Volume 137, Issue 6
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The Mouth of Miles BY
MILES HARWELL To help deal with the budget crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently proposed to divert students accepted at the University of California and California State University to com-munity colleges. The proposal will cut the freshman admission rate at UC and CSU by 10 percent and send nearly 8,000 additional stu-dents to California community colleges.
While this could be an opportunity for some stu-dents and the state to save money, this proposal will clearly make education hard-er to obtain for those whose only chance at higher edu -cation is through commu-nity colleges. Donna Arduin, the gov-ernor's finance director, argues that community colleges are "underutilized." Tell that to the students at City College, who already deal with overcrowded classes and are trying to make do with less resources. Classes will fill up quickly with the addition of even more students, and many will be unable to enroll. And what about all those high school students trying to gain admission to UC and CSU? Should they decide to kick back and ride out the last couple years of high school, knowing they aren't going to get into the school they want, no matter how hard they work? Some may see it as easier to "knock out" the first two years of a four-year education at a community college, but if Schwarzenegger has his way, students accepted at UC and CSU won't have a choice in the matter. Neither will students who planned on going to community colleges, only to be denied to make room for others. Contact our governor to get him to reconsider. Tell him you heard it from the Mouth of Miles.
BY
JORGE PARADA "This
entire country is completely full of shit and always has been."
In fiscal year 2004, the federal government will spend over $12 bil-lion fighting the "War on Drugs," excluding military aid to Colombia. Not only is this taking its toll on taxpayers' pockets, but it's also putting the wrong people behind bars. According to the Department of Justice, 20 percent of state prisoners are drug offenders. Furth-ermore, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 2002 states that 1,538,813 people were arrested for drug offenses nationwide, 80 percent of them for possession. Operation Pipe Dreams Last year, the Drug Enfor-cement Agency and the DOJ conducted "Operation Pipe Dreams," in which they raided the homes of drug paraphernalia merchants, shut down over 50 businesses and indicted 27 people, including cultural icon Tommy Chong. The federales sentenced Chong to nine months in a federal prison. Chong's crime: selling glass pipes and bongs. Chong Glass employed 25 glass blowers, now jobless, thanks to the DOJ. Dirty Bankers Why go after small businesses and clockers - they're a small part of the global drug trade, hardly worth incarcerating. Why not go after the big boys, the international bankers who profit from money laundering? Oh yeah, I forgot they're all alumni of the privileged schools that were attended by our "leaders." I'll leave you with some words from Nino Brown, Wesley Snipes' character in the movie "New Jack City." "I'm
not guilty. YOU'RE the one who's guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians,
the Columbian drug lords. All you who lobby against making drugs
legal... Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is
bigger than you and me. This is big business. This is the American
way." BY JIM POWELL Editor Sometimes I don't have anything nice to say, and now is the time for me to quit biting my tongue and exercise my God-given right to bitch. Fog Machine It's always sweater weather here in San Francisco, City of the Damned. It would be hell if it wasn't so goddamned cold. When I left my home in the Mission today, it was so sunny and beautiful that I figured, 'A tee-shirt and shorts should be alright...' As soon as I got off at the Balboa Park BART station, I realized just how wrong I was. The weather in San Francisco is bad enough, but City College's Ocean campus is a giant, air-conditioned fog machine that offers English classes. It makes me feel like buying a car so I can drive to San Jose every day to get the 10 minutes of sunlight I need to keep from going crazy. Bingo The most horrible places on earth are without a doubt bingo parlors. The people are amazing. No one is under the age of 72, but that doesn't stop them from playing 30 bingo cards simultaneously while chain smoking and tearing through pull tabs. Sometimes I beg them, "For the love of God, stop gambling! Spend the money on your grandchildren, or a new set of teeth." But all they ever want is another $20 of Cash-O-Rama cards. bin Nagle Worst of all is Rob "bin" Nagle, opinions editor at The Guardsman. As I'm typing this piece, I can feel his eyes drilling into the back of my head like an ice pick stabbing through an overripe orange. Every time I turn around and try to catch him in mid-stare, he's look-ing down at his computer, innocently sifting through the thousands of pieces of reader mail he gets every week. If I knew what he was up to, I could tell you that whatever it is isn't going to be pretty. Someone should alert the FBI...
The Importance of Writing Letters... BY
ROB NAGLE The first place I turn when I read the paper is the letters to the editor. That's where you really see what readers think and how they're affected by what they read and see in the news, and that they too want to add their voices. Sometimes they actually are the news. In fact, the first time I actually read about George W. Bush's performance at the 60th annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner was in the Chronicle's Letters to the Editor section. Three letters and an illustration in the Chronicle that day expressed the readers' utter disgust at Bush's obnoxious behavior. At the dinner, Bush showed a slide show where he jokingly looked under furniture in the White House for those elusive weapons of mass destruction, saying they've "got to be somewhere." Students of City College should get involved as well. What better way to start than by writing letters to your very own newspaper, The Guardsman? The letters we received have raised awareness about issues generally not covered by our publication. Chris Collins wrote about our bloated military budget. And then there was Catherine Johnson, a City College student concerned about the disease affecting the oak trees on campus. Her letter helped bring the problem to our community's attention. Letters to the editor perform a vital function at any newspaper. They help bring attention to the stories that fall through the cracks. They also establish a bit of notoriety to the writer: "Hey I saw your letter in the newspaper!" This issue, we're lucky enough to have a letter from a representative of Bob Jones University who was "flabbergasted" when he read an article by Features Editor Gennady Sheyner on The Guardsman web site. Why
not add your voice? E-mail:opinionseditor@theguardsman.com
Dear Editor: I was flabbergasted to read the following in The Guardsman: "'(George W.) Bush won the election by appealing to this fear,' (Reed) added, citing Bush's 2000 presidential campaign stop at Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where he waved the Confederate flag to an enthusiastic crowd. Bob Jones University was roiled in controversy for years because of its ban on interracial dating, a policy that was finally abandoned in March 2000." The paragraph appeared (on The Guardsman's web site) under the title, "Lit-erary Icon Re-examines Segregation." How can this "icon" have any credibility at all? What other (inaccuracies) is he spreading? Have whatever opinion you will about Bob Jones University, but at least do some fact checking! That is Journalism 101. The scene painted by Mr. Reed never happened. Nothing even re-motely similar happened at that event. As a matter of fact, the President of Bob Jones University was on record at the time calling for the removal of the battle flag from the top of the South Carolina capitol building. Thank you for taking the time to allow me to vent. Jonathan
Pait As you point out, George W. Bush did not wave the Confederate flag during his 2000 campaign stop at Bob Jones University. We regret not having detected the factual inaccuracy. At the same time, Bush's choice to speak at Bob Jones and not to denounce its (since abolished) ban on interracial dating, signified to many, including Reed, Bush's implicit approval of racial separation. Thus, Reed's point about Bush's desire to appeal to America's "white fear" is plausible even without the erroneous detail he cited. Gennady
Sheyner
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