BU-ACLU LOG

Party with punch and pie!

By Ryan Menezes on 12/10/2008 at 11:46pm

Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which some people consider the world's most widely translated document. The Declaration contains a couple weird, vague statements ('Everyone has the right to enjoy the arts") and refers to somethings we don't want to involve the government in regulating ("Everyone had the right to paid holidays"), but lots of it spells out the same freedoms we value in the Bill of Rights. Which makes it strange when the UN does things completely contrary to individual rights. The Declaration recognizes people's freedom to thought and expression, but the UN passed a resolution last month, "Combating Defamation of Religions," encouraging countries' anti-blasphemy laws. The resolution by definition violates freedom of speech, and the American Center for Law and Justice says it's based on a Cairo declaration that calls Islamic Shariah law the source of all human rights. The U.S. voted against against the resolution of course, and we have no intention of following it, but it's guides other countries dangerously about what violates rights.

Various people celebrated the anniversary today. Gay rights advocates marked the date - depending on how you interpret it, the UDCR either declares marriage a universal right or defines marriage as between a man and a women. They marked it with a Day Without Gays, a nationwide strike on behalf of the entire community, supporting, among other things, gay marriage. Such a strike might have made sense had their employers any more control in the matter than the strikers themselves, but as it is, it seemed a pretty destructive way to demonstrate. The Associated Press called participation "spotty," even in areas such as San Francisco. Where real change happens meanwhile - courts - advocates have been making progress. The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear our Prop 8 lawsuit. They will rule on it, but no earlier than June. We won a lawsuit in Florida overturning a ban on same-sex couples adopting kids. We won a lawsuit in New York, forcing the state to recognize out-of-state marriages, including same-sex ones. And the Iowa Supreme Court is hearing a case that may make it the first Midwestern state allowing same-sex marriage.

Representatives from around the world thought today was a good time to remind America to close Guantanamo - even the Cuban Foreign Minister thought the point worth mentioning. Guantanamo's made some progress since the last time we checked in. A judge ordered the release of five Algerians who've spent seven years in the prison despite no connection to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, the army has assigned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a military commission, instead of waiting till Obama takes office and possibly reforms the system. KSM pleads guilty to all charges related to 9/11. Our executive director Anthony Romero blames torture and abuse for his plea, though KSM earlier confessed to various other terrorist acts, including Daniel Pearl's murder. A judge today indefinitely delayed the trial of Afghani Mohammed Jawad, whose prosecutor quit in September over ethical concerns. Jawad's would have been the last Guantanamo trial of the Bush era. And the biggest news with detainees is Ali Saleh Al Marri, a legal U.S. resident and the only enemy combatant held on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court has at last agreed to hear his case.

Which means they have less time to hear stupid cases. Like the one against Obama taking office, from people who claim he's not a natural born U.S. citizen. Though some people dispute Obama's Hawaiian birth story, this latest suit admits he was born a citizen, but since his father was Kenyan, he was, briefly, also a U.K citizen. The Supreme Couty does not care, and neither should you. Interestingly, people also don't care about how John McCain wasn't an American citizen at all for almost the first year of his life, till a 1937 law retroactively made him so.

Shall I segue now into reminding you to attend our next meeting? No, because the semester's done. No meetings till January, but we'll be planning spring. For a group that talked and learned a great deal the semester without actually doing very much, we've got a lot planned already. Feb 7th is the ACLU-Mass state conference. Feb 17th, we host an event with the Student Union educating students about their rights. Feb 23rd is An Evening Without, featuring writers and activists reading from censored works - at Tsai! The Winter Soldier conference, which we tossed around for January, seems good for early March. We've got Kathleen Foster down for March 24th, and the money's certain though the date's flexible,

But there is one thing left for this semester: the end of the semester party. It's this Satuday at 9pm. If we like you (that way), we might contact you personally, but in case we don't, email us and we'll give you the address. We'll probably ask you to chip in with some money or baked goods, and by "money or baked goods," we mean "crack."

Thankful for money, freedom

By Ryan Menezes on 11/27/2008 at 10:47am

Some celebrate Thanksgiving just for tradition, while others honor productive good; still others insist the holiday's explicitly religious. These latter people also blame us for secularizing Halloween and St. Valentine's day, but we at the ACLU know the true meaning of Thanksgiving - it commemorates of the day the Pilgrims learned to let the Indians wear their hair long for religious reasons. That's why, of course, we just sued to let a 5-year-old New Orleans Seminole boy wear his braid to school.

The reason we're thankful today is that we've received a big bag of money for next semester. First, the not-as-good news - we have no money for attending the state conference, so we'll just have to pay the massive $5 registration cost out of pocket. But mark the date, Feb 7th, on your calendar. The keynote speaker is Salon's Glenn Greenwald - read his analysis of Obama's attorney general pick here. Second, the good news. We have money to bring Kathleen Foster to screen Point of Attack, her documentary about racial profiling following 9/11. The topic retains its relevance: we just lost a suit for Egyptian Abdel Al Ganayni who lost U.S. security clearance after 9/11, but we won a suit Monday for Egyptian Amro Elmasry who was pulled from a flight and questioned in 2004. Third, the other good news. We have money to rent Tsai on Feb 23rd for An Evening Without, where famous activists and writers will read from MORE famous activists and writers' censored works. ACLU-Mass hosted this event in previous years, and they managed to get such speakers as room-filler Howard Zinn.

We're thankful as well for BU Today, believe it or not. Our long and hard campaign to reveal their hidden cameras (mentioning the topic every few months and doing nothing about it) has come to a successful end. BU Today has agreed to display signs alerting those their cameras cover, reducing their hidden cameras to what BU intended them to be - just webcams publicizing campus buildings. Perhaps people will enjoy being on a live broadcast. Perhaps they won't, and if they don't, we may have to demand BU Today remove the cameras altogether, though they have the legal right to reuse. But the important thing is that people now will know they're on the web and can act accordingly. This situation of course differs from private settings where people expect full privacy and should never need act differently to suit its absence - a federal appeals court was wrong this week to allow warrantless spying on Americans overseas. And Sarkozy was right this week to revise plans this week for his giant French spy database. And did you know Maryland police spied on thousands of non-violent protesters last year, labeling them terrorists? If anyone asks to unsubscribe from this mailing list, I will assume this news terrifies them.

