Phase 1: All Fun And Games
   Last week there was a rally at Davis. In fact I think there were several. People may have even gotten arrested. However, they were all overshadowed by something a small group of the Davis College Republicans ("DCR") did.
   DCR held an "illegal-immigration" themed game of tag. One side played the INS, and the other played the unlawful immigrants. Team INS had to play with their hands behind their back, and every ten minutes all captured illegal immigrants were granted amnesty and set free.
   As far as I'm concerned, this seems to be a completely ligitimate and create way to express the policy viewpoint that the organizers have, ie that the INS is unable to do their job because they have their "hands tied" in various ways and the periodic amnesties make stemming the tide especially hopeless (in their opinion). Its a policy viewpoint and whether or not one agrees with it, its not crazy.
   However, liberals on campus just about had a kineption, declaring the event "unaccptable." This, ironically, gave the event more publicity previous to the rallies, more press coverage during the rallies, and a lot more press coverage following the rallies, than the rallies themselves.


Phase 2: An ASUCD Inquisition
   Now it just so happened that one Pete Markovich participated with the Republicans in the rally. Markovich, however, is the Chair of the ASUCD Academic Affairs Commission, and in ASUCD, you practice political expression at your own risk. For his participation in the DCR event, Markovich has been called before a Senate closed hearing at today's meeting.
   Organizers of the witch-hunt (which appears to be Andrew Peake and Molly Fluet) initially publicly said at last weeks Senate meeting that they were going to attempt to fire Markovich, but are now apparently considering pushing for a censure instead, which would be easier to get (as it wouldn't entail losing a good commission chair). Additionally, the procedures in the bylaws for censure call for a closed session significantly WITHOUT the defendant having the right to an open session that removal allows. Considering that so many people have expressed an interest in coming to this meeting (There is of course an "I Support Pete" facebook group) that the meeting has been moved to Freeborn auditorium the Coffee House (6pm). (as of 12:26pm the day of)
   Also in the bylaws for censure are several problems -- such as that the procedure currently only applies to elected officials (ie the P/VP & Senators), not appointed Commission Chairs; AND notification of a defendant that he's being considered for censure must be done two days prior to the meeting -- something that was not done. The Senate will have to suspend the bylaws in order to burn Markovich at the stake in this manner. They have, however, covered their bases by initiating the normal removal procedures against him.
   Incidentally, because it occured to them that a public censure was a bit like publicizing a personnel issue, they decided to opt for "rei censure" (as opposed to the other centure in the bylaws, "personae censure"), which focuses on the action rather than the personality of the person. Aside from the fact that I don't think this clears the taboo of publicizing evaluations of personnel's actions, I think they made it up!! -- despite searching the depths of the internets I could not find a single reference to censures being divided into "rei" and "personae."

   Furthermore, as the legendary Igor Birman, Esq, notes:

   ...California Labor Code Section 1101 prohibits employers from controlling, directing, or tending to direct, the political activities of its employees. Labor Code Section 1102 prohibits employers from firing, or threatening to fire, their employees in order to coerce them into following, or refraining from following, any particular course or line of political actions or political activity.
   Furthermore, in a 1979 landmark decision, the California Supreme Court held that these code
sections "serve to protect the 'fundamental right of employees in general to engage in political activity without interference from employers.'" Gay Law Students Assn. v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 24 Cal.3d 458, 487 (1979).
   [Senate] actions to interfere with the course of Mr. Markevich’s employment, whether by dismissal, other sanction or even by commencing proceedings to discuss sanctions would be in gross violation of state labor laws, as well as Federal Civil Rights statutes. As such, [these] actions would open ASUCD to state and federal litigation and corresponding penalties. ...

   Today the ASUCD Elections Committee had to answer to two complaints lodged against them before a Student Judicial Affairs board. There were two hearings, with a ten minute recess between them. The board consisted of approximately several students from the SJA board. The Plaintiffs were “the Orwellians.”
   The first hearing was regarding the disadvantage the Elections Committee caused numerous candidates by saying that it was forbidden to campaign before candidates had been verified as eligible by the Elections Committee. It turns out such a rule does not exist, and moreover only one Certain Party campaigned during the effected week, gaining an arguably significant advantage thereby. What I thought was most significant about the arguments raised during this hearing was when the Elections Committee stated that the Certain Party in question could do so because they “verify their own candidates.”
   Even if it were a rule, and this Certain Party could reliably verify its own candidates ahead of time, in the interest of fairness one would have to constrain them to the same time constraints as everyone else, even if it meant that their verified candidates had to wait for everyone else to be verified – in effect the Elections Committee admitted in this that they consciously gave a huge advantage to a specific party.

