Category: BIG WEENIE AWARDEES

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Cal Poly Graduation : “Be Coul, dude ! “

President Warren Baker of Cal poly in full regalia!Cal Poly’s administration is fraught with troubles. Terrible troubles, indeed! The fact is that a massive wave of ‘coulrophobia’ has surged over the campus, sending faculty to their drawing tables!

The dictum has come down from on high: “NO MORE CLOWNS!”

However, from what I hear, a celebratory ‘t-shirt’ is being produced to reduce the coulrophobes anxiety through what Psychologists refer to as ‘flooding!’ I can only imagine what it might look like… maybe something like what is pictured here, allegedly of our Cal Poly campus President and otherwise great guy, Warren Baker.

Obviously, there are more issues than a ‘fear of clowns’ pervading the administration tower. There is a fear of not connecting their link firmly enough with that bastion of human rights Saudi Arabia. We give them advanced engineering technology… and they give us?

Meanwhile in clown central, the current Dean of Engineering has singled me out for special consideration in a memo sent wide and far to his “leadership team”. As readers of my blog know, I do not work at Cal Poly, so this special recognition is a great honor…. Indeed!

So when I received a copy of the memo that Dean Mohammad Noori sent to the world of Cal Poly Engineering… I looked with anticipation to see if it mentioned my name? Ahhhh… and here are parts of it…

Is this BIG Givernment McCathyism or what?
Obviously, I wrote him back and said that I said no such thing… I really didn’t … although I brushed it off thinking that Mohammad seemed distraught, overwrought and in dire need of a ‘clown suit’ to cheer himself up!

Although I found the memo darkly amusing, the concept of a state entity potentially unleashing the troops against a private citizen is disturbing. This resembles concept of ‘McCarthyism’ which has been characterized by many as an abuse of governmental authority over private citizens… so did Mohammad step over the line by mentioning me in such a derogatory way to his ‘colleagues’ in an official Cal Poly memo? What was he really asking them to do?

Makes you think…. because I have been here before.
Roger Freberg

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Who’s REALLY embarrassing Cal Poly?

Warren Baker, who is REALLY embarrassing Cal Poly?

Who’s Really embarrassing Cal Poly?

Recently, a member of the engineering faculty was called into what appeared to be a administrative ‘disciplinary meeting’ but ended as a rant by the engineering dean and the provost regarding how certain disgruntled folks were ‘embarrassing the university.’ Little did they know, it aint one guy!

Well, the only advice I can give Cal Poly is ‘don’t do anything embarrassing.’ Unfortunately, according to one expose’, Cal Poly has a lot of things that might be called ‘embarrassing’; here are a few select quotes:

1) “Declining morale and a high level of turnovers also plague the college. During the past three years, staff turnovers have exceeded 50 percent. In addition, six chairs have stepped down and numerous faculty and staff have voiced dissatisfaction.”

2) “… this year’s anticipated $1.3 million shortfall.”

3) “Noori also is the guiding force behind a controversial effort by Cal Poly officials to provide College of Engineering expertise and personnel to help start a similar institution in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Critics of the plan contend women, Jews and other minorities will be excluded.”

4) It appears as though both Dean Mohammad Noori and Provost Bill Durgan worked at the same small college years ago which may explain why:

Cal Poly Professor Mike Cirovic said, “Durgin wanted to quell rumors that would not help, and in fact, would harm the college.”

5) Yet, Mohammad is “the highest paid dean, adding salary and perks, in the California State University system”…. And in spite of faculty objections has been rewarded by higher administrators by having his: “salary has increased 11 percent over the past two years; his $900 monthly housing allowance is additional to his $213,000 annual salary.”

6) One can only wonder why Cal Poly even entertained employing Mohammad Noori after comments like this were made by North Carolina State University:

“He is an incredible bully who doesn’t respect his faculty,” said Larry Silverberg, Professor and Associate Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NCSU. “This place shut down while we waited for his contract to run out.”

In any event, the one thing I have learned about Cal Poly is that everything starts at the top. Nothing, from my observation, happens without Cal Poly President’s Warren Baker’s tacit or expressed approval.