But our favorite non-volent protesters, the Hempstead 15, are the most thankful of all today. Responding, we assume, to letters and calls from all you suporters, the Nassau County DA has agreed to dismiss all charges against them. Last time we checked in with the 15, the court assigned them all seperate court dates ranging over a couple months. Since then came a six-month adjournment ("Adjournment to Contemplate Dismissal") and now a complete dismissal. This is of course a huge victory, but it doesn't end here. Freedom's better than prison, but it doesn't address quite all the harm the protesters suffered. The 15 will now file their own civil suit in federal court, with their NY ACLU lawyer still representing them.

Many people eat pecan pie on Thanksgiving, but few eat banana chocolate chip cake. Here's a recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine 2.5 cups flour, 2 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp salt in a bowl.
3. Beat 4 eggs with 1 cup canola oil. Add 2 cups mashed bananas and 1 tsp vanilla, then add the flour mixture, beating till smooth.
4. Add 1 1/3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into two greased 9" by 5" pans.
6. Bake for 60 to 65 minutes.

In ACLU Russia, citizenry oversee YOU!

By Ryan Menezes on 11/19/2008 at 1:25am

We're transitioning further into the post-Election world, and things look good. Obama has heeded our campaign, and on Sunday's Meet the Press, he reaffirmed his promise to close Guantanamo. The ACLU's passing a new petition around, this one offering not blame, but support. Go here to send Obama a letter praising his position. Obama's started receiving briefings from national intelligence director Mike McConnell, the subject of our FISA lawsuit. He'll soon have to announce how and whether he plans using the spying power he's condemned - power greater than any president's inherited in 30 years. Harvard law's ACLU chapter is hosting a discussion with constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein Wednesday evening about how the Obama administration should confront terrorism. You can watch Bruce Fein discussing the FISA amendments here. This event conflicts with another - the Antiwar Coalition, partner in our proposed December Winter Soldier conference, is screening Redacted in SMG 105 at 7:30pm on Wednesday. It's a drama based loosely on Iraq war crimes U.S. soldiers committed in 2006. It's directed by Brian De Palma, who did Carrie, Scarface and The Untouchables, and it won the Venice Film Festival's Best Director award. In the interests of honesty though, I should also mention that the one person I know who's seen it, a film reviewer, called the movie a "shit sandwich," and review aggregater Rotten Tomatoes rates it "rotten."

Anyway, the main reason for our faith in Obama is of course his position on baggy pants. He has said, "Brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What's wrong with that? Come on." But he is against city ordinances mandating pant height, and this surely indicates his attitude towards civil liberties in general. Other people still lack faith in him. In Pearl, Mississippi, a driver kicked two students off his school bus for saying "Obama," and a coach told kids saying "Obama" would lead to expulsion. Their families contacted the ACLU, we stepped in, and the kids will not, in fact, now suffer discipline for saying the president-elect's name.

Prop 8 opponents have officially conceded that the measure has passed, but our lawsuit against it seems set to go to the state Supreme Court. We were waiting some days for state attorney general Jerry Brown to recommend the court hear the case, and he released the relevant brief yesterday. As the state's representative, he'll defend the initiative in court, but he doesn't seem likely to do a very thorough job, seeing that he opposed Prop 8 during the campaign for its passage. New plaintiffs, including the county Board of Supervisors have joined the lawsuit. And on Saturday, tens of thousands demonstrated around the country in support. I didn't make it to the Boston protest, and some group members who came an hour late found it had finished, but those there say five or six thousand showed up, despite the rain. A few of the more entertaining placards read "They put the 8 in h8te!," "Can we vote on your marriage too?" and "5 Years of Gay Marriage in Massachusetts: _Straight marriages ruined _Sky fell down √ More loving people with equal rights." (If you want more protests, the ambiguously oxymoronic Anti-authoritarian Collective is protesting the BU Biolab, which has nothing to do with our group. They're meeting Wednesday in STH 113 at 8:30 to plan, or you could meet them for the protest on Marsh Plaza at 2pm on Friday.) Connecticut, meanwhile, started issuing gay couples marriage licenses on the 12th. Couples who already have a civil union are entitled to an ABSOLUTELY FREE upgrade.

And our big election victory, Question 2, should go into effect December 4th. The laws have an interesting side effect, if you believe the officers the Daily Free Press interviewed (Freep's erred lately, e.g. everything they say about the Student Union). Cops can't demand IDs when issuing tickets, so offenders, knowing cops can't trace them, may just throw tickets out. So police may consider issuing citations a complete waste of time. According to one officer, cops will no more enforce simple possession than they now enforce jaywalking laws. By the way - a court decision this summer we haven't discussed may have resolved the longstanding feds vs. states conflicting drug laws rivalry. In Santa Cruz v Mukasey, the ACLU successfully argued in U.S. District Court that when the federal government prosecuted a Californian medical marijuana user under federal law, they violated the 10th Amendment. This means state drug amnesty now trumps federal drug laws.

We've got plenty of other lawsuits brewing as well of course; here are just three, all about free speech. A Fallbrook high school fired the student newspaper's faculty adviser for writing an editorial criticizing their abstinence-only sex education policy. We're suing. A Detroit judge ruled a Michigan pastor violated his parole when he... wrote to the newspaper, threatening the judge with God's wrath. We're suing. Police in Wisconsin shut down the play "Naked Boys Singing" because gays are icky, or as the police put it, "they didn't have a license." We're suing.

And when suing doesn't work, we meet in rooms and complain till we figure out what else to do. Department of Homeland Security cameras are going up in Cambridge whether we like it or not, and ACLU-Mass is meeting on Thursday at 6:30 to discuss how to deal with them. Specifically, I assume we'll discuss what sort of masks we'll wear to avoid detection when we destroy the cameras; me, I'm thinking about my traditional "Pimp Reaper / Alzheimer's Patient" get-up. This discussion may be particularly relevant because of those hidden BU cameras we've been postponing addressing all semester. In fact, we'll try for a response from FitRec or BU Today by Monday. Now there's something to talk about at the next meeting.

