The Agrinautica

   From Wednesday afternoon until early this morning I have been in Davis. The main reason for my visit was that before I filed for graduation I had to file for my minors, and I could only do the latter in person.

   This I was able to quickly accomplish once there, however. I have now officially filed to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with an emphasis on "Peace & Security" and "Russia / Eastern Europe," and minors in Communications, History, and Political Science. Unofficially, thats Communication with an emphasis on conflict resolution and organizational communications, and the pre-law series of poli sci.


Episode 1: Welcome to Crazytown
   Wednesday, I came in on a 1:20pm SouthWest flight and took the Yolobus from the airport to Davis. At the Woodland mall bus stop I had to change busses. While there I saw two people talking about something. I'm not sure what, but one was trying to get the other's contact information and the other was saying he doesn't use a phone because he doesn't trust the phone company not to listen in. I filed them both under crazypeople in my mind.
   Unfortunately, one of them (not the one without a phone) got on the same bus as me and sat across from me. Of course, before the bus even started moving he started tryinng to start a conversation with me. Since I was dressed up, wearing a black tie, and had my briefcase, I thought it might be hilarious to tell him I worked for the government and then answer any further questions with "I'm sorry I can't discuss that," but on the other hand I decided he'd probably get all riled up about that and cause a ruckus.
   After asking my name and what I was doing, and finding me not to be a government agent, he pointed to some construction going on on the mall. "They're being very proactive here. They're building a watchtower on the mall." "Why?" "Oh five judges, the mayor of Davis, and some DAs are accused of kidnapping someone, so everyone is all freaked out." "Really? Who?" "Me!!" I proceeded to refile him under "completely off his rocker."
   Anyway, it turns out this guy was the infamous Crazy Joe Sherman, and basically he lived up to his description on the wiki page. He spent the entire time regailing me about how he is the victim of a vast conspiracy. It seems the more he annoys people, the more he thinks their reactions toward him are part of the conspiracy, and the more he feels like he's a rightious persececuted jesus character. He said he had just recently gotten out of 313 or so days of jail, where the other prisoners isolated and persecuted him on orders from the external religious establishment (because you know middle-class Davis churches have mad prison connections!). He also mentioned that he believes God has indicated to him that his true calling is to become a teacher -- which is somewhat concerning considering that several accounts on his wiki page allude to him having a creepy predilection for the company of young males. In a tangental note, wiki user MikeDurkee apparently thinks we should overlook his many creepy and socially dangerous behaviours because he is a "warrior of god." I would like to officially point at MikeDurkee and say "lol!"


Episode 2: Cover blown!
   Yolobus deposited me at the front of the school (from the student's perspective anyway, not to be confused with the Chancellor's idea of the "front" of the school, aka the back side, where important guests don't have to behold those pesky undergrads which burden down their business of corporate research). I was immediately spotted by ASUCD President Kareem Salem (The first ASUCD President since 2002 not to be sworn in by me). I took care of the Communications and History minors but the IR and Poli Sci offices had closed early that day. Ran into one or two more people. Went home and found the apartment much as a left it.
   Suprised the Court at their Wednesday night meeting, then went with Justice Harney to dollar pint night at Sudwerks, where we ran into Pete Markevich (whom you may recall recently survived a Senate witchhunt), along with Sen. Alexandra Frick.


Episode 3: One More Senate Meeting
   I had been reluctant to go to the Senate meeting, having been to so many in my lifetime that even Brent Laabs probably has yet to catch up to me. However, the Senate was considering a landmark bill to formally give control of the judicial rules to the Court, which is kinda big thing so I decided to go for that.
   Previous to consideration of the bill, a lot of the usual antics were re-enacted for the millionth time. Since budget hearings were this weekend, a lot of organizations came to "show and tell" how awesome they are in hopes of getting fatter budgets. Some guy with a penchant for beating dead horses harangued the whole Senate at length for being vaguely associated with someone who had during their free time expressed the political opinion that current policies are not satisfactory to ensure the safety and documentation of all immigrants. I found it highly ironic that his main point was that he thought the DCR event was immature, but I found it pretty immature that he was rightiously chastising the Senate for something they had no control over.
   Then representatives from the Muslim Student Association pre-emptively began defending the anti-semetic speaker they'd brought to campus, while at the same time attacking Jewish Senator Eric Friedman and the DCR immigration event. In short, business as usual.

