Interview with J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski is a man of many firsts. Back when the Internet was unknown to everyone except a tiny number of techies, geeks, wealthy dilettantes and nerds, he was the first showrunner (Hollywood-speak for a television show’s executive producer who handles day-to-day operations) to go online and interact with fans.

He was the first – and will likely ever be the only — scriptwriter to write 92 out of 110 episodes of a show, his brilliant creation “Babylon 5.” B5 was the first television show meant to run a certain number of seasons, five, with a definite beginning, middle, and end, and included dynamic storylines the characters and multiple, overlapping story arcs. Long form television writing is now common thanks to Straczynski.  He did it first.

He is probably the first journalist to cross over into a successful television career, likely the first journalist and television writer to cross over into mainstream comic book writing, and absolutely the first television and comic-writing journalist ever to become a major Hollywood screenwriter.

Other “firsts” include developing his own comic book line (Joe’s Comics), his own multimedia studio (Studio JMS), directing his first movie and creating an original series for Netflix.

The word “first” applies to Straczynski in many ways, including as a fiery, intelligent defender of the First Amendment.

From 2009 to 2010, students, faculty members, Sun journalists, and concerned citizens fought with a corrupt Southwestern College administration and governing board to keep the First Amendment Freedoms of Speech, Assembly, and the Press alive on the campus. In 2010, when the administration attempted to strangle the newspaper by tying its purse strings around its throat, Straczynski responded by undermining the administration the best way possible – financially.

It was definitely the first time that had happened.

And now, for the first time, an unbridled, warp speed first person Q&A interview with the 2013 Southwestern College Honorary Degree recipient:



First Amendment Warrior

In September 2010 Straczynski personally funded an issue of The Sun after former superintendent Raj Chopra and his vice presidents attempted to block publication. The issue broke the story of construction contract corruption involving college board members and administrators.

Sun: In the fall of 2010, the Chopra administration dug up a never-used print bidding policy to force the Southwestern College Sun to prevent printing a controversial issue. You stepped in and paid for the entire issue. Why did you feel this was necessary?

Scholarship Awarded from Worthy Organization

I just wanted to announce that I've received a scholarship award from San Diego Association of Black Journalists. This is one of the city's most worthy journalism organizations, and I'm proud to have won. But I have to say, the fact that my colleague from the Southwestern College Sun, Alexis Meza, has also been awarded one.

Alexis is a Sun sportswriter who has been chasing down a vast number of recruiting violations among the SWC basketball team. Pop over to the Sun website to check out a little of his work.

We'll be awarded scholarships on April 19 at a scholarship reception hosted by SDABJ at National University.

If you want tickets, all the contact information is on the fly

A Letter to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis: You Thanked the Wrong Folks

On December 20, 2010, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis sent members of the SDPD and her own office (along with some Union-Tribune reporters who were somehow invited along) to the homes of numerous officials of the Sweetwater Union High School District and the Southwestern College District.

They brought search warrants. They were finally looking into the corruption scandals at the two schools – many of which I have written about on this blog.

Three of those individuals were former Vice President of Business and Affairs Nicholas C.A. Alioto, who can be found on about eight-seven posts here; John Wilson, the former facilities director at SWC; and Henry Amigable, the former Seville Construction Services manager who oversaw construction contracts at SWC.

On January 4, 2011, Ms. Dumanis threw a press conference by standing with a veritable Justice League of District Attorneys and made it clear that folks were going down. This first round of indictments including numerous folks from Sweetwater and Seville’s Henry Amigable.

I can find no one who doesn’t believe that we’ll see a round including Alioto, Wilson, and probably a few others.

Just before she signed off, DA Dumanis made a big deal about thanking some of the press for the hard work they did in uncovering the corruption.

Who did she thank?

The Union-Tribune.

This is a copy of the letter I sent to Ms. Dumanis, the U-T, the San Diego Reader, the Southwestern College Sun, and the “Save Our SWC” blog.

January 8, 2012

Ms. Dumanis:

It was with delight that I watched you stand tall with four other members of your department and announce a series of indictments against members of the Sweetwater Union High School District. Knowing that I would soon see the five of you stand together and announce indictments against members of the Southwestern College District community made me even happier.