Results are in - elections and the 15

By Ryan Menezes on 11/11/2008 at 3:08am

For those of you who rely entirely on these emails for news, Barack Obama won the presidential election last week, and www.PalinAsPresident.com has updated accordingly. The ACLU as usual endorsed no one, but there are various reason we could be happy about Obama's win. Obama has said he'd appoint Supreme Court justices similar to former ACLU litigator Ruth Bader Ginsberg. He's pro-choice, pro death penalty reform and pro-ENDA. The ACLU's given him a 79% "lifetime rating." And Obama has agreed to undo various Bush mistakes, and that's something we plan to hold him to. We took a full-page ad in today's NY Times (attached!) urging Obama to close Guantanamo and end military commissions as soon as he takes office. To further brainstorm ways to guide Obama through the transition period, because clearly he has no one to advise him but us, the ACLU's holding a national town hall meeting by phone on Thursday. RSVP here .

Elsewhere on the ballot, good news and bad. The good was Question 2 - Massachusetts voted almost two to one to decriminalize marijuana possession under an ounce. Michigan legalized medical marijuana, Berkeley eased medical marijuana access, Hawaii and Arkansas deprioritized marijuana busts and a couple Massachusetts counties passed marijuana reform Public Policy Questions to work toward future medical use. The next step, says NORML, is a higher legal limit. ACLU friend Rep Barney Frank introduced a bill last spring that will eliminate federal penalties for possession under 3.5 ounces. "An Act to Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults" will probably come back up for discussion next year.

Also good: the failure of several initiatives against reproductive rights. A California initiative increasing wait times and requiring parental consent for abortions failed. A South Dakota initiative that would have banned nearly all abortions also failed. A Colorado initiative would have granted full constitutional protections to the fertilized egg, and while we're all for granting constitutional protections most of the time, Colorado voted against the proposition three to one.

The bad was California's Prop 8, which passed. Other states, Arizona and Florida, also passed amendments banning same-sex marriage, but California, who's married couples since May, seems the bigger defeat. State Attorney General Jerry Brown says current same-sex marriages will remain valid, and some counties will issue marriage licenses till the state health department makes them stop. Others stopped immediately. Half a million more people voted for the proposition than against it, and though California's Secretary of State won't release official results till December 9th, few see the two million uncounted absentee ballots changing anything. But as always happens when all else fails, the ACLU is suing to save everyone. We're asking the California Supreme Court to void Prop 8, not just because discrimination is bad, but because the ballot initiative was invalid. The California Constitution states that changes altering its principles count as "revisions" instead of "amendments," say ACLU attorneys. Initiatives can pass amendments. Revisions, however, also require prior legislative approval, which Prop 8 didn't get. Court spokesperson Lynn Holton said the court may rule on the lawsuit as early as this week. Supporting the lawsuit and protesting Prop 8 come demonstrations all over the country this weekend, hosted by an ad hoc group called Join The Impact. Boston's protest will start at 1:30pm on Saturday at Government Center. RSVP here, and those of us going will figure out where and when to meet.

Speaking of protests, the Chicago ACLU's uncovered disturbing details about the August Democratic National Convention protests, even more disturbing than the unconstitutional protest restrictions we sued over and lost. It turns out that a couple of the unruly protesters were... police officers. We obtained a use-of-force police report that proves undercover detectives disguised themselves as protesters and staged a struggle with a police commander. A deputy, not in one the plan, pepper sprayed them. Police ended up arresting over a hundred protesters, and the ACLU's now demanding Denver's Internal Affairs Bureau investigate just how much of the situation the police created.

Meanwhile, the main arrested protesters we've been following, the Hempstead 15, were arraigned today. All pled not guilty. Though the court had told them it would try them together, it now assigned them each different court dates ranging from Wednesday to next January. Sgt Matthis Chiroux calls it "legal gerrymandering," and the 150 supporters who demonstrated outside the court today now realize they'll have to attend 15 separate hearings. Matthis sends his thanks for our Wednesday event - I've attached photos, chosen especially for how tortured our panel looks. The event went fine; people actually came. We learned, among other things, that besides reading the protesters no rights and interrogating them with no lawyer, police beckoned to them from behind a line of horses, inviting them to cross boundaries and arresting them where no one else could see. We showed the audience footage from the protest - this, this and this - and discussed those images we wished the camera had caught, like the sight of three shackled protesters under a pink "Women Prisoners Only" sign. To support the 15, we're forwarding the petition here. You can also contact the Nassau County DA here.

[expletive deleted] Election Day!

By Ryan Menezes on 11/03/2008 at 12:28pm

Our Question One event didn't come together soon enough to promote it, so we scrapped it, and now it's Election Eve. Election Day means elections, but it also means parties and food, and there are plenty of campus places offering free salsa as results come in. BU Central opens its doors at 8pm. The Howard Thurman Center does too. Warren Towers' Melville Lounge has a viewing party, and I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for not hosting it in their Cinema Room. Earlier, be sure to pick up your free ice cream scoop at Ben & Jerry's between 5pm and 8.

The final Gallup poll puts Obama at an eleven point lead over McCain. Question Two stands too close to call. And Prop 8 in California has some 61% saying they'll vote yes (the exact amount who voted yes on a similar ballot initiative in 2000). If past referendums in Michigan or Wisconsin are any indicator, even more people will actually vote for it than say they will. Initiative proponents have far more money than opponents, despite large donations from Google and Apple. Some of their released videos feature country music, lies and the idea that moose sex makes male-female marriage beautiful. Also, child exploitation. Proponents also sent last-minute slick mailers out about how Obama endorses Prop 8. He doesn't.

Of course I didn't care much about Election Day at all before seeing this, but I now realize the importance of voting. Vote tomorrow. Vote at an off-peak time - 10am to noon or 2pm to 4 - to minimize your wait time. And don't wear a campaign button. According to Marlin v DC Board of Elections, that counts as campaigning at the polls, which can get you kicked out. We're going to sue to question this, but there's not quite enough time to resolve the issue by tomorrow. We've done other things for voter rights this cycle though. As we already talked about, we sued to get Libertarian candidates on the ballot in Massachusetts. And last Wednesday in Michigan, a kind of important state, we won our lawsuit to restore 5,500 illegally purged names to the rolls.

