The Siege

First Step – Taking Notice

Yeah, that’s right. “You’re just a student” is not only insulting to you, but more importantly, such sentiments betray an attitude, especially if coming from someone in a position of power, which can seriously undermine your rightful opportunities to fully participate in the college experience. You need to take note.

Depending on the situation, “You’re just a student” can really mean any and/or all of the following:

1) You’re just a child who should know his/her place, which is to politely and obediently comply with our commands.

2) I am unwilling to show you the respect that I would give to another adult.

3) You don’t really know anything, but we do.

4) Okay, maybe you know a few things, but not nearly as much as we do. Just keep quiet, listen and learn.

5) Let us adults handle the really important issues. Run along and play now.

6) You’ll have to ask our permission if you want to do that.

7) You’re unqualified to challenge us since we are the authorities and you certainly are not.

8) You are fragile and might break if we treat you like an adult.

9) We can easily manipulate you. You won’t even notice that we did it.

10) You are too immature to talk about certain things, like sex, for example.

11) We can make rules up on the spot. Who’s going to know the difference, you? Ha, ha, ha, ha…

12) Why don’t you just wait until you get out of school to ask those kinds of questions? Hmmm? Now go away.

13) We’re not really going to give you the tools to be fully-empowered now. Are you kidding? What, you think we want 30,000 students who know and assert their rights on our campus. As if!

This is what happens when the remedies of the system are exhausted and inadequate to the task. You go outside of the system. And now the participants in the Office of Student Life – Assistant Dean of Student Life Deyna Hearn, Student Activities Advisor Benny Blaydes, and the Associated Student Board of Directors…plus others – have received a five-page notice about their obligations under the law from the office of the Los Angeles District Attorney. In the unfortunate event of further violations, it’s unlikely the D.A.’s office will limit their involvement to a letter. Violations of the Brown Act are a misdemeanor.

But let’s start back at the beginning.

A Poem by Matt Gillam

You drowned me down to a spinning haze,
a cloud that hurricaned
with little fizzles of flashes in blue,
a single vicious notion that the number
of two was one number too many
and must be destroyed.

Skin soaked in with twisted grins,
a head of wine
and fingers panged
with a hunger for a new secret fold
of flesh and fluids and solid bone.

And your tongue,
it talked to tame the ends
of nerves that twitched in freckled sparks,
electric silk that wove in me
a soft handed song
with a muscled arm
that I could not help but bite
my teeth into.

Where are the local demonstrations of outrage over the war crimes presently being perpetrated by the Israeli Goliath against the Lebanese people? Go to Save Lebanon to find out when and where demonstrations will be staged in your community.

And since the Western mainstream media (MSM), particularly in the United States, is compromised in its ability to report the facts regarding the Middle East, truth-seekers must dig elsewhere to find reasoned and detailed information untainted by Cheney Administration-friendly bias. An excellent blog covering the issues pertaining to Israel’s irresponsible reaction to Hezbollah’s killing of eight Israel soldiers and capturing two can be found at Lebanese Blogger Forum.

A Poem by Matt Gillam

I carry a velvet violin
in the case
where you left it
padlocked
by my
eardrums

You meant to throw it out,
to leave it shattered
in the trash
when your fingers had finally
betrayed you,
too

But I kept it safe
from you
(in me)

and play it
the way you used to play

No one but me
can hear the sounds you made,
the sounds that only I now make
in recollections
and forced memories

- but I play the damned thing
anyway
as I walk along the streets
and wait in lines
and end my days