Imagine my surprise when you went out of your way to thank the Union-Tribune for all their help in reporting these events, and specifically mentioned the Watchdog section for its work.

Not to ameliorate the credit given to the Watchdog section – particularly the wonderful Tanya Sierra, whom I believe now works in your office as Public Affairs Officer – but to thank the Union-Tribune for their hard work while ignoring those who actually went out of their way to originally write about the mess that was both SWC and SUHSD is short-sighted and questionably honest at best.

 Months before the Union-Tribune even got involved, the San Diego Reader’s brilliant Susan Luzzaro wrote about pay-for-play corruption at both school districts – and was sourced by everyone who wrote about it later.

SWC’s own award-winning Southwestern College Sun got into the act, questioning the timing and bids of Nicholas Alioto’s Napa Valley trip – also long before the U-T got involved. After Sun articles which question Alioto’s actions were printed, the former Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs attempted to shut down the newspaper by forcibly ceasing printing, stripping the faculty advisor of the reassign time he received for his work (though he continued to work without receiving it), and threatening the arrest of numerous student journalists. Following this, the Sun editorial board opted to seek funding from outside the school and continue printing without Alioto’s permission. It was this action against a hostile administration that earned them the 2011 College Press Freedom Award, given out by the Associated Collegiate Press and the Student Press Law Center.

There were also three blogs active in the South Bay which continually disseminated information and opinion to the residents of the district. The first, “Save Our SWC,” uncovered and reported numerous problems with the school administration and did so in a tight, professional manner.

Two of my own blogs, “The Writer’s Washroom” and “SWC Board Must Go!” took a less-neutral stance. I used my own sites to try and affect change, and did so by focusing frequently on the dishonest actions – including pay-for-play ones – of Nick Alioto.

I am willing to have my websites be ignored, but I am less willing to let Susan Luzzaro and the Reader, the editorial board and staff of the Southwestern College Sun, and the anonymous blogger behind “Save Our SWC” go unnoticed.

These people deserve most of the credit you believe the Union-Tribune earned. Every voter in the district with any knowledge of this is aware of these facts.

Allow me to point out that the U-T’s editorial board not only ignored the issues at Southwestern College, but instead of hearing the complaints of students and faculty, they chose to interview Dr. Raj K. Chopra, the superintendent/president at the time, and write about what a fine job he was doing. Of course, all this was going on while Henry Amigable was involved in nearly-constant pay-for-play actions on the campus.

In fact, when a group of faculty, students, campus employees, and citizens (of which I was a proud member) chose to unify and organize in order to vote out the members of the board – some of whom are already mentioned in your documents – who continued to support John Wilson, Henry Amigable, Nick Alioto, and Raj Chopra, the U-T strongly endorsed those same incumbents. When the election was over, and the voters had sent Yolanda Salcido and Jorge Dominguez packing, the U-T’s editorial board wrote a lengthy screed about what a terrible thing the voters of the district had done.

These are hardly good reasons to thank the Union-Tribune for helping uncover these terrible things that happened on these campuses. Ms. Sierra, on the other hand, should still be commended for her stories, but I must again point out that what she wrote, she wrote after many others had already blazed the trail.

Lastly, though you did mention the “public,” as tipping your office about this, I must strongly state that the “public” is the reason investigations were done – at least on the campus of SWC. Were it not for the students of SWC who held rallies and demonstrations to attract attention and the faculty and classified employees that risked their jobs to get involved, the blogs, the Sun, and the Reader would never have researched and written about these criminal actions. Without that, conscientious politicians like Congressman Bob Filner wouldn’t have taken a stance against the corrupt administration. And without all the noise that this created, the Union-Tribune would never have gotten involved.

Please remember that the next time you thank someone for all the hard work that they’ve done.

Respectfully,

Nickolas Furr

(Copies of this letter have been sent to the San Diego Reader, San Diego Union-Tribune, Southwestern College Sun, and the “Save Our SWC” blog.)