We've also been fighting for the rights of others society gladly tends to suppress: sex offenders. A new Missouri law tells sex offenders they have to stay in their homes with the lights off on Halloween. We sued to overturn it and failed. A Plainfield, Indiana law bars sex offenders from parks, and we're taking this one to the state supreme court next month. Supporters of the bans all argue, "C'mon, these are sex offenders we're talking about here," but we still have to limit how the governments restricts freedoms of those who've already served a sentence. The ACLU's also against Megan's Law, incidentally It invades convicted offenders' privacy without protecting enough people to justify it.

And detainees. Still fighting for their rights too. The second Guantanamo trial ended today, convicting self-described Al Qaeda media chief Ali Hamza Al Bahlul of 35 counts of conspiracy, supporting terrorism and solicitation to commit murder. Were this a fair trial, this would be good news - we're finally trying the detainees, and we're sentencing the guilty ones. But Al Bahlul, whose nine-point manifesto the court lost months ago, has been boycotting his trial. He's actually been holding up a sign reading "boycott" while in the courtroom. Far worse, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer, according to AP, refused to speak at all during the trial, even to answer the judge's questions. This doesn't sound completely like a fair trial; Al Bahlul himself called it "a legal farce."

Two other detainees have been in the news. A judge ruled the court won't consider Afghani Mohammed Jawad's coerced confession to murder, which convicted him under the older, officially unConstitutional military commissions. And the ACLU's fighting to stop the government from destroying more taped interrogations of Ali Saleh Al Marri, the only enemy combatant we're keeping on U.S. soil. The FBI arrested U.S. resident Al Marri in 2001, and his attorney, ACLU staffer Jonathan Hafetz, is now appealing to the Supreme Court to rule that the government can't seize and lock up Americans without trial. Former military generals and Justice Department officials, including former Attorney General Janet Reno, support our side.

The Supreme Court hasn't said whether they'll hear the case yet. They're hearing a major case tomorrow though - FCC v Fox Television will decide if TV stations can broadcast "fleeting expletives" without facing FCC fines. We filed an amicus brief on Fox's behalf. There's no telling how the Court will decide this one. Perhaps we should appoint justices by lottery like Ecuador does...

See you at tonight's meeting. See you at the BU Central debate afterward, rescheduled to tonight at 8:30. And most important, see you at the Hempstead 15 event, Wednesday at 6 in CAS B-50.

Is ethical lawyering an oxymoron? Criminal justice? Standard deviation?

By Ryan Menezes on 10/27/2008 at 7:34am

Things continue uncertain for Troy Davis. Last time we checked with him, a Supreme Court emergency session stayed his execution just 3 hours before the scheduled time, presumably because his trial witnesses have recanted, claimed coercion and accused someone else. Within a few weeks though, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear his appeal, a judge signed him a new death warrant, this time for Oct 27th - today. Davis appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and on Friday, they granted him a 25-day stay. He's alive, for now.

The case has attracted the attention of the Pope, Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International and, least helpful, Ravi Shankar. Another critic is Southern Center for Human Rights president Stephen Bright, who said, "The trial of this case has all the integrity of a professional wrestling match." Bright will speak at BU this afternoon. His lecture "Is this Justice? : Technicalities and Bad Lawyers in Criminal Cases" begins at 12:45pm in LAW 1270, so let's meet in the LAW lobby at 12:30. He'll probably talk about the Davis case along with cases he's dealt with personally over the years, including last year's Snyder v. Louisiana, which saved the defendant's life by convincing all justices but Scalia and Thomas that peremptory strikes against black jurors violate the Equal Protection clause.

There's another event about ethical lawyering this week. BC Law's ACLU chapter, angry that Attorney General Mukasey delivered their commencement address last May, is hosting a symposium on Wednesday called "The Pen, the Sword and the Waterboard" featuring a dozen or so professors and lawyers. We'll figure out who wants to go at our meeting tonight - 6pm as usual in CAS B36. Rounding up the events we have open to us this week, the Women's Center's got a panel discussion of some kind called "In Our Dreams? Overcoming Race and Gender Bias in US Politics" Tuesday at 4pm, there's a debate in BU Central Wednesday at 8pm about raping rapists rapaciously, and NORML's invited BPD's Lt. Thomas Nolan to discuss Question Two Thursday at 5pm in CAS 324.

We're talking a lot about Question Two, and only canines care about Question Three, but few of us seem to be talking about the November proposition with the greatest effect - Question One, the Massachusetts Income Tax Repeal Initiative. Thousands of voters will see it for the first time in the voting booth and will know only that the initiative will cut state spending and save all taxpayers money, little realizing that, um, well... what, there has to be some reason people are against the proposition. Oh, right, killing poor people. Anyway, some College Dems approached us asking us to help campaign against Question One, and we said no, reasoning that we like education and all but we also like small government, so the group's undecided on the issue. But we want to let other people decide, so as we discussed at our Columbus Day meeting, we're hosting an event on the topic. It could be the most we've done for this election since ACLU-Mass successfully sued to get the Libertarian Party on the ballot. We're tentatively scheduling it for this Sunday, and we've booked the chair of the Committee for Small Government, who wrote Question One. Chair Carla Howell wants to formally debate a rep from either Gov. Patrick's staff or the Massachusetts Teachers Association. We're trying to get one, and we may have an update tonight.

The other event we're hosting, on the Hempsted 15? It's happening. Lianne and some other of the 15 will speak in CAS B50 at 6pm on November 5th. It's the day after Election Day and the 403rd anniversary of someone or another protesting something.

And the 60th anniversary of Universal Declaration on Human Rights is in, oh, about a month. The ACLU's commemorating it with, among other things, a YouTube video contest for 18-23 year olds. Upload a video about your favorite of the Declaration's articles, and if they judge yours the best, you win... A FREE TRIP TO NEW YORK! To be fair, a trip to New York costs like $12 roundtrip. But the prize also includes lodging and admission to the UN General Assembly session on December 10th, the Declaration's anniversary. Contest details here.

BU student, veterans arrested protesting debate

By Ryan Menezes on 10/20/2008 at 10:20pm

You all watched the debate last week. But though the candidates and later media analysis covered campaign ethics, the federal budget, supreme court nominations and our constitutional right to fix leaky faucets, hardly anyone discussed the horses trampling people just outside where Obama and McCain debated.

