Steal This Book Introduction p.xxiii-xxv

(Commonplace Book)

From my reread of Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman:

Steal This Book is, in a way, a manual of survival in the prison that is Amerika. It preaches jailbreak. It shows you where exactly how to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls. The first section--SURVIVE!--lays out a potential action program for our new Nation. The chapter headings spell out the demands for a free society. A community where the technology produces goods and services for whoever needs them, come who may. It calls on the Robin Hoods of Santa Barbara Forest to steal from the robber barons who own the castles of capitalism. It implies that the reader already is “ideologically set,” in that he understands corporate feudalism as the only robbery worthy of being called “crime,” for it is committed against the people as a whole. Whether the ways it describes to rip-off shit are legal or illegal is irrelevant. The dictionary of law is written by the bosses of order. Our moral dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Community within our Nation, chaos in theirs; that is the message of SURVIVE!

We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system, but destroy it. The weapons are carefully chosen. They are “home-made,” in that they are designed for use in our unique electronic jungle. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof of our “violent” nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us. Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be fucked. Let me illustrate the point. Amerika was built on the slaughter of a people. That is its history. For years we watched movie after movie that demonstrated the white man’s benevolence. Jimmy Stewart, the epitome of fairness, puts his arm around Cochise and tells how the Indians and the whites can live in peace if only both sides will be reasonable, responsible and rational (the three R’s imperialists always teach the “natives”). “You will find good grazing land on the other side of the mountain,” drawls the public relations man. “Take your people and go in peace.” Cochise as well as millions of youngsters in the balcony of learning, were being dealt off the bottom of the deck. The Indians should have offed Jimmy Stewart in every picture and we should have cheered ourselves hoarse. Until we understand the nature of institutional violence and how it manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to think revolutionary.

Be clever using section two; clever as a snake. Dig the spirit of the struggle. Don’t get hung up on a sacrifice trip. Revolution is not about suicide, it is about life. With your fingers probe the holiness of your body and see that it was meant to live. Your body is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn’t allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power. We are not interested in the greening of Amerika except for the grass that will cover its grave.

******************************************

For better or for worse (probably for worse), this passage had a big impact on me when I first read it at age 18.  I was unfortunately influenced by some of Abbie Hoffman's outrageous pronouncements like: 

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

...which at the time caused me to think it was okay to steal from a supermarket if you could get away with it.  (Sigh, what an idiot I was.) 

During my college years, I was fond of quoting this section.  My email archive reveals that on December 2nd, 1996, I actually copied this out into an email I wrote to a friend.  I included this introduction at the time:

Here’s some food for thought for you. It is a passage from Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman (Yippie founder, and one of the Chicago eight--but you probably already knew that.)  Take note—I don’t agree with everything he says.  I am in total agreement with him when he points out the problems in American society (or Amerika as Abbie puts it, but I’m not sure what the unconformist spelling stands for) however I part ways from him regarding his violent solutions.  Here it is:

....and then I proceeded to quote the entire above section.

I also quoted a line from this section in my Chimes article on the Death Penalty from 1999 (see here and here):

“Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime.” -- Abbie Hoffman.

....which I now also look back on with embarrassment.  For one thing, quoting Abbie Hoffman in a political article only encourages people not to take you seriously.  But even beyond that, this quote wasn't really about the death penalty.  Abbie Hoffman was talking about the difference between killing in war and killing in peacetime.  In my mind, it was related to the death penalty because I equated "murder in a uniform" to a uniformed officer executing the death penalty, and "murder in a costume" to the person receiving the death penalty.  But I think I was stretching things a bit too far. 

But put a pin in all of that for right now.  When I finish this book, and get around to reviewing it, I'll talk more about the politics of it.  For now, I want to forget about the politics, and focus on how effective this prose is.

I was taking a freshman English class at Calvin College at the time, and every week we had to bring in a piece of writing that we liked to share with the class.  I brought this piece in. I edited it slightly. I cut out the meandering parts and just kept in the punches.  And, because this was Calvin College, I changed "we will forever be fucked" to "we will forever be deceived".  If memory serves, my edited version was something like this.

We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to change the system, but destroy it. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof of our “violent” nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us. Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be deceived. 

Until we understand the nature of institutional violence and how it manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to think revolutionary.

Surprisingly (this was Calvin College, after all), the professor actually liked it.  After I got done reading it aloud, she commented, "A very powerful piece.  And what makes it so powerful?  It's that parallel structure."

And, I think I agree. If you read the above passage aloud, and you emphasis the words dramatically, and get into the rhythm of the parallel structure, then it can be a very effective piece of rhetoric.

Sidenote:  In the sentence:

A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. 

...I was never sure if "its" was meant to refer to the army or the small nation.  That is to say, I wasn't sure if "it's people" was supposed to mean "its own people" (i.e. the people of the country that the army is from, or in other words, American citizens) or if "its people" is the people of the small nation. Back in college, I thought it meant the former, but rereading it now, I think it's probably the latter.

So, if we're scoring this passage on its prose style, maybe take off one point for an ambiguous pronoun.  

Check this book out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4aGuSP3           (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Saw this one Facebook....

Calvin College to become Calvin University in 2020

Quote:

A Calvin College release said the rationale for the change includes the strength of Calvin’s academic programs, academic innovation and the term “university” being more recognizable for international students.