   Anyway, eventually the bill came up and passed relatively quickly. I thought it was kind of ironic that they made the change in the obsolete Judicial Codes, which will soon be completely abrogated, rather than the general Bylaws or somewhere else where it'll remain, but it was largely symbolic anyway.

   Quote of the Day: "You're the reason people don't take ASUCD seriously" - Brent Laabs to Commissioner Jill Weinstein after she expressed the opinion that ASUCD is just a glorified student club, rather than possessing any semblance of the legitimacy of a governing body.


Episode 4: Scrabble I
   After the meeting, several Senators, Justice Harney & I went to Sen. Dan Xie's house to drink and play scrabble. Since Joe and I were the ones getting the alcohol I of course brought them steel reserve (though Joe also selected some hard lemonade).


Episode 5: Campus Life
   Friday afternoon there were people with a big sign evangelizing by the flag pole, which is not terribly uncommon. However, in this case they were PASTIFARIANS bringing the glorious messege of the Flying Speghetti Monster to the unsaved! True heroes of faith whom MikeDurkee should have a frank chat with.
   Upon investigation these people were not affiliated with either Campus Crusade for Chaos & Confusion (C4), or AGASA, but were in fact merely persons whom the Flying Speghetti Monster in His sauceness saw fit to reach out and touch with His noodly appendage. Their unaffiliated status is clear evidence of the Truth of the supposition.
   Also there were some people in a bathtub on the quad wearing feathered headdresses. Typical. Eventually I noted that Rob Roy and Elise Kane were over there and said hi to them. (Here's a picture of both the Pastifarians AND the girls in the tub)


Episode 6: Life in the Trees
   Friday evening the internet went out at The Trees, which is just so typical. It didn't come back all weekend. Moreover, the internet connection was still there, it just wasn't recognizing the hardware address (MAC address) of mine or my roommates computers. This has been a frequent problem throughout the time we've had this provider, especially on weekends when the tech support is out, which once one actually gets ahold of the tech support is usually resolved by them simply resetting their system. Notwithstanding, you should rent my room at the Trees!!
   Anyway, Friday evening I took a nap in hopes the internet would come back, as I had no other form of entertainment in the midafternoon. By 7 I was getting desperate and decided to take the bus to campus to use the computer labs.
   I took the 7:18 bus in, only to find the computer labs close at 6 on Fridays! I could have sworn they used to be open till ten on Fridays. Anyway, there was still free wireless on campus but my laptop was at home and the bus I'd just come in on had left already. I waited for the next bus, the 8:10, until 8:20, when another person waiting for it suddently exclaimed that they'd forgotten the busses were no longer running since it was Friday evening. This left me with an hour and a half until I had anywhere to be. I called Justice Wheat to see if I could come over early for his shindig, but no answer. Despite the fact that that location was near campus, I started walking home because I had nothing better to do. It took half an hour to walk home from campus. It being then 9:00, I'd have had to immediately turn around and head back had John not called me at that point and said he could pick me up.


Episode 7: Scrabble II
   When I got to John's place, two of his roommates were trying to punch a second hole into a coconut ("double penetrate it"), and into which they then poured rum to make genuine coconut rum. They didn't like the result terribly much so I ended up drinking from the coconut all night. After I finished the original coconut rum I just poured whatever I was drinking into the coconut because it was funny. This resulted in some comments about my nut being sticky, along with other comments about people handling my nut, writing on my nut, etc.
   Anyway, despite the fact that John aimed to keep it "low key" a good amount of people showed up (but not too many, just enough to be awesome), and it was quite fun. My friend Shemek (who was a campaigne manager for the original Lead slate of the Huerta presidency -- but left ASUCD in disgust over their rampant corruption) joined me there. John Wheat and his fellow English-tutor coworkers from the Learning Skills Center played scrabble, but others were reluctant to engage such English aces in such a game. I thought it was funny that when the ASUD officers played the game, they argued about the rules and what the definitive set of rules was and other governance related questions, while the English majors got into arguments about what parts of speech certain words were.
   Anyway, it was good fun. Good work John Wheat & roommates.