I Return to the Southwestern College Sun, and I Return to Writing About Proposition R Construction

So... as much as I'd like to come up with an excuse as to why I haven't posted this, there isn't one. The truth is that I simply forgot. I've been stupidly busy and this simply fell off my radar.

I have little to say, except that this is my most recent piece for the Southwestern College Sun.

I'm back, writing about construction and money issues related to the $389 million dollar Proposition R projects on campus.


And while you're at it, check out the Southwestern College Sun website. Our brilliant staff has redesigned it from stem to stern and has a new URL and a new host for it.

In case you want them, these are earlier pieces from the same Proposition R series:

"Board Orders New Audits on Contracts, SWC Foundation" (April 14, 2011)

"Delays, Controversy Again Stagger Corner Lot Project" (May 27, 2011)

Spring Break: A Time for Writing

For those of you who have not been forced to participate in Spring Break at this late time - all of the free world, most of the second and third world, and the personnel of a few space stations - you may not understand what it is to suddenly have time to do nothing.

I'm not a fan of doing nothing, and I'd prefer to do something. One of the things that I did manage to do in the lead-up to this dreary week off* was spend a full week writing something new for the Washroom each day. None of it was groundbreaking, but all of it was original. By doing that, I did find myself feeling the urge to write more and more.

I finished the last major edit of "Melbourn's Storm" and submitted that for peer review. I completely restructured and restarted Chapter 4 of "The Wyrd Magnet" novel, and I added 14 pages (so far) to the novella, "Omega Man's Day Off."

I find myself quite pleased with how things are going. Even with a fairly full week of nothing ahead of me, I plan to keep writing. By the end of the month, I'd like to have the final draft of "Melbourn's Storm" ready to go. I am awaiting a chance to submit "A Chilling Wind," but the window for that doesn't open again until May 1.

So let me ask your indulgence. For the first time in several months, I'm feeling that urge to write. As has been noted, it's starting to pay off. If I seem a little more focused on writing and publishing, and a little less on reporting, scholarship, and politics, let it seem that way.

It's not that I've actually changed. The Sun, attending school, financial aid, and Democratic Party interests still captivate me. But for the moment at least, I want the world to see a little more of Nick the Writer, and not Nick the Journalist, Student, or Activist.

Feel free to fling a little feedback my way. I'm always happy to hear what y'all have to say.

----------

*"And there was much rejoicing." /  "Yaaay." - M. Python

More Financial Shenanigans at SWC: Forensic Accountants to Investigate Alioto and the Contractors

Whoa. I need practice keeping these short. I had hoped to put this one up two or three days ago when the link to our stories on the Southwestern College Sun website. But it only came up sometime tonight. So with little adieu, allow me to present:

“Board Orders New Audit on Contracts, SWC Foundation” (on the SWC Sun website)

Allow me a minute to crow and say this is my third front-page article in a row. This makes me unusually happy. But more importantly, this is another financial story that grew and grew as I looked into it. I started this by going to an oversight committee meeting to hear a short positive audit report. But when I was there, I heard something disturbing. The next day, I spoke with Bob Temple, the new interim vice president of business and financial affairs at SWC. He gave me more still more disturbing information.

It grew like that. As it did, other reporters and other writers started finding more information that started to overlap what I had. And as we started looking into it, several things became clear.

The first is that Nick Alioto, the now-ex-vice president of business, was involved in many different questionable – possibly illegal – actions. We always knew that, but it was good to have it confirmed. Secondly, it also became clear that Henry Amigable, the project manager for Seville Construction who worked hand-in-hand with Alioto to oversee construction on campus, was almost as dirty as the vice-president. The third thing is that the entire construction situation is dirty and possibly corrupt.

We have one more issue coming out this semester. I hope to have a piece written with another couple of editors and reporters about the construction situation. And if I don’t get everything I want, I’ll try to follow up either this summer on the blog, or next fall at the paper.

So if that seems like I’m saying that I’ll likely be back in school next fall… yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Provided they’ll take me – and you can take that to mean either SWC or the Sun – I’ll be back.

I kind of like the place, you know?

