Hugo Schwyzer Controversy

I've been spending a fair bit of time poking around Wordpress. I scan certain topics that interest me (i.e. Los Angeles or Travel) and read strangers blogs. There are loads of great blogs out there and I've virtually met many interesting people doing interesting things. It's a bit of armchair traveling and it's given me ideas for my own blog.

Yesterday evening, I was on Wordpress and I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. it was oddly tagged under music, although the association was loose. The post was regarding a professor that I had many years ago at Pasadena City College, Hugo Schwyzer.

The post was hateful towards Schwyzer and it prompted me to investigate further. I ended up spending several hours on the internet completely intrigued and baffled by the downfall of a professor for whom I had so much admiration.

Here is the quick version from what I can glean from various blogs, including Schwyzer's personal blog...

Schwyzer, a History and Humanities professor, has also made a secondary career from writing about and giving speaking engagements regarding feminism. He has strong opinions and is very outspoken, which has earned him a mixed following.

A few years ago, he decided to write a very personal post regarding his drug addictions and specifically a night in 2008 when he tried to commit suicide, taking along with him his girlfriend who was unconscious due to a drug overdose. It was a botched attempt and they were both saved.

People following his blog turned on him for this post, calling him a woman-killer and questioning his right to be a voice for feminism. That being said, Schwyzer being male and Christian, was called out far before he made this confession.

After his suicide confession, Schwyzer spent a few years trying to maintain his online presence, but he has faced a lot of opposition including death threats. It has come out that he had multiple affairs with students and has had a mental collapse. What I discovered via Wordpress was a post expressing joy over Schwyzer's decision to take a break from blogging and social media. This response from his opposition is all over the internet.

Here is Schwyzer's Blog Site, take a look.

Hugo Schwyzer Blog

I don't even know what to think about all of this. It just sounds crazy.

I took three of his classes in the early 2000's and he was a great professor. Really, he was one of the best professors that I have ever had at any college, not just Pasadena. He gave dynamic lectures, provided challenging coursework and seemed to genuinely care about his students. I never once witnessed any inappropriate behavior from him and he was never even so much as late to a class. Professional all the way. I very much looked forward to his classes.

He definitely never shied away from controversy. I took his first ever semester of course on Gay and Lesbian History. People didn't like him teaching it and students were afraid to have the course title on their transcript. You know what? It was a great class. I learned so much that was never taught in any other History course and am a better person from having taken the class.

I read that recently he started a class on the History of Pornography. While I am not at all a prude, I can imagine why this class didn't go over so well with a lot of people and added to his recent notoriety.

He likes to push limits.

I believe what I am reading, especially since he confirms it. However, it's hard to have my image of a favorite professor mesh with this new information regarding his personal life. Mostly, it sounds like he has some major mental issues and needs to step back from it all and get some help. It seems that a lot of his critics are citing his online confessions as a form of vanity or ploy for attention, but as I'm new to all of this, I feel like it's a sick man struggling. He seems lost and unsure of his next move.

Mostly, I feel saddened my this news.

Orange County Fair 2013

On Saturday, I introduced Dan to one of my favorite summer traditions, the fair. Although smaller, I actually prefer the Orange County Fair to the Los Angeles County Fair. It feels more manageable and has a better layout. Although we didn't catch a concert, I love the Pacific Amphitheater venue.

Going to the fair reminds me of my mom. My mom loved going to the fair. More specifically, she loved to eat at the fair. My mom wasn't someone who found much enjoyment in food. 364 days of the year, she barely ate. It was as if she was saving up to turn into a total glutton for one day at the fair. My rail thin mom became a bottomless pit. You've never seen anyone be able to consume so much cotton candy. It still boggles my mind. Our yearly trips to the fair are one of my fondest memories of my mom.