Having been living overseas, I can confirm that the term "college" does indeed confuse non-Americans. 
To avoid confusion, I've long ago started using the term "my university" when talking to non-Americans about my old college days.

Today in : Hey, I Know that Guy!

Media Mouse's Youtube channel

They've got lots of videos, of which I figure in two of them.

Non a la ZLEA (No to the FTAA)



I filmed much of the footage in this documentary.
Also, I feature in the panel discussion.
The panel discussion was originally 1 hour long, but it was cut up into soundbites and interspersed with the footage we filmed from the protest.  In the end, I only had one line that survived the edit.  From 6:18

(I've linked to this video before in the past, but in the past I've linked the archive.org version.  To the best of my memory, this is the first time linking to the youtube version.)

The other video is Protest!: The World Bank, IMF, and WTO in Grand Rapids, Michigan

I was at this rally, although you can't really see me.  (You can briefly catch the back of my head in a couple shots.)

Anarchism in Grand Rapids

While researching information on Voltairine de Cleyre (for the previous post), I came across a 4 part publication detailing the history of anarchism in Grand Rapids.  See  here.

I looked in vain for the author's names, but couldn't find it.  Apparently whoever wrote it wanted to be anonymous.  But I've got a strong suspicion I know who it is--one of my former comrades from the Media Mouse days.

I suspect it's the same comrade who wrote this 2009 article: A History of Anarchist Organizing in Grand Rapids.  I linked to it back at the time.  And, just to show off how clever I was, I also chimed in with my own factoids about Grand Rapids and Anarchism down in the comments section:

Should one wish to go a bit further back, Emma Goldman once visited Grand Rapids and actually loved it. She gave a speech at which she was very well received. She writes about her trip briefly in her autobiography, and at the time she gave a brief write in mother earth magazine
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/ME/mev6n1.html#17

Also anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre lived and worked in Grand Rapids at the turn of the century
http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/decleyre/sp001860.html

The author, though, was way ahead of me on this one, and responded:

@Joel:

Way to go with knowing my two favorite bits of Grand Rapids anarchist history! There was actually a hilarious article in one of the newspapers of the time when Emma Goldman was in town that basically expressed surprise that she wasnt an actual monster, it was pretty ridiculous.
There was also a very active IWW branch in the early 1900s.

So I said:

Ah, so I see I'm not the only one who knows this little tidbit then. I actually learned about it a few years ago, in Japan of all places, when reading through Emma Goldman's autobiography. Id be curious to know where you first heard about this. Is it common knowledge in West Michigan progressive circles, or did you have to dig around a bit?
I've not seen the newspaper articles though. Were these from the Grand Rapids Press or its equivalent of the time? And again, how did you stumble upon them? Are they publically available?
In her autobiography Emma Goldman also talks about William Buwalda, a US soldier from Hudsonville Michigan, who was court martialled and imprisoned for the crime of shaking hands with Emma Goldman. 

And the author responded with:

I came across the bit about Volteraine de Cleyre while reading her biography.
As for the Emma Goldman bit, I actually searched around a bit in the Grand Rapids Public Librarys local history room to find the articles. They were in whatever the Grand Rapids Press equivalent was back then, although there were actually multiple newspapers. I cant remember what one they were in. To find the dates I believe I cross referenced with a tour itinerary from another source.
I dont have access to the notebook with the references right off hand, but Ill try to find it. Maybe Ill see about scanning or retyping the articles sometime, just for curiositys sake.
Someday Id like to do a piece looking at radical history in Grand Rapids, so this would certainly fit.

So, I suspect that he's the same author of this extensive 4 volume history of anarchism in Grand Rapids.

Anyway, I've already commented on Emma Goldman and Volteraine de Cleyre in Grand Rapids in my 2005 blogpost: Emma Goldman Visits Grand Rapids....And Loves It!

Moving back to the 4 volume history of Anarchism in Grand Rapids:
My own activist days are covered in volume 4, which covers the late 90s and early 2000s (my time).

I was an active member of the group Media Mouse--whose history is briefly covered in volume 4 starting on page 30.
Since I like to wax nostalgic on this blog, I'll jot down a few reminiscences here from my Media Mouse days.  This can be read as a supplement to the history of Media Mouse that you'll find Volume 4 of the History of Anarchism in Grand Rapids.
I wasn't one of the founding members of Media Mouse, but I started hearing about them through the Calvin College Social Justice Coalition (which I was actively involved in at the time).  With several members of Calvin's SJC, we attended the April 17, 2000 Breaking the Bank Protest (which is mentioned in on page 31 of the history). The Media Mouse video of which can be viewed here.

By the summer of that year, I started attending Media Mouse meetings regularly.

There were a lot of people in Grand Rapids who were vaguely interested in Media Mouse, but there were only about 5 of us who attended the regular meetings with any consistency.  And I was one of those 5.  I didn't have any valuable skills to lend to the group--I wasn't particularly smart, or creative, and I usually just went along with what the other members suggested.  But I was dedicated--I never missed a meeting.

I gained such a reputation for regular attendance that my absence was remarked upon in a Media Mouse e-mail shortly after I had left for Japan.

In total, my days at Media Mouse lasted for slightly over a year, and then I left for Japan in August 2001, and that was the end of my activism days.
(Much to my regret--it all seemed like a big adventure at the time, and I was sorry to give it up.  But it was impossible to stay involved in grass roots politics in America and live in the Japanese countryside at the same time.  So I had to choose one of the two adventures, and I chose travelling.  But I've always wondered about the road not taken.)

