So, here I am again. I still do not know about to operate this thing. It seems that you do not understand me. Can you hear me now?

Back again I hope I can continue my diary without having to stop and start.

It's December13, 2023

Karen is in her office writing. 

I awoke this morning with no anxiety. Hope that continues today. 

I can't seem to make voice recognition work this morning. 

 After giving up on voice-recognition technology to create this post, I am resorting to hunt and peck, seek- and-ye-shall-find, technology. I think I am doing quite well fighting off dementia, thanks to my ever-patient, care giver and beautiful wife Karen. I insist on continuing to find out how to return to voice-recognition, since my special gift of Essential Tremor keeps my fingers dancing out of tune. 

 

Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with Essential Tremor. Last year I agreed to donate my brain to the University of Texas Southwestern’s research into the shared symptoms of Essential Tremor, Parkinson's, and dementia.

 

I paid no attention to dementia symptoms until I began to track some disturbing episodes on my day-to-day life.

 

After working as a bi-weekly columnist for the North County Times, followed by several years of posting my The Riehl World blog in the Oside News and OB Rag, digital newspapers, I discovered I had lost my ability to find words to put together.

Thanks to voice recognition technology, which I am using at the moment, I have been able to occasionally write pieces like this one.

 

Here are the signs in my daily life that led me to schedule an appointment for a dementia test with my doctor.

 

I understand that forgetting little things, like where I placed my glass of water or my eyeglasses, is common among people of my age. But it became troubling to learn from Karen that when I said or did something which had been completely erased from my mind, it became troubling.

 

One morning, while brushing my teeth, I decided to go to the next room to get my bottle of water. When I returned to the bathroom, I discovered the TV remote in my hand.

 

An hour later I was folding clothes taken from the dryer to put into the drawers in the bedroom. After matching socks to put together in a drawer, I was disturbed that I had two undershorts that did not match, I checked the dryer to see if their matches had been left behind, before realizing I only wear one pair at a time.

 

In the middle of a conversation, I often have to stop, searching for the right word. But more worrisome have been the times I’ve had to ask Karen, “Where are we going?” while we were on the way to the store, as planned.

 

One morning, again while I was in the bathroom. I looked up to see beneath the mirror a tube of Sensodyne. I stared at it, struggling to remember what it was for. Having used a tube of prescription medicine to treat my facial dermatitis, I wondered if I should smear the toothpaste on my face, before spotting my toothbrush..

 

One morning, when I got into the car to drive to the store. I stepped on the brake and attempted to shift gears. When the engine did not start, I worried that the battery was dead. For a moment I did not realize I needed to simply step on the brake and push the ignition button.

 

After returning from the store with two boxes of cereal, I put them on a chair, then checked the kitchen to see if they were there. When I didn’t find them there, I went out to search the car. When I couldn’t find them there, I returned to the house to tell Karen I will need to return to the store, where I suspected I’d left them. Then I found them, just where I had left them in the chair.

 

These were the episodes that caused me to call the doctor to schedule a test for dementia.

 

He told me, to my relief, that I had moderate cognitive impairment. But I also learned there was nothing to stop me on this road to dementia. I can stave it off for a while with plenty of daily exercise of both body ad mind, as well as a full social life. I’ve taken up Wordle and other word games. And we are very fortunate to live here in the Chateau Lake San Marcos, where our social life is so full.

 

I plan to continue with this blog for as long as I am able to. I know I’m not alone in this adventure.

 

 

 

 

My Christmas Gift

 

Today I agreed to donate my brain to medical science. (I’ll pause here to allow regular readers of my published opinion pieces to stop laughing.)

Twenty-two years ago, after an afternoon of heavy yard work, I reached for a cold beer and sat down to rest. As I brought the bottle up to my mouth I couldn’t keep my hand from shaking. I had to hold on with both hands to keep from spilling. That had never happened to me before. I refused to believe it was because of the onset of old age, chalking it up to the after-effects of unusually hard work on a hot day.

But at my next doctor’s appointment, when I was asked to hold a tongue depressor in front of me, I couldn’t hold it steady. I explained my older brother had been diagnosed with Essential Tremor, having undergone deep brain surgery to reduce the symptoms. The doctor told me this neurodegenerative disease is inheritable. He added ET to my medical record.

My symptoms have had a relatively mild effect on my life. No longer able to type, I have to use voice recognition technology to enable me to keep writing these columns. I had to give up model airplane building and switch from finger-picking my guitar to thumb strumming a ukulele.

Those comparatively minor sacrifices, plus coping with modifications in personal hygiene tasks and suffering from occasional social embarrassment, have been my only complaints about living with ET. But as a member of Facebook’s Essential Tremor Awareness Group, I have learned of the many others, of all ages, whose lives have been substantially challenged by the disease, many from a very young age.

When I learned of the study being conducted by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to find future therapies for those suffering from severe cases of ET, donating at death to help others seemed the right thing to do.