   The second hearing was regarding the Elections Committee’s deletion of certain parts of the official Orwellian statement. While the Elections Committee had claimed they had taken the action to avoid a potential libel issue, the Orwellians began with an absolutely amazing barrage of evidence. revchad, speaking for the Orwellians, defined libel using two law books (one by an expert on contracts and torts, the other by the American Bar Assn), a quote from the ASUCD attorney, and a quote from none other than Mr Igor Birman (!!); and then, as one of the principal defenses against libel is that a statement is true, they provided no less than nine newspaper articles detailing the factual nature of the claims against former senator James Ackerman. To top all this off they cited the official United States Supreme Court opinion in Times v Sullivan, that “debate on public issues should be uninhabited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
   Also quoted, as evidence of the inequal application of the Elections Committee’s policy, was the official statement of former candidate Dana Davies-Shaw, in which quotes deriding the slates had been permitted to remain. This was significant and amusing because Dana is a member of the JSA judicial board. Though Dana had sat out from this case, it was still amusing to see the judicial board served up a quote from one of their own.
   I’m hard pressed to make an analogy for the awesome devastation of this attack, but I think one might say it was like the attack on Pearl Harbour, if the Americans had had it coming, and the Japanese caught all the American aircraft carriers at dock… and maybe even the Japanese and dropped their own nuclear bomb at that time for good measure.
   In response the Elections Committee tried to be illusive and argue circularly to the point that the judicial board sounded visibly irritated at them several times. I think my nomination for the “worst argument ever” award goes to the Elections Committee for saying that because the Orwellians could have said anything they wanted in publicity produced with their own money, it didn’t matter that the Elections Committee edited the statements submitted through them.

   The Opinion of the judicial board will apparently be submitted to their SJA keepers no later than three days from now, from whence it will be submitted to the ASUCD Advisor, from whence it will probably be edited and/or missfiled. Call me crazy but I'd rather it simulteniously be released to the Parties and (maybe) the ASUCD Advisor, as the advisor step is unnecessary, and frankly I don't trust her even with so weighty a matter. It will be arriving on her very last day here, which will mean (A) less motivation for her not to "accidently" shred it, (B) on her very last day here she'll probably recieve a document detailing the grievious error of the policies she personally caused - a pleasant parting gift from the multicephalous justice organs of UC Davis.


   Anyway, other than that, I spent the whole day in the library once again. I happened to casually glance out the window I was sitting near at one point when who should I see riding his bike across a park bench directly below, but roommate Jason. Silly Jason.
   And then the laptop directly behind me was stolen when its operator ran off for two minutes to use the restroom. Worse still, it wasn’t her computer, but her friend’s, who had also been sitting nearby. As the desks in this area have little walls around them for maximum hermitage, no one, not even the computer’s unfortunate owner who had been about two feet from it at the time, noticed the theft. Upon realization of this crime the previously militantly antisocial students in the area, all of whom would have risked their very lives to avoid interaction, suddenly became a united community of mutually alarmed and concerned students – actually talking to eachother.

   During my dinner break I consulted with Miss Kristy Heidenberger over the phone as to where I should eat. She ended up reading through the list of eating establishments in the daviswiki, which I found amusing. Eventually I gave in to the call of big juicy hamburgers and ate at Ali Baba’s again.
   I ended my day in Café Roma, which was open with free refills on coffee till one or two (we left around 12:40) with Kritsy. There we had the unique priviledge of sitting next to (Dare I say sharing a power socket with even!) the creator himself of Daviswiki.org, Mr Philip Neustrom. Also present in the café at the time were ASUCD Senator Donnie Cohen-Cutler, former KDVS (90.3FM) director Miss Teresa Kenny, and recent US Congress candidate Mr Mike Dugas.


Life as a Library Refugee
   Now that the weekend is over I must contend with the persecution of Davis parking enforcement, as there is nowhere within several miles of campus where one can park for free for more than two hours. Additionally I had to be here at 9am this morning since the book I am using is on reserve and hence turns into a pumpkin if I wander away from the library for too long with it. So it looks like today I am going to spend the day as an itinerate Davis parking refugee, scurrying about to avoid the persecution of Davis Parking Enforcement.
   To make matters worse, neither food nor drink is permitted in the library and this is enforced in with truncheon and jackboot rigor. And the University hasn't even had the merciful conscience to locate an eatery or even small coffee dispensery anywhere near the library. And, the coup de grace of making the library an unpleasant place to spend your time -- the bathrooms are ill maintained, and lacking in toilet seat covers. I don't know about the ladies, but few males indeed will dare to sit upon a public toilet (particularly an ill maintained one!) without holy protection of a toilet seat cover.


Previously on EMOSNAIL
   Year Ago Yesterday: Blogological Experimentation - Curious about page hites, I'd monitered the hits (as registered by the pictures) in the entry the day before and determined it got 513 hits in 24 hours. If I wasn't so busy I'd do a similar study asap to get the data at exactly a year interval.. maybe in the next few days if I get a chance. Also I declare the theories of jurist Donald Dworkin to be crap.

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