Unacceptable

On Friday, November 18th, now infamous incident occurred on the campus of UC-Davis. This, a college where one of my best friends went to undergrad was the scene of an act of police brutality extraordinary in its horror and the nonchalance with which it was carried out. Over the weekend, the responses and details flowed out of the campus, particularly after Chancellor Linda Katehi defended police actions, refused to resign, and felt it necessary to negotiate her own exit from her office building because she felt threatened by crowds of students angry they were excluded from a press conference. I understand that police officers have a job to do and that policies should exist to protect both cops and protesters. I understand that citizens (including students) conducting peaceful protests and acts of civil disobedience should expect the possibility of arrest. What I do not understand is how the events of this video can take place on a university campus in the United States of America in 2011. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, we have lost our way.

Below, my friend (and UC-Davis alum) and my letters to Chancellor Katehi, sent via her website:


Dear Chancellor Katehi,
 
I graduated from UC Davis in 2006 and from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in 2009. I am the daughter of public school professors, a committed public servant, and a proponent of the University of California, which I consider to be the finest public school system in the world. I took advantage of every experience UC Davis had to offer. I participated in the University of California, Washington DC internship program and studied abroad in Vienna. I joined political and social organizations on campus and developed a strong compulsion to serve. I believe in public service and in public education. The degree of success I have achieved since my undergraduate career would have been impossible without the insight I gained at UC Davis through lively debate and exposure to new ideas.
 
The video I saw via CNN, MSNBC, Facebook, Twitter, and celebrity gossip blogs alike of the events that took place last Friday horrified me. But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of learning that the campus police, donned in riot gear, were acting on your request. The implication is that you are concerned with the content of the protest (a strong word to describe a group of students peacefully seated on the main quad) occuring on our campus. For this to have happened on the same campus that helped me develop and express my opinions is heartbreaking. 
 
There are many issues facing UC Davis, not least of which are unprecedented budget problems. It is essential to have strong leadership during times like these. We cannot address these problems without trust, which will be impossible for you to regain. Your actions directly caused physical pain and emotional insecurity of your students who pay your salary. Given the brutality of the reaction, it is almost irrelevant that the students were engaged in a peaceful, free-speech demonstration in what must be maintained as a safe environment. I would like to add my voice to that of the faculty, students, alumni, and supporters of UC Davis and call for your immediate resignation.


##
 
and mine:


Dear Chancellor Katehi,

My only connection to UC-Davis is that one of my best friends from graduate school got her Bachelor's degree from your institution. Other than that, I am simply a deeply concerned American citizen, public school graduate, and supporter of the students who were treated brutally by UC Davis's police force. 

While I appreciate your decision to suspend the Chief of Police, this action is not near enough. You must resign. Your initial support of the police's obviously unnecessary and brutal action against peacefully protesting students is unforgivable. And while I understand that a task force will be directed to investigate what happened--there is already plenty of understanding about what took place, because it was caught on tape. Details are important, and of course we (the public) will want to know exactly how such brutality was allowed to occur. But in the meantime, the image of a group of students sitting down and being pepper-sprayed at point-blank range by a police officer seemingly not feeling threatened (visor up, casual posture) is all we have. And it turns my stomach. 

You have demonstrated you are unable to stand up for students when they are in danger; your inability to protect them from the very police force that is supposed to keep them safe is not going to be forgiven by a task force and a police chief on administrative leave. I join with Professor Nathan Brown and the others who have called for your resignation. Because you need to be held accountable, and also because if this took place on the campus of one of my alma maters, I would insist on the same. 

##

Theory on Cheating

So, if there's a group of people who hate dating more than 20 and 30 something women, it's probably 20 and 30 something men. They might be down with boozy hookups and emotionally detached exchanges over text, but ask any married 20 or 30-something man if they envy their comrades still on the market, they'll likely say no. I'll put it out there now that the serious, methodologically sound study done to support this entire argument is based on two conversations and my own guessing. Still, it's the internet, and I digress.

So, my theory is this: marrieds who are super glad not to have to take ladies on dates and maneuver through the complexities and insanities that come with courting the fairer sex, might cheat because it's kind of like dating, without the pressure. It's like how you feel a lot more comfortable trying on (and maybe wearing) outrageous shoes or a crazy top after you've finally found the perfect brand of jeans, and riding boots. The comfort that comes from knowing the reliable standards are in your closet allows your brain the freedom to move beyond those very pieces you had worked so hard to find in your early-adult years. (And yes, the perfect jeans and the perfect boots/shoes are that elusive. And, like mates-for-life, everyone is looking for something different.)

I suppose this could work for why women cheat too, just replace "insanities" with "frustrations" and "the fairer sex" with "pompous jackasses". This is an (almost) equal opportunity theory-of-bad-behavior. But it's not even that, it's really just a testament to how awful dating can be, even less than 24 hours after a relatively decent date. I can't even really bring myself to think of a clever name for my theory, because it's mostly bullshit. However, I stand by my assertion that dating is overwhelmingly terrible, confusing, and exhausting.