The study requires a neurological and cognitive assessment every 18 months to track the progress of the disease. To determine my eligibility to participate, I was given a test of the shakiness of my hands. I was sent the image of an Archimedes spiral that looks like this:   

 

I was asked to copy that freehand with each of my hands. Here’s what my right hand produced:

 

 

My first cognitive test question was, “Who is the President right now?”

It pained me to write “Trump,” since I well remember how, during his 2016 campaign he ridiculed a journalist for his physical disability, imitating him by swinging his arms around wildly. That hit home with me at the time because my Karen, suffering from spinal stenosis, sometimes appears to be conducting a symphony orchestra while she walks unsteadily across the room.

It came as no surprise when I was told I definitely qualified to be included in the study. The next step is to undergo my first comprehensive assessment of cognitive and neurological symptoms. It will take place on January 19 and 20   in two-hour virtual Zoom sessions in our home.

I’m looking forward to it.

 

President Tweet and San Marcos Mayor Meet the Virus

 Donald Trump says his use of social media, countering what he calls fake news, made him president. This morning, as I watched the DOW sink by more than 900 points (so much for his recovering economy), I came upon President Tweet’s latest rant:

Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th, when the election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, and many tests of young people.

Today’s CDC Covid 19 report suggests talk after Election Day will be mostly about what a failure he has been in fighting the spread of the virus.

Here are the numbers for the last seven days:

More than 70,000 new cases per day in the United States

More than 4,000 new cases per day in California.

More than 1,000 new deaths in one day in the U.S.

Yesterday, the San Diego Public Health Services reported the City of San Marcos had a total of 1,283 cases.

Mayor Rebecca Jones has no Twitter account, but you can find her on Facebook, where her only mention of the virus is in her October 19 post, listing the rules for her Facebook visitors: “No politics, no Covid, no negativity.”

At the city’s website there’s a tab titled Coronavirus Disease Update, featuring a video message from the mayor, where she assures viewers:

-We are here, and we are prepared.

-You can rest assured that emergency services are fully operational.

-We are keeping as many City services available as possible.

-We also recognize the importance of supporting our residents AND our -businesses in order to keep our community strong.

-Our City is strong. Our country is strong. And we will prevail.

Click on a tab titled, What can I do to prevent getting Covid 19? and you will find this advice:

There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. Please follow all the steps outlined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to help protect yourself and others. You can view the latest guidelines and information here.

Mayor Jones, like President Tweet, doesn’t take leadership responsibility for urging her constituents to wear the face coverings that can stop the spread of the virus. Unlike the president, she provides a link to those who do. 

Why We Could Lose the War on COVID 19

The day after the World Health Organization declared the spread of the virus a pandemic, President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office.

“We’re all in this together,” he promised. “We must put politics aside. We must stop the partisanship and unify together as one nation and one family. Acting with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever before.”

A week later, in his COVID 19 press briefing Trump declared, “I’m a wartime president. That’s what we’re fighting. It’s the invisible enemy. That’s the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy. And we’re going to defeat the invisible enemy.”

By July 3, when the number of cases in the U.S. had skyrocketed to 2,752,704, Trump barely mentioned the invisible enemy in his speech at Mount Rushmore.

“The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education. Our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but villains.”

His vow to lead a unified nation in fighting a war with an invisible enemy had vanished, resulting in aiding and abetting that enemy by refusing to practice and promote the only weapons that can stop it: the use of face coverings, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings. He continues to hold huge campaign rallies, while demanding that states and schools reopen, regardless of the spread of the infection in their locations.

Trump believes the way to fight the invisible enemy is to show no fear, by going on the attack in the way wars have always been fought. Attend huge campaign rallies to show your support for the president, go to the beach with friends to show you refuse to be held captive in your home.

This invisible enemy welcomes those who confront it by showing no fear. It needs hosts to survive. Until its intended victims understand that, the virus will win. 

The Virus of Sextortion

It’s Cocooning Day 50, with no Covid -9 cases so far, in our Château Lake San Marcos community. Karen and I wear facemasks when we leave our condo to take daily walks. We discovered how to fashion a mask by using two rubber bands to hook over our ears to hold a hospital sock over our nose and mouth. We tried everyday socks, but discovered their thickness hindered our breathing. The thinner hospital sock souvenirs, if less fashionable, are more comfortable. Thanks to Netflix, Prime Video, our “Social Distance Singers” YouTube production, and ongoing writing projects, we’ve been able to fend off the boredom of social isolation.

An unexpected benefit in our daily lives has been the unusual absence of scam telephone calls. But that hasn’t kept the online predators away. Yesterday I received this email from a Syed Mehmood Ahmed.

I do know, *******, is your pass word. Hey, you don't know me. Yet I know just about everything about you. Your current facebook contact list, phone contacts as well as all the online activity in your computer from previous 127 days. Consisting of, your self pleasure video footage, which brings me to the main reason why I am writing this particular mail to you. I will be forwarding the recording randomly to 5 people you're friends with. It may be your friends, co workers, boss, mother and father. I would like to make you a 1 time, no negotiable offer. Get $2000 in bitcoin and send it to the listed below address. You've 24 hours to do so. Your time begins as soon you read through this mail. 

