The Agrinautica

Thursday, May 25th - Next stop on my agenda was to to see some old friends in Seattle. I'd meant to leave the Kettle Falls area earlier but like a river caught behind a glacial ice dam, we pooled in the Kettle Falls interpretive center too long, so it was around 1pm when I finally got on the road. Doug was concerned that some of the roads I intended to take might be snowed in, which was a novel thought, but we checked online and they were all open. I was also thrilled that this trip would require almost no retracing my steps or roads I'd ever been on before.

   The road took me down along the broad Columbia river, surrounded by pine forest and only occasional habitations. At one point I passed a ferry landing where a small ferry was loading cars, and at another there was a small townlet in a hairpin turn in the road that was gone in the blink of an eye (looking at the map that must be Hunters, population 306, "a focal point of the surrounding smaller communities" according to wikipedia). After about an hour of following the river I came to where the river Spokane joined the Columbia, and here, just over the bridge, I saw signs of Fort Spokane historical site. I pulled off here and drove into the parking area. The area was sort of a broad meadow overlooking the rivers, with a few restored wooden buildings. Other than the highway there was very little of the modern world in sight. I would dearly have liked to get out and look around but looking at the time I knew I had to keep moving if I was going to make dinner in Seattle with my friends. So I had to continue rushing down the river valley like a jökulhlaup.
   Shortly after leaving the fort the road turned west and no longer followed the river. The land opened up from hilly forests to broad fields of wheat and prairie. A few more small towns here with names like Wilbur (claim to fame: crop circles reported nearby) and Creston (claim to fame, last surviving member of Butch Cassidey's gang shot here in 1902) with giant grain silos towering over them. After about an hour of sailing along the quiet and straight highway through waves of grain, I came back to the bedammed river at Coulee City, and a very long dam was clearly visible above the town which I assumed was THE famous dam, but no I see "the" Coulee dam which had flooded so much upriver is actually located upriver a bit at the city of Grand Coulee, which I had bypassed (or rather it would have been out of my way). In actual fact I just realized looking at the map that this wasn't the Columbia river here at Coulee City at all but some other river, the Columbia splitting off above here. It's highly weird and unusual for a river to split in two directions going downstream!
   It turns out the gorge chewed through the landscape by the Missoula Floods in the Ice Age is not exactly the course of the Columbia River, and this seeming river valley south of the city of Grand Coulee is that ancient riverbed, the Grand Coulee itself. The Coulee riverbed was dry in modern times until the Grand Coulee dam was built, the one that flooded everything up river, and water is pumped from it through the rest of the Coulee riverbed to irrigate farms downriver. The more you know!

   All I knew at the time was that my GPS wanted me to take a road south here to connect to the boring looking interstate 90 running between Seattle and Spokane, and I wasn't having it. Despite my hurry, it didn't add to much time to stay on on the same two lane highway I'd been on (the 2) headed West into the mountains.
   Just across the Coulee I pulled into a turnout with a grand view into the "channeled scablands" of the Coulee valley, not that I was quite sure what I was looking at but it was nice. Through rising prairie farmland again for another half hour, then following a river south for a ten minutes which I didn't realize is the Columbia again (can't get away from this thing!), across a bridge and immediately into mountains! The road corkscrewed up a narrow valley beside a rushing mountain stream and eventually passed a faux bavarian alpine village and ski resorts. There was only a very light amount of snow at the level of the highway though.
   And then gradually descending the other side the mountains unwind and peter out and I found myself coming into the Seattle metropolitan area and big highways with rush-hour traffic! As it happens it wasn't actually that bad and my friend Mike (xaositecte) lived on the East side of the city, from which I was approaching (for those who know the city, his address was in Kirkland, for those, like me, that don't, it's separated from downtown by a large lake)

