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!

14) If I threaten you, you will blink.

15) We can violate your rights with little concern that you have a clue as to what to do about it.

16) If you misbehave, we’ll send you to the disciplinarian who’ll bench you, give you a time out…or suspend you, you bad boy/girl. Now, is that what you want? Hmmm?!

17) In fact, we have a campus officer called the Disciplinarian to handle when you are bad.

18) We can ignore your rights. After all, you don’t even know what they are. Ha, ha, ha, ha…

19) We’re going to give you praise just for going through the motions. Come to the Board of Trustee meetings where we love to give these kinds of compliments. We’ll clap and applaud and make a big fuss.

20) Why don’t you just take classes, beef-up your resume, move on to a four-year school, and stop causing problems. You’re developing a bad reputation.

21) We don’t really have a high bar of expectations for you.

22) We’re not expecting that you’re expecting us to treat you as an adult.

23) Since you are still conditioned to think like a child, I can act like your surrogate parent, or friendly uncle/aunt and get you to do what I want. May the gods have mercy on those who attack me and who must then face your angry defense of me. Where are my lollipops to reinforce our relationship? What a good boy/girl you are.

24) If we don’t teach you parliamentary procedure or the Brown Act, then you won’t be bothering us by using those tools to hold us, or anyone else, for that matter, accountable.

25) We can use all kinds of delaying tactics to avoid dealing with you. By the time you figure out what we’ve done, you’ll be transferring somewhere else. Problem gone. Mission accomplished! Ha, ha, ha, ha…

26) We can run roughshod over your rights. What are you going to do about it? Huh?!

27) If you were an adult, we could expect so much more.

28) If you were an adult, we could expect you to meet the expectations of the real world.

29) You aren’t qualified to cope, yet, with the real world. That’s for AFTER college.

30) Who the hell do you think you are to try holding us accountable?!

31) I fail to grasp that people rise to the level of their expectations, which is why I treat you as if you are so limited.

32) Don’t imagine that you really have the same rights as adults.

33) We can threaten you and you will get back in line.

34) If we tell you something, just accept it without question.

35) How dare you ask that insolent question, or make that impertinent remark?!

36) Your impudence will go down on your permanent record.

37) Don’t forget, I’m the one who gives out the grades at the end.

38) I’m a professor and you are, what, taking my 101 course? I’ll talk, you listen…and take a lot of notes.

39) You couldn’t possibly go toe-to-toe with me.

40) If you make waves, the rest of the children (whom I have lavished with treats) will be unhappy with you, you won’t have any friends, and everyone will shun you for the troublemaker you are. Your life won’t be worth living. Is that what you want?

41) There is really only so much we can expect from you.

42) You haven’t, yet, earned the rights that adults have earned.

43) You are an empty vessel into which we will pour our knowledge and/or wisdom.

44) Don’t even think about challenging us or our authority.

45) When you get one of these (a Masters or a PhD.) then you will be on our level. You can talk to us as an equal at that time. Maybe.

46) Don’t dare take exception to anything we say and/or do.

47) I can gather all kinds of signatures from students for ballot initiatives if I load my table up with goodies (mostly candy) as incentives. That’s all the motivation they need.

48) We’ll let you know what to think.

49) I’ll hold your hand and help you get through this really scary place.

50) If you get a boo-boo or an owie, we’ll put a band-aid on it.

51) If you write for the school newspaper, try not to upset too many people.

52) If Mommy or Daddy is not around, we’ll substitute in.

53) Being obedient and compliant is equivalent to showing respect.

54) To challenge me, particularly publicly, is to be disrespectful.

55) To not comply with the wishes of others is to be disrespectful.

56) If we tell you how it is, just accept it and go away.

57) You don’t want me to have to bring your parents into this do you?

58) We are unwilling to show you the respect that we would give to another adult. Yeah, okay, I said it already in #11, but it it bears repeating.

59) Children (i.e. you) should be seen and not heard.

60) We will have very little patience for your childishness (which is anything we decide an adult wouldn’t do, or rather, anything we say it is).

61) If you ask a question and I answer, “because I said so,” or “because that’s just the way it is,” be a good boy/girl and accept it.

62) We’ll let you know what books to read, what papers to write.

63) Do you really think you can be trusted to act like an adult?