Guilty only of viewing an occasional X-rated film, I was not worried about what the predator threatened to reveal to my friends and relatives. But that first line caught my attention with an actual password I changed ten years ago. Yahoo had announced email accounts had been hacked at the time. Nevertheless, I immediately changed my current password, as added protection from wannabe hackers. An Internet search of the extortionist’s name was of no help. Variations of the name are as common as “Joseph Smith” in the USA.

In a June 17, 2019 CNBC story, Kate Fazzini wrote, “Overall, extortion by email is growing significantly, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3). Last year, these complaints rose 242% to 51,146 reported crimes, with total losses of $83 million.”
I learned attempted extortion is a federal crime, so I went to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and filed a report. It’s also punishable in every state, so I filed a report with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which has law enforcement authority in the city of San Marcos. Finally, I notified the Executive Director of the Château Lake San Marcos to warn our fellow senior citizen neighbors of the threat.

Having to hide from a health threat over which we have no control, it felt good to fight back at those who would take advantage of our isolation. 

Remembering My Neighbor

Our next-door neighbor died last night. But he was much more than a neighbor. He was a best friend, a father figure, and a 103 year-old icon of a life well-lived.

Karen and I met him when we moved in to this retirement community two years ago. He stopped us as we passed on the sidewalk in front of our new home. He was pushing his walker. We smiled and said hello. After I shook his hand, he reached for Karen’s, bowing as he raised the back of her hand to his lips. I said to myself, I hope our neighbor’s not a jerk.

The courtly Roland “Ron” Bouchard was not a jerk. In the two years we were his neighbors, we grew to love him and his four daughters as members of our own family.

Before COVID-19 hit, we shared a table with him at Sunday champagne brunches, where he entertained in the dining hall by playing his old-favorite pieces on the piano. When we were occasionally unable to join him, we let him know by leaving notes on his door from “the kids next door.”

When we learned that twenty years ago he wrote his autobiography, My Time in the Twentieth Century, making 25 copies for his family and friends, we asked if we could read it. He agreed.

We were so impressed with his writing skills and the story he told about his growing up in the 1920’s in the same neighborhood as future President Calvin Coolidge, his 25 years in the Navy during two wars, rising from enlisted man to Lieutenant Commander, followed by 25 years as a major department store manager, we asked if we could publish it on Amazon. He agreed.

As I came to know Ron I became closer to him because of shared experiences. He attended a Catholic grade school, where he had some disciplinary problems with the nuns, as did I with Sister Ursula, who sentenced me to hours of kneeling in the hall for misbehavior in class.

Most astonishing of all, the tuxedo he bought 60 years ago now hangs in my closet, a perfect fit. It became mine last year, after the Château held its annual gala anniversary celebration. Ron loaned it to me for the event. When I returned it, he refused to accept it, telling me if I didn’t want it I could throw it away.

My father passed away several years ago. He would have been two years younger than Ron. But I have felt as close to Ron as I did to him. I had no sisters, and since Ron has no sons, last year I asked him if he would adopt me. He gave me one of his famous long stares, but didn’t answer. I took that as a yes and will continue to wear Dad’s tuxedo to the Chateau’s gala events.  

Hiding fromthe Virus: Living the New Normal

It’s Day 14 of our lockdown in the Château Lake San Marcos retirement community. None of our 140 residents have been diagnosed with COVID 19.

Yesterday, according Public Health Services, there were 341 cases and two deaths reported in San Diego County, including 3 cases in San Marcos, 15 in Carlsbad, 12 in Encinitas, 8 in Oceanside, 7 in Escondido, and 5 in Vista.

We pass our time cocooning with the same daily schedule we had before the virus got here.

Awakening at 5 AM, we watch the morning news, beginning with BBC America, since our son lives in London with his wife and our 13-year-old granddaughter. Thanks to our weekly Skype video calls, we stay connected with them during their own lockdown.

BBC America has also become our favorite channel to maintain our mental health. Yesterday morning we watched the weekly meeting of the House of Commons, called Questions to the Prime Minister, when Boris Johnson was called upon by members of Parliament to answer questions about his government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The questions from members of Parliament were the same as those we hear in President Trump’s press briefings. Why are there shortages of personal protective equipment for hospital medical staff? What will be done to help low income families survive the hardship of unemployment? All questions accused the Prime Minister’s government of doing too little too late.

While the subject matter was the same as ours, the civility was not. Unlike press briefings, the questions to the Prime Minister are presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons, who gives permission to a member to ask a question upon rising from their seat. The questions address the Prime Minister in the third person, not directly, as “Can the Prime Minister tell us why the government is not responding to the crisis quickly enough?” The PM’s reply is phrased accordingly. “The Honorable Member apparently doesn’t know about the many steps we’ve taken.”

Compare that to the response to a polite question NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander asked President Trump at his recent press briefing. “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?” Trump’s response? “I say that you’re a terrible reporter.” Those press briefings have brought us more anger and anxiety than information, so we’ve stopped watching them.

After breakfast it’s on to our respective writing projects, Karen is working on another novel, as well as planning how she can transform an earlier one into a short musical play, suitable for production with a cast chosen from our retirement community neighbors.

