Radicals.

Attending a 'radical' college populated by kids who consider themselves radicals leads to many situations I find to be humorous. By 'radicals' I mostly mean well off white kids who seem to feel oppressed by nearly everything.

Our school has a very free and open paper. Almost too free and open. Any student is allowed to make a submission, regardless of quality. These submissions are unedited both in terms of conceptual content and any sort of profanities one could imagine. Overall this is good and leads to interesting things, but also leads to a fair amount of poorly written material. Despite the enormous freedom our paper offers, students have still taken it upon themselves to begin the 'Counter Point Journal' (our normal paper is called the 'Cooper Point Journal'). Why these students do not simply make submissions to the Cooper Point Journal and who they feel they are offering a counter point to, I am unsure. All the graffiti does is preach to the choir and create difficult work for the underpaid janitorial staff who then has to release dangerous toxins into the environment to clean it off.

During the recession, our school, like schools everywhere, experienced minor budget cuts and a minor tuition hike. Considering what many other schools experienced, particularly in California, our school got off pretty easy in those regards. Despite this a large 'walk-out' was organized in protest to these budget cuts.

But funniest of all happened just last week.
On our campus is a small building known as the HCC. It is located near the dorms and soccer field. It contains a small grocery store, about the size of a convenience store, laundry room, and some open hang out area with pool tables and couches.
Students who don't live in the dorms almost never go the Hcc as it is fairly out of the way from the main campus. I often forget it exists and wouldn't be surprised if some students never knew it existed.
Last week, a group of masked students chose to Occupy this building in protest against our administration. This seems to be a throwback to student led occupations of administration buildings in the 60's.
Because the Hcc is such a minor part of campus, I didn't even know it had been occupied until reading about it in the paper(which published several articles for and against the sit in). I can't imagine what effect this sit-in had on the administration as only students use this building. The police never even attempted to interfere with the sit-in. It was basically just a big party/hangout/sleep over that took place in the hcc.
And what was the beef these protesters had with the Evergreen Administration? I have no idea. I'm reading through what the sit-inners have written into the paper in support of their sit-in and while they talk about the way the sit in was conducted, I have found no mention about what they were hoping to achieve by holding this sit-in.

If these 'radicals' were hoping to have fun and hang out, it seems they achieved that. If they were hoping to affect a change in our schools administration, I would be surprised if that happens, since whatever change they are hoping to cause, they have chosen to keep to themselves. If they are simply opposed to having administrators at all, however tolerant and bend over backwards to allow student freedoms they may be, then perhaps attending University isn't the appropriate choice for them.

There are of course many serious injustices which take place everyday, and I'm grateful for activists who engage the oppressors and bring to the world's attention the injustices which occur. However, these Evergreen students seem to be protesting merely for protest sake. They seem to simply like the concept of being a 'radical' who does sit-ins and is angry, rather than having a meaningful cause they are seeking to affect.

Adulthood and tragedy.

One thing I miss about being young is how negative events and even tragedies don't feel negative or tragic, if anything they are fun and exciting.

When I was a kid talk about the Second Coming Armageddon sounded so fun and excited, now it sounds terrible. (of course, then I believed the second coming would be a positive event, now I would view it as being equal to or worse than the holocaust. God's holocaust as I refer to it.) But even events like September 11th, which happened when I was 19, felt exciting to me, rather than sad or tragic. If my city had flooded when I was a kid and my family had to stay in an emergency shelter it probably would have felt like the funnest adventure, now it would be sad and burdensome.

I think this is something common to most kids, though it may have lasted in me longer than in some others. I feel in someways it may have hindered my development as it also caused me to not take seriously things I should have, such as applying to college on time or paying my bills.

My newer adult outlook towards negative events was brought to my attention yesterday when I was arrested. The time before when I was arrested, I was about 24 and even then the entire situation was tinged with excitement and interest. This time I felt almost none of that. (although, I think to a very small degree I did.) Rather than feeling excited and curious, I felt annoyed and perhaps a little angry. I really don't want to be the sort of person that gets very worked up at the slightest injustice which happens to them as if their life is so much more important than others, or as if the injustice in their life is worse than those who face serious and enduring injustice. I don't think I am a person like that, but I am now more like that than when I was a child.

I realize that childhood excitement at tragedy is not a practical way of being. If everyone were that way no wrongs would be made right and the world would fall apart, but I still miss being that way.

.

While searching the internet for something that might be relevant to my case, I came across this amazing tidbit:

A study conducted by scientists at Clemson University involved showing police officers videotapes of individuals taking six common field sobriety tests. The officers were asked to decide whether suspects were too intoxicated to drive legally. Unknown to the officers, none of the suspects had a BAC above .000. They had zero alcohol in their blood. However, in the professional opinion of the officers, 46% of the completely sober individuals were too drunk to drive! Therefore, use of field sobriety tests led to judgments by law enforcement officers that were about as accurate as flipping a coin.