Are You Going to the Governing Board Meeting? I Can Give You 22.5 Million Reasons To Go

This Wednesday, I’ll make another public appearance at the Southwestern College Governing Board meeting. Yes, I’ll be speaking, and yes, I’d like to invite any and all of you to come with me and make them hear what you have to say.


Why am I going? What on Earth could get me back in front of the board to ask just exactly what the hell is going on?

It appears that the SWC district might be expected to pay for more of Nick Alioto’s shenanigans again. To the tune of $22.5 million.

Alioto? Shure.

Alioto, as you know, is the former VP of Business and Financial Affairs at SWC and one of my personal targets. Given that he was heard referring to me as “an archenemy” – and yes, that’s in quotes, I am delighted with my role versus his Lex Luthorness.

So it should go as no surprise that I’m doing this as an activist, not a journalist.

The money is question arises from construction taking place at SWC. The plans and budgets were developed by Alioto, former superintendent Raj K. Chopra, Seville Construction’s former project manager Henry Amigable, and former SWC consultant John Wilson.

See a pattern?

The board will be discussing paying contracts to several different companies. Some of these contracts are appearing for the first time, but some are contracts that have grown larger since Alioto and Amigable signed them.

Apparently, Alioto – known as a financial wizard – didn’t realize that the construction contracts signed by he and Seville Construction didn’t include funding for the various subcontractors that Seville would be hiring, including the huge Echo Pacific Construction.

Now I’ll grant this is all back-of-the-envelope math, but it’s taken from the agenda of Wednesday’s coming board meeting. It appears that $4,338,077 in contracts needs to be replaced by $26,799,522 in contracts.

In other words, the district is being told that they need to pay an extra $22,461,445 to pay for the mistakes made by Alioto, Amigable, Wilson, and Chopra.


Nick Alioto


Yes, that’s nearly 22.5 million dollars paid out to the following companies: Echo Pacific Construction, Fordyce Construction, Arthur Gensler and Associates, NTD Architecture, Act Inc, Countrywide Mechanical Systems, Southern California Soils and Testing, Tel Tech Plus, The Casper Company, Rocky Coast Framers, RL Electric, Chambers Inc, Winzler and Kelly, Consulting and Inspection Services, Willock Contracting, GA Abell Inc, Barnhart Balfour Beatty, BCA Architects, BRG Consulting, Bytesolutions Inc, and Union Bank.

This would seem questionable at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times. In early November, the voters threw Salcido off the governing board, leaving Chopra and Alioto unsupported. Late in November, Chopra resigned. That December, Wilson “retired” from his consultant position and Seville Construction fired Amigable. Alioto clung on until February, when he also resigned. With the possibly-guilty parties all scuttling away like cockroaches from a light bulb, it’s clear that these are the bad times. And during the bad times, one must question these facts even more diligently.

These decision-makers weren’t strangers. They were connected in many ways. Working together with Focuscom’s Dan Hom, who attempted to provide rah-rah spin about the project, the men were the architects of the college’s construction future.


It's a little like Caligula, but in English.


Wilson was the live-in boyfriend of Yolanda Salcido, the former GB president. Several other news outlets have already covered their conflicts of interest, so I won’t bother. Salcido hand-picked Chopra as her superintendent, and Chopra and Salcido hand-picked Alioto as his vice president.

In return, Chopra and Alioto hosted fundraisers for Salcido’s reelection campaign – which failed. But they coerced many, many contractors into donating, which included Seville and Echo Pacific.

Somehow these men “forgot” that the contracts they signed didn’t cover sub-contractors.

Though it’s not an exact parallel, it reminds me quite strongly of the story in the Los Angeles Times, which detailed the process of creating and using “body shops” in Los Angeles County.

With this process, the L.A. Community College District (we are also a CCD) used district bonds (which we are using) to hire numerous contractors (which we have) and select a project manager (we have Seville) to oversee the whole thing (which we are doing).

In return for this largesse, the contractors sub-contract the hiring of workers into smaller companies, and then everyone above them charges a cut for their pay. One contractor, Patricia Torres, earned $210 thousand, but the county was charged $563 thousand for her work.

URS Corp is allegedly the mastermind of all this. But also named several times for adding tax and pay markups – Seville Construction. In fact, URS Corp attempted to shuffle Torres from her position at URS to Seville, a common practice to move them away from their job, but keep them in the payroll mix.