As with all the presidential debates, protesters outside that night were chanting about the issues they thought no one was covering. The protesters this time included members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who according to Sgt. Kristofer Goldsmith had in vain written debate moderator Bob Scheiffer demanding an audience. At 7pm, having warned authorities in advance, a uniformed contingent tried to enter Hofstra University's main gate. Police began arresting them; protesters who'd been chanting "let them in" now chanted "let them go." You can view footage of the arrest here. According to audio from the footage, police told Sgt. Adam Kokesh that they needn't read him his rights, "We don't need rights," "that's on COPS" and "we do things differently here in New York."

After arresting Sgt. Kokesh, the police used horses to subdue the protesters. According to a report from Hunter College's The Word ,veterans formed a line to block them, and the horses trampled several. One was civilian protester Nadine Luca. Another was Sgt. Nick Morgan (photos attached). Democracy Now covered the protest and its violent aftermath here. (Democracy Now newscaster and ACLU friend Amy Goodman was herself arrested protesting at the Republican National Convention last month.) According to other IVAW members, police laughed at and ignored Morgan's injuries while they arrested other protesters, then after they transported him to the hospital and discovered a displaced right cheek bone, they moved him to Nassau County's Headquarters Jail, gave him a Motrin for his pain and left him shackled to a bench for 5 hours with no further medical assistance. According to Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, police sexually harassed the protesters and threatened them with prison rape when they asked for a lawyer. One of the 15 they arrested was our own Lianne Gillooly.

To get the word out here about what happened, we'll host an event with the Anti-war Coalition (which Lianne led last year). We'd like some of the arrested protesters (they call themselves "The Hamstead 15") to come, unless they're legally barred from leaving New York or something. Either way, we'll get some members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (which Lianne works for now). We also hope to attend the protesters' hearing on November 10th. For now, join their Facebook group to show your support, and invite all your friends to do the same.

Since we're hosting that event with the Anti-war Coalition, we won't be bundling it with our Winter Soldier event. But Winter Soldier's still on, the Anti-war Coalition's on board and now that we have a real contact with IVAW, we can get an entire couch of speakers rather than just Ruth Kiefson.

Several events this week though to keep us occupied till then. Close partners NORML (ACLU president Nadine Strossen's on their advisory board... she and Willie Nelson) have their first meeting Wednesday at 4pm in CAS 201. Later Wednesday, BU will join such illustrious schools as Endicott College, Stonehill College and Westfield State in hosting WBZ's Dan Rea's live radio show. I heard Dan Rea talk on Friday, and we agree so much that listening further may be a complete waste of time, but it's a political discussion that's going on talk radio, so how could we NOT show up? "Talk the Vote" starts at 8pm in the GSU Conference Auditorium, and you should register for it here. Then on Thursday at 1pm, Judith Miller will speak in the COM student lounge. She'll talk about going to prison for keeping her source confidential during 2005's Valerie Plame scandal, and she'll talk about freedom of the press and the need for a shield law for journalists. That'll go to 3pm, and at 4, Human Rights Campaign president and BU alum Joe Solmonese will speak in the Howard Thurman Center about LGBTQZM rights.

Solmonese's talk'll probably be especially relevant now because of California's Prop 8 banning same-sex marriage, which more polled voters support than oppose 15 days till the election. MassEquality's working daily to change minds, and you can offer to help them by phoning (617) 878-2300 or even just showing up at 11 Beacon Street Suite 1125 ready to phone voters. They were signing up volunteers when we watched "Saving Marriage" last Monday, and got quite a few - unlike the last Kendall documentary we saw, this one filled the theater with viewers. Several legislators and activists from the film came for the premiere, and the filmmakers were there to introduce and answer questions. And unlike most of our events, technical difficulties were minimal (the hostess, on getting her mic to work, said, "Guess you need a lesbian to show you how to handle something shaped like this.")

"W." attracted even more people, but we made it before they started turning people away. There were some pacing issues, clumsy exposition, limited scope and simplified themes, but we enjoyed it, if only for the scene where Bush senior and junior box in the oval office. The movie's worst fault though was ending with the Iraq invasion, sparing us all the scandals from Dubyuh's second term. Like all the spying - the NSA now admits to monitoring non-terror conversations including phone sex and the ACLU has filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get more details. And all the torture - yet more torture memos have surfaced, and we now know the CIA and the Bush administration authorized waterboarding.

The movie also neglected to cover the voting scandal from 2000, presumably because doing so'd require casting someone as Al Gore. We'll make up for it by watching a Freedom Files DVD on voting rights this evening at 6pm. 'Tis the Season.

Free movies - in real theaters!

By Ryan Menezes on 10/10/2008 at 12:23pm

Around a year ago, we participated in a 10,000 strong war protest march. We've since learned that war-protesting isn't something the ACLU generally does, and they don't want student groups doing so in their name, but there's another giant protest tomorrow, so if people want to go, that's where we're going! Just not, um, with signs proclaiming that we represent the ACLU.

The protest's on the Common, and as with all protests on the Common, there'll be a dozen or so music acts, and people will speak on various issues, many probably completely unconnected with the event's cause. There's even going to be a formal 1.5 mile march. I don't know if this will be as big a deal as last year's (5th anniversaries are often larger deals than 6ths), but if you're doing nothing else on Saturday, consider the Stop The War rally. Oh - also, there will be puppets.

Elsewhere in the wide world of war on terror policies we protest, a federal judge this week ordered the Bush Administration release 17 Guantanamo detainees by Friday (today). These detainees aren't U.S. terror suspects - these were the "Chinese Muslims" you might have heard as examples of clearly innocent detainees who need release. These members of China's Uighur Muslim minority had been seeking refuge from China in Afghanistan when the U.S. picked them up. (China calls them terrorists; Human Rights Watch says China is conducting a "crushing campaign of religious repression" against them.) They remained in Guantanamo for the next seven years or so, long after all agreed that they'd never fought the U.S., because no one knew where else to send them. China would persecute them. Albania had accepted a few Uighurs but wanted no more. Letting them into the U.S. seemed plain wacky. So they stayed in Guantanamo, and after admitting none of them were enemy combatants, the U.S. tried to rationalize keeping them by saying they'd received weapons training in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Honestly, which of us hasn't received weapons training in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?

