Academy and both have the same opinion of Coach E. I also played youth basketball on a team with Pat's counsin, Robert...so we have less than six degrees of separation on a number of fronts.

IUSD Board does something right

2005-03-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

Teachers get a 4 percent raise; not much at the end of the day, but a start. John Jaegar, one of the all-time champion letter writers in the Irvine World News, has a letter today botching about how top of scale teachers make $85K for 9 months of work.

I taught a junior achievement class for 4 hours one day. It was all I could do to keep the kids engaged and interested. The prep time alone was 4-5 hours. Now, multiply that by 6-7 hours a day, 5 days a week and then add a few hours a day to grade papers. If its high school or junior high, add a few more hours.

I think John Jaeger ought to pull his head out of his ass and commend teachers for sacrificing opportunities to make lots more money in order to serve a higher purpose and teach our kids.

basketball update

2005-03-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

For those of you following the exploits of my basketball team, we got knocked out of the tournament Sunday. We played a surging Rockets team that was just plain bigger than us and we were missing a key player (with 8 kids per team, every kid is a key player).

We will still earn some hardware for finishing the regular season in second place. I really loved this team. I have been lucky my last two seasons. Maddie's soccer team was awesome and fun; Alex's basketball team this year was equally enjoyable and fun.

Since I'm comissioner, I'd like to pass a rule that says I can keep this same team together next year. I can't, of course...but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to.

Terminating the Petitions

2005-03-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

Got this email from Wendy Bokota. She's the head of our PTA Legislative Action committee.

I'm stoked by what she did. Read all about it.

Today I experienced democracy at its best and gave my kids the best civics lesson they could get. I took my kids to lunch at Red Robin in Costa Mesa in hopes we might catch a glimpse of the Governor. At the very best I thought we might be able to shake his hand. In fact, we not only got to shake hands with him but I engaged him in a one-on-one debate over the education budget.

I believe we were the last customers to get inside the restaurant, we ate our lunch and then about an hour later he appeared. I give him credit. He took the time to approach every table to shake hands and engage in discussion. I shook his hand and thanked him for the work he’s done and asked him to help me teach my kids how to keep a promise, I asked him to help me give my kids the best education possible. He proceeded to tell me he’s giving education $3 billion. I interrupted him to say in fact he was not giving $3 billion, that with the cost-shifting of teacher retirement, vehicle license fees, mental health costs, etc.. education was not receiving all that money. He went on to rhetorically ask me where I thought the money was going. He answered his own question by rattling on about collective bargaining unions. For fear my time would be up soon, I interrupted him again and told him regardless, it’s not enough, that we are not being funded appropriately, that our district is significantly under-funded, that the district is managing its money, and still my kids’ school might lose their librarian! I again told him to keep his promise.

He realized he wasn’t going to get another word in with me so he diverted his attention onto my 8-year old daughter, Larisa. He shook her hand, and she handed him a hand-written letter describing all the important people at her school, including her teacher and principal, the nurse and librarian. The letter also explains how disappointed she would be if her school lost those important people. He said thank you, took the letter and handed it to a staff person. I then told him I had over one hundred letters from concerned parents and I handed those to the staffer. Arnold once again said thank you and moved on, without giving me any of his ‘reform’ flyers. I was then approached by a young twenty-something asking me to sign a petition. I let him know that I would not sign because I felt this was a waste of money in a time of crisis.

In my daughter’s words, “it was awesome”. We then walked out the front of the restaurant to find a pseudo-rally taking place between Arnold supporters and education supporters. I only hope he heard the chanting “Save our Schools” outside the restaurant because that message was not as loud inside the restaurant. His presence alone was enticing enough to get unsuspecting customers to sign willingly without understanding the impact of the initiatives. I hope parents like myself will educate themselves before signing any petition. I’m hoping my few minutes of time with him gave him pause, and I truly hope he reads my daughter’s letter. If it doesn’t touch him, maybe Maria will read it.

For anyone that says our voice isn’t being heard, I was heard today, and I have to say, he listened!