With Alioto out at SWC and replaced by apparent straight-shooter Bob Temple, even in an intermittent role, Seville should be putting their best face forward.

They’re not.

In December, Seville removed Henry Amigable from his project manager position, later replacing him with Bob DeLiso. Amigable left Seville in February.



Bob DeLiso

 From 2006-2010, DeLiso worked at Harris & Associates, which was the “point company” for many of the construction projects paid for by the LA Community College District. The LA Times did not list them by name, but did say around “two dozen” other contractors were involved. I’d wager that Harris & Associates was one of them.

Before Harris & Associates, DeLiso worked for URS Corp for 32 years, from 1974 until 2006. This is the guy who is now the project manager for construction at SWC.

Amigable, who was fired from Seville, has also shuffled to a new position and is now working for Echo Pacific Construction, as their SWC project manager.

Remember that $22.5 million in question? Echo Pacific is the largest beneficiary of this “mistake.” With contracts of $4,024,977 outstanding, they are claiming they deserve $10,614,180.

That means they expect the governing board to vote to increase their coffers by $6,589,203.

And the guy in charge of it is Henry Amigable, who was part of this “mistake” happening in the first place.

Alioto, long believed to have hidden and spent down millions of dollars – and recently confirmed by the Southwestern College Sun, and written by Yours Truly -- somehow managed to sign these contracts and Amigable never said “boo.”

So, yeah, I’ll be at the governing board meeting on Wednesday. Unless DeLiso, Amigable, Seville, and Echo Pacific are strenuously investigated, the district must not pay for these decisions. At these times of brutal budget cuts and soaring property taxes, expecting the people of the district to cough up an additional $22.5 million is not just ludicrous.

It’s criminal.

Non-Traditional (Part 5) - One Foot in Journalism, One Foot in Activism - Or How Nick Alioto Made My College Days a Lot Harder

Now that I have returned to college, I have found myself in an unusual position this year. With both an interest in journalism, but also a nearly-complete lack of training, I decided to take journalism classes and write for the Southwestern College Sun. The Sun is widely considered the best two-year college newspaper in the country and one of the top two or three papers of any school there is. Max Branscomb, the advisor, is worshipped as a God Among Men in his field, and I’ll say his reputation is rightfully deserved.

I am there to relearn how to write. I know I am good at many things, but at the beginning of the year, I was rusty, rusty, rusty. Now I’m just rusty, but the improvement is something I do notice.

Also at the beginning of the year, I had to speak with Max; Lyndsay Winkley, the Editor-in-Chief; Albert Fulcher, the News Editor; and Marcela Appelhanz, the Assistant News Editor, and tell them that I was in an unusual position – a position I admit I both relished and loathed.

My desire was to both practice and retrain as a journalist. But I am also a political activist. I have been involved, am involved, and will be involved in progressive politics in the area, and none of that will change. So with one foot in journalism and one foot in activism, I had to set a few boundaries.

One of those boundaries was that I would never cover the Governing Board meetings as a journalist. As anyone here (or at my older blog, SWC Board Must Go) knows, I have never attended a GB meeting in an objective fashion. I have photographed board members, ripped publicly into them, and helped ringlead actions against them.

One of the other boundaries that I insisted on establishing was that I would not go after Nick Alioto, who was still then the Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs at SWC. He was also the dirtbag I’d pursued here, at my other blog, in person, with the press, and at every turn, to run him out of town and prove that he was the criminal that we all know him to be. I’ve even used this blog to poison his chances of future employment, and I’m happy to say that I have no intention of changing that. Fully one-third of the people that end up on the Washroom through a Google or Bing search come by searching for some version of Alioto’s name and position – either here in California or back in his home state of Wisconsin.

I set the boundary that I wouldn’t use journalism to chase Alioto, which appealed to my activist nature. I am not so hypocritical that I thought that fair. Even after he resigned a month or so into this semester, I tried not to chase him.