At 11:30 we call the dining room with our lunch order. Within about 30 minutes, our server will arrive, pounding on the door before placing on our doorstep the bagful of disposable, recyclable containers carrying our food, fresh from the oven. The server doesn’t wait around for a thank you, but races off to maintain the social distancing required of employees.

Following lunch it’s time for a 30-minute nap, after which we reserve ten minutes to meditate, employing our virtual personal assistant, giving the command, “Alexa! Sound ocean waves.”

After meditation we take the first of our two 15-minute daily walks around the grounds, calling out, “Hi, how are you?” to others seeking fresh air and exercise, putting lots of distance between us.

After our walk we practice singing the songs we plan to perform in our 3:00 daily guitar-accompanied duet from our opened front door.

Late afternoons are reserved for sipping a glass of wine, while watching mourning doves and finches fight over the seeds in our platform feeders, as hummingbirds compete for the crimson nectar in their feeder, just a few feet away.

We can watch the avian action through the glass doors to our patio from the comfort of our couch, while we enjoy Netflix and Amazon Prime Video streaming films. A few days ago we treated ourselves to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Seeing Tracy and Hepburn in action was comfort food for our spirits.

So, all is well with us, here in our COVID-19 cocoon. We appreciate the free room service, choosing from a splendidly varied daily menu. Yesterday we had chicken cordon bleu for lunch, our main meal each day. The day before, we enjoyed the blackened salmon. I'm not kidding. The food here is that good.

Coping with COVID-19: Cocooning in Our Own Chateau

Two days before the pandemic was declared, we received a warning from the executive director of our 55+ senior community. The Château’s salad bar would be closed during meals. Seating in the dining hall would be limited. Two days later we found the second notice, a critical update after the pandemic was declared, taped to our front door.

The dining room has now been closed, and will remain so for at least 30 days. We may order our breakfast, lunch and dinner by telephone. Meals, packed in disposable boxes, will be carried to our front doors. Servers will not be permitted to enter our units or come within six feet of us upon delivery. It is “highly recommended” that we “limit outside guests or other visitors.” We are urged to “minimize all contact with non-residents.”

Karen and I are strongly supportive of these measures, impressed by the chateau’s management from the time our executive director announced his plan at last month’s HOA Board Meeting. We have friends and relatives within an hour’s drive of one of the nation’s coronavirus epicenters, a rest home in Washington state. We are both of an age to worry about the virus, Karen even more so because of her asthma.

You might say we have been quarantined, but we choose to call it cocooned. Quarantined is such an ugly word, implying isolation as punishment. But when I found this definition of cocooning, a “retreat from the stressful conditions of public life into the cozy private world of the family,” that seemed a better fit for this place, which has become our family.

Karen, my eternal optimist and history lover was reminded of her parents experience during the depression. Here’s what she wrote in a letter to our Chateau friends, who’ve become our family.

My mother told me often about that grim day, Monday, October 29, 1929, when the stock market crashed.

"Your father threw open the front door, grabbed me around the waist, kissed my lips hard, gave me a wink, and said, “Pearl, we’ve lost everything but five dollars. Let’s go to the movies and out to dinner.”

Mother was stunned. She said, “But Walter, then we won’t have anything!”

Daddy said, “We’ll have each other, and we’ll figure things out. Come on! Let’s go…I’m hungry for some popcorn!”

Four hours later, Mother and Daddy sat down at the kitchen table (my family’s command center for heavy talks) with paper and pencils, and worked on numbers and ideas to keep them alive. Their list follows.

Laughter

Shoulders back

Head up

Sense of humor

Walks in the fresh air

Inner strength

Love

Hope

Laughter

Helping others

Stone Soup

Yes, my mother really made Stone Soup and she was proud of her recipe: Find small “just right” stone in yard, drop small stone into pot, heat water in pot, gather anything edible you can find in garden or lawn, and toss into pot. Add salt, pepper, and any other seasoning you may have. (A small slice of garlic adds a wonderful taste). And, of course, if you are lucky enough to have leftovers in the ice box, add them to pot. Simmer for 4 minutes. Dress dinner table with cloth, candles and tree greens.  Dress self in bright, happy clothes and a smile, and call family to dinner.

Mother also served bowls of stone soup during World War II. By then I was old enough to help gather the ingredients and take my turn to proudly find “just the right stone” for the soup.

Stay well and live.

Fortunately, Karen and I are both writers. While we remain cocooned here we will fill our days with writing, taking walks in the fresh air, and singing together. As movie buffs we will stay entertained with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video streaming films. I guess you could say that’s our own stone soup.

The San Marcos City Planning Men's Club

All three male members of the San Marcos Planning Commission whose two-year terms expired in December were reappointed by the mayor and city council in January. The only woman on the seven-member commission, Wendy Matthews, was also reappointed.

There are no term limits for commissioners, allowing for the growth of the good old boys network. Kevin Norris begins his eleventh year on the council, while Bruce Minnery stepped down after eleven and a half years.

