Tweeting from the Board Room

I thought that the COD board room would lose its allure after the April election and the vanquishing of the gang of four. How wrong was I after first the April meeting and, last night, the supposedly ceremonial transfer of power meeting. There was more drama than an episode of the Hills, which I missed in order to witness the swearing in of Sandy, Kim and Nancy. We should have expected the deposed not to exit with grace and decorum, but I think we were all surprised by the show put on by the Objector and his Roselle rent-a-crowd. At the last meeting, the shameful gang on the old BoT endured 42 minutes of non-stop carpet bombing from community members, wave upon wave of skewering comments mercilessly exposing the self-interest and contempt for shared governance. This time the friends of the Objector came armed for a fight. The result was something like being at a Cubs-Sox game or like in the Wrigley Field of old, the drunken denizens of the bleachers would yell "right field sucks!" and back and forth.

The Objector and his friends were readily identified by black teeshirts emblazoned with "Stop faculty pay to play," summoning up images of the epoch-making November board meeting when the students wore their black teeshirts in protest at the new policy designed to make the president boss of the student newspaper. Unfortunately, unlike the students, these people did not put duct tape over their mouths and stand in silent protest. Rather, they trooped up to the microphone one after another and enunciated over and over again, I.E.A. - N.E.A. Union, union, union...The vanquished LeDonne was there too, not sporting a teeshirt at least but, in the spirit of a sore loser nonetheless(how did a seemingly well-spoken, relentless campaigner like him score fewer votes than candidates who uttered not one word nor make a single appearance during the entire campaign?), posing as a representative of the "tax-payer," exhort the new board members, "bought and paid for by the faculty," to recuse themselves from any votes over faculty contracts. As Lisa Higgins quietly pointed out later, the vanquished McKinnon was supported by the IEA and no one had ever asked the same of him.

The highlight was when the Objector, newly minted as a member of the community, his turn as appointed BoT attack dog done, making his own public comment to the new board, turned it into a bit of a circus. Wearing his black teeshirt proudly, he held aloft giant fake checks that purported to show how much money "we" had spent on electing our candidates. It was like something out of a TV show. On his exit he muttered warnings about the prosecutors knocking on the door.

The excitement was not only in the public comments and the ridiculous spectacles people were prepared to make of themselves (Objector number one by a mile in that regard, although a "student" similarly clad in black rivaled him for imbecility of language - since when is being thoughtful and intellectual such a crime amongst conservatives?). The new board struck unexpectedly swiftly and moved to undo some of the havoc wrought by the vanquished by tossing out (rescinding I should say) the reviled policies bulldozed through at the previous meeting. It was a 4-3 vote (I think we may see a lot of that), holdover from the previous board Carlin warning the new members, to hoots of derision from the audience, of acting overly hastily in these matters. With such people, irony is beyond them.

The whole evening was so enthralling, I Tweeted away furiously on my new Crackberry. Later I reviewed how bad my spelling was in the subdued light; my followers must have thought I was drunk. In a way I was; such nights are rare.

Tweeting from the board room: last night for the vanquished bots.

It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all thick as posts and boring. Stupid veiled threats

The Objector's rentacrowd keeping me from my dinner.

The Objector is the chief clown, wearing his stupid shirt and now waving giant fake checks showing how much we apparently paid the election

New BoT strikes quickly.

ABOR in the dock: maybe it's going away. Tension amounts.

New board order: four (mostly balding) angry old men slink away; four women take their places.

BoT etiquette: the Objector wearing a shirt saying "stop faculty pay to play" this is shared governance! Sore loser.

ABOR supporter confident that registration will soar as a result of COD adopting Horrorwitz. Ask students whose tuition just doubled...

I thought the election would end the fun. Far from it. Sparks flying once again. Watch the highlights on COD website.

Mr. Goodforillinois in attendance; the lone blogger is running for guvnor!!! Is this the best that the GOP can do? Yikes.

The Objector wearing an anti-faculty teeshirt. Poor loser.