Wendy Bokota

IUSD PTA Legislative Action Chair

Gavin's Letter in today's Irvine World News

2005-03-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

Nice note in the IWN today from Gavin. Very humble. But you again missed the opportunity to reach out to the voters who wanted someone else.

Just remember. You were appointed, not elected. And you got 4 votes, not 100,000. And it didn't cost you a dime to run.

When you do run for election in 2006 (its not re-election because you haven't been elected), you will still have a child with special needs, so you might want to start crafting the response now about why you're running in '06 when you didn't in '04...I believe my Republican friends would call that a flip-flop.

Rush on Hunter

2005-03-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Listened to the Rush Limbaugh show the other day and he was chattering on about Hunter Thompson's suicide. Rush claimed Hunter blew his brains out because he was depressed about the swing to the right the country has taken.

First of all, that hasn't been reported as a reason for the suicide.
Secondly, a 4 percent edge in the election doesn't mean the country has swung to the right, only that it leans right (for the moment).

Just because Rush says it, doesn't make it so....

OC Register Letters to the Editor/on the Oscars

2005-03-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

I laughed so hard at the letters complaining about the Oscars in this morning's OC Register. "Why must Hollywood bash Bush?" and "Hollywood's Hidden Message" in films like "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Cider House Rules."

Hollywood pokes fun at whoever is in office, Republican or Democrat. And if you don't want to see a movie about assisted suicide or abortion, read some reviews about the movie first and make choices. No one is holding a gun to your head and says, "watch this or else."

In regards to "The Cider House Rules," its obvious that the letter writer missed the underlining tone of the movie. The Homer Wells character believes the fetus has a soul and the abortion he willingly performs was on an incest victim. The John Irvine book, which is excellent, goes much deeper into the clinic/orphanage where pregnant woman come and either leave behind an aborted fetus or an orphan.

Look, freedom of speech also means the freedom to make choices about what you want to see, listen to, or read. I prefer stuff that makes me think. My friends will tell you I am a proud liberal Democrat, yet I read Ann Coulter, and listen to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I particular find it humorous to have them tell you how Liberals think. The only thing they are qualified to tell you is how Conservatives believe Liberals think.

My phone call with Sharon

2005-02-28T16:26:00.000-08:00

Sharon Wallin called me Sunday morning and we had a nice chat about a number of things: the special election, a possible parcel, the Governor's "lies", and the appointment process that brought Gavin Huntley-Fenner his seat.

Of course, Sharon defended the appointment process. I'm not surprised. But she made a decision based on a far more rigorous process than the voters themselves do.

The one admission I got from her -- and I give her brownie points for being honest with me -- dealt with her comments to the Irvine World News that the public in general supported the appointment process. That wasn't my experience from gathering signatures.

Sharon did say the vast majority of the voters didn't really care one way or another. Some voters were strongly for appointing John Burger and others were strongly for the board's appointment. My comment back, "so then your statement in the IWN about the majority of voters supporting the board's decision was inaccurate?" She paused for a moment and said, "well, I don't remember was I said exactly, but yes, you're right."

Again, I appreciate the honesty. I also told Sharon we're on the same side more often than not. And I don't view Sharon as political.

But being someone identified as a petition carrier for the special election effort means people tell me stuff. And the more I know about Gavin and the more I drill down into this statements regarding his non-candidacy, the more convinced I am he's the wrong choice to hold the board seat.

Let's review:

1. Didn't run because he had just started a new job.
It didn't stop him from being active on the IPSF board, which is now set up to be an exclusive fundraising arm for the district.

2. He has a child with special needs.
Hmmm, unfortunate, but then why spend so much time with IPSF and all that goes with it? And why put your hat in the ring for a board seat anyway? The child still has special needs that aren't going to change in '06.