   Mike I know from Model United Nations (MUN), (we figured out he was in my committee at a conference in Vegas circa 2003 where I was representing Libya (despite having a green mohawk at the time), and filled my speeches with fiery quotes from the Quran (which I had in hand as I was taking an Islamic Scriptures class). Mike previously lived in Portland (or rather the "Vancouver" thats just beside PDX), and I think last time I saw him was when I crashed at his place the night before first joining the tallship Lady Washington there in 2009. He is, I believe, some kind of (software?) engineer, and his wife/and/or/girlfriend is a teacher (I really should take notes I suppose, given my memory). He had an adorable dog that I feel like was a pit / corgi cross or something? Is that a thing?
   We had made dinner plans with another MUN friend, Sameer, nearby. Sameer and I were jointly in charge of the America Pacific (Ampac) conference in Southern California in 2007. I was the Secretary-General, which in most MUN organizations would be the highest position, but this organization, PAXMUN, had Governor-Generals whose duties were supposed to be more over-arching while the SG was supposed to be in charge of more of the details. As it happens, Sameer appeared to totally not remember that he had tried to fire me (but failed because he tried to do so by email during a PAXMUN conference I was present at, along with all the board, and he was not, so they were very easily persuaded that I shouldn't be fired). Despite that we got along alright with no hard feelings, after all this is MUN, intrigue is in our blood, and diplomacy is the name of the game.
   Shortly after our conference, a coup d'etat had taken place on the board, wherein a certain power-hungry member (whom I shall name because their perfidy should stick to them, it was Mary McKenzie of one of the San Diego universities) through maneuvering (Sameer finally filled me in on a number of the sordid details during dinner) managed to fire the chairman of the board and other key opponents, and then went about cleaning house and in a flood of blacklisting got rid of most staff associated with the old regime, including my humble self (Sameer survived another year just because Governor-Generals had multi year appointments), and... did something new and shiny rise from this dripping scoured desolation? No she managed to run PAXMUN right into the ground in a stunning nosedive that saw it completely cease to be an organization within two years. Its a real shame -- I probably would have ceased being involved anyway since I had just graduated college, but its a shame its gone because it ran most of the big conferences in the the Southwestern United States (Ampac in LA, Amwest in Vegas, Amsouth in New Orleans, and several smaller ones) and Mary destroyed it like a toddler smashing a toy just to see what'll happen.
   Anyway, Sameer, Mike and I had a grand old time reminiscing about the antedeluvian days of yore. Sameer had gone on to run a Seattle based conference that he's still involved in to this day.

   Mike had a guest room so I didn't even have to sleep on a couch AND, a true hero of the people, he made biscuits and gravy and bacon for breakfast (he seemed particularly outraged when I described the lack of real bacon in Australia and valiantly brought forth some very high quality delicious bacon). And then as he headed off to work in the bright morning light I was headed north to a land of beautiful seaside towns I had visited during my life as a sailor and... ex girlfriends ::dramatic fade::

TO BE CONTINUED!

   It's that time of the week! LJ Idol polls are up, and that means its also time for my weekly drama-que (polls will be closed already by our usual time of Sat morning). So throw some OMG-weiners and WTF-burgers on the grill, crack open a nice cold can of STFU and pull up a chair!

[Poll #1359752]
See also my homegame entry: Dream Home

( Recommendations )

   In my five years of involvement in ASUCD, I have seen a lot of extremely shady antics. As I’ve mentioned before, I do not believe power corrupts, I believe power allows the already-prone-to-corruption to show themselves. There are a lot of scandals in real government, and students love to point these out – but what most people don’t realize is that its not because the people involved in our government are more prone to corruption than your average person – its that they have much greater opportunities (and are under much much greater scrutiny, thus revealing every indiscretion).
   That said, I believe what ASUCD does is show us how badly your average ambitious person behaves when given a little bit of power. Or at least, when not behaving downright badly, it really exhibits how much their perspectives change to what is convenient for them.