Episode 8: Daytime Ruckus
   On Saturday Shemek and I hit the Hunan's Lunch Special around noon . Then we met up with Miss Rosejean Weller. Since we three were former Davis MUNers, and the Davis MUN Conference was currently ongoing, and especially since fellow former Davis MUNers Akila Radhakrishnan and Nishan Bhaumik, we resolved to crash the conference. Then the idea got better when someone suggested we do it drunk. So it being around 2pm we got some 40s of steel reserve and drank them, along with some jagermeister. And we were good to go!
   After this, the three of us went to woodstocks for more pizza and beer. Finally after a good afternoon of good ruckus causing we parted ways. I then returned to the conference for a little bit and guest spoke as a Russian representative. I may have still been a little inebriated, but that may have been an accurate portrayel of the Russian government. ;)


Episode 9: A Formal End
   Just as I was getting out of MUN, Brittawater Segerstrom called me and said I should come over and go to a volleyball formal with them. Which was pretty random but it was only a $12 formal and I didn't have anything else to do, and happened to already be dressed up for the MUN conference.
   Over at the M Street I joined Brittawater, Julie Parker, Kim Bowles, Sarah Jones, and a number of others.
   Eventually we walked from M Street to the event at the Senior Center. As there were initially more than a dozen of us, this took awhile, and by the time the front of our group got there the back had disappeared completely and some had found a ride somehow.

   Anyway, after being there for a little while the group consensus seemed to shift towards a hankering to go to the bars, so once again the group set out on foot, this time towards Froggys on G Street. This brought the total walking distance up to 2.1 miles, and everyone still had to find their way home again (returning to M St would bring it to 3 miles. I don't envy the girls in heels).
   Eventually I walked with what was left of the group back up to fifth street, where they turned toward M and I turned to start my own 3 mile journey back to the Trees (since the airport shuttle was picking me up there at 5:15, crashing on a couch was not an option). Fortunately I happened to completely coincidently run into one of the girls who'd been with us earlier around Central Park. She had struck off by herself toward the Colleges but had felt very uncomfortable making the journey alone and so had called a guy friend, who happened to show up almost simulteniously with me running into her. As he was giving her a ride I managed to get a ride with him as well, which was quite a relief since I still had a very long way ahead of me.


Episode 10: The End
   Airport shuttle picked me up at 05:15am and my plane departed at 7:35am. Altogether, I had even more fun up in Davis than I thought I would. It was great seeing everyone again. There's so much more going on up there than down here in OC. I can't wait to come up with an excuse to visit again!

ASUCD: Not a Government?
   So I went to the ASUCD Internal Affairs Commission meeting yesterday, to counteract the arguments made last week about how ASUCD does not need a Court.
   It is unclear whether the discussion last week was pre-planned, or just kind of happened. IAC commissioners first said "we were just kind of getting ideas out there to see how we felt about it and then we were going to talk to you if we wanted to do something," implying a planned discussion, but later other commissioners said it just randomly came up and bristled at the implication that they couldn't randomly bring up whatever they want. The minutes are unclear, since they indicate a jump from talking about something completely different to an in depth discussion about why we don't need a court with no transition at all.

   Commissioners insisted at length there was no room for a Court in a "business model," I tried to point out that it says in the first article of the ASUCD Constitution, and in the ASUCD Administrative plan, that ASUCD is explicitly not a business, but the commissioners didn't seem to be very open to seeing ASUCD as anything but a business... and businesses don't have Courts.