3. He didn't have the money to run.
No one does.

Going back to the special needs child; its' pretty well known in Irvine that the district is NOT helpful or fair when it comes to helping parents of kids with special needs. There's a network of parents who share data and help other parents know their rights. The fact that Gavin has a child with special needs can be viewed in a positive way only if he does everything he can to help make sure that all kids with special needs get the same level of service based on their diagnosis. What I'm saying is, if two kids have the same disorder (and I recognize the no two kids are unlike), then they should both get the same level of service. One family shouldn't get more than another simply because they brought their lawyer to a meeting with the district.

Gavin's position on 3rd grade CSR

2005-02-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is an email sent by Dr. Gavin Huntley-Fenner, our appointed school board member, to a list of 3rd Grade Class Size Reduction volunteers in January 2004 -- 13 months ago. In a meeting with Legislative Action members last week, I asked Gavin for his position on 3rd Grade CSR and he said he was for it, but it requires financial support from parents annually (wow, that's going out on a limb, huh?)

But look at this letter and what he says about 3rd grade CSR. He defended his decision as the right and moral vote to take when I approached him afterwards. He asked me what I would do. I told him to do whatever I could to save it. Ultimately, it was saved by a group led by Debbie Coven and John Burger. But everyone got to jump on the "we saved 3rd grade bandwagon."

Gavin also mentioned that fundraising efforts this year were lagging and cited the relief effort for the Tsunami as a reason.

I've bolded certain portions for emphasis.

Fellow 3rd Grade CSR volunteers,

I wanted to give you my personal perspective on this issue as someone who has been intimately involved in the entire 3rd Grade CRS process from the first collection of the pilot dollars in the Spring through the collection of unfulfilled pledges at the tail end of the campaign. As an IPSF board member, I've also worked behind the scenes towards IPSF's goal of supporting public school education. Lastly, as a child development researcher I have attempted to stay current on the latest studies regarding the effects of class size on elementary school students.

As many of you are aware, both the school board and the IPSF board have voted to suspend fundraising activity specifically for 3rd Grade class size reduction (CSR), due to legitimate concerns over sustainability and the need to focus all available resources on expanded efforts to maintain CSR for K, 1, 2 and 9th grade. From my perspective, both boards made the right decision from the point of view of maintaining overall educational quality in the entire district. It was a hard decision, but it was the right decision.

As a community, we are in the unfortunate position where every decision of significant financial consequences leaves some children without the optimum support. As the financial bind tightens, good solid programs may disappear. Our community cannot save everything, yet we still can be better off than we are today. For the last two years, we have had pledge drives that are highly dependent on one or two charismatic individuals to initiate and sustain them. Today we never know if there is a commitment to 'at risk'
programs until the money is nearly due. Today we raise money to save one program or another without knowing whether we will have the wherewithal to save that program next year or the year after.

We have the good fortune to have an organization like IPSF that is taking a systematic approach to build sustainable school fundraising. We have a school board that works closely with IPSF and which is open to parental input. Our voices are heard both on the emotional level and on the reasoned and practical level. In every case whether there is one voice or 100 voices, our elected officials and the IPSF board continue to make decisions with all of the district's students in mind.

As parents, all of us fear the negative effects of larger class sizes.
The good news is that CSR remains a massive IUSD and IPSF priority - in significant part thanks to parental support. Other districts in Orange County may eliminate CSR altogether. In Irvine, the recent board votes have established K, 1, 2 and 9th grade CSR as priorities. In addition, both the district and IPSF have effectively pledged to support CSR fundraising in the years to come. This means that, in contrast to other districts in Orange County, in the future class size reduction in Irvine will be more likely not less likely.

Sincerely,

Gavin Huntley-Fenner, Ph.D.

