I dropped out of college, never got a degree. I thought, back in 1974 that going to college was a waste of money unless your degree was essential for work. I told my dad that my brother needed an expensive Ivy League education because he was going to be a surgeon, but it would be more productive for me if I just started submitting my writing places, going to parties in Los Angeles or NYC where I'd network and make contacts. So I left Santa Barbara.
I thought it was more important to apprentice myself, learn on the job.
In LA there were still WWII Jewish arts refugees and I was lucky to spend time talking with some of them. And it wasn't only Jews. I look back with amazement at how generous they were. Because intellectuals then had lived through persecution and they believed in freedom of speech.
And that's how I became a professional writer. It's so different now because the NYC editor who got my first piece published was a real Leftie, a Red Diaper Baby raised in Greenwich Village. But he thought it was hilarious when I made satirizedLefties in my writing. I was really spoiled by him and the handful of editors I worked with and the older writers who helped me.
Sadly, that generation with its truly liberal taste for freewheeling expression is gone and has been replaced by thpught control Leftie intellectual police. RIP true American culture.
Can you imagine a magazine like Rolling Stone employing Both P.J. O’Roark and Hunter Thompson today? The real lack of diversity is in expression of ideas.
I think apprenticeship is still the way to go, especially these days! Learn by doing and having amazing mentors! Good for you:). That was the right path.
Gonzo journalism was the cheeky word of the day. Before it became stultifying PC.
As a free speech public comment was recently PC chastised as transphobic by SBCC board member Jonathan Abboud, according to the Channels student online newspaper. The speaker asked if the biological fact of male and female was taught in SBCC science classes. This apparently triggered board member Abboud’s social agenda back talk. His role is to simply listen to public comment; not censure it according to his own terms and interpretations.
That's interesting, Joan. To my recollection, Gonzo Journalism pretty much was Hunter Thompson and he never got PC. You could put Norman Mailer's journalism in there as well - and he never became PC. I think you may be referring to the sad piece of PC crap that Rolling Stone became post-Wenner.
Nope. Speaking of Rolling Stone writers, if you have a chance read our friend James Kunstler's column today which is brilliant. https://tinyurl.com/y46vhnaw Can that guy write. Jim infuriated people in 2017 by calling Trump The Golden Golem.
And speaking of great writers who nearly didn't get published, I grew up reading my parents' collection of banned books, almost all published by Barney Rosset. I had the chance to thank Barney near the end of his life. There's a terrific documentary by Neil Ortenberg about Barney called Obscene. You probably know that the court cases against him publishing Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Nabokov bankrupted him. Then he produced I am Curious Yellow …
Ah education. Once again the term has a different definition from Democrats who run the school boards. After decades of the same issues, not educating kids and pushing CRT behind closed doors you might question the goal, because academics and upward education is obviously not the goal.
Thank you Fair Education & Christy Lazano for making CRT public knowledge.
From Kindergarden kids are fed information and then have to regurgitate that info to pass a class. That information is not A, B, Cs or Math as evidenced by over half of SBUSD & CA kids not being able to read or do math at grade level.
Yes 60% of kids cannot do academics at grade level, but SBUSD has a 95% graduation rate. Obviously something doesn’t ad up.
Point is they groom kids from elementary school to not think, to regurgitate, repeat the propaganda dripped to them in school. In High School kids are to write a research paper, based solely upon the reference materials provided by the teacher. Students are not allowed to research their answers, they must use the one sided references provided.
In every class, math, Spanish, English, etc.. kids are repeatedly asked about their sexuality and how their skin color and their parent’s incomes influence their mental health.
From several gay students we know, they feel the district is cruel trying to out them to the world , trying to force them to advertise that they are different. No consideratiin for the kids emotional health. Task driven, confuse the kids.
My son & his friends, who are straight and are confident in their sexuality, lie on these surveys intended to out or confuse kids.
Way before COVID we saw how the schools do not care about education or health. Our school board is controlled at the state level and do as they are told.
Why? What power, what do these adults get out of harming kids and following orders?
Money. Yep, they start consulting companies or non profits that they get paid to look the other way and fall in line.
Capps had her “friend” get paid $1,800/ hour while her consulting firm got a cut of the pay.
Yes, public colleges have remained “indoctrination centers,” espousing liberal, Marxist, Socialist agendas. Focusing especially on social issues such as; climate change, LGBTQ rights, “Freedom” for Palestine, Pro-Abortion, BLM and other nefarious activities deemed necessary by Democratic leadership. ALL subsidized by our tax dollars! These activities give cover for Marxist, overpaid faculty members, who have a direct interest in fanning the flames of societal discourse.
There is something to be said for private, Christian Colleges, which are typically more traditional education. A big shout out to Westmont College and California Lutheran University, both of which were attended by my kids. My kids purposely avoided SBCC, mainly because many of their friends which attended “Leadbetter High” were there for several years and eventually dropped out. Clearly, many kids do graduate and move on to other Universities.
Regardless, a “NO” vote on Measure “P” is needed to send a loud and clear message to the academic elites that the party is over! Academic tenure also needs to be overturned and ended, which is at the core of this ongoing sham inclusive of bloated pensions and salaries!
This was almost identical to my experience at SBCC. Not only did I get a B in philosophy because of my opposing viewpoint, the professor argued with me in front of the entire class. I presented the views that there is a God and he insisted that there is not. I had excellent arguments because I knew it would be an argument if I dared to raise the question in class. He then said I brought church into the conversation but I never ever mentioned church. I mentioned my personal experience with Jesus Christ. He berated me, he intimidated me, he even raised his voice at me in front of at least 50 other students. Then he told me to stay after class and continued to do the same. I held my ground, continued to turn in excellent assignments and got an A on every test and yet I still got a B in the class because he did not have the fortitude to give me the A grade I deserved. I'll take that B any day of the week because everybody in that classroom heard my testimony. When I was attending, and this was in the '90s, they invited a speaker to talk about the plight of the Palestinians and how they are being persecuted and how Israelis are bad and Palestinians are good. Then, he asked the entire auditorium at Garvin theater to raise their hands if they believed that the Palestinians were correct. I literally could not believe that he did that.
Several years later, in 2014 to 2016, this was my experience at CSUCI. You would not believe the drive towards social activism. Everything was hard left. You got extra credit if you attended left leaning rallies. Everything the instructor said was how unfair it is for people of color and how horrible white people are. Everybody in the class just sat there listening, nodding their heads and agreeing and then continuing to spew the same garbage the instructors had just delivered. Disgusting. Yes I graduated, yes I went on to get my masters, but I decided to do it at an online college because I was sick to death of hearing instructors spew liberalism.
Thank God I homeschooled my daughter. At least she can make her own choices and knows how to ascertain the difference between political garbage and critical thinking.
Another great article, Bonnie! Brought back a lot of horrible memories, but it does bring up at least one reason colleges may have fewer students.