Five women were among the twelve new applicants who failed to win a seat on the commission. Filling vacancies with incumbents was a missed opportunity for the city to bring gender balance to the commission.

Here are a few of the qualifications of the women applicants who were passed over.

--A real estate and business attorney

--A marketing and strategic operations manager

--A local business owner

There are also only three women on the fifteen-member San Marcos Creekside Specific Plan Oversight Committee.

Given the scarcity of women on city planning groups, it’s ironic that the five individuals appointing its members, the mayor and city council, outnumber men, three to two.

San Marcos is not alone in North County in its male-dominated city planning. There are no women on the five-member Encinitas commission, one woman on Escondido’s seven-member group, and two of seven commissioners in Vista.

Carlsbad is the lone exception, with four women out of seven.

The San Marcos city website explains, “The planning commission is responsible for evaluating and making determinations on a variety of land use matters for both long-range and short-range planning.”

Given the importance of the city’s land use decisions, adding women would make the commission more representative of the 96,847 residents, the majority of whom are female.

According to the 2018 U.S. Census estimates, the tally of city household ownership shows, while 61% of all city households are owner occupied, 45% of women own the homes they live in, compared to 38% of men.

Research in the business world suggests having more women involved in group planning can improve the value of its decision making.

In a September 21, 2017 article in the business magazine Forbes, (New Research: Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decision Making At Work), Erik Larson, the founder and CEO of Cloverpop, a leadership consulting firm, writes, “According to the research, teams outperform individual decision makers 66% of the time, and decision making improves as team diversity increases. Compared to individual decision makers, all-male teams make better business decisions 58% of the time, while gender diverse teams do so 73% of the time.”

In my fifteen years as a university administrator, I learned how diversity on campus committees reduces groupthink, where the loudest voices, rather than the best decisions, can carry the day.

The need for more inclusive representation and better decision making suggest it's time for term limits on the San Marcos Planning Commission.

What Patrick Mahomes and I Have in Common

As I watched 24-year-old Kansas City Chief’s quarterback speaking to the press about his team’s miracle come-back to win the Super Bowl last night, hearing commentators remarking on his achievement at such a young age, I was reminded of my own youthful rise.

Unlike Mahomes, of course, I did not have the size or talent to achieve my dream of a career in professional basketball. No matter how many pushups I did daily to get stronger, no matter how many times I hung by my arms from overhead playground bars to make me taller, I could not grow to match my dreams.

As kids, my older brother and I participated in pickup basketball games, where I would be the last one chosen, called “Little Riehl,” after my older brother, “Big Riehl” got the call to join the team.

But what I don’t have in common with Mahome’s athletic ability, I do share with him in achievements at an early age, beginning with skipping the fifth grade. That didn’t turn out well, since I missed everything about fractions.

Being the youngest in each grade through high school had its challenges, including some bullying in my first year in junior high school, where my father had just been appointed principal.

I’ve have been unusually young in every job I took. My first salaried position, upon graduating from college at 21, was as head basketball coach at Sequim High School on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I was only three or four years older than my players. That was brought to my attention on one occasion when a school janitor where we were scheduled to play an away game, looked at me and said, “I can’t open the door to the gym until your coach arrives.”

When I was appointed Director of admissions at Western Washington University at the tender age of 28, I encountered the same misunderstandings from admissions applicants and their parents visiting campus. When I greeted them in my office they often thanked me for talking to them, but asked if they could speak to the director.

Okay, I’m no Patrick Mahomes, even though I, too, found myself in positions often reserved for older individuals. What separates us is not only his athletic ability. It’s the respect he gets from his older teammates, showing his extraordinary leadership skills.

That’s an achievement I can only envy and admire.

Enrollment Mismanagement Plagues Palomar College

After a campus visit, a state-funded agency, the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistant Team (FCMAT) issued its November 8, 2019 report, describing Palomar College’s financial position and management practices. The news wasn’t good.

The report gave the school’s Fiscal Health Risk Analysis a 44.5% rating, indicating its probability of insolvency in the near future. According to FCMAT, in two years the school will have drained all its reserves, forcing it to borrow $6.5 million from an external source to stay solvent.

Here’s but a sample of what FCMAT found.

--The college has not provided clearly written and articulated budget assumptions, supporting revisions, to the board at least quarterly.

--After eight years in the position, the chief business officer has recently been “separated from the office.” An interim appointment has been assigned.

--The managers and staff responsible for the college’s human resources, payroll and budgets do not meet regularly to discuss issues and improve processes. With no formal documentation in meeting minutes to show communication about the personnel budget, one board member says the report reveals the offices are not on speaking terms.

--The college does not have a comprehensive enrollment management plan. Enrollment projections and assumptions are not based on historical data, demographic trend analysis, high school enrollments, and community participation rates. They’re based only on goals developed in master plans using prior year actuals as a baseline.

In a December 18, 2019 San Diego Union Tribune article, Palomar College Puts President on Paid Administrative Leave, Paul Sisson writes: “Craig Thompson, president of the faculty senate, said opening satellite campuses in Fallbrook and Rancho Bernardo simultaneously put too large a drain on resources. Thompson said a decision to increase hiring, which brought 40 additional teachers onto Palomar’s rolls last year, contributed to faculty dissatisfaction with Blake’s leadership.”