My own personal recollection is that Media Mouse itself, as an organization, was non-doctrinal.  (I don't remember anyone referring to it as an anarchist group at the time).  But I think all of us regular members self-identified as anarchists, so in that sense it was an anarchist organization.

On page 31, the history mentions Media Mouse's coverage and participation in the 2001 Quebec anti-FTAA protests.  For my own memory of that event, see excerpts from my journal here here.  For the Media Mouse documentary of the event, see here.  (The documentary contains some footage that I shot, and also contains me as part of a Media Mouse panel discussion).

One of the people tangentially associated with Media Mouse published her own Zine called "Get Up!"  This is also mentioned briefly in the history on page 31.

Anarchist ideas began to manifest themselves in other venues as well. A short lived zine called Get Up! featured anarchist symbols and described itself as “an anti-racist, anti-capitalist, pro-feminist, radically-oriented publication.”

At her request, I submitted two articles that were published in Get Up!  Report on 2000 RNC Protest , and Adventures at the Border.

When I came back to Grand Rapids in 2006, I tried to get back into activism.
I followed the pattern I had set before--I attended all the meetings regularly, and I showed up - at - the -protests, but I didn't provide any leadership or have any special skills.  And that was my history with the Grand Rapids chapter of the IWW (also mentioned in volume 4 of the history, page 31).  I attended their meetings regularly for a period during 2006, but that's as much as I can claim.

From the Atlantic:
Betsy DeVos's Misunderstood Alma Mater: Calvin College is no fundamentalist Christian school.

Wow, so I have completely lost track of the number of Facebook friends who have posted this article.  Seems like everyone who went to Calvin is obligated to post this article and say something about.

Actually some of the Facebook commentary on this article is more interesting than the article itself.  Among my former Calvin classmates, I've been reading the whole range from, "Wow, what a wonderful place Calvin is," to "I'm really glad I finally got out into the wider world and away from those CRC people"  (I'm paraphrasing, but that's been some of the gist.)

It's a bit tricky to get your finger exactly on Calvin's pulse.  For a school with a predomminately conservative Christian student body, they sure have a lot of liberal faculty.  I think I left Calvin a more liberal person than when I entered it, in part because of the professors there.
But for a school with a lot of liberal faculty, the administration sure does a lot of reactionary conservative things.  So you've got a lot of contradictions at Calvin.

Anyway, since it seems to be obligatory for everyone from Calvin to comment on this article, I'll chime in with my two cents.

On the whole, I thought the article did pretty well.  But I'll just nitpick a couple things:

To quote a few things from the article:

Professors and students at Calvin said they feel that distinction is often blurred when people talk about religious colleges, as is the fact that students at Calvin have long grappled with social and political issues that some fundamentalist Bible colleges have studiously avoided.

Yes, I think this is true enough.  Calvin does encourage debate on social and political issues.  But then to jump forward earlier in the article:

In more than a dozen interviews, professors, students, and alumni of all political stripes painted a picture of a college where intellectual diversity and thought-provoking debate are the norm, and where the belief that followers of the Christian Reformed Church, with which the school is affiliated, have an obligation to engage with the world around them compels both instructors and students to question what they think they know. 

...Um, to an extent.  But there are also limits to the debate.  Everything at Calvin is approached from a theistic perspective.
Everything in the secular political world is open to debate.  But if you approach religion, there are definitely limits to the debate.
There were several examples of this during my time at Calvin.  One example of many was the controversy when Chimes published the editorial "Were Jesus' Actions Really Without Sin?"  Although Calvin administration didn't censor Chimes, many people in Calvin's community were upset the editorial had been allowed to run.  But plenty of other times the administration did step in and censor material--the Chimes spoof in 2006 (it was spoofing a religious publication) or when Calvin censored the student publication Dialogue in 2001.
I'm sure I'm not the only Calvin grad who had a big culture shock when I got out into the larger world, and discovered how many areas of the world are predominately non-religious.

Moving on to more nitpicking:

A decade ago or so, the school started hosting Rangeela, an annual international student cultural showcase. 

 Oh, it's older than that.  Rangeela was around when I was there in the 1990s.

Okay, more nitpicking:

That’s not to say that the school is some Footloose-style pietistic bubble where drinking and dancing aren’t allowed; students spend plenty of time and money at the many breweries in Grand Rapids, including one in a converted funeral chapel. And, as Eigege put it, “It’s college kids … so, yeah, stuff happens.”

Actually drinking is strictly off-limits on campus.  Officially. Even for students 21 and over.  And yeah, stuff happens, because Calvin students are young, and young people inherently like to break the rules.  But that's true anywhere.  (I bet at Bob Jones "stuff happens").  But, for the record, drinking isn't allowed.

More nitpicking.

At least as late as the ‘90s, it wasn’t uncommon to hear “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much” jokes on campus.

Okay, in Calvin's defense, I've never heard that phrase said with a straight-face.  It was always tongue-in-cheek.  And it was never, even as a joke, used to promote white-supremacy--it was always (jokingly) used against people of other Caucasian backgrounds--e.g. Dutch are better than British, or Germans, or French or what-have-you.  I never heard it directed against a person of color.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Moving on to more nitpicking:

 After all, Calvin is a school that has produced both DeVos and Paul Schrader, the writer behind both Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ, which was roundly criticized by religious institutions as morally offensive. In other words, the school doesn’t spit out cookie-cutter graduates.