For real!! The only actual way is for students to rebel against the status quo, but they/we are all too scared at that young point in life to argue with "all-knowing" professors. I was young and stupid when I was in that philosophy class, thinking that making a valid argument could possibly sway the professor into at least seeing my point. But he got philosophical (go figure) and started telling me about his desk after class and how it's made of wood and someday that wood will decay and then wither away. He was trying to argue that, because a wooden desk is going to wither away, that we as humans will also wither away and there will be nothing left. So surely there is no God. Such an indisputable argument 🙄 Only when the masses are tired of the liberal agenda being pushed, SHOVED, down the throats of our children...only when adults/tax payers wake up and demand that enough is enough...only when it actually costs these institutions real money and that very financial loss can factually be tied to their liberal agenda, will we see a miniscule change. God help us all, because part of the issue is, when you speak up, you are cancelled by friends, neighbors, family, customers, employers...everyone. This is why it will require MASSIVE amounts of people to create even the slightest change. Very sad.
Rosa Parks was just one person who simply said no. But the time was ripe too. For reasons yet not explored or understood, it was some how the right time for the globe to be caught up in the recent Covid hysteria.
A good philosophy class bull session on just that one topic could reveal pure gold. What made the time right in 2020 for the **vast majority** of people living on this planet to passively accept complete civilizational collapse, without a shred of corroborated truth? A puzzlement.
Was it any different from the mass hysteria that led to two major global confrontations in the last century? Without hot wars to cull and distract us, do we then fall upon ourselves instead?
Fear. Fear is what changed. Fear is what caused mass hysteria and blind compliance with Covid. Fear is what the left uses to cripple people into believing their BS. I'm about to make a comment on this thread about something I woke up to this morning on TV (Real America's Voice, one of the few stations worth watching anymore). I'll link it for you here...
Back in the late ‘70s I was a bright grad student in English Lit contemplating a career in academia. What made me decide against it was that I could see what we now call Political Correctness on the horizon. Politics-driven leftie Boomers were moving into college-level liberal arts departments and taking them over. They didn’t really love literature (or theater, or movies, or music), and they weren’t motivated by a desire to share their love and knowledge. Nope: they wanted to use the arts to help them advance their political agenda. I dreaded the idea of spending my working years having fights with rabidly left colleagues, so I decided to say goodbye to academia and flounder my way through life elsewhere.
All of which is a long way of introducing my main reaction to Bonnie’s excellent column, which is: Good lord, the Woke thing seems like old-time Political Correctness, but on steroids!
Fortunately, you can still work yourself up the ladder by either working for someone else or by doing it yourself. My granddad on my mother's side was an errand boy for a picture frame company in Boston and eventually acquired the company he worked for along with his two brothers (grandad eventually bought the business from his two brothers). As the Gramstorff Bros. they acquired a vast collection of glass-plate negatives of scenes from around the world. These plates now reside as one of the main collections in the National Gallery of Art as the Gramstorff Collection. Donated by my uncle, the last owner of the photographic business. You usually can find several reproduction pictures, some were hand water colored, on eBay. My grandad retired at age 70 by doctor's orders (he had passed out for unknown reasons) and lived to 101 years (he stopped taking medications), living by himself in his later years. I would visit him in FL and stay a few days. He smoked a pipe continuously and had Parkinson's for as long as I could remember. He would go through all the old silver-nitrate photographic printing methods. He, Theodore Gramstorff, recited a twelve-ingredient recipe for gingerbread as he sat in his chair puffing on his pipe, all from memory as I wrote down the recipe. When I was about ten, my granddad tortured me when I tried to find my Easter basket at his house. He hanged the basket underneath the center of the large dining room table. The basket was well hidden by the tablecloth covering hanging over the table ... first time not finding an Easter basket! Granddad knew I liked taking things apart and he gave me his retired Waltham pocket watches. They were always working when I got a pocket watch ... at least for a few days.
I took a few years off from engineering work when I was about 30 and traveled around the country, sold handmade oak woodworking items at the Rose Bowl, restored old radios and televisions ... fun stuff. Main thing is to do what you like to do and hopefully you can profit from it. My friend Al specialized in restoring antique oak furniture. I recently tracked him down and he's living in a trailer park. Al did what he liked to do and made money. Now he's 83 and living in a nice Pennsylvania trailer park where the listings are about $50,000 for a 1,000 square foot trailer. A $50K trailer sounds inviting to me <g>! My uncle, the last owner of Gramstorff Bros., retired with his wife in a small cabin in Avon Park, FL. A place at least a tenth the size of their MA dwelling. Interesting how your values change as to what's important.
What a sorry situation at SBCC! I am an alum of CC, and although I took several Social Study classed I never experienced this type of coercion. Many years ago. I will be voting 'no' on Prop. P
It was 1974 and although colleges were not the indoctrination camps of today, I nevertheless enjoyed a go left or get an "F" experience. In those days if you scored below a certain point on the SAT you were required to take what we called dumbbell English prior to the required English 101. Fortunately, I scored well enough that I enrolled in English 101 at Cal State Northridge. The teacher was an activist and used her class as a platform to spew her left-leaning opinions. She would regularly give a speech or play a movie with her message and give as a writing assignment to send a letter to our congressman on the subject. I would regularly write my letter expressing a different viewpoint than that which the speech or film was intended to inculcate. This irritated the instructor, and she retaliated by failing me in the class. I remember requesting the return of my final paper which counted for half of the grade. I intended to take it to the department head and founder of the English department Dr Marcus (my girlfriend's father) for protest of the failing mark. I was informed that she had sent the papers to her husband to read as "they were just the most delightful works", and they had unfortunately been lost in the mail. To this day I believe that to be a lie but I dropped my protest. The following year I transferred to UCLA with the condition that I take dumbbell English prior to taking the required English 101. Upon graduation I received Magna Cum Laude honors in Physics missing the coveted Suma Cum Laude honors by 0.01 grade point. I really don't give a shit about the academic honors or college degrees in general and prefer to judge a person by their accomplishments. It is a far more objective measure. But, the point here is that I was punished in the form of having to take two additional classes and denied an academic honor that I probably deserved because I had a different political opinion than the professor. Then it was the exception, today it is commonplace, and it disgusts me. I would like to see all the professors fired, tarred and feathered and beaten to jelly and the colleges burned to the ground. Or at least vote no on P.
"Or at least vote no on P." 😂 Love it! Totally agree with you. Such a sad institution our centers of education have become. I love education, but instructors focus too much on political and personal agendas rather than teaching creativity, thoughtfulness, problem solving, and critical thinking. Imagine what our country would be like if we awarded value to things like imagination!
They do pretend they teach critical thinking, but too often that means teaching students to be being critical of anything that threatens their own political agenda.
DEI’s refusal to include diversity if viewpoints and concentrate on only superficial characteristics is but one glaring smokscreen covering up this major, and now endemic, flaw.
The hiring process itself needs independent scrutiny by the elected board members who are charged with institutional oversight.