The Good List
   Unfortunately, those with exemplary good ethical standards don’t necessarily stand out the way bad ethics do. I would like to start on a good note however, by mentioning those who have impressed me with their ethics:

Surprisingly Admirable:
(ii) ( Ari Kalfayan )

(i) ( Nafeh Malik )

Exemplary Nonstudents:
(ii) ( Don Dudley, SJA & CJB )

(i) ( Mark Champagne )

Actually Exemplary:
(5) ( Go Funai )

(4) & (3) ( Justices Powers & Wheat )

(2) ( Jon Leathers )

(1) ( Aggie Editor-in-Chief Matty Jojola )

   It should be noted, that I cannot account for the most EFFECTIVE people in ASUCD, since I am not in a position to judge how well people are running the busses or running GASC etc etc. The above is a list of those who have had the opportunity to show exemplary ethics (or at least, for the group above that, have more value than people give them credit for). And below, below is a list of the most lacking in ethics.


ASUCD’s Most Ethically Misguided

Mildly Annoying:
(iv) ( Paul Harms )

(iii) ( Kalen Gallagher )

(ii-i) ( Sara Henry & Paloma Perez )

Ethically Dysfunctional:
(22) ( Thomas Lloyd )

(21) ( Anyone who, during their term, abandoned or defected from the platform they were elected on )

(20) ( Jamie Ackerman )

(19) ( Chris Goran )

(18) ( Mary Vasquez )

(17) ( Aggie Reporter Talia Kennedy )

(16) ( Aggie Reporter Aimee Theron )

(15-11) ( Aggie Editor-in-Chiefs Vo, Whelan, Fuller, Stone & Hamilton )

(10) ( Andrew Peake )

(9) ( Kai Savaree-Ruess )

(8-6) ( The Unqualified Candidates )

(5) ( Rob Roy )

(4) ( Kristen Birdsall )

(3) ( Chief Justice Turner )

(2) ( Vice President Beaman )

(1) ( Tiqula Bledsoe )

(BONUS) ( Bonus! )

   And now… I probably have significantly more enemies. It should be noted that I think many of the people mentioned above are very nice people in general. In particular I feel a bit torn about the “Unqualified Candidates” themselves because they all turned out to be pretty nice people and kept themselves out of any further shadiness that I know of, but it would be hard to justify not including them on the list.
   Anyway, my hope in posting this is that people who are just becoming involved in ASUCD will read it and keep in mind what NOT to do in the future.

   I've been trying to resist blogging about this particular scandal for days, but as it continues to erupt I can no longer resist.

   Recently, the UC Davis Campus Media Board¹ appointed the new California Aggie Editor-in-Chief for the 2007-2008 year: Sports Writer Eddie Lee.
   Current Editor-in-Chief Peter Hamilton shortly fired sports writer Eddie Lee. The charge was plagerism. Presently, despite currently fired status, Lee is still lined up to become the next Editor-in-Chief.
   Today a letter surfaced signed by 31 staff members of the California Aggie. It alleges that current E-in-C Hamilton fired Lee because he wanted Campus Editor / Features Editor Talia Kennedy (whom he is having a thinly disguised secret relationship with) to become the next E-in-C.
   Additionally, in the letter, the staff demanded an explanation for over a thousand dollars that are unaccounted for from Peter & Talia's trip to the California College Media Association awards banquet, calling it "tantamount to embezzlement."
   In response, Hamilton has asked for the resignation of all 31 signees of the letter.


   Talia Kennedy is also noted as, while the Aggie reporter assigned to cover ASUCD, having allegedly mated with ASUCD Senator Darnell Holloway. ASUCD history repeats itself.


   Incidently, the E-in-C previous to this, Matty Jojola, is the only one in known memory to have not been involved in a major shame filled scandal. Gold star for you Matty.
   The unfortunate history of Aggie Editor-in-Chiefs is recounted by the illustrious former Chief Justice Fricke in the Case 29 Opinion:

"Currently the Aggie Editor-in-Chief poses a more significant threat to the Aggie than the ASUCD government does -- As highlighted by the recent resignation of Editor-in-Chief Stone over allegations of abuse of power, the near mutiny of editors against last year’s Editor-in-Chief Fuller, the loss of lawsuits by the previous year’s Editor-in-Chief Vo, etc etc." Laabs vs California Aggie ASUCD Supreme Court, Case 29, 02/21/06 (p8)

   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. )=

   So its been like two weeks since I've had time to make a livejournal entry, this is surely some kind of terrible terrible record. And even now I don't have much time at all. So just a quick update here.