The judge's order was good news for about a day, until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked it. The administration now has a week to think of new arguments for detaining the Uighurs.

Ah, the Bush administration. So much to mock. We'll mock them cinematically next week at a free advance screening of Oliver Stones biopic W. I know our occasional half hour documentaries broadcast on a CAS screen completely blow you away, but you might enjoy a full-length movie in a theater even more. View the trailer here. This screening's open to hundreds of people all over the city - it's first come first served, so long as you have a freely copyable ticket. We could arrive an hour early and still not get in. So we're going to arrive... an hour early. Yeah, I think that's about at early as we can do it without being completely ridicuolous. We'll meet on Marsh Plaza at 5:30.

The day before that we have another free advance screening, and it's a movie even more relevant to us. This one's an actual documentary - "Saving Marriage - The True Story of the Massachusetts Fight to Save Marriage Equality." I know what you're all thinking: "Wow, isn't that title eerily reminiscent of 'How We Won - The inside story of how the ACLU helped secure Massachusetts same-sex marriage,' which was of course the event we hosted in November of last year?!" You are right. IMDB says that "Saving Marriage" was released in 2006, but the movie's site says it gets released at around one theater at a time, and it officially opens at Kendall on the 17th. The 13th, therefore, still counts as an advance screening. They scheduled a new string of releases now to coincide with the California marriage campaign - yes, a new same-sex marriage ban is on the ballot in California for November. But what's this? Breaking news from Connecticut? News so new it didn't make today's paper? Yep: a judge in Connecticut just overturned a lower court's ruling and legalized same-sex marriage. That makes Connecticut the third state to allow it, and it makes the movie we're about to see more relevant then ever, at least until they make "The True Story of the Connecticut Fight to Save Marriage Equality." Movie starts at 8pm. MassEquality will reserve spaces for us if we call ahead and tell them how many, so RSVP.

We're meeting Monday, Columbus Day or no Columbus Day, in B36 at 6pm. If our room's locked, we'll find somewhere else. We'll leave together for Kendall immediately after the meeting, and we'll likely reach there well in time. Assuming we find Kendall. It's sometimes hard to find Kendall. Someone should bring a map.

(Sort of) new meeting schedule

By Ryan Menezes on 10/06/2008 at 12:40pm

We talked about changing meeting times last week and found that nothing works better than Mondays at 6. So rather than change times, we'll be alternating weeks of watching films or reading articles and just ranting in general with weeks more related to direct program planning. Tonight, for instance, we're going to watch an ACLU bit on Women's Issue because we hear several woman plan to come to the meeting, or because of that Bush bill that may or may not classify all forms of birth control as abortion, or because of Sarah Palin Sarah Palin Sarah Palin.

Today: Picketing Scalia!

By Ryan Menezes on 10/01/2008 at 12:39pm

Here's a very hastily-put-together flier to distribute today. I haven't actually had a chance to proofread it properly, so I'm including the Photoshop file as well in case you need to edit anything. James will surely print out copies, and he has some entirely irrelevant signs you might like to take with you.

Have fun today! And take some pictures.

Today: Picketing Scalia!

By James Sappenfield on 10/01/2008 at 11:28am

Interested in picketing Scalia?!? Maybe Ryan will have some fliers for us?!? Maybe we will have signs?!?!

Leaving from the steps of Tsai @3:35. Be there or be square!

Tonight's meeting: we actually plan stuff

By Ryan Menezes on 09/29/2008 at 3:52pm

I didn't actually explain before I left last week why I chose to screen the Death Penalty DVD. The ACLU and other organizations had been protesting the impeding execution of Troy Davis, who was convicted in 1991 of killing a police officer. No physical evidence linked David to the crime, and since his trial, seven of the nine eyewitnesses that helped convict him have recanted their testimony. Some of them now accuse someone else on the scene of the murder, and others claim police coerced them into testifying. Davis's execution was scheduled for Tuesday, the day after our last meeting. But just two hours before he was to die, the Supreme Court, possibly reacting to pressure from various protest groups, stayed his execution in an emergency session. Davis lives to die another day, to live or possibly even to get acquitted.

So the Supreme Court does do nice things on occasion. But we call them out when they don't, so now that Scalia's coming to Faneuil Hall on Wednesday, we're going to come by and remind people about, oh, a few of his less wise decisions. Like Hamdan v Rumsfeld, where he approved of military commissions even when Congress hadn't approved them. Or this summer's Boumediene v. Bush, when he said granting detainees habaes corpus "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" and "warps our Constitution." Or Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, where he said if the executive branch spends money unconstitutionally (say, on faith-based initiatives), taxpayers have no right to question it. Or Hudson v. Michigan, where he ruled that if police break into a home to seize evidence after waiting just seconds after knocking, it violates the Fourth Amendment, but hey, the evidence is still admissible in court. And then there's that recent quote of his that's pretty famous, when on 60 Minutes he said that torture isn't cruel and unusual punishment because it isn't a punishment. (This was, to be fair, a good argument, but it's still a bad point of view.)

ACLU-Mass asked various chapters if they'd like to picket the event, and we're the ONLY one to say yes, proving yet again that we're the state's most active chapter. If you want to come and, if not outright picket, at least tell the audience about some of Scalia's mistakes and ask Scalia some uncomfortable questions, be sure to come to the meeting today or email. (Debating Scalia will be a challenge. Watch ACLU president Nadine Strossen hold her own against him here.) Hearing Scalia speak costs $10. Accosting strangers outside is free of course. Registration begins at 4, and Scalia speaks at 5.

This protest isn't hosted by ACLU-Mass. They're actually hosting an event of their own at the same time: a vigil for immigrant rights on City Plaza (near the JFK building, home of the immigration court) that starts at 5pm. Nothing appears to be happening at the event other than... vigiling. But if we protest in Faneuil Hall and leave when Scalia actually begins speaking, it'd be easy to swing by Government Center to join other members.

We'll fix how we're dividing our time between the events at the meeting tonight. We're also going to get around to those events of our own - we have a film screening and another presentation in the pipeline, and members of BU's Antiwar Coalition will join us at 6:30, if anyone wants to stick around to talk about collaborating. We're also going to discuss changing the day we meet to one people, specifically me, can make more easily.

And oh yeah - tonight's the superhero public debate. I'm attaching a flier.