Yes indeed. Critical thinking only if it aligns with their viewpoints. Equity was a big topic at CSUCI. The professors went on and on about how white people have always had it good and POC have always had it bad, that they are always, without exception, the underdog and it is our responsibility as white people to lower ourselves so that POC can get a fair chance at life. One instructor went so far as to draw a picture of white people all standing on boxes, higher than the POC. She said we either have to remove the white people's boxes, or give the POC a higher box than those of white people so that they can get a fair chance. My parents always taught me that if you want something in life, you GO GET IT! Don't let anything stand in your way. You get what you get from hard work, being honest, and being ethical. What I cannot, and will not, stand is giving MY money that I worked HARD to earn MYSELF to someone else who demands it just because they think it's owed to them. If I want to donate to a homeless shelter or whatever other cause, that's my choice. But for the government to come in, steal my money under the guise of taxes, and give it to people who aren't even here legally? Yeah, that's wrong in so many ways I can't even begin to list them. Anyway, critical thinking requires you to also be secure and willing to stand up for what is wrong. Been doing that my whole life too, which has cost me friendships, relationships with family, and even employment. I don't care. What's right is right.
I posit that each and every government, schools, including universities and colleges have enough taxpayer funding. What they don’t have is responsible leadership.
SBCC is spending $500,000.00 to extract more money from the taxpayers. They are lying when they say that it won’t raise taxes. If extending the tax for an additional 20 years is a tax increase you must talk to your accountant.
This while enrollment is dropping.
They have eliminated the much needed remedial classes.
The increasing numbers of incoming community college students who failed the English and math placement the same time K-12 bragged about their increasing high school graduation rates, offered an independent fact check against K-12 proficiency claims.
I suspect this independent black eye created by the dropping community college placement test rates put K-12 teacher union pressure on the community college chancellors office in Sacramento to stop any further college readiness testing.
Students did struggle to move past their remedial class loads before they could move on to college level work. Reports now however are both students and instructors are struggling due to these now untested students not having adequate basic skills required to succeed in college.
Was this abrupt change in community college entrance requirements really an equity issue, as it was painted? Or a failed K-12 preparation issue that the powerful K-12 lobby wanted covered up.
Time under this new system will tell. But the first payoff is not losing state reimbursement dollars by retaining a student much longer, regardless of student’s ability to benefit.
Taking academic discipline out of higher education, where one learns to sink or swim on their own merits in order to earn that coveted sheepskin, will not turn out well for either the student, the college, the tax payers, or society in general. That is my own guess.
Bonnie that is a good example of the widespread corruption in the Santa Barbara educational complex.
It was also interesting to see your reference to gaining public, legal, oversight control of SBCC's use of public money by defeating Measure P 2024.
Now, I am just an immigrant from Europe and the US East Coast, so I am unfamiliar with California laws.
But after I read Marsha Croninger's article in Newsmakers a second time, it occurred to me that she provides convincing, witness evidence of financial mal practices by SBCC, that if repeated in the private sector by say a "Non-profit" organization raising money from the public and diverting it to other uses, could be considered, as fraud. Especially, when the inducements to the public to donate money were deliberately misleading.
I am reminded of Mr. Livingstone's recent reminder that money is fungible in relation to SBCC practices in raising and spending money.
Is there a case for a good number of people to sign a letter to the Santa Barbara Public Prosecutor asking for an official investigation into SBCC's practices in raising and using money from taxpayers, whether that money is from the State, or by bonds paid for by Santa Barbara taxpayers?
Croninger also exposed herself to SBCC board censure, on the same grounds used against board member Gallardo. Croninger, as a self identified board member, spoke against an action taken by the board majority.
Gallardo is a Republican so her choice to keep revisiting the schools Covid policies as new data emerged earned Gallardo her board censure. Will Croninger as a Democrat face the same censure for speaking out so truthfully as a dissenting board member against a board majorit voted action?
An excellent teaching moment. Will the college take advantage of this real life exercise?
But, if the other board members censure, her does it not prove that she is the only incorruptible Trustee of SBCC? It might provide her with the ammunition to take legal action against them, fully supported by taxpayers who vote "No" on "Measure P".
Lawsuits cost money. Are the No on P voters willing, capable of contributing collectively or individually $100,000+ for starters? There are lawsuits pending against Gallardo. I see no conservatives stepping up with money to help with her defense. Trustee Croninger is now exposed to censure. Local SBCC & SBUSD policy is: once the Board takes an action, no Trustee can voice against the Board decision. Period.
IT TOOK COURAGE, and risk of censure and removal, for Croninger to agree to write and sign the OpEd published in Newsmakers.
Will every SBCurrent reader notify 10-15 others of this brave decision by Croninger, and before her Gallardo? Will we each pursue brave financially independent candidates to run for school trustee positions and work 15-30 hours a week volunteering to inform the public?
If we continue to elect and fund the status quo we are guilty. Avoidance is the alternative: homeschool or creat a school. Didn’t work at Trinity, did it?
It is worth mentioning that the College experience outside of California is different. True, other states such as NY do have similar issues which can be viewed as “Academic Activism.”
My kid while attending University of Kansas, recently had a professor who was put on suspension because he went on a rant as to why men should support Harris.
His rant was recorded by students and reported to the administration.
I am under the impression that this issue is less so in “Red” states.
The professor did more than rant about why men should support Harris. He said, on tape, “men who don’t want to vote for a female presidential candidate should be lined up and shot.”
You write: “Do SBCC administrators even know about it [leftest political indoctrination and weaponization by faculty]? Yes. Are complaints filed: Yes. What is the response of VP Dean of Academic Affairs response? Not a concern because SBCC’s priority is its Chancellor’s Office evaluation determined by number of students transferred to a 4-year college. Have complaints been filled to the CA CC Chancellor’s Office: Yes. Response from Chancrllor’s Office is SBCC’s automatic guaranteed transfer program into UCSB is exemplary. Some faculty have filed complaints of being pressured to pass students in need of remedial instruction performing at 5 th grade level. Response is silence or “A primary goal of CCC’s is to get students into a 4-year college to obtain a degree to be eligible for employment”, presumably in government, teaching, or health care.
Voting No on P is one way to discipline SBCC Trustees and administrators by forcing them to cut spending and number employed to reflect declining enrollment from 19000 to 13000, with 4000 of those online learners. However voting NO on P2024 is only an essential start.
The 125,000 in SBCC District voters, aka “Public” have elected 4 radical Trustees, 1 totally passive Trustee, and 2 thinkers — one moderate Democrat Croninger and one registered Republican Gallardo — who both actually do their homework and are against Measure P for different reasons. The “Public” needs to identify and actively support more future candidates like Croninger and Gallardo . The Trustees voted to SILENCE elected Trustee Gallardo, who knows school finance 20 years school admin experience plus MBA), thereby leaving her District TA3 with no representation. Despite 12 tenure and being elected repeatedly fiscal conservative, student focused Gallardo must make PUBLIC COMMENT protected under the Brown Act to be heard. She is not seeking re-election but watch on November 5: the “Public” likely will elected the Dem radical to this TA3 nonpartisan position.