A Not So Horrible First Date

My first Match.com date was last night. I have to say, I am extremely happy with how it went. The e-mails leading up to the meet were breezy and laid back so I was not having any of my usual pre-date maybe-being-a-spinster-cat-lady-wouldn't-be-awful feelings. Of course, since I can't possibly have gotten my shit entirely together that quickly, I went to happy hour with some people from work first. You know, to take the edge off. Two and a half beers later, I was off. Date went smoothly, conversation was good, beer was good, oysters were  good. He was nice, funny, and obviously bright. Points against were for seeming almost too smooth in a slightly ADD way, but he was down when I started talking about the zombie apocalypse and BSG (why, oh WHY do I do these things) so, that's always good. Because, if you can't handle the nerd, then really there's no sense in a second date. We parted three hours later, after I'd gone from not being that into him to thinking I'd like to see him again, so we'll see if a second date materializes. Regardless, I'm no longer terrified of match dates, despite telling my co-workers that it was a "set-up" and not correcting them when they assumed that meant friend-of-a-friend.

Slow Your Roll, and other notes

In the last 13 days, I've fallen in love with my neighborhood bar(tenders), celebrated Halloween, come up with a life plan, suffered through the death flu, and scheduled my first Match date. I also ordered new flats, bought a winter work skirt (on sale!), purchased my bridesmaid's dress (25% off!), ordered various necessities from drugstore.com while sitting in my towel in bed (win!), upgraded to unlimited texting, mailed things, and made chili. Take that, 13 days. Since I've fallen behind, I will do a data dump of everything that comes to mind in the next 15 minutes.

I just read this article which is about a study that I should probably also read, but won't, and have happily determined that I have an above-average number of close friends with whom I discuss "important matters". One may be out of the country, two out of the city, and between one and five in town (depending on what segment of "matters" we're talking) but yeah, I have definitely discussed "important matters" with more than 2.03 people in the last six months. Way more.

I got very pumped up about a few things at work that, in my mind, indicate an inability of this institution to move beyond Cold War-era thinking. Everyone talks a big game about being innovative and harnessing the energy of the younger generation, but in reality, the young people show up all energetic and ready to be harnessed and quickly discover that they can't be successful in their chosen organization if they don't bend to the will of their elders. I'm not just talking about being respectful and paying dues, I'm talking about thinking like them. This, obviously, leads to the successful ones being those who have learned to think like their bosses, thereby discounting any innovation in thinking that might have been possible had creativity been fostered. Depressing. And, cause to start something new. More on that later...

And, that's really all for now. I'm currently waiting for the phone to ring to chat with the bossman for a while, since he's been in and out of the country for weeks now and I can't imagine he remembers what I look like. More later.

Why I Work for a Non-Profit, Ctd

If it wasn't obvious, the "why I work for a non-profit" bit is an effort to differentiate myself from those who work to make as much money for themselves and the companies for which they work as possible. I in no way am presuming to be  better than them or that saying that they're all evil, just pointing out that that fundamental difference might be more explanatory than we think. And, for good measure, a little humor from the Occupy-ers.

via: mountains beyond mountains

Why I Work for a Non-Profit

There is something innate about me that prevents me from being interested in profit margins and maximum annual returns. I am not built to have making money be the object of my 40 hours a week. Sitting across from a perfectly nice, very well dressed one percent-er. We were talking about (I'll be purposefully vague here) electricity markets and investment risk, and somehow got into a discussion of health care. I steered the conversation there because I've been itching for the opportunity to poke one of these guys on the inequality issues we are seeing to start boiling over and this guy is not my boss.

After a long discussion during which he lays out costs and structural arguments against universal health care (health care wasn't a right in 1776) and for the idea that insurance companies be allowed to refuse coverage of those with pre-existing conditions (goes against the definition of insurance, which is payment for protection against an unknown and presumably if you have a pre-existing condition, there is a definite known.) I'll be generous and ignore the scenario where someone goes into an insurance-required check-up and discovers right then that they have cancer. Regardless if these are valid arguments in terms of nothing he's saying is in fact untrue there is still the issue of values. I value a society that thinks it's important to provide basic health care to all of its citizens. I value a government that adjusts its own goals as time passes and looks to the future needs of its people.

People that think we shouldn't have universal health care or protections for people with pre-existing conditions are hiding behind balance sheets and the Constitution. So what if the Founders didn't lay out a particular right to universal health care? They also didn't say women should be full citizens, and we adjusted to that reality when progress made it prudent. And screw the technical definition of insurance, the government should support people who get catastrophic illnesses because it can. If we didn't spend over $663 billion [PDF] on defense, maybe we could scrape by with making sure everyone had access to basic, preventive care that would avoid a lot of cost in the long-term and ensure that catastrophic illness doesn't cause bankruptcy.

The idea that makes me a liberal is that I think people matter. The collective people. Everyone. Together. And the reason I support the Occupy movement is because I think their attempt to galvanize those who recognize that our current state of inequality is driven by those in power being less concerned with the collective good and people than individual profits. Of course, the man across from me (with his monogrammed cuffs) would say that makes me a Communist.

Occupy Guilt

Yesterday was jam-packed. In a good way. I've got real things to do at the old trabajo and that feels good. Except when a good day is followed by a (great) run through McPhearson square, Occupy DC's homeland. I'm thinking--I really want to be with you guys in this. Of course, I'm with them on this, but I'm no there. They have a board of needs, the largest of which that I could read while running by was "Plates". So, I'm going to work on getting them some plates.