Dan and I woke up extra early on Saturday to take advantage of the early-bird weekend offer. The OC Fair has a promotion that from ten-eleven am on weekends, admission is only three dollars. This is a savings of eight dollars a ticket...sixteen dollars saved to spend on junk food! A lot of other people had a similar idea and the fair was packed within the opening hour.

I have years of experience working at a major theme park, however, that did not help me make wise decisions when navigating the fair. Like total novices, we stopped first at the exhibits closest to the entrance gates.

The first thing that we checked out was the Millennium Barn. One of my favorite pictures is the resting ow framed by the barn doors.

I'm a sucker for anything that looks like a circus side-show and was immediately drawn to Dr. Entomo's Palace of Exotic Wonders! The Palace was an educational entomology exhibit. It's tiny and they only let a small number of people in the building at a time. It's worth doing, if there is no line or if you're really into entomology. I like the attention grabbing creativity that pulled us over to the exhibit.

We kicked off our food binge with chocolate covered bacon for breakfast. It's not as good as one might imagine (or maybe you think it sounds disgusting) and we threw a majority of it away. The biggest problem is it was frozen solid and actually felt like it hurt my teeth to eat. Not fun.

Since the chocolate covered bacon wasn't up to our breakfast standards, we naturally turned to fresh fried potato chips dipped in cheese for our second course.

Third course was amazing truffles that were being sold near the prize winning cake exhibit.

After breakfast, we decided that a burger would be perfect for lunch. The fair grounds has a cafe right in the middle, which is a great spot if you want to escape the crowd. We ate inside, where we found plenty of tables. The prices were on par with the rest of the fair food, which is to say, over-priced. However, it's not like you go to a fair expecting great bargains on junk food! Unfortunately, the burger came with more potato chips.

Dan marveled at the sheer volume of BBQ meat being sold at the fair. He pointed out a disappointment in that although there is a lot of food, it's very repetitive throughout the event. For example, Juicy's Texas BBQ seems to have a monopoly. They seemed to be every other stall. Where's the variety?

I was too busy eating to take a picture of my last and best course, a caramel apple chopped up and served in a cup. This is my favorite fair food tradition. I know that I can make it at home and I often do, but there is something about eating it at the fair that makes it special.

Speaking of eating, Overeaters Anonymous had a booth right in the middle of all of the food vendors. They were not so popular!

Stuck in among the food and with the religious and political groups. Nice.

One of the coolest things at the OC Fair was a giant Sandcastle!

I really enjoy the award winning crafts, especially the cakes.

We saw quilts, handmade cards, model houses...

Dan played around on flight simulator with a model airplane club.

He also found a new potential hobby in Woodworking. The people at the Orange County Woodworkers Association couldn't have been nicer or more helpful in answering Dan's questions. They had some really cool wood crafts on display.

We took a look at the prize winning flowers, fruits and vegetables. The name Jeremy is intentionally etched into the pumpkin as a tribute to a boy who had passed away.

A trip to the fair would not be complete without a few rides. We bought twenty dollars worth of tickets, which got us on exactly two rides.

This is our ride pass. The ride operator scans a barcode to keep track of the tickets and it is reload-able.

The first ride was a skyway trip across the fair giving us a great view of the entire event.

Our second ride was on the giant Ferris Wheel. It was an unusually cold, gloomy day for July and it began to sprinkle.

Being a former theme park employee, I'm always interested in ride safety.

And I'm not sure how appropriate this game is for a family event.

I saved the best for last...the animals! My favorite part of any fair is the live stock. We saw this adorable pig drinking a bottle of water.

And this calf getting a bath.

But the best thing that we saw was a pen full of curious goats...

The goats were utterly fascinated by the enormous turkey that was being walked by their pen. We were fascinated too!

Turkey going for a stroll..this is what happens at the fair!

We saw many beautiful animals. I didn't get a picture, but one of my favorite things was a little boy who was taking a nap on his pig's belly. They were just cuddled up together.