Okay, yeah, but Paul Schrader absolutely hated his time at Calvin, so it's not really fair to use him as an example.

Ah, good old Calvin College

Calvin College: one of the top 10 Sober schools in the country.
Many of my friends these days often have a hard time understanding why I don't drink a lot.  (This may be a cultural difference--I'm given to understand the drinking culture is a lot bigger in England, Scotland and Ireland, or so my English, Scottish and Irish friends keep telling me.  And in the expat community I find myself hanging out with a lot of Brits and some Irish.)
But anyway, for anyone out there who can't understand why I'm not a big drinker, just follow the above link.  It turns out I come from one of the top 10 Soberest schools in America.  So it's my background.

E-Mail: October 12, 1996

(retrospection)

Another e-mail from the retrospection files. This is a slightly edited version of an e-mail I sent out to a friend on October 12, 1996, shortly after starting Calvin.

How are things going? I imagine by this time your classes have started. Are they going okay? Do you have a lot of homework?
Things are pretty good over here. I've got a lot of homework, but it's not so much that I can't keep up with it.
It's been raining a lot over here, and beginning to get pretty cold. I got completely drenched on Tuesday, because I had to bike through the rain . (For my English assignment, we all have to interview and write about people in retirement homes. I went there by bicycle and got absolutely drenched in the downpour).

Today was an exception though. We had our first warm day in about a week, and it got almost up to 70 degrees. (I think someone told me 67 degrees).
I haven't done any swimming for about a month now. I really don't intend to keep it up either. I'm done swimming competively.

Link of the Day
FBI Looking for Informants to Infiltrate Vegan Potlucks

Journal: May 17, 2000

(retrospection)

(What follows is a long and somewhat rambling treatise on how I've decided I'm going to treat full names from now one. If you want to get right to the retrospection entry, just skim over this italics part.
I've been thinking a lot about the internet and privacy issues lately, and I've decided it's just playing with fire to keep referring to people by their full names in these retrospections. Sooner or later someone is going to get upset.
I know some of you are reading this and thinking, "well, duh! In fact I couldn't believe you had the chutzpah to keep using full names for as long as you did.
To which I can only reply, point taken. My defense is threefold:
1) All of these retrospections are from so long ago I couldn't imagine anyone would have a problem with them
2) all of the events in them are benign and pretty harmless
3) lastly, I thought without using full names it would lead to a lot of confusion about who was who, especially since there were so many Toms, Dicks and Harrys at Calvin. (Actually in the case of Calvin, according to the unscientific survey we conducted on Second Boer, the most popular names for boys were John and Matt. Girl were usually some variation on Christina/ Kristin/ Kristy, etc.)
Truth be told, I still have some reservations on this 3rd point. Especially since as more time goes by, our memories will fade and the the "who was that guy again?" factor is going to increase. Looking back through these journal entries I can't even remember who half these people were sometimes, and it was my life. I think a full name would trigger more memory cells firing than an initial...
...But all that aside, it can't be helped. It's just common internet sense and good manners not to use other people's full names without their permission.
Thus forth, I will either refer to people by a first name and first initial of last name, or by last name only. If they have a nickname I might try and sneak that in too.
Stylistically I realize it is going to grate a little to have all these initials and partial names popping up, but that's another sacrifice we'll just have to make.
If you have any questions about who is who, you can always e-mail me, and I'd be glad to tell you privately off the world wide web. If you recognize yourself and don't want even a part of your name to appear on this blog, you can e-mail me. Likewise, if you recognize yourself, and want full credit for all you exploits, e-mail me and I'd be glad include your full name.)
5/17/00
I woke up and took my last exam, then went back to the apartment and went back to bed. Mr. Bandringa came over, and found both Brett N. and I in bed. He called us lazy, but when we offered Cecil L's bed to him, he took it and joined us in a nap.

We all woke up much later. Brett was supposed to go over and see Hannah M.(He was going to be leaving soon for Colorado, so he wanted to spend some time with her before going). Mr. Bandringa and I came along. We met Hannah, and the four of us went out to Yesterdog, and then afterwards went back to Hannah's house and relaxed on her porch. Everyone else had a beer, but I didn't want to drink so I just had one of Hannah's limes instead. (They had been putting the limes in with some of the drinks, but I ate it straight. I figured it was good vitamin C. The rest of the gang thought it was very funny.)

Hannah was her delightful self, and I really enjoyed spending the afternoon with her.
It was also good to spend time with both Brett and Mr. Bandringa. I think we all had a sense of how quickly our time together was slipping away from us now. Mr. Bandringa will be leaving to go British Columbia soon. Brett is also leaving to go to Colorado soon, but at least with Brett I know we'll always stay in touch. I have a feeling I'm going to end up loosing touch with Mr. Bandringa.

On the way back to Calvin, I we stopped up Meijers and I picked up film I had gotten developed. On the drive I told Brett the whole story of the little mess I had gotten myself into with the exchange student from Hungry. Brett's the first person and so far only person I've confided in about this.

For most of rest of afternoon I read my book. Brett was going with Hannah, and Esther B. to a BBQ at Ms. Skogerbie's house. He invited me to go with him, and I was tempted but in the end I decided against it because I had the feeling Brett Hannah and Esther would want to stay longer than I would (they knew the people at Skogerbie's house better than I did). We could have taken two cars, but I didn't know the way and I didn't want to mess with all the trouble of two cars following eachother out.

