aggienaut: (gavel)

   In my five years of involvement in ASUCD, I have seen a lot of extremely shady antics. As I’ve mentioned before, I do not believe power corrupts, I believe power allows the already-prone-to-corruption to show themselves. There are a lot of scandals in real government, and students love to point these out – but what most people don’t realize is that its not because the people involved in our government are more prone to corruption than your average person – its that they have much greater opportunities (and are under much much greater scrutiny, thus revealing every indiscretion).
   That said, I believe what ASUCD does is show us how badly your average ambitious person behaves when given a little bit of power. Or at least, when not behaving downright badly, it really exhibits how much their perspectives change to what is convenient for them.


The Good List
   Unfortunately, those with exemplary good ethical standards don’t necessarily stand out the way bad ethics do. I would like to start on a good note however, by mentioning those who have impressed me with their ethics:

Surprisingly Admirable:
(ii) Ari Kalfayan )


(i) Nafeh Malik )


Exemplary Nonstudents:
(ii) Don Dudley, SJA & CJB )
(i) Mark Champagne )


Actually Exemplary:
(5) Go Funai )
(4)
& (3) Justices Powers & Wheat )
(2) Jon Leathers )
(1) Aggie Editor-in-Chief Matty Jojola )



   It should be noted, that I cannot account for the most EFFECTIVE people in ASUCD, since I am not in a position to judge how well people are running the busses or running GASC etc etc. The above is a list of those who have had the opportunity to show exemplary ethics (or at least, for the group above that, have more value than people give them credit for). And below, below is a list of the most lacking in ethics.


ASUCD’s Most Ethically Misguided

Mildly Annoying:
(iv) Paul Harms )
(iii) Kalen Gallagher )
(ii-i) Sara Henry & Paloma Perez )

Ethically Dysfunctional:
(22) Thomas Lloyd )
(21) Anyone who, during their term, abandoned or defected from the platform they were elected on )
(20) Jamie Ackerman )
(19) Chris Goran )
(18) Mary Vasquez )
(17) Aggie Reporter Talia Kennedy )
(16) Aggie Reporter Aimee Theron )
(15-11) Aggie Editor-in-Chiefs Vo, Whelan, Fuller, Stone & Hamilton )
(10) Andrew Peake )
(9) Kai Savaree-Ruess )
(8-6) The Unqualified Candidates )
(5) Rob Roy )
(4) Kristen Birdsall )
(3) Chief Justice Turner )
(2) Vice President Beaman )
(1) Tiqula Bledsoe )
(BONUS) Bonus! )



   And now… I probably have significantly more enemies. It should be noted that I think many of the people mentioned above are very nice people in general. In particular I feel a bit torn about the “Unqualified Candidates” themselves because they all turned out to be pretty nice people and kept themselves out of any further shadiness that I know of, but it would be hard to justify not including them on the list.
   Anyway, my hope in posting this is that people who are just becoming involved in ASUCD will read it and keep in mind what NOT to do in the future.

aggienaut: (Default)

   So I survived my trip up here.


Road Rage in the Central Valley
   The trip was pretty uneventful, other than an odd occurance of road rage.
   I drive in the right-most lane available, unless passing vehicles (in which case, I move into the right-most lane available to pass them). The Five is a two lane road through most of the Central Valley.
   Frequently you get slow trucks in the right lane and a long queue of cars lined up in the left lane. As hanging out in the left lane when there is room in a lane further right is against my sensibilities, I usually cruise up behind the truck on the right lane, turn on my blinkers, let a car or two to my left pass by before moving into the left lane myself to pass a truck. I can see how this could be interpreted as "cutting in line" by other cars in the queue -- but hey they shouldn't be hanging out in the left lane!
   Anyway, in this particular incident I came up behind a truck, turned on my blinkers, let the car to my left pass me, and moved in behind it, as usual. Having passed the truck I moved back into the right lane and presumably would have passed the car on my left. But it moved into the right lane. I then moved back into the left lane. The other car then moved into the center between the two lanes!!
   It then permitted me to pass it on the right, and I looked over to see some guy veritably frothing at the mouth as he gave me a vigorous display of his middle finger. I just looked at him quizzically as I passed, because I really don't know what he had to be upset about other than that I guess I wasn't following his conception of driving behaviour (note that he hadn't even been a car I'd moved in front of in passing!)
   Seeing as this individual was obviously unstable I decided to put some distance between him and I and discovered the golf can get to 105 mph without too much trouble. I had to move in front of him soon to pass another truck (but there were several carlengths between us already), in my rear-view mirror I could see he was still shouting expletives at me as I left him in my dust.