   I was also asked "how non-elected officials can serve this purpose." Honestly I wasn't at all prepared for such a complete lack of understanding of the American government system. Next week we are going to be prepared with choice quotes from the Federalist Papers.

   There were also some choice quotes in last week's minutes, such as "I have no respect for their legal opinions" (coming from "The Goodly Kai" himself I think). I'm going to try to get my hands on a copy of those minutes for more in depth review here.

   Next week its Round III at IAC, 5pm Monday in the MU Garrison Rm. Should make for an interesting debate about the very nature of ASUCD.


UCDMUNC 2006
   This weekend we hosted the UCD MUN Conference. I chaired Special Political & Decolonization Committee (SPD), discussing Chechnya & the Spratley Islands. I forgot my camera the first day, so I only got pictures of the clean-up afterwords.


Picture of the Day

Davis City Council candidate Rob Roy speaks during the ASUCD candidates forum. ASUCD president Darnell Holloway looks attentive while actually listening to his Ipod.

   Like I said, my camera is working again. This is the Yolo County Superior Courthouse, where I spend much of my time these days.

   Note the POW/MIA flag that flies in front of the Courthouse. It always seems to me that this flag must seem slightly ironic to the many who come and go from the Courthouse in chains.
   Incidently, Wikipedia doesn't have an entry on the POW/MIA flag. I've always wondered what the deal is with it.










   All in all the Courthouse is kept pretty spotless. This is the only graffiti in the restroom. Given that its in a pretty visable location and it appears that graffiti around it has been erased, I think the maintanance people have found it amusing.

   On my first day working there my supervisor Gail looked over the filing I was doing and remarked "good, it looks like you're doing it all right ... but of course if you weren't it would be my fault for improperly instructing you." This struck me as a particularly enlightened philosophy others should take note of -- that if one has subordinates and they are operating sub-par, rather than blame it all on them, the ranking individual should consider it entirely their own responsibility to ensure quality operations.


In Other News:
   (1)Contention continued throughout the day on the Rob Roy / Talk page regarding whether the wiki would include any references to his allegedly racist public statements. Thomas Lloyd repeatedly declared himself to have won the argument and deleted all references he found offending, but I wouldn't let him get away with it. Then Lloyd dropped the Libel word, which is becoming somewhat like Godwin's Law on the wiki¹ I think (the Abebnego Woods troll alleged libel the other day as well), and illustrated his point with a link that clearly damaged his own point.
   Lest you get the wrong idea, it should be noted that I have not added any of the disputed content myself, and am not saying I think he's a racist; I am standing against the suppression of unfavored viewpoints & a double-standard in reporting.

   (2)Jurists across the world were saddened the other day by the death of Slobodon Milosevic while in custody in The Hague. Slobo's death denies thousands of the justice his conviction would have brought them.

¹"As a wiki discussion grows longer, the probability of someone incorrectly alleging libel approaches 1." - Call that Kris's Second Law (The first is that if the potential for drama is enough, anyone can and will find your livejournal)

Previously on Emosnail
   Year and a Week Ago Yesterday: The Politics of Character Assassination - More on the drama in MUN: I post links to the opposing arguments. Also, the BBC calls me for an opinion on US Supreme Court Cases (true story).
   Year and a Week Ago Today: UCBMUNC 2005 - In the middle of all our MUN drama we decide to all pack into a small hotel room or two for a weekend. We survived with fairly little intrigue considering. I think I was the only one to win an award (Shemek might have as well?)
   Year Ago Last Wednesday: Classified - Classified. Sorry for the broken picture links.
   Year Ago Last Thursday: Elections & Disenfranchisement - The new ASUCD Senate is seated "ushering in an era of unprecedented diversity of affiliation on the Senate." In contrast, with the seating of this year's new Senate, the Leadite party controls 2/3rds of the Senate, the Executive Office, and has appointed all but one of the Supreme Court Justices (I was a Focus appointee).
   Year Ago Last Friday: The Emo-Agricola International - In an international development I've found reason to cite with suprising frequency in the year since, Bolivian President Carlos Mesa attempts to resign only to have his resignation rejected by the Bolivian Senate. Also, the former president of rebel Chechnya, Aslan Maskadov, meets a humble end at the hands of his own bodyguards in a basement. Also, a hawt picture of Kristy.
   Year Ago Yesterday: Senate Finds Chief Justice to Have Jedi Powers - Sen. Darth Lloyd was instrumental in convincing them that I used mind tricks to cause 9 Internal Affairs Commissioners & 12 Senators to think that a 5 line Bill meant the opposite of what it actually meant. And I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those pesky kids "your mind tricks don't work on me" Kalen the Hutt! Also the Lebanese Prime Minister tries for the second time to resign, but once again his resignation is rejected by the parliament.