But every piece I wrote from then on twisted and turned and went back to the actions of Vice President Alioto. I started a small piece on a technology plan that had stalled and was going awry, and within a week determined that it had basically been sabotaged by Alioto himself. When a whistleblower unloaded information about money illegally spent, it became a story on Alioto’s decision to spend that money.

"Superintendent Shakes Up Tech Study Group" (February 22, 2011)

"Former VP Hid, Dumped Millions" (March 22, 2011)

The third story, regarding nothing more than the positive reports of an independent auditor, also twisted and turned, looped and swirled, and landed directly in the lap of Alioto himself. That one is not yet online. When it is, I’ll post it.

I remain with one foot in journalism and one foot in activism. I keep my worlds discrete and I make certain that I don’t set foot past my boundaries. I’ll be present at this week’s Governing Board meeting. I’ve got something to tell them – something that I’ll say well, thoroughly, and loud.

It won’t be as a journalist.

But as a journalist, I’ve finally decided it is okay to use my blog to showcase what I’ve written for the Sun. Feel free to comment, blast, critique, or complain. I’m good with all that.

After all, as a journalist, I wrote these for the good of the college, the district, the students, and the public. But it’s as an activist that I have no trouble whatsoever showing them to you.

Enjoy!

Feb. 22, 2011 - "Superintendent Shakes Up Tech Study Group"

March 22, 2011 - Former VP Hid, Dumped Millions"

Non-Alioto: March 22, 2011 - "Budget Cuts Force College to Plan For Worst"

Non-Traditional (Part 3)

This is the third part of the ongoing saga in which Nick returns to the college for the first time in two decades. Read the first two parts: (Part 1) and (Part 2).

In our last thrilling episode, I mentioned that I’d talk about different lecture styles. Well, I lied. Okay, not lied. Let’s call it underestimating the amount of homework I’d need to be doing.

So let’s talk about homework. I’m going to keep it brief.

I’m estimating that I have somewhere between 15 and 20 hours of homework to do this weekend. That includes two Journalism assignments, a sixty-odd-page reading for Business, and a Business quiz to prepare for. I also need to get as much written as I can of three different pieces for a special edition of the Southwestern College Sun.

I’m certain that’s not much compared to what it will be like later in the semester. And it’s just a patch on what students who are carrying 15, 16, 18 credit hours have to do. But when I say I feel a little daunted, I mean it. I’ve recently drifted into my fourth decade of life and I’ve good a very good analytical brain – and my brain is letting me grasp the web of options in front of me.

The easiest option is the one that requires the most discipline: get the books, get started, and don’t stop. The end of the semester will come quickly, and the gulf of time between “a whole term ahead of me” and “I’m out of class time” will narrow faster than you can expect.

Do the homework as soon as possible, ask the questions you need answered, and interact with the instructors and the classes – learn.

I wish I was a little older, back when I was younger.

I’ve got more to say, but it’s going to have to wait. I have homework, you see.

Non-Traditional (Part 1)

About twenty years ago, I left college. Not with a degree or a cum laude or any of that; I just left. On Tuesday, I returned to college.

For those of you regular readers, it probably comes as no surprise that I chose to continue my continued education at Southwestern College, a school that I have championed as being far better, and much more deserving than the corrupt Governing Board it was saddled with.

But I’m not going to travel that road today. Today I’m just here to say that I – quite literally – put my money where my mouth was, and enrolled.

After a few oddly nervous days, worrying about what my return to academia would be like, I woke on Tuesday morning without a worry in the world. I got up and realized I wasn’t thinking of this as going to school; I was thinking of it as going to work.

I showered, shaved, grabbed some coffee, and glanced in the mirror to check my man-nificence one last time, then headed to work…er, school.

The first class was Business 120 – Intro to Business. It may seem odd that I was taking the absolute basic business course, but in all my previous college days, I had never taken a single class of the kind. Granted, I had written extensively about business in my freelance writing days, but I thought it might be time to actually get a little education to go with my knowledge.

Michael Van Keith is the instructor, an adjunct professor with style, charm, and magnificent hair. He engaged just about every student, even if they came in forty-five minutes late.