So, who is really embarrassing Cal Poly? Don’t be surprised after all this; Warren gets a 21% raise.

Roger

For the complete story on the recent Cal Poly Follies!

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Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia : Send in the Clowns!

Cal Poly and Saudi Arabia: Send In the Clowns!
For those folks who know me, I rather be spending time cooking! In fact, I just came back from a fun trip to Hawaii & Chicago where the culinary delights were a wonderful distraction… however, all good things come to an end and here I am back in Cal Poly Folly land.

As I mentioned before my trip, Cal Poly has a way of getting caught up in their own misspoken statements ( ‘lies’ sounds so judgemental and may not be completely accurate… ahem!)

As it happens a lot, certain incriminating ’emails’ were leaked. I have seen them and they are enlightening in their apparent eagerness to skirt the law and seal the deal. The Cal Poly Mustang Daily did a reasonable job in reporting the issue as did our own investigative favorite reporters at uncoveredslo.com. Check it out!

Cal Poly’s aging President Warren Baker has a tough time talking before any group larger than 1, which is why we don’t see him very often… anywhere. This is why he sent in ‘the clowns.’ Unfortunately, they know what their objective is… but they can’t get there by telling everyone what’s going on. Looking at the emails, we can certainly see why. Here’s one example as quoted by uncoveredslo.com:

“I really, really hope we can avoid asking for a clarification of this phrasing and simply tell them we’re ready to sign. I’m quite afraid that another round of ‘pickiness’ on our part could be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.”



So, let me understand a few things here:

1) This contract appears to involve direct or indirect hiring discrimination… but we’re not supposed to know about it?

2) We’re just supposed to ‘sign’ the Arabic version of the contract (also the ‘binding version’) without knowing what it says? What independent source is doing the translation?

3) If this contract really doesn’t benefit our students, but will actually replace our faculty with first year grad students, why are we doing this?

4) Who is this REALLY benefiting? Cal Poly? or a key donor? I hope this doesn’t depend on what the meaning of ‘is’ is?

Cal Poly’s administration — including Warren Baker and Mohammad Noori — have failed to provide a transparent process, have not been forthcoming when questioned, and apparently continuing to push forward regardless of long term consequences.

Let’s just say, if any of them worked for me… they’d be long gone.

Roger Freberg


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Behind the Cal Poly & Saudi Arabian Green Door!

Behind the Cal Poly - Saudi Arabian Green Door
I love getting emails from people. I was forwarded a particularly interesting series of emails allegedly from one of the administrators of the Cal Poly School of Engineering. It makes wonderful reading as the lack of transparency has always been one of the big issues in dealing with Cal Poly on any level.

I have written the Cal Poly administrator directly to ask if he has any comment and I’ll post his response.

It is troubling that Cal Poly is doing all they can to make the deal regardless of obvious ethical concerns (May 20th deadline). They really should be thinking about whether or not they SHOULD DO the deal at all?

Stay Tuned,

Roger Freberg

PS. I have also received an email from North Carolina which is very interesting… especially since the writer also liked my Beef Stroganoff recipe!

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sssshhhh! Saudi Arabia is watching YOU!

shhh... knock, knock...who's there?

Oh, anyone who has had a web site for more than a smidget of time knows the purpose of a ‘hits log’ ( the record of who visits your site leaving — sometimes- a distinctive DNS number). In addition, there are many services that will give you some quick and dirty tracking of your visitors… like sitemeter… so it is always interesting to see that whenever I put ‘Saudi Arabia’ or ‘Cal Poly and Saudi Arabia’… I get some interesting visitors.

Saudi Arabia is clearly one of the biggest ‘internet’ censors…. so you can imagine how fascinating it is for me to see someone on my site from that part of the world. Although they don’t want information coming into the country.. they do want to know what folks are saying in the outside world about them.

By the way, if you don’t know what’s going on between Saudi Arabia and Cal bin Poly… read this blog or do a little google searching.

Have fun!

Roger Freberg