If you want to see the All Alaskan Pig Races ( and you should) make sure to arrive early for a good seat in the grandstands. We showed up just minutes prior to the races and had a standing room only/partially blocked view. The races are a lot of fun and the announcers really "ham" it up with getting the audience prepped and showing off the pigs. The actual race is a 'blink and you'll miss it" thing. The track is short and the pigs are very eager to run back in their pens for a treat. It's very adorable though and is a must see fair activity.

Some of the sadder animals at the fair are in the freak show section. These include the giant steer and giant horse. Each costs a dollar to go inside of a tent, where the animal is tied up in a too small pen. The animals are quite impressive and live up to the hype, but they seem so sad, especially in contrast to the other fair animals, that I left the tents feeling terrible for having supported the business. It's not the first time that I have paid to look at the animals, but it's the first time that I left feeling guilty about it. Never again.

Our trip to the OC Fair was a big success. We left after about five hours of fair fun with bellies full of junk food. As we were pulling out of the dirt parking lot, it started to pour rain. Our timing was impeccable.

Just Because it's Free...

I have a gripe.

On the first of July, the City of Glendale enacted ordinance 5790 which places a ban on plastic bags in most grocery stores and large retailers. I'm happy with the new ban. Aside from a few forgetful trips to the store, I've been toting around my reusable bags that my aunt gave me for Christmas several years ago.

The design is a bit "Old Lady" but I love my Patty Reed Instatote.

My gripe isn't with the plastic bag ban, it's regarding a result of the ban at my local Ralphs. All of the employees at Ralphs have been trying their best to familiarize customers with the new ban, including smoothing over disgruntled shoppers. I've noticed a lot of unhappy and rather vocal fellow customers while in line. This is a city ordinance, not Ralphs fault!

Anyhow, as part of their customer service, they have been giving away a heavy duty reusable plastic bag for every twenty dollars spent. I'm not sure, but I think this may be a temporary give-away as the city adjusts to the changes. Aside from bringing your own or using the give-away bag, there is a surcharge of ten cents for each paper bag that you may need. The paper bags at Ralphs are not the best quality either.

I shop several times a week and have been diligent with bringing my own bags. Every time, I'm offered a give-away bag and every time, I turn it down. It's not as nice as my own bags and I simply don't need it. Every time I turn it down, I get the same response from the disbelieving checker/bagger, "But it's free". I even had people in line egg me on to take the free bag.

I've stood firm and for several trips to the grocery store, I've turned down the bag.

Until today.

Today, the checker and bagger were aggressive in pushing the free bag and basically would not touch the bags that I brought. It's free and they were going to force me to take it. It turned out to be such a big ordeal, that I took it and spent a few minutes in the parking lot transferring my groceries from the free bag to my bags.

Two issues here... First, my reusable bags are better. They are more rigid with segments to create compartments and they sit straight in my trunk. I moved my frozen food away from my hot food, that had been all lumped together in the free bag. Second, I don't NEED the free bag!

Everyone gets swayed by the idea of receiving free stuff. I'm no different, but I'm trying to be more thoughtful about it. This year has been about simplifying and getting rid of unnecessary clutter. Free stuff creates clutter. Thanks, but we have enough plastic bags.

My biggest pet peeve regarding free stuff is the grabbiness that surrounds it.

I loathe the samples at Costco. Shoppers loiter around the sample tables, clogging up the aisles and it's not because they are genuinely interested in sampling with the intent to buy the product, they just want it because it's free. Also maybe because it's yummy.

I think that it's annoying when people try samples at Baskin Robbins when they already know that they always get the same flavor.

There is no reason to amass a collection of hotel toiletries, when you know that you will never use the products.

It's like people who go to a buffet and pile their first plate sky-high with more food than they can possibly eat or they take ten desserts, having a single bite out of each. It's excessive and grabby. I feel like it's one of the worst attributes in our society. We have so much, that we don't stop to think about what we actually need.

Just because it's free, it doesn't mean that I want or need it.