   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, proponents of the override of the qualifications for office have strongly advocated that we all put it behind us, and maintained there'd be no public outrage. Today the Aggie pwned them in three articles (Senators-Elect Take Office Due to Retroactive Legislation, Editorial: Actions Diminish Associations Credibility and ASUCD Election Never Certified (letter to editor)). This evening Friends Urging Campus Kindness Senator Birdsall notified all officers who had dissented againt the Senate actions that they will be considered for removal this Thursday...

   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) 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. )=

Thursday I hung out with Carissa and we explored local labyrinthine edifice The Social Science Building, known endearingly as "The Death Star."

   That evening I went to the ASUCD Senate meeting. It was dominated by an extensive debate about whether or not the Senate should pass a resolution urging local businesses not to accept advertising from cigarette companies (or something along those lines). I just listened for logical fallacies in the arguments and desisted from participating. I got on the speakers list during public discussion at the end, but the Senate adjourned before I could speak. I might mention some of my thoughts next week.
   Of particular note though, I was very disappointed in the way more than one senator summarily rejected the comparisons the "pro-smoking" Focite senators (particularly mini-Kalen) were making to alcohol, simply because they said the two things were "different." This you see, was "political correctness" in action. You probably don't think of being anti-smoking as being "politically correct," because it seems like an obvious thing to many people, but when one won't even listen to the arguments against alcohol because you know smoking is condemnable but drinking isn't so much, thats where you're letting PC guide your actions. PC makes taking certain stances condemnable and leads to less intelligent discussion and a generally undesirable political environment (though at the time one will probably not notice if one is themself on the PC train). Don't get me wrong, I am for the gradual elimination of smoking from society, and am against similar treatment of alcohol, but the summary refusal to entertain the Focite proposal offended me.
   Eventually the resolution passed with Rob Roy flipping a coin to decide the crucial vote (video footage!).

Friday I went to Murder Burger for lunch with Roxie and her friend (Molly?). We saw turtles in Putah Creek and Kalen Gallaghers at Murder Burger (along with Kalen's "hetero lifemate," Behzad).

Friday night: see Pledging. Also saw The Motorcycle Diaries with Kritsy and Sashie. Its about Che Guevara before he became a radical revolutionary.

Saturday morning I took the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE). A six hour test designed to see if your hand has the endurance necessary to process paperwork while under fire in third world kleptocracies while advocating US policy (from a cubicle). Also Azver was there.


Pledging
   Monday night we had our first pledge meeting and informed of everything about the process. Wednesday night we met our "big sibs." Mine is a girl I've known for awhile, she was a Senate reporter for KDVS like two years ago I think. I escaped early though because I needed to put together a presentation in Swedish that I had to give the next morning.
   Friday night we had casino night, which I thought was cool because I have no idea how to play poker but would like to learn where money isn't on the line - as in this case. I've found my lack of understanding can almost be advantagious, since obliviousness to the value of ones cards leads to a perfect poker face. At one point I beat someone who had a flush with a better flush, causing them to exclaim "he plays a flush just like a low pair, its insane!!" Fact is though, that I hadn't even looked at my cards until I turned them over. (=
   After a glorious winning streak however, people nickle and dimed me to death until I was only up 12 points.


Picture of the Day