Life as an Observor

I. Return to Bee Busters
   I stopped by Bee Busters today to see what was going on. At the time technician Bobby was lollygagging about in the garage so I played pingpong with him for awhile on their new pingpong table. Eventually owner Dave and other technicial Jeremy showed up. Senior technician Ryan was on vacation (office Amy was also about).
   In addition to the various random stuff they had in the garage before (such as a spa and a go cart, among many other things), they have recently added a dirt-bike, dart-board, antique couch, pingpong table, and, most frivolously, an intercomm between the office and break room. Additionally apparently Dave intends to start experimenting with brewing at his place. For Christmas this year Dave got them all either ipods or nice digital cameras.
   Dave was feeling rather irked because a reporter was supposed to come by (as usual), but kept putting off her arrival due to excuses such as "they just found the body!" (apparently another story she was working on). On Saturday Bee Busters is having an open house, so if you're in the area and want to see the Bee Cave in all its glory you should come by.


II. Phi Alpha Delta UCI
   Later this evening I hopped on over to UCI (which is only about 15 min from Mission Viejo) to attend a meeting of their chapter of Phi Alpha Delta. They had a defense attorney from San Diego guest speaking, it was pretty interesting. I got his card, he was interested in having me shadow him for a day next time I'm down there, so that was very successful.
   Tomorrow PhAD UCI is participating in a dodgeball tournament or something. I picture it being like the movie. On Sunday they're meeting up with Phi Alpha Delta UCLA up in UCLA-land and I'm probably going to join them on that adventure.



III. Judicial Adventures at UCI
   The Assistant Chair of the ASUCI Judicial Council (the equivalent of the Vice Chief Justice of the ASUCD Court) is in Phi Alpha Delta so I met her tonight and talked to her about that. Apparently, THEY get PAID. Council members get $100 a month, the Assistant Chair $200 a month, and the Chair $300! AND, they haven't even met yet this quarter!
   OUR entire Court just recently got a $100 budget, for the year. That works out to about a buck twenty-three per justice per month.


   In other news, there are about 18 hours remaining until I become possibly the first person ever to reach the end of the four year term limit for the court.
   I'm expecting this to be a very dramatic quarter in ASUCD, and as such I intend to still attempt to cover developments. As such, insiders, make sure to serve me up your steaming hot scoops of gossip. Reporters, unlose my phone number, I'm still the most qualified expert on ASUCD, in possession of unrivaled perspective from five years of unaligned involvement, and finally free to express opinionated observations!

Stinging Commentary

I. OMG Bees!!
   So earlier today I'm sitting at my desk and I look up to see our yard is filled with bees. I think "oh the bees are swarming again," but then I realize, oh wait we don't HAVE any bees anymore. I run out to investigate. By the time I get my shoes on the swarm has moved up the hill. I find a clump of bees about 2/3rds the size of a basketball on a branch.
   Later mum comes home and I tell her about it. She says we're still getting bee droppings on our cars regularly (lots of little yellow dots) and speculates that maybe there is a colony very close that we are not aware of. We're looking at our roof and seeing nothing. Just for novelty's sake I mention that bees usually inhabit the pitch where two parts of the roof come together and we go around to look at that part of our roof. Lo, there are bees there!! Further observation indicates they are probably just scouts from the passing swarm though (they were just bouncing around rather than making, so to speak, a bee-line in and out).
   There was some discussion of having me execute the swarm. Interestingly though, while I generally didn't feel overly much remorse when I killed hundreds of thousands of bees a day for my job, the prospect of killing some on my own time actually feels rather morally unsettling to me. d=


II. Defendant Rights in ASUCD
   As one will recall, recent prominant ASUCD Case # 34 regarded whether a witness could be considered the party to a closed session on an ASUCD employee's job performance, and therefore override that employee's wish to have the session closed. The ASUCD Supreme Court found that the codes clearly stated that only "the appointee / employee being discussed" had a right to cause the session to be closed.
   Subsequently, counsel for the Defense (ie those who lost the case), have written a Senate Bill which would change the bylaws to support their side. It redefines party as "(1) The ASUCD employee or appointee the session has been called on. (2) Any witness giving testimony that the Senate President Pro Tempore has deemed to be a Party in the matters discussed in the closed session."
   Incidently, the background for the bill reads "A recent court case showed that there was a need to define the term “party” in the bylaws on closed sessions." I think its debatable at best if the case "showed" that. I was there and I found the current definition of who had the relevant rights to be extremely clear.

   Anyway, the point is this is about the right to confront one's accuser. If the defendant waives their right to privacy, they should not be accused of anything the accuser wouldn't say in public. Also I remind you, the Defendant is the person with everything to lose in the situation, they are the one whose rights should be carefully protected.
   Now it has been mentioned, almost ad absurdum but vaguely possible, that it might be that the case regards sexual harassment, and therefore the witness-victim may have legitimate privacy rights. Firstly, this will certainly be the exception, rather than the rule, as it does not resemble the circumstances of 99% of Closed Sessions. Secondly, ASUCD is NOT the appropriate primary forum for addressing such a problem, the Police or at least Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) is. And with that thought in mind, I'd say I could agree to allowing sealed witness testimony IF it is only allowed if the witness has already filed a report¹ on the same subject with SJA or the PD, and minutes of the entire proceeding are made available to that same investigatory body. I believe nothing less than this would prevent sealed witness testimony from being abused.

   And it should be noted that this is being changed in light of the circumstances of Case 34. The closed session that was the subject of Case 34 CERTAINLY would not fall under an allowable circumstance for sealed witness testimony. That situation was entirely political, Peake could have chosen not to participate, and/or the other persons involved would have had just as much a right to say harmful things about him outside of the session as in it, its closure just allowed him, a politician, a venue to subject Savaree-Ruess, a politician, to a political circus without being judged himself (though it should be noted that it wasn't Peake's idea to call it, but he instigated its closure to the public). And furthermore, since the matter was already being discussed at length in public, all the closure allowed was for the Senate to deliberate in private, which is even further from allowable circumstances.

   Anyway, fortunately this idea to vindictively redefine parties was shot down in Internal Affairs Commission, where incidently both Case 34 Plaintiff Kai Savaree-Ruess and Case 34 Defense Counsel Paul Harms are former chairpersons. Sources tell me it devolved into some kind of shouting match.
   Reportedly upon being voted down Harms commented "This isn't the IAC I used to know." Which is ironic because before HE "knew" IAC, Savaree-Ruess was its charismatic chairperson for much longer. Though Harms' brief experience as the chair of IAC (before being shamefully dismissed and left with no position at all by the Senate) was the pinnacle of his ASUCD career, he should have known better than to think he'd have more influence there than Savaree-Ruess.


   And such is the hard-hitting ASUCD commentary I can provide to you when I'm for the first time in four years not under an obligation to remain unbiased. Incidently I have it on good authority that I was originally put on the Court to shut me up. (=
   Though actually I'm still on the Court for another forty minutes. I feel this is a de minimis consideration however.

Coming Soon: The current ASUCD Cold War