If you care about SBCC Vote NO in P! Tell others today via email and texts: Vote No on this wasteful bond indebtedness for a PE Building and whatever is decided not on the ballot project list. Stop enabling all that’s wrong at our community colleges. TOUGH LOVE can return SBCC to its former greatness.
All very excellent points, Monticito. The Democrat machine has left voters with only one recourse; the power of voting their own pocket books to demonstrate their protest that has been cut off at every other level.
Thank you, Bonnie, for the very insightful article. From reading some of the readers comments, one can see that this way of teaching (indoctrination) is more common than not. But as one reader pointed out about his son and son's friends who lied on certain surveys leads one to believe that perhaps a good number of students who appear to blindly follow the lies taught in school are not as gullible as we think. One would hope so anyhow. We definitely need to push reform in this totally broken school and get back on the right path. No on P!
I can't imagine having arrogant teachers operating off of political biases. Fortunately, my engineering college was all non-political engineering subjects. Can't argue much about what 2 plus 2 adds up to be, etc. What's troublesome is the amount of time spent by teachers promoting their politics; and who's paying these idiots. Maybe Trump can restrict politics in all classrooms. When students go out in the world to find a job, the last thing a company wants to know is all the political BS you learned. Students will soon learn their value is based on how much you can offer the company with your abilities. In time, a company is only interested in the work you performed at previous jobs. Where you went to school becomes quickly irrelevant. At my second workplace and not during a review, I was told I wasn't making enough, and they gave me a raise comparable to others. Decades later when I worked for Raytheon in Goleta, I was told one reason being hired was because of my high salary from my previous employer. My high salary was used to approach Raytheon corporate to enable the Goleta division's engineering personnel to have their salaries increased across the board. If you have a kid working in industry, make sure they keep their politics to themselves, especially if they are a "hallway monitor." Managers will notice this chit-chat and the hallway monitor talkers will be on the next layoff list. Students need to learn the tools required for work, not for voting purposes. To a company, college says you were taught how to think. It really doesn't mean anything as to what school you went to, trust me. I was a very high paid engineer from a "flunky" college (Heald's College of Engineering in SF). Not really flunky because the teachers were often retired from industry, and they were very, very good. Don't put kids in political schools. One woman engineering graduate from UCSB soon married and went to Atlanta, GA area to live. Her husband worked for a large corporation, and she taught her two kids at home till they went to college. She could have been a good engineer, I know. But she knew how crappy schools could be. Employers can't stand some universities, such as Standford. A student from Stanford thinks they are special and ask what the company will do for them. The company is only interested in what a new hire will do for them. Got to make your mark first!
You write you and others were given raises paid by the government at taxpayer expense, or perhaps by money created by the Fed Reserve. Raytheon, Cottage/ Sutter, UCSB, and the ten largest local employers are all funded by taxpayers, with employees overpaid compared to the private sector with no personal investment required, no personal risk jobs. Time to terminate every third employee AND eliminate employer (aka taxpayer) funded life long pensions for these protected, privilege class workers.
Fact: The engineers in SB were paid less than those working in the LA area. Aside from being on the high side for LA engineers, I also brought my own design capabilities to the table. Fact: What you call "raises" was required for Raytheon to keep the engineers they had from looking for work outside the area. Fact: Attracting engineers from the LA area required Raytheon to increase their pay scale. You could say indirectly the Raytheon higher pay scale would result in higher bidding cost estimates for the design of military equipment. Raytheon is not operated by the government. They bid and build equipment for the government. Raytheon is a private sector company. I'm amused you think Raytheon as some kind of government entity.
Then you could say a Small Business Administration Loan to start a local SB business is also "part of the government." I suppose the U.S. could do without a military and let a foreign interest simply "take" the country, too. I was a whistleblower for the safety of the F16 and A-10 pilots at Raytheon which investigative time cost both Raytheon and the Government (taxpayers). Prior to Raytheon, I worked at Litton Aero Products which built commercial airline navigation equipment. I designed radio navigation systems. They also built inertial navigation systems. My high level of ethics started there because one realizes any screwups can cost the lives of those flying on an aircraft. One preference of Litton's products versus Raytheon's products was that Litton allowed the engineer to implement designs to the engineer's satisfaction. Nothing was built till engineers were satisfied with a product. Whereas Raytheon wanted to release hardware sooner even if it was known to be marginal. An airline pilot and all his/her passengers can feel safer than a military pilot flying a jet aircraft. At Raytheon, there was tension between management and engineers wanting to get into production ASAP; versus Litton where Management waited for the engineers to give the final go-ahead of when a system was ready to be built. You could say Raytheon's operation was closer to that of Boeing. Litton was a self-insured company meaning they paid for lawsuits out of their own pocket.
What has been Boeings excuse? Zero tolerance for safety standards appears to be low on their contracting agenda.
Any favors handed out by the government, such as SBA loans, comes with strings, plus the ability to take them away. And to punish any recipient entities, when politically required.
Just saying one goes to bed with the political devil when contracting with the government, and their attendent contract demand that have nothing to do with the agreed services or product solicited. ESG, DEI etc demands on top of any actual product specification demands.
For many companies, time of delivery exceeds safety by management to show profits, a company culture. Hence Boeing goes through a CEO-of-the-month as fast as they can find a new one. They never learn.
SBCC violates its own core principles. Moverover its “Vision” is simply grandiose and unrealistic (same as SBUSD). “Santa Barbara City College strives to build a socially conscious community where knowledge and respect empower individuals to transform our world.” Rather than “our world” how about “their life”.
SBUSD goes one better. “Preparing students for a world that does not yet exist.”
Huh? How about just teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic so they can function at a college level or in the workplace, in just a few short years.
I was present at SBUSD the night the ‘dingbat’ trustees came up with its new mission statement. Guess WHY it was selected? Because ‘teachers and administrators cannot be expected to remember more than ten words’, according to the union rep who of course meets with the Superintendent before every Trustee meeting to decide outcome of every Agenda item before public meeting. It’s all so rigged at SBUSD.
Experienced this in grad school in CA and it was RIDICULOUS. Told the Dean and instructor involved, I'm taking my money elsewhere. I did just that and I never looked back. Poor undergrads often don't have that gumption or choice (gotta get the GPA, etc., ad nauseam). Or they've been too poisoned effectively. Parents: WISE THE F--- UP! Your money is being used to turn your children against our Nation.
I dropped out of college, never got a degree. I thought, back in 1974 that going to college was a waste of money unless your degree was essential for work. I told my dad that my brother needed an expensive Ivy League education because he was going to be a surgeon, but it would be more productive for me if I just started submitting my writing places, going to parties in Los Angeles or NYC where I'd network and make contacts. So I left Santa Barbara.
I thought it was more important to apprentice myself, learn on the job.
In LA there were still WWII Jewish arts refugees and I was lucky to spend time talking with some of them. And it wasn't only Jews. I look back with amazement at how generous they were. Because intellectuals then had lived through persecution and they believed in freedom of speech.