Not long after Oside News published my November 16, 2019 article, Palomar College President Not Ready for Prime Time, I discovered The Palomar Files: Candid News about Palomar College, a campus blog with postings from two faculty members: the English Department’s Dr. Rocco Versaci and the Math Department’s Professor Shannon Lienhart.

The credibility of these two can be measured by their combined 50 years of teaching at the college and the stellar ratings they get from their students, which can be found at ratemyprofessors.com.

In his post, Finding the Leak, Dr. Versaci graphed the college’s total revenues and expenditures over the last several years, pointing to 2017-18, the year the college opened its two educational centers in Fallbrook and Rancho Bernardo, when expenditures began to surpass revenues. He writes, "Using these short-term revenues, the district made long-term expenditure decisions based not on data, but on hope. Despite the fact that there was plenty of evidence that the District’s enrollment goals were not being realized, the expenditures continued to increase unabated as though the temporary fixes would continue indefinitely."

In her post, A Half-Truth is Not the Truth, Professor Lienhart writes, “Three months after Palomar College President Joi Blake opened the North and South Education Centers simultaneously, the school issued a news release, declaring, ‘Enrollments are up across Palomar Community College District, as fall semester numbers exceed expectations at Fallbrook’s North Education Center and the South Education Center in Rancho Bernardo.’ 

“The numbers, however, tell a different story. Enrollment was predicted to grow by 7% in the year after centers were opened. But instead of growing enrollment, the college suffered a 1% decrease that year.”

It’s hard to believe Palomar College has no comprehensive enrollment management plan. I don’t know much about school finance, but I learned a lot about enrollment management from my 14 years of experience at Indiana State University and Cal State San Marcos, where responsibility for enrollment planning and management was in my job description. My enrollment management teams included representatives from the faculty, as well as the offices of business and student affairs. My goal was to keep the campus community informed of enrollment projections and our success or failure in meeting our targets.

At its December 17, 2019 meeting, Palomar’s Governing Board received a call from California Community Colleges Chancellor Elois Ortiz Oakley, who informed them that the worst case scenario for dealing with the school’s financial crisis would be for the Community College Board of Governors to assign a special trustee to oversee the college’s operations, replacing Palomar’s board until the college regained solvency.

Would the three of the five board members who’ve supported President Blake’s administration see the irony in that?

Stay tuned.

How California Rates Schools: Color Me Blue

Twenty years ago the California State Legislature passed the Public Schools Accountability Act, leading to the creation of an Academic Performance Index. Each year, every public school was to be assigned an API score, ranging from 200 to 1000, to measure its success. Proficiency in English and Math, based on standardized test scores, were the primary measures of a school’s API.

The goal of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, passed by Congress, was for all school children to become proficient in English and Math by 2014.

After the failure of both of these well-intentioned efforts, the California State Board of Education has teamed up with the California Department of Education to launch still another plan to measure the quality of public schools.

School ratings have been expanded to include absenteeism/suspension, graduation rate, college/career readiness, and English Learner Progress. The California School Dashboard and System of Support uses a rainbow of colors to show student progress in each of those areas.

The ratings begin at the top with blue, followed by green, yellow, orange, and red. Colors are assigned for the entire school, as well as for each subgroup of students by ethnicity, socioeconomically disadvantaged, disabled, and English learners. A group with fewer than 30 students is colored gray.

In a December 12 article in the San Diego Union Tribune (Annual state ratings assign colors for how schools, student groups performed in several categories), Kristen Taketa writes, “Some critics of the dashboard said it’s harder to compare school performance because there isn’t a single, summative rating. Steve Green, director of assessment, accountability and evaluation in the San Diego county office of education, said the dashboard helps people see an overall picture of a school, just as a doctor looks at more than a patient’s blood pressure when evaluating how healthy they are.”

That got me to thinking about how my primary doctor, might use those same colors, rather than lab reports with strange sounding names, to rate my condition.

Judging from the numbers I’ve seen after past checkups, here’s my own assessment: After years in the orange to yellow zone, my Cholesterol, thanks to Lipitor, has risen to a healthier green. I’ll assign green to my eyesight, too, with the help of reading glasses. I’m most thankful that my weight and blood pressure have both remained in solid blue.

Now, if I could only persuade Kaiser Permanente to give me yearly color-coded reports, I’m sure it would help me feel better about myself and spur me on to even bluer well-being.

And that appears to be the goal of the California Dashboard, to make students and their schools feel better about themselves. But let’s be real. We know the meaning of those colors. They match the A-F grading system. Students know that, too. Let’s take a look at the California Dashboard’s College/Career Readiness category for the San Marcos Unified School District.

There are 21,000 students, from kindergarten through adult, enrolled in San Marcos schools. Thirty-nine percent are classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, either qualifying for free or reduced cost meals, or they have parents or guardians without high school diplomas. The Dashboard has assigned this group to Orange, a grade of “D” for being prepared for college or a career.