Who am I:

I am a parent of a third grader who is currently benefiting from her smaller class size. I also have a 4-year-old who unfortunately may not be so lucky.
In the past year I worked on the 3rd grade CSR campaign.

a.. I attended the very first exploratory meeting John held at Turtle Rock and I pledged a donation on the spot.
b.. After the 3rd grade CSR kickoff meeting at John's home, I began to call my daughter's classmates, send emails, and approach folks on playgrounds and in front of the school.
I am an IPSF board member.

a.. I joined the board because I wanted to change the course of school fundraising in Irvine from perennial ad hoc pledge drives to a more systematic and productive approach.
b.. I supported the recent CSR campaign to IPSF and the school board despite my hope that as a community we would eventually evolve out of ad hoc drives.
I have a Ph.D. in child development

a.. I spent many years as a professor and researcher studying children's quantitative reasoning and understanding of mathematics concepts.
b.. I have some understanding of the research on the impacts of smaller class sizes.
I agree with the district's prioritization of K, 1, 2 and 9th grades over 3rd

My email to Sharin Wallin, IUSD Board President

2005-02-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

Worth reading.....I read Sharon Wallin's comments in the 2/24 edition of the Irvine World News and had to respond. She's written back asking for my number.

Hi Sharon --
Two things:

When you get ready for another go-round on a parcel tax, please know we're still on the same side of this issue and we have traction dating back to the Measure A and Measure B campaigns. I am happy to lend my time and support to a parcel tax campaign that succeeds this time.

But secondly, per your comments in today's paper, you're wrong about what the community at large wants in regards to the special election. We failed because we really only had three people doing any significant signature gathering. I carried my clipboard with me everywhere and collected 125 signatures -- 10 percent. All in 10 minutes a day. I had only 5 "no, I won't sign it" responses and only one from someone I didn't know. Of the five that wouldn't sign, three expressed concerns that the Board would retaliate against their kids or school. One works closely with the district and supported the board. Others who signed wanted the board to know that they had. There is still an undercurrent of anger.

Several residents asked why the petition wasn't a recall of the entire board. I said "we just had an election."

John Burger did not gather a single signature, and frankly, this hurt our efforts too (I told John flat out if he didn't gather signatures to not bother running in a special election). With a little more time and a little better weather, and a few more committed volunteers and we would have gotten the job done and the voters would have decided the seat. I was still collecting signatures as of yesterday.

Many people were *happy* to sign and I had so many, "I'm so glad I ran into you. Can my husband/wife/significant other also sign?" I ran into a number of citizens who weren't registered to vote. I think you missed a huge opportunity to bring these disenfranchised voters/residents back to the tent. I think Carolyn tried to do this, but only after validating the selection process and it comes off as arrogant.

I'm really sorry this effort failed because I know some board members would view this as a validation of your decisions. And if Letters to the Editor in IWN are any indication, the city is split in half on this...there is no overwhelming support for the board's decision to appoint or for a special election. Some mandate.

Quite frankly, I am still waiting for *any* board member to have the intellectual honesty to admit they just didn't want John Burger on the Board. While the California Code did spell out your options, it also says "elections are always preferable." And the board, with Carolyn's urging, chose to ignore the election results. Let's see you adopt new rules to handling future vacancies because this process divided the community.

I'm glad you're relieved we don't have to go through a special election. I'm just disappointed, and worse, I'm disappointed that this board isn't reaching out to the thousands of voters who voted for Burger, Rodarte, Quinlan and others.

Dan Chmielewski

Rhymes with Rockbuster

2005-02-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

Just when I had lost hope, my oldest invoice is about to be paid...

I did some work with a great PR firm in Los Angeles for a new video game store in a video store concept; we did some great work and generate a lot of great opportunities, which the client (which I'm not able to name here) declined because the press here is smart and thorough. The client was unprepared to discuss the detail the direction of the stories the LA press wanted to go.

The work was completed in mid September. 30 days net, right? Wrong. Excuses ranging from questions on expenses, to vacation delies, to new accounting systems, to fired accounts receivable employees to "official" vendor status to whatever %^&*( excuse they could come up with. Check was received by the agency TODAY (2/23/05) which means I will get my dough by the end of the week or early next week.

I hope the agency bills this client for "late fees."

In the meantime, make my Video rentals all from Hollywood Video.

Petition Drive

2005-02-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like our well-intentioned petition drive is about to fall short.