And not quite as relevant to my situation, but still very interesting:

The human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s called endogenous ethanol production. Therefore, we always have alcohol in our bodies and in some cases people produce enough to become legally intoxicated and arrested for DUI

ORDER IN THE COURT!

I think most people who know me are already aware of this, but last night I was arrested for a dui.
Let me recap.
Marissa and I were driving from Olympia to Seattle for a doctors appointment when I was pulled over for having expired registration. The officer Asked if I was on any medication and I told him what I took. Later he had me step out of the car and gave me a sobriety test. Walk a straight line, follow his pen, count 30 seconds in my head, things like that.


I was fairly nervous but felt I did an adequate job. I later found out that I 'messed up' about 4 times on his sobriety test. While walking in a straight line my feet kind of got tangled up and while trying to count to 30 in my head it took me 40 seconds.

He told me to stand behind my car while he went back to his car. I was assuming I would, at most, get a ticket for the expired registration then I would be on my way. However, I was totally surprised when he returned from his car and informed me I was being arrested for a dui. I asked him what he thought I was on and he said he had reason to believe I was on Marijuana.

I suppose that in one sense I was arrested for having clumsy feet and not being very good at estimating 30 seconds.

He put me in his car and went speak with Marissa. Come to find out, he won't let her drive the car because she is also currently taking a prescription medication (which if anything would be stimulating, not sedating at all) and felt she was too impaired to drive. She had to call a friend to come pick up her and the car. Ironically, the highway hazard management fellow that came to assist Marissa told her he also takes the same medication she does and was surprised an officer would mind. If I were to speculate I would imagine 10-20% of the police force take the same or a very similar medication.

Riding in the back of a police car is very uncomfortable. The seats are made of hard plastic and leg room is at a minimum. It is almost impossible to find a comfortable sitting position against a hard surface when your hands are behind your back. Fortunately they have a sort of hole in the seat for one to put their elbow in, allowing slightly more comfortable seating.

While driving to the booking station I was somewhat in shock. My biggest concern was about missing my doctors appointment. That day I had taken the last of my medication and my appointment was so I could get a refill. Fortunately I have a friend who takes the same medication as I, so I was able to get some from him and am not in withdrawal. I was also very worried about Marissa who I knew must be very worried.

Once we get to the police station, which was not a jail, but had holding rooms, I was given a choice if I wanted to take a drug test the officer would administer. Their was no punishment for not taking the test.
On one hand, I knew a test performed by a doctor would show I was not high on anything and could clear my name, however, I was concerned about taking a test administered by a police officer, since it was he who had already mistakenly believed I was on something. If I did not take the officer's test I would then be taken to the hospital to have my blood drawn and tested. If I refused that my license would be suspended for one year.

I explained my thinking to the officer and he informed me I could speak to a lawyer. I told him I would like to so he called one on the phone for me. She was very nice and advised me not to take the officer administered test but that I should take the blood test.

I told this to the officer. He then took me to the hospital, had my blood drawn and released me.

All in all, things turned out okay. I'm not sure what will happen next. I'm certain my blood results will come back negative, but I don't know if I will still have to appear in court.

I have been arrested before. That time I had an unpaid ticket. After the unpaid ticket arrest, I felt fine. But this time I feel surprisingly shaken up. I think it is because, unlike before I didn't do anything wrong. Whereas before, I felt comfortable that once my ticket was taken care of, I was no longer at any risk of being arrested again, but now I don't have that same comfort. Now, even if I am totally sober, I can still be arrested. Some part me almost feels reluctant to leave the house, though I imagine this will fade with time.

I realize what happened to me was all that bad. I do plan on filing a complain against the officer. I felt he used poor judgment in arresting me. I realize he must have felt he was just doing his job, but he was doing it very poorly and in doing so wasted my time, his time, tax dollars, and in general, he needlessly created a threatening and degrading circumstance towards Marissa and myself. In addition I believe he showed prejudice towards me because of my appearance. I realize it isn't like I am a black guy who is constantly being harassed by police, but it is still kind of a bummer.
I think their is a good chance Barack Obama will be inviting me and the arresting officer over to the White House for beers.

Japan

One morning, while drifting in and out of sleep, the out drifts happening because of our newish cat, Glen Close was going berzerker between Marissa and I, playing with his tail and toy mice, I found myself thinking about thoughts I wasn't sure where they sprang from, which seems to happen often recently, ever since Glen Close became a part of our lives.

On this particular morning I was thinking about how Japan seems to exist about 2-5 years in the future from the rest of the developed world. I began to imagine what sort of slogans one could derive from this fact. Slogans that may be used for example, by someone trying to promote Japan to the rest of the world. Maybe an advertising agency hired by the Japanese tourism committee.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that sometimes I spend my mornings in bed thinking of slogans to help promote tourism in Japan.

These are two of the slogans I thought of:

Japan: We are 2-5 years in the future.

Or:

Have you ever wanted to visit the future? Visit Japan.


Sayonara