The Siege

A Poem by Aaron Howell

Luscious cauchemar ostentatious comme suite,
The lotus et lost sheep,
And a coup de traître ravishing contentment (contention)
Into an eye-sore, then extinct.

Et Amoré? Love = Adore: adoré …
Jé rêve of she,
With those enombrable eyes
Diluted in LA beauté du diable,
Et lips as rouge as a rose!

Hors d’haleine with the sol se tourner
Et se retourner above the
Virgin day.

Caractéristique of Sunday …
A beautiful day à la cherche,
A belle morn in the sun
As a ladybug flaps its wings …
Landing gently on the rep lips
Pursed lovely with desire,
A kiss.

Aaron Howell is a student at Santa Monica College

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!

A Warning to the Office of Student Life

Click here to read the entire five-page letter.

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.

SMC has a BIG PROBLEM

JUNE 6 UPDATE: Today, The Siege had a wonderful meeting with Dean Judith Penchansky (SMC Disciplinarian) and student Nehasi Lee in response to a false police report that described me as a “disruptive student” at the May 18 event detailed below.

The dean and I had a frank and honest exchange of ideas regarding my encounters with SMC’s police and her office’s duty to follow-up on any complaint lodged by any SMC staff against a student. She came across as reasonable, a good listener and ultimately acknowledged there was nothing for her office to take action over. Hopefully, as a responsible member of the SMC administration, she will relay to others in a position to care and take action, the concerns expressed about pervasive police misconduct at the college.

NEWS: Truly there are many officers of the law, everywhere, who operate day after day as heroes and defenders of the people, protecting our civil and constitutional rights and liberties. They deserve our continual thanks and appreciation for standing between us and the lawless chaos which would ensue without them. This author, on many occasions, has had reason to express appreciation for an officer’s help, especially those from the Los Angeles Police Department.

But there are others who, putting on a badge, believe themselves to be set apart to bully and abuse (click to witness SMC cops in action), at their pleasure, the very citizens they’ve sworn to protect. Usually this bullying happens to those who remain the most unempowered, either by economic class or by education. Students fit in here perfectly. It’s this small percentage of badge-wearers, committing crimes under the color of authority, who deserve our profound contempt and need to be held accountable under the law.

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.

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

All you Santa Monica College students who want to transfer to UC Berkeley, want to do some advance reconnaissance, beyond just reading the contents of their website, before you get there? Now you can at iTunes via the progressive reach of this stellar university. Go to Berkeley on iTunes U and you can download to your iPods a vast assortment of information about the college.

You can find downloadable courses in:

Computer Science
Biological Science
Engineering
Physical Science
Arts & Humanities
Chemistry
Natural Resources
Social Sciences

Or check out their events in:

Arts
Journalism & Media
Science & Technology
Global Affairs
Politics & Public Policy

Listen to pieces on “Berkeley’s Nobel Tradition” or “Research at UC Berkeley.” Want to know more about their campus life? Download a four-part walking tour of the university.

What if you could be go beyond RateMyProfessor.com and actually hear professors on a variety of fascinating topics? From professors Michael Pollan on “Journalism,” Tim White “On the Trail of Our Human Ancestors,” or to “Power in the Information Age” by Steve Weber, there are growing numbers of audio presentations worth listening to.

Check it out.

A Poem by Matt Gillam

he gave me a riddle
I couldn’t solve
a koan a puzzle of pretence
of desire and intent

he touched my arm in the dark drunk bar he
le let me lead him to my house he
let me look as his back was turned he
let me touch his head but not my bed he
licked his words to confuse my verbs
he winked

and he refused

the rubix cube
only a simple square of squares
the trigonometry
only a string of numbers and signs
the labyrinth
only a simple path to the end

Don’t you just hate it when good people fail to get the recognition they deserve? The Siege certainly does. Santa Monica College has some folks (click here) involved with the Office of Student Life, student government and school newspaper – the Corsair – who just haven’t gotten the attention that should have come their way. In a democracy, such information is very important.

And with the Corsair mostly disinterested in many student affairs for much of this year (click here), despite the presence of “Corsair club” (How many times did your club actually meet this year, exactly?) representative and the paper’s news editor, Lauren Ciancimino, at Inter-Club Council meetings, you’d have thought there might be better coverage. But no, there wasn’t. In fact, the paper could hardly have taken less interest in many of the critical issues raised at student government meetings because, generally, no reporter showed up to find out what those issues were. And even if they were in attendance, not a peep was the usual result.

So The Siege has gladly produced a couple of videos to fill this vacuum and to honor just three people (Student Activities Advisor Benny Blaydes, outgoing ICC Chair and incoming A.S. President Victoria Pregler – both featured in video 1 - and Jeremy Meyer, Corsair editor in chief – in video 2 - that you might have learned more about, if anybody cared to tell you. (Meyer is the good-looking fellow on the right.)

A Poem by Matt Gillam

Behind dark sunglasses
and behind my eyes
I watch

the bodies move
across concrete
and above the sands
that feed the waves

The bodies move
and I, sitting,
watch them pass
through dark eyes
and opened eyes

I am still
and they see me
in a glance

They move
(and I watch)
the bodies
behind my eyes

Matt Gillam, 20, is finishing his second year at Santa Monica College. Accepted at UC Berkeley for fall admission, he intends to major in philosophy.