And that's how I became a professional writer. It's so different now because the NYC editor who got my first piece published was a real Leftie, a Red Diaper Baby raised in Greenwich Village. But he thought it was hilarious when I made satirizedLefties in my writing. I was really spoiled by him and the handful of editors I worked with and the older writers who helped me.
Sadly, that generation with its truly liberal taste for freewheeling expression is gone and has been replaced by thpught control Leftie intellectual police. RIP true American culture.
Can you imagine a magazine like Rolling Stone employing Both P.J. O’Roark and Hunter Thompson today? The real lack of diversity is in expression of ideas.
Jann Wenner also published Tom Wolfe, my friend James Kunstler, Terry Southern …
I think apprenticeship is still the way to go, especially these days! Learn by doing and having amazing mentors! Good for you:). That was the right path.
Polly, you are a wealth of literary knowledge and great taste. Thank you for sharing the link. I am now subscribed to James Kunstler’s substack.
Gonzo journalism was the cheeky word of the day. Before it became stultifying PC.
As a free speech public comment was recently PC chastised as transphobic by SBCC board member Jonathan Abboud, according to the Channels student online newspaper. The speaker asked if the biological fact of male and female was taught in SBCC science classes. This apparently triggered board member Abboud’s social agenda back talk. His role is to simply listen to public comment; not censure it according to his own terms and interpretations.
That's interesting, Joan. To my recollection, Gonzo Journalism pretty much was Hunter Thompson and he never got PC. You could put Norman Mailer's journalism in there as well - and he never became PC. I think you may be referring to the sad piece of PC crap that Rolling Stone became post-Wenner.
Jonathan Abood is a nitwit.
I’m not sure The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test could find a publisher today.
Nope. Speaking of Rolling Stone writers, if you have a chance read our friend James Kunstler's column today which is brilliant. https://tinyurl.com/y46vhnaw Can that guy write. Jim infuriated people in 2017 by calling Trump The Golden Golem.
And speaking of great writers who nearly didn't get published, I grew up reading my parents' collection of banned books, almost all published by Barney Rosset. I had the chance to thank Barney near the end of his life. There's a terrific documentary by Neil Ortenberg about Barney called Obscene. You probably know that the court cases against him publishing Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Nabokov bankrupted him. Then he produced I am Curious Yellow …
Ah education. Once again the term has a different definition from Democrats who run the school boards. After decades of the same issues, not educating kids and pushing CRT behind closed doors you might question the goal, because academics and upward education is obviously not the goal.
Thank you Fair Education & Christy Lazano for making CRT public knowledge.
From Kindergarden kids are fed information and then have to regurgitate that info to pass a class. That information is not A, B, Cs or Math as evidenced by over half of SBUSD & CA kids not being able to read or do math at grade level.
Yes 60% of kids cannot do academics at grade level, but SBUSD has a 95% graduation rate. Obviously something doesn’t ad up.
Point is they groom kids from elementary school to not think, to regurgitate, repeat the propaganda dripped to them in school. In High School kids are to write a research paper, based solely upon the reference materials provided by the teacher. Students are not allowed to research their answers, they must use the one sided references provided.
In every class, math, Spanish, English, etc.. kids are repeatedly asked about their sexuality and how their skin color and their parent’s incomes influence their mental health.
From several gay students we know, they feel the district is cruel trying to out them to the world , trying to force them to advertise that they are different. No consideratiin for the kids emotional health. Task driven, confuse the kids.
My son & his friends, who are straight and are confident in their sexuality, lie on these surveys intended to out or confuse kids.
Way before COVID we saw how the schools do not care about education or health. Our school board is controlled at the state level and do as they are told.
Why? What power, what do these adults get out of harming kids and following orders?
Money. Yep, they start consulting companies or non profits that they get paid to look the other way and fall in line.
Capps had her “friend” get paid $1,800/ hour while her consulting firm got a cut of the pay.
Yes, public colleges have remained “indoctrination centers,” espousing liberal, Marxist, Socialist agendas. Focusing especially on social issues such as; climate change, LGBTQ rights, “Freedom” for Palestine, Pro-Abortion, BLM and other nefarious activities deemed necessary by Democratic leadership. ALL subsidized by our tax dollars! These activities give cover for Marxist, overpaid faculty members, who have a direct interest in fanning the flames of societal discourse.
There is something to be said for private, Christian Colleges, which are typically more traditional education. A big shout out to Westmont College and California Lutheran University, both of which were attended by my kids. My kids purposely avoided SBCC, mainly because many of their friends which attended “Leadbetter High” were there for several years and eventually dropped out. Clearly, many kids do graduate and move on to other Universities.
Regardless, a “NO” vote on Measure “P” is needed to send a loud and clear message to the academic elites that the party is over! Academic tenure also needs to be overturned and ended, which is at the core of this ongoing sham inclusive of bloated pensions and salaries!
Does anybody know of or experienced a conservative teacher downgrading a student for expressing a different opinion?
This was almost identical to my experience at SBCC. Not only did I get a B in philosophy because of my opposing viewpoint, the professor argued with me in front of the entire class. I presented the views that there is a God and he insisted that there is not. I had excellent arguments because I knew it would be an argument if I dared to raise the question in class. He then said I brought church into the conversation but I never ever mentioned church. I mentioned my personal experience with Jesus Christ. He berated me, he intimidated me, he even raised his voice at me in front of at least 50 other students. Then he told me to stay after class and continued to do the same. I held my ground, continued to turn in excellent assignments and got an A on every test and yet I still got a B in the class because he did not have the fortitude to give me the A grade I deserved. I'll take that B any day of the week because everybody in that classroom heard my testimony. When I was attending, and this was in the '90s, they invited a speaker to talk about the plight of the Palestinians and how they are being persecuted and how Israelis are bad and Palestinians are good. Then, he asked the entire auditorium at Garvin theater to raise their hands if they believed that the Palestinians were correct. I literally could not believe that he did that.
Several years later, in 2014 to 2016, this was my experience at CSUCI. You would not believe the drive towards social activism. Everything was hard left. You got extra credit if you attended left leaning rallies. Everything the instructor said was how unfair it is for people of color and how horrible white people are. Everybody in the class just sat there listening, nodding their heads and agreeing and then continuing to spew the same garbage the instructors had just delivered. Disgusting. Yes I graduated, yes I went on to get my masters, but I decided to do it at an online college because I was sick to death of hearing instructors spew liberalism.
Thank God I homeschooled my daughter. At least she can make her own choices and knows how to ascertain the difference between political garbage and critical thinking.
Another great article, Bonnie! Brought back a lot of horrible memories, but it does bring up at least one reason colleges may have fewer students.
All under the guise of untouchable “academic freedom”. Extra credit assignment: how do we touch academic freedom?