Instead, I helped Bosch (Ribs) clean the apartment so he could get checked out. First Cecil and I moved our outside couch from the porch and into the dumpster. Then I decided to tackle all the dirty dishes in the sink, but soon gave up once I realized Rob and Cecil were were getting the dishes dirty again just as fast as I was cleaning them.

Bosch eventually managed to get the apartment cleaned and checked out in spite of all this.

I felt a little guilty for sitting around on a Sunday afternoon reading a book instead of going to the party, but at least there was a lot of activity going on in our apartment. People were always coming in and going out and there was a big crowd playing video games, so I figured I was at least being partly social.
Nevertheless when Brett called me up to invite me to another party at Mr. Hong's house, I jumped at the chance and drove over.

It was a typical Calvin party. Mr. Lagrand and Mr. Stroboscher were performing music together for a while. Mr. Nienhuis was also there, and I talked to him for a while. He’s graduating this year, but doesn't know what he's going to do, which makes me feel slightly better about my own ambivalence about the future.
I sat in on a conversation in which Mr. Nienhuis and Mr. Lagrand complained about people who blindly support large coorperations, and are too lazy too seek out more ecological alternatives when they go shopping.

Eventually the cops came, but surprisingly enough the party was not broken up. The cops just old everyone to go inside and keep the noise down instead. Brett decided to leave around this point. I stayed for a little while longer than he did, but I got bored soon after and left myself. I talked to Jen B, who had come to the party with Brett and Ms. Schipper, but was upset to find they had left without her. I offered her a ride home in my car, but she said she wanted to stay at the party a little bit longer and would find a ride home somehow.

When we got back to the Calvin apartment, Brett was just stopping by briefly before he made his way onto Ms. Schipper's place. I told Brett before he left we should go out and have a look at the Calvin Nature Preserve. Brett was in a hurry to get to Ms. Schipper's place, but I convinced him to spare 15 minutes.

I had been out in the nature preserve the previous night during the thunderstorm, and had been amazed at the beauty of it. It was raining again tonight, so I told Brett he should come out and see what it looked like. At night the heavy sheets of rain made the normal Michigan forest look more like a tropical jungle. The lightening would come out periodically and also add to the earry effect.

We both got soaked by the rain, but Brett agreed he was glad I had made him come out to look at it. We were overlooking the pond in the middle of the preserve, and commenting on how bright and Brett said, "This is amazing." There was a pause and then he added, "I'm going to pee in it." The juxstiposition of those two statements, once Brett realized what he had said, gave us a good laugh. Brett relieved himself in the nature pond, and then we headed back to the apartment.

We ran back all the way, soaked to the skin but enjoying the cool feeling of the rain. It was still somewhat cold for a spring night, but once we started running we didn't mind it so much.

Once we got back to the apartment, Rob P. wanted in on the fun as well and said we had to go back out in the rain. He mentioned this just as Brett had finished drying himself off, so Brett took a little bit of convincing but eventually we got him to agree to go out again. Mr. Bakker (Cakes) also came along.

Eventually the as we discussed things the plan evolved into a streaking across campus. After all it was raining, there were only a few people left on campus now, and besides we were only a couple days away from graduation ceremony, so it was the perfect time.

Rob called up Mr. Boss (team Boss), who grudgingly agreed to it after some convincing on the phone. Boss had apparently been drinking that night, because he remarked several times that he would never have agreed to do this if he had been sober.

The first place we went to was the nearby soccer field. (We later heard from Cecil, Mr. Gort, and Mr. Gerken (butterball), who all opted to stay behind, that the RA from Beta had somehow got wind of our plans to streak and ran out after us to stop us, but we never saw anything of him.)

At the soccer field we disrobed and ran the length of the field. Rob sped off across the field at full speed as if he were in a race, and at the sight of his naked body speeding across the soccer field the rest of us were laughing so hard we could hardly run. Eventually we made it across the field and back but our stomaches ached from laughing too hard and trying to run at the same time.

Once we had completed the run, we realized there was absolutely no one around besides ourselves, which somewhat defeats the purpose of streaking. In fact once we looked around, there was no one even close to the soccer field. After some discussion, we put our clothes back on and walked across campus to the PE building where we again disrobed and ran naked as far as the underpass.

Since this meant running through the dorms, Boss lost his nerve at this point and decided not to streak with the rest of us. Instead he decided to serve the function of collecting our garments for us, and also ran ahead to stand guard and warn us if any parents were coming. It was the end of the year, so there had been a lot of parents on campus that day helping their children move out of the dorms. Now it was around midnight, so there wasn't a lot of activity.
Ther were a still a couple groups of people loading up their cars as we ran by. Boss tried to warn us away from the groups of parents, but once we had actually started running and got in our stride we lost our inhabitations and ran straight through. Rob yelled out, "I'm graduating," to the crowd of parents. (As far as I could tell, it was all parents and there were no one our own age, although you never know who might have been watching from the dorms). Our bare feet hurt from running along the asphalt

On the way back, a campus safety patrol car was going by and everyone mooned the car. I, feeling that I had already put in my exhibitionist time for the evening, alone refrained from the mass mooning. (Rob and Boss knew the girl who was working because of their campus safety connections, so needless to say no one got in trouble).