Which leads directly to my first rant: what the hell are people doing showing up for class half an hour late or more? On your first day? Is this a particularly unique way of making a good first impression? Because that’s not what happened. A very young student near me grumbled loud enough to be heard, “This is a business course. It’s not professional to be late.”

SWC Governing Board to Southwestern College Sun: "Stop the Press" - Sun to GB: "To Hell With That!"

[I first posted this at SWC Board Must Go! a few hours ago.]

It's no secret to anyone that the Governing Board of SWC has major issues with its school newspaper, the Southwestern College Sun. The Sun, which is unquestionably one of the finest student-run newspapers in the country, has received numerous awards for its writers, its advisor, Max Branscomb, and for the paper itself.

Why does the Board have problems with it? Because the Sun insists on printing the truth.

This time, the board and the administration have gone several steps over the line past just complaining about it, to...

I'll let the following letter speak for itself. As a person highly interested in the Sun, I received a copy of this letter today and have spoken with the writer.

As usual, I have edited it only to remove the writer's phone number.

Southwestern College Students Open Up on "Voice of San Diego"

I rarely do this. But rarely am I as impressed by a piece as I am by this.

Sean Campbell and Lyndsay Winkley are two Southwestern College students who write for the magnificent (and nationally-recognized) Southwestern College Sun. In a blistering article for Voice of San Diego.org, they summarize the constant, ongoing problems with President Raj Chopra from the time he was hired until today. They also very neatly summarize the timeline of the catastrophic events since the administration's bogus "riot" last October.

Please visit the article at Voice of San Diego.org and read it. It's necessary. No, more that - it's crucial to those who haven't been able to follow every cut, thrust, and riposte of this administration-fueled nonsense.

I will also say this (I do not say "In My Humble Opinion," because my opinion ain't): I have written two or three really good pieces on this whole mess, and some others have written several more. This is probably the best piece I've read yet on SWC's troubles. It is magnificent.

...And they got their journalism education at Southwestern College. Go figure.

Southwestern College Administration Now Attacks Freedom of the Press

Apparently unsatisfied with their attacks on America’s Freedoms of Speech and Assembly, the Southwestern College administration has taken aim at undermining the Freedom of the Press.

Just before last night’s Governing Board meeting, several different people informed me that less than half an hour earlier, the college administration had decided to handicap one of its prestige programs by refusing to fund the requested printing budget for its nationally-recognized newspaper, the Southwestern College Sun.

In some cases this could be an understandable decision, particularly in times of financial distress. That simply isn’t the case here.

For nine consecutive years, the Sun has been awarded the Pacesetter and General Excellence awards, the top awards given by the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) – the top community college journalism organization in the country. In addition, this year all five of the top college and university media organizations – which also include the Associated College Press, Columbia Scholastic Press, American Scholastic Press Association, and the National Newspaper Association – awarded the Sun their highest awards. Also this year, individual journalists won awards on a national level from the Society of Professional Journalists, and on a local level from the San Diego SPJ, San Diego Press Club, and the San Diego County Fair Media Competition.

This is about an average year for the Sun. This is no scrubby little rag we’re talking about.

Starting publication in 1963 – at the dawn of SWC itself – the Sun is truly one of the best-respected and recognized college newspapers in the country, and is one of the school’s flagship programs; one of those programs that drives students to the school.*

Why would the administration want to attack and cripple such a prestigious program, you ask? Because the Sun has come down, again and again, in opposition to President Raj K. Chopra. This fall, they covered the student rally that Chopra has attempted to spin as a “riot” and refused to fall into the administration’s line. They refused to turn over photos of the event when the campus police came out and demanded they do so. They have done proper journalistic due diligence and have watchdogged this shameful administration.

So, though I’m not terribly surprised that the administration has decided to attack the Sun, I am surprised that they have done so in such an obvious, buffoonish fashion. The fact that clearly none of them realized that they have hit a unique trifecta – stomping on the freedoms of Speech, Assembly, and now the Press – only further proves how absolutely out of touch with reality this administration is.

Check out the Southwestern College Sun online edition here.

*And in mentioning the Sun, I’m not attempting to detract from its talented musical performers and teams, or its debate team, which is another one of SWC’s proud flagship programs.