Afghans in capes networking through weed

By Ryan Menezes on 09/23/2008 at 2:48pm

For those of you who didn't already hear and aren't set on seeing Dan Rather at Metcalf at 7pm, filmmaker Kathleen Foster is screening her documentary "Afghan Women: A History of Struggle" at 5:30 at the Brattle Theater at 40 Brattle St, Cambridge. Watch a clip at http://www.kathleenfoster.com/. Be warned though that seeing the film does cost $15. We're going to have a go at getting Foster to come to BU, no matter how empty our bank account's looking right now.

If anyone's wondering how Sunday's Voter registration event from the Minority Association for Social Change went, it went fine, other than the almost complete absence of any attempt to register voters. "iVote" was instead a networking event between different activist groups. The BU College Republicans did not come; groups that did resented this and vowed to write angry Letters to the Editor, showing the social danger of ever being busy. The event had a keynote speaker - Ron Bell, Deval Patrick's community affairs director, which seemed a little anti-climactic considering that Deval Patrick himself had visited campus just the previous day. The Student Union's begun some more aggressive voter registration at the GSU, and we may join them as well as doing it on our own like last year.

Also this past weekend was the NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) rally on the common. A couple people got arrested, according to the Daily Free Press, which wouldn't ever happen again if we pass Question 2 this November decriminalizing marijuana possession. 72% of voters support the bill, says a 7NEWS/Suffolk University. You'll hear more about reasons for decriminalization at the October 9th CAS B50 Law Enforcement Against Prohibition lecture that we're promoting. Students for a Sensible Drug Policy's hosting that lecture, and they're so close to us that we're not sure if we want NORML, who's applied for a BU chapter, to be a separate student group. Between the ACLU, SSDP and the Debate Society, we may control a solid voter bloc at the political consortium that'll decide NORML's status.

Speaking of the Debate Society, they have a public debate coming up next Monday, and though I promise I won't invite you to everything they put on, this one's actually relevant to us. It's about whether the best way to combat crime in a city is to pursue traditional political means or to... become a superhero. Literally, a superhero. If any of you on seeing The Dark Knight this summer left morally conflicted and unsure about your civil libertarianism, this'll help you sort those feeling out.

Chief Justice defends Bush anti-terror policies to BU Students

By Ryan Menezes on 09/19/2008 at 11:36am

Many of you missed plenty. You might have missed something we told you about well in advance, and you might have missed something we told about just a day in advance, but to keep you from missing more, before we recap what happened, here's a reminder of what's still to come.

Tomorrow, there's grass and music on the common, and when I say "grass," I mean "the stuff that's on lawns," and when I say "music," I mean "marijuana." BUT WAIT! Before going there, at noon, watch the BU College Dems host a rally to kick off a voter registration drive. This isn't exactly the same as the drive we're participating in on Sunday, but you can never have too many drives. And this rally, at Morse Auditorium, will feature appearances by governor Deval Patrick, congressman Michael Capuano and Daily Show alum Rob Corddry. That's at least three reasons to show up.

On Sunday of course, we're registering voters in the Sargent Gym at 1 University Road. There'll be a DJ there, if you're into that sort of thing.

And come on time for our meeting on Monday because we're watching a solid half-hour of film. Better yet, come early for the Students for a Sensible Drug Policy meeting in the same room.

Those of you wondering how Tuesday's Media and Civil Liberties thing at the public library went, first the bad news: technical difficulties. Their audio/visual presentation failed, and the failure warmed our hearts just a little just because of how often we'd suffered similarly in the past. Other than that though, it went well. Particularly interesting was...

- Drama between Eric Alterman and Ellen Hume, about whether there was any hope of escaping the media's echo chamber to spread new points of view
- Drama between Eric Alterman and host Barry Nolan, about whether Barry's questions were over-sensational and trying to pin the panelists into positions they didn't hold
- Drama between Eric Alterman and some guy in the crowd, who criticized him for wishing deafness on Rush Limbaugh, who he described as a leader whose charisma no one else could ever again equal (Alterman just replied "Obama" to expected applause)

One surprise audience guest was Carlos Arredondo, who has toured the country with the casket of his son, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arrendondo, in protest of the war. Another audience guest filled us in on details of Amy Goodman, the Democracy Now reporter who was arrested during the Republican National Convention, apparently for doing nothing but reporting. Inexplicably, the newsmedia seems to be ignoring that story. You can find video of Amy's arrest and other clips Barry was unable to show here.

Yesterday though was day three of the nation's "Not Sure When Constitution Day Is" festival. Since it was for Constitution Day, you would think BU might invite a speaker who loves the Constitution (last, year, they had ACLU executive director Anthony Romero). They did not. They invited Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams, who, though we didn't realize it till we heard him speak, is the Chief Justice of the Court of Military Commission Review. Yes - military commissions, the constitutionally-questionable parodies of trials that we've been protesting for years.

Williams speech in fact said very little about the Constitution and did nothing to defend it. Instead, it was part generic welcome-to-Law-school speech, part ode-to- Lincoln (Williams wrote a book about Lincoln and runs a Lincoln fan club) and part talk about random-things-like-the-Declaration-of-Independence. And then he spent some significant time... defending himself, and defending the policy of maintaining a trial system for detainees outside of the justice system. And that was even before the Q&A, which was almost exclusively about military commissions and other rights violations.

Some highlights: Williams said that commissions defendants "belong" outside of the United States. He said he does not "think" military commissions would be unconstitutional if they took place in the continental United States. He recognized that five years passed before the first Guantanamo trial competed, but he blamed the federal appeals process rather then Bush.

Asked if the Sixth Amendment, the right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury, should apply to everyone "whose liberty has been taken away by the State," Williams said it already does, and responded with an anecdote that implied he did not see the connection between the question and military commissions. In the anecdote, Williams said he once "did everything he could" to successfully prevent a man arrested for public urination from receiving a jury trial.

Williams was also critical, though sometimes jokingly, of the liberal media, especially the NY Times, who he says claims a rights violation unless every single defendant gets tried in a U.S. District Court. Some of us would have enjoyed seeing Tuesday's panel share the stage with him to tell him a bit about the media's responsibilities.

You can download the speech and listen to it yourself here.

See a state Supreme Court Chief Justice! Picket a U.S. Supreme Court Justice!