Even after we got back to the apartment the rambunctious mood from the evening's excursion carried over, and we spent a lot of time mooning each other, wrestling, etc.
At one point I went into the other room to change into my pajamas. While I was naked the boys caught hold of me and dragged me out into the living room. I didn't make much of an effort to resist because I figured that even though I was in an exposed condition, they were the ones who had to look at me and so they were getting the worse end of the deal. I don't think they really had planned out what they were doing. They simply assumed I would hate being dragged out of the bedroom, and when I didn't resist they weren't quite sure what to do next.

Then someone opened the blinds, and suddenly I was exposed to the whole courtyard area. I grabbed the first thing I could find for cover, which happened to be Cecil's coat lying on the floor. He was slightly upset that his coat was coming into such proximity with my more intimate parts, but I think he was just acting upset more than he actually was. I suspect he understood that I had just grabbed the first thing next to me, and it didn't represent and intended personal affront. There was a moment when I worried it might blow up in a big fight, but fortunately he let it go.

Link of the Day
Via Tom Tomorrow
Stimulus Package
and All Republicans are not assholes

Journal May 6, 2000

(Retrospection)

This is another Retrospection by request. Sorry it took me so long to post it. I was working my way around to it.
I'm not sure if this is the specific waterfight you were refering to Kellie, but it is at least a waterfight. And it happened to be among the journal entries I brought with me to Japan.


Woke up and went down to Eastern Avenue Church to help tutor immigrant workers. I carpooled down with Graham Reeves. On the way we discussed various issues of the Calvin Social Justice Committee. Because the Calvin Economics department is hosting a speaker from the world bank, I agreed to draft a letter on behalf of the SJC asking that speakers critical of the World Bank also be invited to speak at the college.

The actual tutoring itself was a complete waste of time (which is frustrating after getting up so early on a Saturday morning). There were more than double the amount of tutors needed, so Graham and I and some other girl were all assigned to tutor the same student. I mostly just sat and watched as Graham and the other girl did most of the tutoring.

Once I got back to my apartment I promptly went back to sleep and slept until 2. When I finally woke up there were two people I hadn't seen for a long time hanging around.

First of all Jonna Vanschepan, who was talking to Brett in our living room. She and Brett were having a long conversation. I said hi to her, and that was as far as my interaction went.

The other person we hadn't seen for a long time was Brian Schraeder, our old RA from last year. He was outside visiting everyone, and Brett and I went out to talk to him. As with all old friends you haven't seen for a while, once you get past the "Good to see you, what have you been up to lately?" stage of the conversation, the conversation can begin to lag and it can be slightly awkward. To help keep the conversation moving I brought out my photo album and showed Brian pictures of what we had been up to this past year.

A bit later on, just as Brian and his wife were leaving, Rob and I came out and threw water balloons at them. We didn't get them really soaked, but we got them a little wet, and everyone had a good laugh about it.

Once we had the water balloons out, Rob began making other plans. Rob had actually gotten in a water fight the day before with Melissa Essenburg. (I had missed out on this because I was at Michigan State University yesterday joining their protest against the World Bank commencement speaker). Apparently Rob had come out the worst in the water fight, and Melissa had soaked him. Now he wanted to get her back.

After we had gotten all the water balloons ready, Rob made a phone call to Melissa to let her know we were coming after her. In retrospect this probably wasn't our best move, because then Melissa just locked herself in her apartment and refused to come outside.

So we recruited Joel Hoort to our side. Joel Hoort was of course a good friend (and one of Rob's campus safety buddies) but not normally someone who participates in our pranks, so we thought Melissa wouldn't suspect him, and we could use him to trick Melissa into coming out of her apartment.

Bear, once he found out what we were up to, asked to be included on the prank as well, and Bear recruited his friend Dan Schewe.

Hoort telephoned Melissa and tried to get her out of her apartment, but she was too smart to fall for it and guessed that he was helping Rob, despite his attempts to tell her otherwise.

When this failed, Hoort went over to her apartment in person to try and get her to come out. He had an embarrassing picture of Michelle, and he told Melissa he needed her to take him to Meijers to make copies of the picture, so he could post it around campus. Melissa was intrigued by the idea, but still wary of leaving her apartment.

While this was going on, the rest of us were able to gain access into the apartment building because Rob Wieringa let us sneak in through his apartment. Melissa had her door open because she was talking to Joel Hoort, so once we got in we were able to get Meliisa and drag her outside. (We took advantage of Rob Wieringa's apartment on the way out as well).

Once Melissa was outside the fun began. We had 2 garbage cans full of water waiting which I doused her with. [The small apartment sized garbage cans, not the big road side collection variety. But still she got pretty wet.] And then we bombarded her with the water balloons.

Afterwards it was Melissa's turn to try and get revenge on us. She tried various tactics to try and get Rob and I, but at each turn we were able to turn the tables against her and just get her more wet. Eventually she gave up, but warned of revenge.

Rob and I hung out for a while after that. Eventually we ended up going to Reeds lake for Melissa’s surprise birthday party. A bunch of old Boer-Bennick people were there.

Rob had to leave early. I wanted to stay longer so I just gave him the keys to my car and told him I'd hitch a ride with someone else.

Many people were talking about throwing Michelle in Reeds Lake, and finally we did it (Jared English, Jori Murchi, Joel Hoort and I).


Michelle tried to get us back after that. She tried to get frosting from the cake on Jori, but instead Jori ended up getting it on Michelle.