For real!! The only actual way is for students to rebel against the status quo, but they/we are all too scared at that young point in life to argue with "all-knowing" professors. I was young and stupid when I was in that philosophy class, thinking that making a valid argument could possibly sway the professor into at least seeing my point. But he got philosophical (go figure) and started telling me about his desk after class and how it's made of wood and someday that wood will decay and then wither away. He was trying to argue that, because a wooden desk is going to wither away, that we as humans will also wither away and there will be nothing left. So surely there is no God. Such an indisputable argument 🙄 Only when the masses are tired of the liberal agenda being pushed, SHOVED, down the throats of our children...only when adults/tax payers wake up and demand that enough is enough...only when it actually costs these institutions real money and that very financial loss can factually be tied to their liberal agenda, will we see a miniscule change. God help us all, because part of the issue is, when you speak up, you are cancelled by friends, neighbors, family, customers, employers...everyone. This is why it will require MASSIVE amounts of people to create even the slightest change. Very sad.
Rosa Parks was just one person who simply said no. But the time was ripe too. For reasons yet not explored or understood, it was some how the right time for the globe to be caught up in the recent Covid hysteria.
A good philosophy class bull session on just that one topic could reveal pure gold. What made the time right in 2020 for the **vast majority** of people living on this planet to passively accept complete civilizational collapse, without a shred of corroborated truth? A puzzlement.
Was it any different from the mass hysteria that led to two major global confrontations in the last century? Without hot wars to cull and distract us, do we then fall upon ourselves instead?
Fear. Fear is what changed. Fear is what caused mass hysteria and blind compliance with Covid. Fear is what the left uses to cripple people into believing their BS. I'm about to make a comment on this thread about something I woke up to this morning on TV (Real America's Voice, one of the few stations worth watching anymore). I'll link it for you here...
https://youtu.be/UYplrJjZJ8A?si=K36gooOe5U9d0D7S
Back in the late ‘70s I was a bright grad student in English Lit contemplating a career in academia. What made me decide against it was that I could see what we now call Political Correctness on the horizon. Politics-driven leftie Boomers were moving into college-level liberal arts departments and taking them over. They didn’t really love literature (or theater, or movies, or music), and they weren’t motivated by a desire to share their love and knowledge. Nope: they wanted to use the arts to help them advance their political agenda. I dreaded the idea of spending my working years having fights with rabidly left colleagues, so I decided to say goodbye to academia and flounder my way through life elsewhere.
All of which is a long way of introducing my main reaction to Bonnie’s excellent column, which is: Good lord, the Woke thing seems like old-time Political Correctness, but on steroids!
Fortunately, you can still work yourself up the ladder by either working for someone else or by doing it yourself. My granddad on my mother's side was an errand boy for a picture frame company in Boston and eventually acquired the company he worked for along with his two brothers (grandad eventually bought the business from his two brothers). As the Gramstorff Bros. they acquired a vast collection of glass-plate negatives of scenes from around the world. These plates now reside as one of the main collections in the National Gallery of Art as the Gramstorff Collection. Donated by my uncle, the last owner of the photographic business. You usually can find several reproduction pictures, some were hand water colored, on eBay. My grandad retired at age 70 by doctor's orders (he had passed out for unknown reasons) and lived to 101 years (he stopped taking medications), living by himself in his later years. I would visit him in FL and stay a few days. He smoked a pipe continuously and had Parkinson's for as long as I could remember. He would go through all the old silver-nitrate photographic printing methods. He, Theodore Gramstorff, recited a twelve-ingredient recipe for gingerbread as he sat in his chair puffing on his pipe, all from memory as I wrote down the recipe. When I was about ten, my granddad tortured me when I tried to find my Easter basket at his house. He hanged the basket underneath the center of the large dining room table. The basket was well hidden by the tablecloth covering hanging over the table ... first time not finding an Easter basket! Granddad knew I liked taking things apart and he gave me his retired Waltham pocket watches. They were always working when I got a pocket watch ... at least for a few days.
I took a few years off from engineering work when I was about 30 and traveled around the country, sold handmade oak woodworking items at the Rose Bowl, restored old radios and televisions ... fun stuff. Main thing is to do what you like to do and hopefully you can profit from it. My friend Al specialized in restoring antique oak furniture. I recently tracked him down and he's living in a trailer park. Al did what he liked to do and made money. Now he's 83 and living in a nice Pennsylvania trailer park where the listings are about $50,000 for a 1,000 square foot trailer. A $50K trailer sounds inviting to me <g>! My uncle, the last owner of Gramstorff Bros., retired with his wife in a small cabin in Avon Park, FL. A place at least a tenth the size of their MA dwelling. Interesting how your values change as to what's important.
What a sorry situation at SBCC! I am an alum of CC, and although I took several Social Study classed I never experienced this type of coercion. Many years ago. I will be voting 'no' on Prop. P
It was 1974 and although colleges were not the indoctrination camps of today, I nevertheless enjoyed a go left or get an "F" experience. In those days if you scored below a certain point on the SAT you were required to take what we called dumbbell English prior to the required English 101. Fortunately, I scored well enough that I enrolled in English 101 at Cal State Northridge. The teacher was an activist and used her class as a platform to spew her left-leaning opinions. She would regularly give a speech or play a movie with her message and give as a writing assignment to send a letter to our congressman on the subject. I would regularly write my letter expressing a different viewpoint than that which the speech or film was intended to inculcate. This irritated the instructor, and she retaliated by failing me in the class. I remember requesting the return of my final paper which counted for half of the grade. I intended to take it to the department head and founder of the English department Dr Marcus (my girlfriend's father) for protest of the failing mark. I was informed that she had sent the papers to her husband to read as "they were just the most delightful works", and they had unfortunately been lost in the mail. To this day I believe that to be a lie but I dropped my protest. The following year I transferred to UCLA with the condition that I take dumbbell English prior to taking the required English 101. Upon graduation I received Magna Cum Laude honors in Physics missing the coveted Suma Cum Laude honors by 0.01 grade point. I really don't give a shit about the academic honors or college degrees in general and prefer to judge a person by their accomplishments. It is a far more objective measure. But, the point here is that I was punished in the form of having to take two additional classes and denied an academic honor that I probably deserved because I had a different political opinion than the professor. Then it was the exception, today it is commonplace, and it disgusts me. I would like to see all the professors fired, tarred and feathered and beaten to jelly and the colleges burned to the ground. Or at least vote no on P.
"Or at least vote no on P." 😂 Love it! Totally agree with you. Such a sad institution our centers of education have become. I love education, but instructors focus too much on political and personal agendas rather than teaching creativity, thoughtfulness, problem solving, and critical thinking. Imagine what our country would be like if we awarded value to things like imagination!
They do pretend they teach critical thinking, but too often that means teaching students to be being critical of anything that threatens their own political agenda.
DEI’s refusal to include diversity if viewpoints and concentrate on only superficial characteristics is but one glaring smokscreen covering up this major, and now endemic, flaw.
The hiring process itself needs independent scrutiny by the elected board members who are charged with institutional oversight.