By James Sappenfield on 09/17/2008 at 10:06pm

Alright all you wonderful ACLU members out there, I have caught word of two awesome events:

Beginning at 1:00PM in Barrister's Hall, Rhode Island Supreme Court, Chief Justice Frank J. Williams ('70) will deliver a special, presentation entitled, "Why The U.S. Constitution Is Still Relevant," in, honor of Constitution Day. That's right, we can totally catch a speech by RI Supreme Court Chief Justice. Right in our own school. I will be standing around on the Steps of Tsai, tomorrow(Thursday)@ 12:25 to meet up with anyone interested in going to see Chief Justice Williams speak. We will be leaving promptly @ 12:35.

Also, we have been invited to totally picket Justice Scalia from the U.S. Supreme Court. This would be on Wed., Oct. 1 around 4-6. I would like to see if there is any interest in this so I can get back to our ACLU Mass Student Rep letting her know if we will/wont be going to this. Shoot aclu@bu.edu an email if you are diggin it. Or reply to this email. Definitly easier.

SCOTUS: Missing meetings merits death penalty

By Ryan Menezes on 09/15/2008 at 4:16am

First meeting! Also, New York.

By Ryan Menezes on 09/07/2008 at 1:51pm

Friday's demonstration went efficiently and well. Just meeting at 7:20am was 90% of the battle; finding the Suffolk courthouse and forcing advice on unsuspecting jurors afterward was easy. It was Jury Rights Day after all, and it turned out that wishing people "Happy Jury Rights Day!" attracted pedestrians far more that saying "Would you like to learn about juror rights?" which they'd have interpreted as "Would you like to join my cult?" or "Your money or your life." Sean told me early on that we'd be unable to stand on the courthouse steps, and I laughed at this till we saw a sign saying - NO DEMONSTRATIONS ON COURTHOUSE STEPS. Even staying off the steps, some of us still hoped to be arrested by police using excessive force, and before too long, we enjoyed hearing this exchange:

Security guard: "C'mon TALK to them!"
Plainclothes guard with walkie talkie: (*ignores him and walks away from our area, looking uncomfortable*)
Security guard: "Just SAY something to them!"
Plainclothes guard: (*keeps walking*)

Of course they could have been talking about anything. But a court official actually did approach us later on, telling us that congregating in one place could cause trouble. This was a good thing because it meant we were being noticed. The whole point was to affect people after all, not only jurors (whose knowledge of their nullification rights could really make a difference, especially since this court has sole jurisdiction over first degree murder cases) but also court officials, who we wanted knowing our cause. Moving did cause me some problems though because I had to remember not to leave my bag, which looks suspiciously like a bomb case, "unattended." If the bomb squad destroyed it, I would have lost almost all my spare pens.

You can help plan many more events that will never, ever again, start at 7:20am at our opening meeting tomorrow at 6pm in CAS B36. Are you coming and bringing your roommate for company? Oh yes. You are.

I'll mention one event before the meeting though. Anyone planning to visit New York this weekend? I ask this because in any group of ten, one is. American Psychological Association reps and other psychologists will be discussing torture's ethical implications for psychologists at a New York conference this Friday. The American Psychological Association has refused to take a position on torture (though all other other major medical organizations have), and the ACLU-Mass held a protest at the APA's convention in August. This conference will be at the Gerald W Lynch Theater, and you can read more information about it here.

Nullify THIS!

By Ryan Menezes on 9/03/2008 at 11:40pm

We welcome hundreds of new members to our roster this week, including card-carrying members, civil liberties essayists, someone who interned with the ACLU this summer and one guy actually named "Liberti." They're probably not all going to show up at our first meeting - Monday at 6pm, CAS B36 - else we'd need to start thinking about getting a bigger room. But I know YOU will come. Right?

Some of us will meet before then though because Friday is Jury Rights Day. Few have heard of the holiday, but that's no reason not to celebrate, or at least peacefully assemble and educate the public. Jury Rights Day marks the anniversary of the 1670 acquittal of William Penn, whom you may know as Pennsylvania's founder but who was also a major democracy and rights advocate. Penn's religious beliefs landed him in prison multiple times. He once spent eight months in solitary confinement for blasphemy; given the chance to recant, he said "My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot for I owe my conscience to no mortal man." In 1670, Penn's preaching broke a law against assembly, and he went to trial without hearing charges against him or being allowed to defend himself. The judge pressured the jury to convict him. Their verdict: "not guilty." He imprisoned them without food till they changed their minds. They didn't. The judge then threw the entire jury into jail indefinitely and fined them each a year's salary. The jury filed a writ of habeas corpus, and a higher-up judge released them.

This was one of the first recorded cases of jury nullification - when jurors acquitting a defendant follow their consciences instead legal standards. The case was also involved freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom from unlawful imprisonment and the right to trial, so it was pretty much a big case for civil liberties any way you look at it.

Jurors in the U.S. have the legal right to nullify laws, but a 1969 case, U.S. v. Moylan, said that judges need not tell juries of this right. On Friday, we'll hand literature to prospective jurors informing them the right exists.

Jury nullification's certainly a debatable issue. The ACLU-Mass actually opposed a 1991 bill about informing jurors of the right. Their reasoning was that letting jurors follow personal prejudices allows discrimination. They argued that jurors need to be held to the rule of law just as elected officials or ordinary citizens do. But to quote the (attached!) Fuly Informed Jury Association brochure we'll hand out, "if jurors were supposed to judge 'only the facts,' their job could be done by a judge. It is precisely because people have individual, independent feelings, opinions, wisdom, experience and conscience that we depend upon jurors to refuse to mindlessly follow the dictates of a judge or of a bad law."

We need to get to the courthouse early enough to catch the prospective jurors before they enter. So we'll meet at 7:20am on Marsh Plaza to ensure we get to the Suffolk County Courthouse by 8. This is almost certainly the earliest we'll have to wake up to do anything all year. If you don't make it to Marsh in time, you could come straight to the courthouse. Keep in mind though that we'll be done once all jurors have entered the building, so we should leave by, oh, 9:30 or so, well in time to go home and nap till lunch. RSPV here. I'm skipping class to come. Might as well. They don't each ANYTHING in those classrooms nowadays.

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