Then Michelle made peace with Jori, and the two of them teamed up on me. They attacked me with cake frosting. I was able to evade them for a while, but Jori eventually succeeded in smearing me with frosting, so I chased Jori down and got frosting on her arms.

Eventually this generated into a free for all with all sorts of spur of the moment alliances being formed and everyone going after everyone else.

While all this was going on, by chance I happened to run into an old high school friend Dan Luke, who was taking a stroll around Reed's lake with his girlfriend. (I don't remember her name, but I had met his girlfriend before at Phil Ratchz's open House).

Dan is a student at MSU, so I mentioned I had been at the protest yesterday, and mentioned my surprise about how little political activity and organization there seemed to be at MSU. Because it was a big state school, I had expected massive numbers of students to be at the demonstration, but after the sparse turnout the impression I got was Calvin College (small, religious, conservative college) was more politically active than MSU. Dan agreed with me about the lack of political activity at MSU.

While I was talking to Dan, Jared English and Paul Steen got in an epic wrestling match. Jared got Paul in a super wedgie and tore off the elastic strap on his underwear. Afterwards Jared wore it as a head band for a while(kind of as a trophy I guess) before giving it to me. I used it like a big rubber band and stretched it out, then shot it at the girls. After being thrown around and shot at different people, it eventually ended up in the cake.

Afterwards everyone went to Steak and Shake. Since I had already let Rob take off with my car, I had to catch a ride with someone else, so I had to cut short my conversation with Dan Luke.

I got a ride with Paul Steen to Steak and Shake, and everyone hung out there for a while. Jared was on a mission to drink as many Root beers as he could,　and told the waitress to keep bringing him free refills. She brought out six. Jared made a valiant attempt to drink them all, but ended up getting sick and going into the bathroom to puke.

Paul took his opportunity for revenge and took what was left of his underwear and threw it on Jared while he was puking.

Maria Gort shot ice through her straw at various people, especially targeting Michelle. Michelle threatened revenge.

After Steak and Shake, we all ended up back to Theta 21. I hung out there for a while, and they taught me how to play the Nintendo 64 version of Tetris. I gave Kathryn a back rub upon request, and otherwise just talked to people. Jared showed a video from the April 21 trip to his uncle’s farm. I was slightly hurt that I never got an invitation to this especially when I saw the video and it looked like everyone else in our circle of friends was there. Then again, maybe it was for the best. I tend not to have a lot of patience for these big group outings especially ones that involve long drives.

Before bed I went back to the courtyard and hung out with Bork, Buma and their group. They had seen the movie “Gladiator,” and were telling me about it.

Brett got back from his night out, and I talked to him for a long time. I tried to convince him to stay in Grand Rapids for the summer, and I think almost succeeded. I told him he could live with me and the rest of the boys in our apartment, but the real attraction for Brett is that Sara Schipper is planning on living in Grand Rapids during the summer.

Link of the Day
Losing the War in Afghanistan One Civilian Massacre at a Time

e-mail: June 7, 2000

(retrospection)

I've already written about this incident twice already. Once in my journal, and once in a little article I made for media mouse. But I got a special request for this story, so I figured I could milk it a little more. This is an e-mail I sent out to Brett immediately after the event, describing the adventures. Stylistically it is a bit rough to read, but it fills in a few details absent in the other two accounts. Enjoy

Dear Brett,
I don’t know if you even have access to a computer out there in Colorado, but I just had a smashing weekend and I thought I’d tell you all about it. (I’m so excited I can hardly type).

I went to a protest this weekend in Windsor Canada (I don’t know if you’ve been following the news at all). I’ve got so many stories (we were there for 4 days, and all sorts of things happened), but I’ll try and tell you the most interesting ones. (Too bad I can’t see you in person for a while. I’d love to tell you everything about it).

Anyway, I went with Mark (Dave Baxter’s little brother). He’s 20 years old. We were told that the border patrol would be on the lookout for protesters, so we pretended we were going to Stratford to see a play. We both dressed up and did our best to look non-protestorish. We dressed preppy, we listened to hip hop music in the car, and I even put a picture of Justin from N’sync on the dash board. But the boarder patrol pulled ups over and searched our car.

They kept asking us all these questions like “Were you in Seattle? Were you in Washington DC? Have you ever gone to any protests?” All that kind of stuff. They asked us where we were staying in Stratford, and they asked us if we had any maps and stuff, and our story kind of fell apart. (Plus they found all this literature about the protest when they searched the car).

Finally the guy just said, “Listen, we’re pretty sure you guys are here for our protest” and at this point Mark starts talking about how that is ridiculous, and I’m thinking, “Oh, no, we’re going to jail for lying to the boarder patrol,” and finally, I just tell the guy the truth.

Now get this Brett: In the car was a piece of paper which had written on it: “Butterball’s cell phone number [followed by the number], activities start at 6 tonight” which was left over from the night before when Kathryn Kuipers wrote down something about our housewarming party. So anyway, the boarder patrol assumes Butterball is like a code name for some terrorist, and they spend 30 minutes asking me every question imaginable about Butterball. Meanwhile they’ve separated me from mark (we were put in separate detention cells) and they’re asking him all these same questions, and he is like, “What the hell are you talking about? Who is Butterball?”