Yes indeed. Critical thinking only if it aligns with their viewpoints. Equity was a big topic at CSUCI. The professors went on and on about how white people have always had it good and POC have always had it bad, that they are always, without exception, the underdog and it is our responsibility as white people to lower ourselves so that POC can get a fair chance at life. One instructor went so far as to draw a picture of white people all standing on boxes, higher than the POC. She said we either have to remove the white people's boxes, or give the POC a higher box than those of white people so that they can get a fair chance. My parents always taught me that if you want something in life, you GO GET IT! Don't let anything stand in your way. You get what you get from hard work, being honest, and being ethical. What I cannot, and will not, stand is giving MY money that I worked HARD to earn MYSELF to someone else who demands it just because they think it's owed to them. If I want to donate to a homeless shelter or whatever other cause, that's my choice. But for the government to come in, steal my money under the guise of taxes, and give it to people who aren't even here legally? Yeah, that's wrong in so many ways I can't even begin to list them. Anyway, critical thinking requires you to also be secure and willing to stand up for what is wrong. Been doing that my whole life too, which has cost me friendships, relationships with family, and even employment. I don't care. What's right is right.
I posit that each and every government, schools, including universities and colleges have enough taxpayer funding. What they don’t have is responsible leadership.
SBCC is spending $500,000.00 to extract more money from the taxpayers. They are lying when they say that it won’t raise taxes. If extending the tax for an additional 20 years is a tax increase you must talk to your accountant.
This while enrollment is dropping.
They have eliminated the much needed remedial classes.
The increasing numbers of incoming community college students who failed the English and math placement the same time K-12 bragged about their increasing high school graduation rates, offered an independent fact check against K-12 proficiency claims.
I suspect this independent black eye created by the dropping community college placement test rates put K-12 teacher union pressure on the community college chancellors office in Sacramento to stop any further college readiness testing.
Students did struggle to move past their remedial class loads before they could move on to college level work. Reports now however are both students and instructors are struggling due to these now untested students not having adequate basic skills required to succeed in college.
Was this abrupt change in community college entrance requirements really an equity issue, as it was painted? Or a failed K-12 preparation issue that the powerful K-12 lobby wanted covered up.
Time under this new system will tell. But the first payoff is not losing state reimbursement dollars by retaining a student much longer, regardless of student’s ability to benefit.
Taking academic discipline out of higher education, where one learns to sink or swim on their own merits in order to earn that coveted sheepskin, will not turn out well for either the student, the college, the tax payers, or society in general. That is my own guess.
Wonder how student voters are replying to P?
Letter to the Editor: Vote no on Measure P – The Channels
https://www.thechannels.org/opinion/2024/10/14/letter-to-the-editor-vote-no-on-measure-p/
Bonnie that is a good example of the widespread corruption in the Santa Barbara educational complex.
It was also interesting to see your reference to gaining public, legal, oversight control of SBCC's use of public money by defeating Measure P 2024.
Now, I am just an immigrant from Europe and the US East Coast, so I am unfamiliar with California laws.
But after I read Marsha Croninger's article in Newsmakers a second time, it occurred to me that she provides convincing, witness evidence of financial mal practices by SBCC, that if repeated in the private sector by say a "Non-profit" organization raising money from the public and diverting it to other uses, could be considered, as fraud. Especially, when the inducements to the public to donate money were deliberately misleading.
I am reminded of Mr. Livingstone's recent reminder that money is fungible in relation to SBCC practices in raising and spending money.
Is there a case for a good number of people to sign a letter to the Santa Barbara Public Prosecutor asking for an official investigation into SBCC's practices in raising and using money from taxpayers, whether that money is from the State, or by bonds paid for by Santa Barbara taxpayers?
Croninger also exposed herself to SBCC board censure, on the same grounds used against board member Gallardo. Croninger, as a self identified board member, spoke against an action taken by the board majority.
Gallardo is a Republican so her choice to keep revisiting the schools Covid policies as new data emerged earned Gallardo her board censure. Will Croninger as a Democrat face the same censure for speaking out so truthfully as a dissenting board member against a board majorit voted action?
An excellent teaching moment. Will the college take advantage of this real life exercise?
But, if the other board members censure, her does it not prove that she is the only incorruptible Trustee of SBCC? It might provide her with the ammunition to take legal action against them, fully supported by taxpayers who vote "No" on "Measure P".
Lawsuits cost money. Are the No on P voters willing, capable of contributing collectively or individually $100,000+ for starters? There are lawsuits pending against Gallardo. I see no conservatives stepping up with money to help with her defense. Trustee Croninger is now exposed to censure. Local SBCC & SBUSD policy is: once the Board takes an action, no Trustee can voice against the Board decision. Period.
IT TOOK COURAGE, and risk of censure and removal, for Croninger to agree to write and sign the OpEd published in Newsmakers.
Will every SBCurrent reader notify 10-15 others of this brave decision by Croninger, and before her Gallardo? Will we each pursue brave financially independent candidates to run for school trustee positions and work 15-30 hours a week volunteering to inform the public?
If we continue to elect and fund the status quo we are guilty. Avoidance is the alternative: homeschool or creat a school. Didn’t work at Trinity, did it?
Lawfare is now the consequence when going against the Leftist machine, even in our sleepy little town? That is an unspeakable tragedy.
It is worth mentioning that the College experience outside of California is different. True, other states such as NY do have similar issues which can be viewed as “Academic Activism.”
My kid while attending University of Kansas, recently had a professor who was put on suspension because he went on a rant as to why men should support Harris.
His rant was recorded by students and reported to the administration.
I am under the impression that this issue is less so in “Red” states.
The professor did more than rant about why men should support Harris. He said, on tape, “men who don’t want to vote for a female presidential candidate should be lined up and shot.”
https://nypost.com/2024/10/11/us-news/university-of-kansas-lecturer-out-of-job-after-saying-men-should-be-lined-up-and-shot-for-not-backing-female-candidates/
You write: “Do SBCC administrators even know about it [leftest political indoctrination and weaponization by faculty]? Yes. Are complaints filed: Yes. What is the response of VP Dean of Academic Affairs response? Not a concern because SBCC’s priority is its Chancellor’s Office evaluation determined by number of students transferred to a 4-year college. Have complaints been filled to the CA CC Chancellor’s Office: Yes. Response from Chancrllor’s Office is SBCC’s automatic guaranteed transfer program into UCSB is exemplary. Some faculty have filed complaints of being pressured to pass students in need of remedial instruction performing at 5 th grade level. Response is silence or “A primary goal of CCC’s is to get students into a 4-year college to obtain a degree to be eligible for employment”, presumably in government, teaching, or health care.
Voting No on P is one way to discipline SBCC Trustees and administrators by forcing them to cut spending and number employed to reflect declining enrollment from 19000 to 13000, with 4000 of those online learners. However voting NO on P2024 is only an essential start.
The 125,000 in SBCC District voters, aka “Public” have elected 4 radical Trustees, 1 totally passive Trustee, and 2 thinkers — one moderate Democrat Croninger and one registered Republican Gallardo — who both actually do their homework and are against Measure P for different reasons. The “Public” needs to identify and actively support more future candidates like Croninger and Gallardo . The Trustees voted to SILENCE elected Trustee Gallardo, who knows school finance 20 years school admin experience plus MBA), thereby leaving her District TA3 with no representation. Despite 12 tenure and being elected repeatedly fiscal conservative, student focused Gallardo must make PUBLIC COMMENT protected under the Brown Act to be heard. She is not seeking re-election but watch on November 5: the “Public” likely will elected the Dem radical to this TA3 nonpartisan position.