   MUNgate: recent developements on the MUN front: Under-Secretary-General Rinaldi resigned upon the discovery that former Secretary-General Myung and others were maliciously spreading rumours about her with intent to bring about her utter character assassination. Character assassination like the bombing of the UN HQ in baghdad -- if it had been done by the unfortunate mission director's best friends. While doing so Myung notes* that she must appear uninvolved so she can count the MUN ballots and congradulates co-conspirator Shemek on similarly avoiding suspicion while gaining the other ballot counting position. Go team!

   But to be fair, two current law students, former members of MUN, have come out in support of the current MUN administration. Read their perspective here. In addition to these weighty counter-arguments, Myung herself commented, and, possibly doing more damage to their cause than help, member and former SG Janet Rossi made an amusing comment. Rossi argues that the fact that $20 dinners have only about a fifth of the turnout of lower cost dinners may be not because the rest can't afford it, but because only those who are friends with the others on Secretariat go to the expensive dinners. Yes Janet, you might be right, that might have something to do with it, but I think that portrays it a lot worse than the simple "only those who can afford it" theory.


In Other News
   Yesterday the BBC called me to ask about a US Supreme Court case. True story. It was because I'm listed as a contact for the AGnostic & Atheist Student Assn (AGASA), and it was the 10 Commandments case.

   Currently one of my papers about Chechnya is being discussed at an international relations conference in Texas. I feel special.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: UCBMUNC '03 - and IHOP adventures. Missed the first day of Berkeley because I had work. Learned today actually that some people thought I forgot about UCBMUNC the first day. Yeah not so much, I'm the only one who actually spends the whole time in committee. Who was the only one of our 37 people to win an award this time? Yeah that would be me, and I don't forget about MUN conferences.


*source: an accidently intercepted AIM conversation. Seriously if you are planning on backstabbing someone, don't leave the conversation up on a computer they use. Excerpt about the fraudulent election aspirations:
amazonjedimaster: no
amazonjedimaster: then i might be tainted
amazonjedimaster: for the election-ness
PrzemekP: yeah, well, I worked on her and Priya on the way over
amazonjedimaster: so far there is not a peep from gena about getting you on the elections -vote counting-ness

   So yesterday around 11:30pm I decided to acually go for a run. As I was egressing my apartment lair I noticed a couple (college students, trendy ones) sitting in front of the next apartment over, talking quietly and looking very grave.
   Anyway I scampered down the 100 yard dash I make daily to the bus stop, and then down out into the fields down "Olive Tree Lane" - this little paved lane that heads from a giant victorian house I believe is the local original farmhouse (it looks the classic haunted house) out into the fields. The lane is lined, shockingly enough, by olive trees, and was so dark placing each foot in front of the other was really just a matter of faith that there was actually more pavement there and not some large object. Then I ran along this road out there among the fields - not more than 400 yards from my inhabitation and I was running between cornfields, with the smell of tilled soil and no streetlamps to spoil the stars.

   Upon returning, I was informed by my roommates that I just missed a huge breakup outside our apartment. Apparently objects were thrown and the girl was at times incoherent.
   And then roommate wdsguy related how this one girl is stalking him, and called him 11 times that day, so he had a female friend of his pick up the phone and claim to be his girlfriend.
   So we had roommate bonding time discussing these things and eating beef jerky that wdsguy provided. But it wasn't as good as the BJ that Coleman gave me the other day - Coleman apparently made (jerked?) his own beef jerky and it was mad good.


In Other News: I have no money in my wallet and the atm tells me my bank account is at -$991.17. Just last week I had $3,186.62.
   As far as I can tell looking at the account history, the $1,420.50 payment I made to the UC Regents yesterday was deducted twice. Looks like I'm going down to the bank again today.


Related
   Year Ago Today: Sashiepalooza '03 - and a trip to body-part drive