Getting away from the single-score API is a good thing. But replacing it with color coding student groups and the school overall hides the reality that student success in the classroom can largely be predicted by groups  what happens to them before they enter the classroom.

Rather than coming up with new ways to judge schools, it’s time to recognize that schools alone will never be able to leave no child behind.  

AMAZON and UPS: A Failed Marriage

It was a dark and stormy night at the Riehl’s a couple of weeks ago, when Karen told me her ancient computer keyboard had been misbehaving. I suspected it only needed dusting, but unable to find our compressed air canister, I ordered a new keyboard from Amazon. It arrived the next day.

A few days later, I ordered a four-pack of Falcon Dust Off Electronics Compressed Gas Dusters. Amazon wouldn’t sell me just one. Buying four online was easier than driving to the nearest CVS store to pick one up.

Judging by how seldom we use them, our four new keyboard dusters will last longer than both of us. I must have inherited my security issues from my father. At my age, Dad wore a belt, plus suspenders.

Two weeks after my order, Amazon notified me that my package could not be delivered. I was told to check with UPS to find out why.

According to the UPS website, the package had been delivered on December 3, at 9:42 AM to “San Marcos,” left at the “front desk,” and “Lanny” signed for it. Deliveries by Amazon have always been placed at our front door, accompanied by a friendly knock.

Our Château Lake San Marcos is a gated community, so I assumed the delivery truck driver left the package with the concierge in the château’s office. But that was not to be. No package there, nobody named Lanny to sign for it. I called UPS but could not reach a live person. A recorded message told me the package had been delivered.

Out of desperation, I called the nearest UPS store. Brianna (not her real name) told me they didn’t get the package and that nobody named Lanny worked there. She suggested I try the city’s other UPS store. There was no package or Lanny there, either, but Savanna (not her real name), gave me a number to call, assuring me they could help.

Upon calling the number she gave me, I was greeted by an electronic voice, urging me to try for a free Royal Caribbean Cruise vacation by answering a few questions. Taken aback by this UPS gimmick, I did not answer the questions truthfully. What they learned about me is I’m under 25 and don’t like vacations. Not to my surprise, I was congratulated for winning the free cruise, except for a nominal $65 per person boarding fee.

I was then greeted by a human, who gushed, “Welcome to Royal Caribbean Cruises! This is…” It wasn’t a UPS scam after all. I hung up, figuring Savanna had given me a wrong number. At this stage, I was unwilling to concede an error on my part.

Karen suggested I try calling the retirement community next door to see if my package had been dropped off there. But Vanessa (her real name) politely informed me there had been no delivery, no Lanny on their staff.

Alarmed by my heavy breathing and reddening face, Karen told me to abandon my quest, forget about the $16.99 I paid for the canisters, and take to my blog to write about the experience. It would be therapeutic.

But, before following her advice, I took a last look at Amazon’s website, where, under “continue to customer service,” I found, “have us call you right now.” There was a space for me to enter my home phone number. Under it was a button titled, “Call me now to talk to a specialist. We will call you immediately.”

Yeah, right, I scoffed to myself, as I typed in our number and pressed the “Call me now” button. Before I could count to three, (I’m not kidding here), the phone rang with a live person on the other end.

She knew all about my order, including the claim that it had been delivered. After I explained how hard I worked to find the package, she gave me a full refund. She told me, if the package eventually reaches our door, I could keep it with no charge.

And that’s why I do my shopping at Amazon and hope for a UPS divorce.

Ghost Guns, Armed Teachers, and School Shootings: A Deadly Recipe

There was another school shooting last weekend, this time in a grade school parking lot in Union City, California, 30 miles from San Francisco. Two boys, 11 and 14 years old, were shot to death while sitting in a parked van at 1:30 AM on a Saturday morning.

This was not a typical school shooting, of course. It took place after school hours, with the shooter, or shooters, still unknown.

But nine days earlier, a student at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, celebrated his 16^th birthday by assembling his own .45 caliber handgun and shooting five of his classmates. Two died, before he turned the gun on himself.

The common denominators in these tragedies were guns and children dying. I wanted to know more about how a teenager was able to obtain gun parts online, together with do-it-yourself instructions on how to assemble it. Here’s what I found in an Internet search at ghostguns.com.

“Despite popular belief that the Federal Government can restrict all gun ownership, unconstitutional laws like the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 can only regulate the transfer and sale of weapons. And so, making a weapon on your own, without the intention of transferring it or selling it is not prohibited by Federal agencies such as the ATF. ”

Here’s what you can buy on that website, from a variety of do-it-yourself pistol and rifle kits to gun magazines, bulletproof backpacks, and T-shirts:

$997.99 AR15 Build Kit

“At Ghost Guns we took the 16" AR15 lightweight rifle and made it even better to give you an unregistered weapon system that's ready for almost any combat scenario.”

The words “unregistered weapon,” and “ready for almost any combat scenario,” together with the sale of 21-Round Magazines and bulletproof backpacks, suggest the do-it-yourselfer is probably not preparing for target practice, hunting, or self-defense.