If you care about SBCC Vote NO in P! Tell others today via email and texts: Vote No on this wasteful bond indebtedness for a PE Building and whatever is decided not on the ballot project list. Stop enabling all that’s wrong at our community colleges. TOUGH LOVE can return SBCC to its former greatness.
All very excellent points, Monticito. The Democrat machine has left voters with only one recourse; the power of voting their own pocket books to demonstrate their protest that has been cut off at every other level.
Thank you, Bonnie, for the very insightful article. From reading some of the readers comments, one can see that this way of teaching (indoctrination) is more common than not. But as one reader pointed out about his son and son's friends who lied on certain surveys leads one to believe that perhaps a good number of students who appear to blindly follow the lies taught in school are not as gullible as we think. One would hope so anyhow. We definitely need to push reform in this totally broken school and get back on the right path. No on P!
https://www.newsmakerswithjr.com/post/op-ed-i-m-sb-city-college-s-longest-serving-trustee-this-is-why-i-m-opposed-to-measure-p
I read the Op-Ed at the link. It is very informative.
I can't imagine having arrogant teachers operating off of political biases. Fortunately, my engineering college was all non-political engineering subjects. Can't argue much about what 2 plus 2 adds up to be, etc. What's troublesome is the amount of time spent by teachers promoting their politics; and who's paying these idiots. Maybe Trump can restrict politics in all classrooms. When students go out in the world to find a job, the last thing a company wants to know is all the political BS you learned. Students will soon learn their value is based on how much you can offer the company with your abilities. In time, a company is only interested in the work you performed at previous jobs. Where you went to school becomes quickly irrelevant. At my second workplace and not during a review, I was told I wasn't making enough, and they gave me a raise comparable to others. Decades later when I worked for Raytheon in Goleta, I was told one reason being hired was because of my high salary from my previous employer. My high salary was used to approach Raytheon corporate to enable the Goleta division's engineering personnel to have their salaries increased across the board. If you have a kid working in industry, make sure they keep their politics to themselves, especially if they are a "hallway monitor." Managers will notice this chit-chat and the hallway monitor talkers will be on the next layoff list. Students need to learn the tools required for work, not for voting purposes. To a company, college says you were taught how to think. It really doesn't mean anything as to what school you went to, trust me. I was a very high paid engineer from a "flunky" college (Heald's College of Engineering in SF). Not really flunky because the teachers were often retired from industry, and they were very, very good. Don't put kids in political schools. One woman engineering graduate from UCSB soon married and went to Atlanta, GA area to live. Her husband worked for a large corporation, and she taught her two kids at home till they went to college. She could have been a good engineer, I know. But she knew how crappy schools could be. Employers can't stand some universities, such as Standford. A student from Stanford thinks they are special and ask what the company will do for them. The company is only interested in what a new hire will do for them. Got to make your mark first!
You write you and others were given raises paid by the government at taxpayer expense, or perhaps by money created by the Fed Reserve. Raytheon, Cottage/ Sutter, UCSB, and the ten largest local employers are all funded by taxpayers, with employees overpaid compared to the private sector with no personal investment required, no personal risk jobs. Time to terminate every third employee AND eliminate employer (aka taxpayer) funded life long pensions for these protected, privilege class workers.
Fact: The engineers in SB were paid less than those working in the LA area. Aside from being on the high side for LA engineers, I also brought my own design capabilities to the table. Fact: What you call "raises" was required for Raytheon to keep the engineers they had from looking for work outside the area. Fact: Attracting engineers from the LA area required Raytheon to increase their pay scale. You could say indirectly the Raytheon higher pay scale would result in higher bidding cost estimates for the design of military equipment. Raytheon is not operated by the government. They bid and build equipment for the government. Raytheon is a private sector company. I'm amused you think Raytheon as some kind of government entity.
Tax payer funded contracts are “part of the government” by their very nature, even if a mutually bargained for contract.
Then you could say a Small Business Administration Loan to start a local SB business is also "part of the government." I suppose the U.S. could do without a military and let a foreign interest simply "take" the country, too. I was a whistleblower for the safety of the F16 and A-10 pilots at Raytheon which investigative time cost both Raytheon and the Government (taxpayers). Prior to Raytheon, I worked at Litton Aero Products which built commercial airline navigation equipment. I designed radio navigation systems. They also built inertial navigation systems. My high level of ethics started there because one realizes any screwups can cost the lives of those flying on an aircraft. One preference of Litton's products versus Raytheon's products was that Litton allowed the engineer to implement designs to the engineer's satisfaction. Nothing was built till engineers were satisfied with a product. Whereas Raytheon wanted to release hardware sooner even if it was known to be marginal. An airline pilot and all his/her passengers can feel safer than a military pilot flying a jet aircraft. At Raytheon, there was tension between management and engineers wanting to get into production ASAP; versus Litton where Management waited for the engineers to give the final go-ahead of when a system was ready to be built. You could say Raytheon's operation was closer to that of Boeing. Litton was a self-insured company meaning they paid for lawsuits out of their own pocket.
What has been Boeings excuse? Zero tolerance for safety standards appears to be low on their contracting agenda.
Any favors handed out by the government, such as SBA loans, comes with strings, plus the ability to take them away. And to punish any recipient entities, when politically required.
Just saying one goes to bed with the political devil when contracting with the government, and their attendent contract demand that have nothing to do with the agreed services or product solicited. ESG, DEI etc demands on top of any actual product specification demands.
For many companies, time of delivery exceeds safety by management to show profits, a company culture. Hence Boeing goes through a CEO-of-the-month as fast as they can find a new one. They never learn.
SBCC Mission Statement and Core Principles: https://sbcc.edu/about/mission.php
From the SBCC college website.
SBCC violates its own core principles. Moverover its “Vision” is simply grandiose and unrealistic (same as SBUSD). “Santa Barbara City College strives to build a socially conscious community where knowledge and respect empower individuals to transform our world.” Rather than “our world” how about “their life”.
SBUSD goes one better. “Preparing students for a world that does not yet exist.”
Huh? How about just teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic so they can function at a college level or in the workplace, in just a few short years.
I was present at SBUSD the night the ‘dingbat’ trustees came up with its new mission statement. Guess WHY it was selected? Because ‘teachers and administrators cannot be expected to remember more than ten words’, according to the union rep who of course meets with the Superintendent before every Trustee meeting to decide outcome of every Agenda item before public meeting. It’s all so rigged at SBUSD.
Experienced this in grad school in CA and it was RIDICULOUS. Told the Dean and instructor involved, I'm taking my money elsewhere. I did just that and I never looked back. Poor undergrads often don't have that gumption or choice (gotta get the GPA, etc., ad nauseam). Or they've been too poisoned effectively. Parents: WISE THE F--- UP! Your money is being used to turn your children against our Nation.