64) We can’t trust you to understand that cheating is wrong. That’s why we harp on it over and over and over and over… So what if the implication is that you are less than honorable and that our words constitute a form of disrespect and abuse.

65) Do you really think you can be trusted to be self-reliant and self-guiding in your education?

66) We have determined what you need to learn. You couldn’t possibly be trusted to figure that out.

67) You are in no position to criticize us. My god, what could you know?

68) You don’t really think we can respect you as an equal in co-governance do you? Please!!

69) Yeah, we have to act like student government is a co-equal in co-governance, but between us adults, come-on! Get real.

70) It’s easy to pry loose your Associated Student money for administration purposes. After all, the president’s office gets to designate its own advisor to the A.S. Board of Directors. Who do you think they’ll get close to? Who do you think they’ll listen to? Ha, ha, ha, ha…

71) Don’t even try to imagine that you can be a fully-empowered person at your age.

72) That you merely showed up earns you brownie points, happy faces, or gold stars. Which one would you like?

73) If we give you a lollipop, that should satisfy you. Ha, ha, ha, ha….

The Siege has 1,352 others, but 73 is such a nice round number, and besides, you get the idea.

All these attitudes, and many more, minimize you and are presumptuous obstacles to your fuller awakening and participation. You will encounter many of them as you struggle to find your footing and power in the world. Not everyone you encounter at SMC is guilty of the above. But just pay attention and you will discover how pervasive the problem truly is.

The fact is that we are all students, perpetually – even professors. You will find through life that your profoundest teachers (who are truly the wisest) are the ones who humbly and constantly recognize their own student status and are ripe to learn from you, even if they already have incredible learning of their own. In such company, you not only don’t feel minimized, but the expectation that knowledge may flow from you will raise you up and inspire you to express potentials you might have never suspected.

Next up: Second Step – Asserting your Rights

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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.

Let’s say you attend Santa Monica College and care that the student government truly represents the student body of approximately 30,000. So you go to their board meetings only to discover many decisions aren’t made in the public eye – but rather at some other time and place – and are brought to the proceedings. You wonder, “Where are the open deliberations?” “How am I supposed to understand what is happening?” But the student representatives, in so many ways, don’t really seem interested in your participation, questions, or comments. In fact, they become downright cranky when you point out that their ongoing failures to properly do their jobs undermine the students they’re supposed to represent.

Furthermore, the student reps and their advisors have decided that a whole bunch of items of interest are subject to their own private purview, to be considered in closed session. Even though the title of the office they belong to – Student Life – arguably encompasses everything, that point, ironically, is overlooked. They assure you that these items are no business of the public.

You investigate and find out that there are actually clear and easy to read laws (e.g., the Brown Act), rules and regulations in place – from the state level all the way down to the AS Constitution – that protect the rights of the public to monitor their representatives, to know what they are up to, and to participate in their meetings. Great! And besides that, the student reps are responsible for properly implementing these laws.

But when you bring this information up (before, during, and after student governmental meetings) to your student reps and the advisors – Hearn and Blaydes – in the Office of Student Life, nothing changes, for months and months, and the law keeps being violated. Additionally, so much basic information that should be readily available when you ask for it from people working in the self-same office remains consistently hard to come by.

Well, this is not the way things are supposed to work.

These people are either paid (by tuition and taxes) or elected by the students, to provide a certain quality of service to the students. So you send letters to these people and their superiors (e.g. Vice-President of Student Affairs, Dr. Robert “Bobbie” Adams and then-interim, but now-retired President Tom Donner), but no one responds. You complain to every theoretically responsible governing body on campus, including the board of trustees, but to no avail.

You find, much to your dismay, that the student constituency is guided by advisors chosen by the office of the president of SMC (as allowed by a serious flaw in California’s Education Code), instead of someone completely and only accountable to the students. You discover that there is no real advocate – strictly accountable to students – on the entire campus who solely exists to empower students and help them deal with such intransigence and irresponsibility. (Even the Ombuds Office is ultimately answerable to the administration and not truly independent.)

You additionally find that every other constituency – administration, faculty, and classified – is primarily committed to insuring the rights of their own group, and THEN those of the students.

So you go to the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Office of Public Integrity, which is responsive and does take these things very seriously. And in less-than three weeks, they send the AS board of directors (and arguably their advisors who too often assume powers and authorities not belonging to them), a lengthy letter dated June 26 which essentially validates all your year-long complaints as legitimate and serious against the wayward student reps and their advisors .