The website’s bizarre logo sets the tone for the sale of merchandise designed to kill.

Some say arming teachers will increase school safety by discouraging potential shooters from attacking schools and protecting students in shoot outs.

But that’s not true, according to The Trace, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom dedicated to shining a light on America’s gun violence crisis, Do Armed Guards Prevent School Shootings? April 6, 2019, by Alex Yablon.

“Active shooters do not favor ‘gun-free’ zones. Louis Klarevas, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, analyzed 111 shooting attacks between 1966 and 2015 for his book Rampage Nation, and found that only 18 took place in areas where firearms were banned. In four high-profile 2018 school shootings, attackers stormed campuses, despite the presence of armed guards. In all four of those cases, guards failed to stop the gunman from killing.”

As for protecting students in the classroom, according to Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, a nonpartisan group dedicated to fighting the epidemic of gun violence, “Arming teachers wouldn’t decrease risk to students—it would increase their risk. Our comprehensive analysis finds there have been more than 80 publicly-reported incidents of mishandled guns at schools in the last five years, including a teacher’s loaded gun falling from his waistband during a cartwheel, and a teacher unintentionally firing a gun in class during a safety demonstration.”

In addition to learning how to handle and shoot a gun safely, teachers would need to be trained on how to stop an attacker, when to get involved or not, and how to deal with crowded rooms and buildings.

Texas State University’s ALERRT Center boasts of providing the best research-based active shooter response training in the nation. Its Active Shooter Incident Management Course requires 24 hours of training over three, 8-hour, days. Just as police officers do, they’d need refresher training periodically over the years. As a former high school English teacher, I can understand why teachers, engaged with helping students, grading papers, and preparing lesson plans, would not want the added responsibility.

If teachers with guns won’t work, check out this article about those who use them by George S. Everly, Jr.: "Profiling" School Shooters: Can we tell who will be the next to kill?” (Psychology Today, Mar 29, 2018)

1. The vast majority were male.

2. Nine out of ten were current or recent students at the school.

3. Anger and revenge were the common themes. Three out of four felt bullied or harassed

    by other students.

4. They tended to be socially awkward, with few (if any) friends.

5. They expressed fascination with violence, morbid media, or death.

6. The media contagion effect (copycat killings) may serve as an especially powerful

     motivator.

7. They tend to express their frustrations and anger using art and/or social media posts.

Maybe we can reduce the number of school shootings by stopping the sales of ghost guns, not by giving teachers guns, but by arming them with the sensitivity, skills and resources to identify and find help for their troubled students.

Papa Doug vs. the Enemy of the People

I shook my head in disbelief three years ago, when I learned Douglas Manchester had been offered the position of ambassador to the Bahamas. President Trump made the announcement the day after he was sworn in.

I worked, briefly, for Papa Doug, his preferred moniker, seven years ago, after the real estate magnate bought San Diego’s North County Times.

After having witnessed his disaster as a newspaper publisher, I was delighted to see this week’s CBS News investigation, explaining how this country’s diplomatic corps escaped the embarrassment of an Ambassador Papa Doug.

After Manchester donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, his ambassadorship languished in the Senate for two and a half years. When Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel asked him for another $500,000, as a donation to help the RNC meet its fundraising goal, Manchester offered, instead, a good faith $100,000 donation from his wife, with a promise of more to come after he was confirmed.

That was a bridge too far for Papa Doug. The Republican National Committee told CBS News, "Mr. Manchester's decision to link future contributions to an official action was totally inappropriate." They said they cut ties with Manchester and returned the money his family donated this year.

Following my retirement from Cal State San Marcos in 2003, I began writing letters to the editor, leading to an invitation to write a biweekly opinion column on subjects of my choosing, so long as they were on local issues. The opinion page editor gave me free reign for my opinions, many of which were highly critical of the city’s elected officials.

Nine years later, shortly after purchasing the San Diego Union Tribune, Papa Doug bought the North County Times. It was bad news for this writer.

Here’s what I said about that in my October 17, 2012 blog:

The Incredible Shrinking Newspaper

Manchester has not been hesitant to declare his goal as a newspaper owner is not to produce quality journalism as a service to the public. It’s to promote a conservative agenda and be a booster of business and pro sports in San Diego County.

Editor of the North County Times, Kent Davy, told a KPBS interviewer his mission for the NCT was to be a mirror of the community. Manchester’s mission for the U-T San Diego North County Page Insert is to be a mirror of himself.

The day Editor Davy refused to publish that, I stopped writing for the North County Times. He explained it was a threat to NCT staff writers, fearing more layoffs from the newspaper’s change of ownership. I didn’t blame him for trying to protect his writers, but it didn’t stop Papa Doug from killing North County’s only daily print newspaper.

Fortunately for me, I found other outlets, thanks to Anna Daniels of the San Diego Free Press, Steve Marcotte, editor of OsideNews.com, and the good folks at OBrag.org and EscondidoGrapevine.com.

As a proud co-conspirator with Trump’s “enemies of the people,” I just can't stop blogging.