Adventures in Davis, Day 1
   Upon arrival in Davis I decided I ought to make the most out of the Saturday night experience and started looking for a ruckus to cause. I determined that the best I could come up with on short notice was Britta and friends going to the Cantina, a bar I've never actually been to on G Street.

   First I needed to get gas however. So I hopped on down to the gas station down the street (Lake and Covell for those following along at home). Who should be in the Circle K there, but Chad Van Shoelace (which was particularly suprising because he no longer lives in Davis)!

   I parked in front of the Foyerhouse, and walked to Aggie Liquor to get some cheap alcohols to consume previous to being in the bar. At Aggie Liquor I found a guy playing his guitar out front. He was pretty decent. Then a guy showed up to buy beer who started freestyling to the guitar and he was actually really good. A crowd started to form to watch the two. It was pretty cool. I ended up hanging out there for about an hour I think.

   Then I continued on my way to the Cantina. Outside of Froggy's I ran into ASUCD President Kareem Salem, and Chris Harold. I thought it was kind of funny that Kareem was one of the first people I ran into this time, because he was also the first person I ran into LAST time!
   Anyway, it turned out Britta & co were at Woodstocks Pizza, which was fortunate because I wasn't really looking forward to being in Cantina, & I was rather peckish. We all walked back to Britta's place on M street and watched some Matt Damon movie.

   This morning I awoke on the M Street couch. The group from the night before (pretty much all of whom had crashed at the M Street House) was headed over to the Dining Commons for brunch (presumably to use up a freshman friends remaining swipes, which would roll over at the terrible ratio of $2/swipe into meal credit for the campus fast-food places, if unused this year). I had made lunch plans with Tarisha Bal the night before however so I parted ways and met Tarisha at Plutos for lunch.


Subsequent Plans
   Other than being in Court in Woodland, and trying to fill my old room here, I'm also planning on finally investigating the steam tunnels on campus. I've recruited some other adventurers for this quest already, but if interested please contact me! I think we'll do it tomorrow evening. Now I find out if campus police read this lj (=

   Tarisha apparently got this grant from Roadtrip Nation to go on a huge cross-county road trip from June 18th through 29th (and document it). I really want to go. I figure (A) I couldn't afford to go Europe or any of those other fun things people do after they graduate, the least I can do is roam the States; (B) If I get a job between now and then, I could just tell them I need to give my current employment two weeks notice, which is of course entirely acceptable and could bring us up to the 29th (and hey, I could tell Dave I'm starting a new job in two weeks or whatevs, hence not lying about two weeks notice, and he'd surely let me have my last day whenevers). Depending of course on route preferences of the other people involved, I would probably get to visit Aaron Aviv in New Orleans, [livejournal.com profile] pavel_lishin in Texas, my relatives in New York whom I haven't seen in many years, and Yellowstone National Park!


   Other things on my to-do list include breakfast at Crepeville and dinner at Fuzios, if anyone wants to join me for either that would be excellent.

aggienaut: (asucd)

   At Senate today the six senators elected a year ago made their farewell speeches and were replaced by six new senators. In their farewell speeches, Senator Spencer Higgens announced his intention to run next quarter as the Focus Presidential Candidate, Senator Kareem Salem announced his intention to run as the Lead Presidential Candidate, and Senator Jonathon "Independant" Sanders --who almost exactly a month ago left the Lead party with "no plans on running for office on another slate in the future" announced his intention to run as the Focus Vice Presidential Candidate. The ASUCD Advisor / SGAO then completely overstepped their authority and gave the six outgoing senators the certificates of election that the Elections Chairman had refused to issue last year (stating that he could not in good conscience certify the election after the qualifications for office had been retroactively changed). Technically this would finally make these outgoing senators real senators, at least for a few minutes until the new ones were sworn in -- but lacking the Elections Chairman's signature I guess they're not really certificates of election.

   As I'm still in office, this bring the total number of Senators I've served with as Chief Justice to 57.


Inaccurate Tasering
   I was also very amused today that our paper the Cal Aggie carried a "guest editorial" from the UCLA Daily Bruin titled "UCSA Taser Resolution Inaccurate, Uninformed." Coming from a school that not only is still a member of UCSA (the UC Student Assn), but was the location of the tasering incident itself, this chastisement is so much stronger than if it had come from us.
   In conclusion, the staff of UCSA should be tasered.

aggienaut: (Default)

   Somewhere, someone is about to get an eviction order signed by "Kris Fricke, Deputy Clerk, Yolo County Superior Court." I feel so proud.
   The Conaway Ranch case is back... a "petition for writ of mandate to the California Court of Appeals Third District" was lying on top in a cute little red binder ... looks like its getting appealinated. I read most of the petition on my break, it was only 11 pages, and quite saucy.