Perhaps that will get their attention.

And you do another thing.

Since information is so unforthcoming from the Office of Student Life, you send them a cover letter on June 19 along with a 19-page request to inspect documents (for starters) under the California Public Records Act. Amongst the guidelines for compliance are the following:

“The Public Records Act (GOVT. CODE §§ 6250 - 6276.48) is designed to give the public access to information in possession of public agencies: ‘public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the…agency and every person has a right to inspect any public record, except as…provided, [and to receive] an exact copy [of] an identifiable record’ unless impracticable. (§ 6253).

“An agency has 10 days to decide if copies will be provided. In ‘unusual’ cases (request is ‘voluminous,’ seeks records held off-site, OR requires consultation with other agencies), the agency may upon written notice to the requestors give itself an additional 14 days to respond. (§6253(c)) These time periods may not be used solely to delay access to the records. (§ 6253(d))”

Government Code, Sections 6253 and 6253.1, explain, by the way, that if there are any public records an agency wishes to withhold, it must state the reasons for such withholding.

Either information will start to flow from the Office of Student Life in accordance with what should be their mission, or it will ALL be requested via the use of the CPRA. The public has a right to this information. If the people responsible for this state of affairs cared more about responsibly doing their jobs than in thwarting easily answered questions, such measures would be unnecessary.

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.

Some victims, unwilling to passively take the abuse, rise to the non-crime of “contempt of cop” and express their outrage at being brutalized. Such a response to victimization, most assuredly, arouses the ire and retaliatory passions of bad cops. Sadly, SMC has too many of these rogue officers (Malone, Champagne, Trump, Hearn, and Echeverria – just for starters) and SMC seems loathe about addressing the problem.

Curiously, bad cops - clueless to the law - respond as if “contempt of cop” is a crime. And using profanity towards such an officer who is abusive, invariably, results in a heavy-handed response from the offended officer(s), despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling 35 years ago in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), regarding the defendant’s wearing a jacket proclaiming, “Fuck the Draft” that profanity is constitutionally protected speech.

Amongst numerous later rulings, in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (1987) additionally held that:

“A municipal ordinance that makes it unlawful to interrupt a police officer in the performance of his duty is substantially overbroad and therefore invalid on its face under the First Amendment. The ordinance in question criminalizes a substantial amount of, and is susceptible of regular application to, constitutionally protected speech, andaccords the police unconstitutional enforcement discretion, as is demonstrated by evidence indicating that, although the ordinance’s plain language is violated scores of times daily,only those individuals chosen by police in their unguided discretion are arrested.”

And later in their ruling:

“Although the preservation of liberty depends in part upon the maintenance of social order, the First Amendment requires that officers and municipalities respond with restraint in the face of verbal challenges to police action, since a certain amount of expressive disorder is inevitable in a society committed to individual freedom and must be protected if that freedom would survive.”

Such a lack of police restraint and abuse of student rights occurred at the campus newspaper office of the Corsair on Saturday, April 29, 2006.

At approximately 1:00 pm, in response to an invitation from Aaron Howell (then-online editor and ex-editor in chief from the fall semester), we met at his computer in the office of the campus newspaper, the Corsair. When long-time Corsair photographer Morgan Genser – who arriving minutes later and for reasons unknown, has taken an extreme disliking to me – saw that I was meeting with Howell, he called the SMCPD to have me ejected. At no time did Genser personally approach us to register his concerns.

When Howell took exception to the uncalled-for hostility and disrespect from the officers, Malone declared, “You can speak when I tell you to.” Howell responded with “This is fucked.” Malone quickly walked around me and moved nose-to-nose with Howell and proceeded to verbally browbeat him. A few moments later, after I had been ordered out of the office (I immediately exited to just outside the open door.), Malone continued his verbal abuse of Howell.

When Howell’s exit from the room (which Malone had also ordered) was blocked by Malone, Howell responded to Malone’s rising verbal abuse and unreasonableness by calling him a “motherfucker.” Malone instantly lunged at Howell, threw him against the counter, and handcuffed him. I suggested to Howell to not resist and fully cooperate. Hearn ordered me to leave the building. I immediately complied. (These last five paragraphs are extracted from the formal citizen’s complaint, a remedy detailed in section 832.5 of California’s Penal Code, that I am lodging against the two officers.