I have personally collected 125 signatures without having to stand in front of Target or Albertson's. The rain and cool weather kept people home and we lost a week because we were told we couldn't gather signatures until after Gavin Huntley-Fenner was installed and were then told we had 30 days after the board selected him on Jan 25. Some of our key organizers were ill or away during prime signature gathering times and it looks like its just not in the cards.

It's too bad.

The school board will likely view our failure to get enough signatures as validation for their choice. The reality is there is a strong undercurrent of residents who are still very pissed off at the politics the board played with the appointment and the election results. I am still waiting for one board member to have the intellectual honesty to admit to me that they didn't want John Burger (14,005 votes in November) to take the seat.

So now we're stuck with a board member who didn't run. Note to Gavin: if your new job in March of 2004 made it tough to run in November, how were you still able to be so active on the IPSF board? And you have still been on the new job less than a year...won't your new employers not be happy with the amount of time your school board duties will take? Bottom line: you wanted the seat but didn't want to do thie things any candidate needs to do to run, namely raise money and put your record out there for the voters. And now you get to add "school board member" to your name when you place your name on the ballot in '06.

Just remember, when you do run in '06, you're not running for re-election; you're running to get elected.

basketball update

2005-02-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

My boy's 7th grade team, the Cavaliers, won Sunday, defeating the Patriots (which had 4 kids from my sixth grade team last year), 51-37. We have secured second place in the league outright. And we play the Pats in the first round of the tournament again next week.

So my three year coaching record is 22-15. We've had a great season and I will be sorry to see it end. What's even more rewarding to me is how much Alex has improved in those three years. When other kids on our team start talking about the defensive job he did on one player, well, it's better than a thousand wins. Now if we can just work out this kid's shot.....

Hunter S. Thompson

2005-02-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Hunter S. Thompson, the father of Gonzo Journalism.

My friend John Boehm, a staunch Republican, called and we were able to cite passages from some of our favorite Thompson tomes.

My favorite line from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," "it was the feeling you get where you hear your guard dog's throat being ripped out by a werewolf 30 feet from your tent."

Hunter was an acquired taste. And his later work just never lived up to his earlier work.

I instantly thought of two old friends from my days at Proteon, a company in Westboro, Mass. Mark Urbin and Dan Frecehette and I drank Tequila shots and smoked cigars at the revolving bar at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, a historical landmark for Hunter fans. We slept a total of six hours in five days and effectively captured the Fear-and-Loathing days where the Vegas Strip was much smaller and life there was a lot simpler.

I have long tossed my dog-eared copy of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" but I can promise you it will be on my bookshelf before the week is out.

Rest in peace Dr. Thompson...Or, since you died off a self-inflicted gunshot wound, perhaps I should say, rest in pieces.

IYBL

2005-02-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

My boy's 7th grade basketball team will be gunning for a trophy on Sunday. We're the Cavaliers and we're 6-2, firmly in 2nd place. With the right set of circumstances, we can achieve a tie for first, but we have to get some help....I have never had this much fun with a team.

IWN-UCI exhibit

2005-02-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

A letter writer in the Irvine World News this week asks Orange County Jews to question their allegiance to the Democratic Party on the basis of an exhibit at UCI. It's sponsored by several conservative groups and is one of the buses destroyed in Israel as a result of a terrorist attack.

The writer asks where the support from the Liberals is on this exhibit.

I have no clue.

Were they (Liberal groups) even offered a chance to sponsor anything? Let's not tie a lack of sponsorship to a lack of support to the cause of anti-terrorism.

But its another example of how a conservative will try to portray Liberals and Democrats as out of touch with mainstream America. And its not the kind of letter that will ellicit much response, even though its clear the writer is only reporting a narrow view. Had the letter said, "the exhibit sponsorship was turned down by liberal campus organization" well, now you have a point. And then how many conservative groups contribute to campaigns on tolerance?

I think the writer can go back to listening to Rush Limbaugh now.

N-Irvine-a

2005-02-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

As a writer, I view typos the same way a mechanic views grease under his or her fingernails.

I have fixed some of the typos in my profile, but they have yet to take effect.