   On Friday night Kristy & I went to the "Thank God the Elections Are Over" party. Even though it was at Lead candidate Genevieve Carnes' place, I think there were more independants than Lead party members there.
   I think independant candidate Jeremy Ross tried to hit on Kristy. Later, when I introduced myself, his friend was like "you're the guy from Emosnail!!"


   On Sunday night Kristy and I went to "Rock It," the indie rock night at The Grad.


In Other News: Me mum & father recently visited my great-aunt (my dad's aunt) in New Orleans. Mum wrote a nice little entry about it (with a couple pictures of damage).

Fact of the Day: Our solar system is located in an intersteller formation known as "the Local Fluff"

Picture of the Day


Rob Roy, Jeremy Ross, & Kareem Salem do the electic slide at the party on Friday
(C) Kristy Heidenberger


Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years and one Week Ago Last Friday:
Stirling Suxors - Fire alarms and parking problems are just some of the bad behaviour at the Stirling apartment complex. Since that year they've changed their name in an effort to reinvent themselves.
   Two Years and one Week Ago Last Saturday: Fun With the The Aggie's Broken Links - And the ASUCD Candidates' Forum, and Heystek for City Council.
   Two Years and one Week Ago Tomorrow: Myths, Legends & Outright Lies about the Founding of the ASUCD Court - Also I first stumble upon the brilliant revelation: The Cheat = R2D2!
   Two Years Ago Last Wednesday: Psycho Roommate III
   Two Years Ago Last Friday: ASUCD Elections - Who I Voted For - Sitemeter says 81 people looked under the cut on the entry, and that number won't include just showing up on a friends page.
   Two Years Ago Today: The Case Against Slates - Lead is not a slate. A slate is a brittle metamorphic rock, whereas Lead is a malleable metallic element...

aggienaut: (asucd)

   Just two more things on the ASUCD situation: (1) Its not democracy if you don't know important details about what you're voting for. I mentioned this passingly the other day, but since then its occured to me that its actually pretty important, considering that the rallying cry of the Senate is "this is the democratic way" and "they were elected!" (2) (i) [livejournal.com profile] senatorroy says "Kareem was sent to SJA due to a grammatical error within an essay. He forgot to put quotation marks around a quote but he still sited the source giving the website where he got it word for word. But the professor was a hardass and sent him to SJA. Natalia was caught drinking in the dorms." (ii) in response, Elections Committee Chairman Leathers says "Because of an agreement I made with Kareem and Natalia, I'm not going to publicly state what exactly they were put on probation with SJA for, but the reasons listed above are not the reasons given by SJA." (iii) SJA in my experience has always been extremely lenient. Of cases I have known to go there, they've always resulted in the most minimal / understanding arrangement that could have been expected; (iv) in conclusion, we still don't know the full story. I don't want to hear it really, but (v) the student body clearly showed in the Ackerman case that they did not want a senator who had committed an unethical act, so (vi) I think one can pretty reliably say that if people had known the full story, these individuals would not have been elected. (vii) which once again isn't to say I'm against them specifically being placed into office, but I'm seeking to deflate another ridiculous misconception that is being bandied about.


And Now For Something Completely Different - The Dishwashing Deficit
   I always do dishes by hand because the dishwasher doesn't do the best of jobs. As such I tend to ignore the dishwasher completely. My two roommates, like normal people, like to let the dishes pile up until they can run the dishwasher. Possibly because whenever I do my dishes I try to do one or two more than I made dirty, so as to ensure I'm not running a net cleaning debt, and because I'll just start doing dishes if the pile in the sink has gotten so large I can't use it anymore, I have a feeling I'm doing most of the dishes around here and the other two are growing just to rely on me cleaning the dishes they leave in the sink.
   Some people (mostly on TV it seems) allegedly have jars in which they put a small amount of money every time they do something they're trying not to do, like curse. Phi Alpha Delta has begun collecting money from people who come to meetings late. It occured to me that theoretically one could require that persons depositing dishes into the sink to deposit something like 10 cents per dish into a nearby jar, and persons cleaning dishes could extract the equal amount. This way there's at least a slight motivation to do as many dishes as one makes dirty, or at least one is more aware of their net impact.

Picture of the Day
My camera appears broken -- has refused to open the lense for several days. )=

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