If you suffer, or have suffered, abuse from any police officer, you should file a formal written complaint. Do not let the watch commander convince you to merely leave a verbal complaint. Those are easily ignored. The Penal Code requires the agency to launch a formal investigation when receiving a formal written complaint and the complaint usually stays in the offending officer’s career file, affecting future raises and job prospects, as well.)

According to Howell, he was immediately suspended pending a meeting with Judith Penchansky, campus disciplinarian. Now reinstated as a student, Howell is no longer the online editor at the Corsair. Barbara Baird, faculty advisor to the Corsair, expressed that it was appropriate for Genser to call the SMCPD to respond to my presence at the paper, ostensibly student-run. The prime offense, as she described it to me, was that a Corsair “policy,” prohibiting anyone not on the paper’s staff from being behind the counter, was violated. Apparently, Howell, despite the authority and respect he has earned for his service to the paper, had no discretion in the matter to allow anyone but Corsair staffers to meet with him in the office. Having been on the Corsair, myself, last spring when the editors acknowledged me as the “most valuable writer,” I know this policy has historically received selective enforcement, at best.

The Siege, by the way, would be delighted to testify on Howell’s behalf in any litigation he brings against Malone, Hearn, and the college for assault and batttery, false imprisonment, and violating his civil rights.

And a further aside: Not that The Siege recommends it – for a number of reasons – but to tell a cop, “Fuck you,” “Fuck off,” “You are a motherfucker,” or any other such colorful and lively verbiage, is protected speech and is not against the law. Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “Fuck SMC Police Misconduct” would be similarly protected. In fact, an officer acting against you for thus speaking is, himself, violating your constitutional rights, SMC’s ill-thought-out Student Code of Conduct, notwithstanding. Furthermore, it’s probable that much of SMC’s Code of Student Conduct is unnecessarily vague and ambiguous, and would not survive a legal challenge before a court of law. But most community college students are too unsophisticated and unempowered to fight such a fight, so the ill-constructed code remains in place – for now.

Suppression of Rights to Monitor Police

During a recent May 18 event, I tried to videotape an Associated Student sponsored performance of “the spoken word” in the public “free speech area” at the Clocktower for some positive coverage to put on The Siege, but SMC officers shut me down. When I redirected my videotaping towards them as I tried to discover the basis for their order, they became hostile and repeatedly threatened me. Professional and qualified officers would have known that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Smith vs. City of Cumming, et al., 212 F.3d 1332 [11CA 5/31/00], stated that:

“The First Amendment protects the right to gather information about what public officials do on public property, and specifically, a right to record matters of public interest.”

Since the May 18 police encounter, many students and professors (including Faculty Senate President, Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein) have volunteered descriptions of their own, and other’s, run-ins and victimization at the hands of the wayward SMCPD. These cases are accumulating without even mounting a formal investigation.

The response of the SMCPD to the May 18 event has been to file a false and defamatory incident report against me with the intention of trying to get me suspended. Penchansky, who claims to have received a copy of the report on May 23 (Her office has a copy, but the SMCPD told me on May 25 it would “take up to 10 business days for them to give me a copy.” Both Penchansky and her assistant, Marilyn Goodrich, saw nothing peculiar in the disparity in access to the report.) is requiring a meeting with me to discuss claims by the police that I was “disruptive, argumentative, and rude.” The video at top, will help readers to determine for themselves the truth of these allegations. There is much more similar footage from that day’s encounters, with the behavior of all parties remaining consistent, and thus further damning for the officers.

It should be known that the publisher of The Siege has worked in a sector of the legal field for over 15 years. I engage officers-of-the-law on a regular basis in my work and over 95 percent of the time find myself expressing appreciation for a job well done. Sheriffs, police, ex-CHP commanders, attorneys, judges and others number amongst my friends. There’s a daily basketball game near downtown where one could play pick-up games with a lot of these folks. Many of these people are terrific defenders of the people. Contempt of cop is reserved for those whose performance under the color of authority is an abuse of that authority and suppresses the rights of people. The Siege has zero tolerance for such behavior.

If you have been a victim of SMC police misconduct and abuse, please write to The Siege at main@thesiegeonline.net. Various legal avenues of redress are being pursued to hold the SMCPD, the college’s administration – under whom the police directly operate – and the board of trustees accountable for the culture of fear and intimidation created by such a police force. Do not allow your victimization go unchallenged. Together we can bring to an end this blight on our community.

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.

Your wits and mine,
they tussled our of our skulls
to wrestle on heaving chests.
Our cadence each a competing pulse
that worked from the mind into the hips.

My mouth and yours an open portal
of epic poems banned from words,
that battled the tide of separate pulls
to tress twin threads into a strand
and knot the ends in a haloed ring,
a circle that knew no end.

Surging splashes in gentle hues of colored blues
caught up our selves
and tied the dual.
The chemical volts let vanish the cords
that bound our light to the cell of the skull,
and as the glow burned twice as bright
the number of two was made again
to be reduced to nonsense.

Thoughts to want and wants to flesh
separate bodies converged in one,
a single shape of tranquil light
an unfolding sense
that collapsed our selves
to let fall the bodies melting muscle
and form a new identity
between our wet and cuddled skin.

And there our coma
was allowed to consume.

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.

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.

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

I sound the songs you used to string
and the echoes stretch out
in long velvet wakes
across the follicles of hair
that wrap my scalp

when this empty bed
lets me sleep

Yes,
I have stolen
your violin
and I keep it tight
between
my ears

where you
cannot
destroy it
again

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.

There’s so much deception, confusion and nonsense spewed forth in the popular media which undermines the notion that global warming is a reality, it’s little wonder that many people remain unconvinced of its immediate threat. Such intentionally-sown confusion allows George W. Bush and those he services (that’s not you and me, by the way) to postpone the critical actions our government so desperately needs to take.

Public relations hacks working for the U.S. auto industry, oil and coal interests; compromised scientists who’ve sold out and will forever lack any credibility amongst their peers; congressmen, senators and presidents who operate by accepting legalized bribes and then paying off those debts by violating the public trust; and certain large corporate interests at odds with life on this planet are just some of those you can thank for the muddying of waters about facts regarding the ecological catastrophe quickly coming our way.

On the other hand, over in the rarefied (and under-reported) world of truth, there is virtually universal agreement amongst credible scientists that global warming is indeed occurring, and to an extent and with rapidness absolutely guaranteeing much more extreme planetary consequences unless we take serious action NOW!

The Union of Concerned Scientists, in an article titled “Global Warming Facts” (which includes many links for the sceptic and the seeker wishing to investigate further), include the following list of the “20 Hottest Years on Record:”

Notice a trend? And 2005 – hottest year on record.

Still not convinced? You’re right, there’s so much more to it. And the rebuttals, you’ve heard ‘em – these things are cyclical, it’s happened before, it undermines the troops, there’s no proof, it’s just progaganda from environmental extremists, the whole thing’s overblown, it’s a ruse by the homosexuals to distract good Christians from the gay-marriage issue, not everyone agrees, If your so smart, how come it’s not in the Bible?, it’s nothing new, Dubya will protect us, blah, blah, blah.

Well, do yourself (and the rest of the planet) a favor and go see the recently released “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film that will blow your mind and bring you up to speed. This documentary, featuring Al Gore delivering an impassioned, funny, fact-filled, and sobering presentation which he has shared thousands of times with audiences across the globe, will fill in all the blanks and put to rest the myths that keep this issue from being tackled in the political arena.

Become informed and help pressure the politicians to exercise their political will to take the necessary actions. We need to come together on this growing peril, and fast!

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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

I beat

and scratched

and gummed

the words
I teethed
on every syllable

his mouth
his words
his charms like the rings
of smoke he blew
through lips that spoke
of paradox

he pulled away
he let his fingers stay he
tied up in my skull
a loop of dumbstruck meditation
the mental masturbation that left my
neurons raw and aching

he bound my hands
so I couldn’t scratch the itch
he showed me a carrot
and beat me with a stick
of false pretence
and a web of lies

the games that only the vicious brutes play
the ones that know love and desire
and use them like pistol whip

-but after I showed him out the door
I thanked him for his time
I’m a sadistic philosopher of kinds
a masochist at heart and mind

his riddle stirred desire
his koan made me bleed
and yet, I love a good riddle
the mysteries that provoke the brain
the puzzles that make this human drama
worth living

the secrets that make us
open
our eyes
and wonder
what in the fuck is this
thing
called life?

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.