They asked me when I saw him last, what I last said to him, what butterball does for a living, what his hobbies were, etc, etc, etc. It was really funny to hear these cops say things like, “When was the last time you saw Butterball?” “Is Butterball a member of the communist party?” So anyways, I told Butterball he might want to wait a while before going to Canada, because the cops probably have a huge file on him.

(One of the last questions they asked was when I saw Butterball last. We had both crashed in the same room that night, so I said that the last time I saw him was when I woke up and Butterball was still sleeping. The cops just looked at me weird.)

We also got checked for drugs. Me, Mark, and this other guy had to stand perfectly still with our hands out while they ran a dog back and forth in front of the 3 or us. The dog didn’t do anything to us, but it looked up at the other guy, and the cops were like, “alright, come over here sir.” Later when we say the same guy in immigration, he was complaining about being strip searched, and I said that must have sucked, and he was like, “You mean you guys didn’t get strip searched? You’re telling me I’m the only one who got searched just because that damn dog looked up at me?”

Anyway, they finally let us through, but they confiscated my dad’s garden hose, bungy cords, an empty clearisil bottle, and a bandanna. (They thought these were all weapons). I had to sign a form saying that “I do hereby abandon these items to the crown.” So if you see the crown, he should have a pretty clear face and a nice garden by now.

Sunday was the big day of protest. We blocked a bus of delegates, and the cops arrested a ton of people and the air was so thick with pepper spray my eyes got watery, even though I didn’t get sprayed myself. After Sunday most people went home (most of the protesters that is). The cool thing though is that all the cops stayed, all the media stayed, and all the undercover cops stayed. Like on Sunday it seemed perfectly normal to have all these undercover cops everywhere because it was a big protest. On Monday and Tuesday, it was weird because there were only like 75 of us and there was a helicopter following us and all these undercover cops were trying to hear what we were saying and all these TV cameras were following us.

Like Monday night, I was in the feminist theater, which is just like a small room in this second story building downtown. It’s pretty run down and stuff, and I’m with 5 or 6 Canadian students, and we’re making banners for the protest in this old run down theater, which felt pretty cool. And there were 20 cops outside we could see form the window just waiting outside, and it was like, “wow, all this just for the 6 of us.”

On Monday we tried to get students to walk out of their schools for the protest. So we went to a high school and somebody got on the loud speaker and told the students to walk out, and one of our guys ran through the school with a loud speaker, and it was just total chaos. I mean, imagine this scene Brett. We were out on the lawn screaming, “Walk Out! Walk out!” and the principles and teachers are blocking the door trying to stop the students from walking out, and the kids are climbing out the windows and everything.

The next day we sent a smaller group back to the school, and all 6 of them got arrested. I was supposed to be with them, but I got there late because the girls I was riding with didn’t know their way around their own city. Turned out to be a good thing though, because I did not want to get arrested. So anyway, I got to the school and the high school students were already doing their own march, and our people had all been arrested so the high school students had no direction. So I dropped a couple of people off to march with them, but then one of the high school students needed a ride to her house to get equipment in case of a police attack. So I drove her home and then doubled back to drop another girl off at the protest site, and then when I parked the car I met up with the high school students again at city hall, and I’m like, “What are you guys doing over here? The protest is at the riverfront.” So I lead them all the way over to the riverfront. There were still cops everywhere, and the high school students started chanting, “2,4,6,8 Windsor’s a Police state.” But by the time we got to the river, the protesters decide to just go back to city hall.

One more funny story and then I’ll let you go. We’re marching and the cops start arresting people and so everyone is like “Find a buddy! Find a buddy! Stick together!” So I got together with this girl, and we link arms, and we are marching, and she starts talking about how hot she’s feeling, and I say,
“Well no wonder you’re hot, you’ve got a black shirt on.” And she says
“You’re right. I think I’ll take it off.” And the next thing I know, I”m marching down the street arm and arm with a girl that has no shirt on. And there are TV cameras everywhere. (In Ontario, it is perfectly legal for girls to take off their shirts off, but I still felt embarrassed).

I’ve got tons more stories, but those are the funniest ones. If you want, I’ll e-mail you more later. Take care Brett. Joel

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The chorus of "Bungalow Bill" is sung by all four Beatles, a group of children, Ringo's then-wife Maureen, and Yoko Ono (providing the only female lead vocal on a Beatles recording, for a single line).

Link of the Day
This was in Sunday's Paper. I don't know how many of you caught it, but according to a recent survey, you are more likely to support torture if you've been to church recently. Or conversly, if you've been avoiding Church, you're more likely to be appalled by the idea of torture. Does anyone else find this disturbing?

This was also in the paper recently and slipped away with surprisingly little notice:
Concern about leftist victories in Latin America has prompted President Bush to quietly grant a waiver that allows the United States to resume training militaries from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The administration hopes the training will forge links with countries in the region and blunt a leftward trend. Daniel Ortega, a nemesis of the United States in the region during the 1980s, was elected president in Nicaragua this week. Bolivians chose another leftist, Evo Morales, last year.
A military training ban was originally designed to pressure countries into exempting U.S. soldiers from war crimes trials.The 2002 U.S. law bars countries from receiving military aid and training if they refuse to promise immunity from prosecution to U.S. servicemembers who might get hauled before the International Criminal Court. The law allows presidential waivers.

Anyone who is familar with the US record in Latin America, or the School of the Americas, knows this is bad news. As always, go to SOA Watch for more news.

Journal 4/28/2000

(Retrospection)

Spent most of the morning in the computer lab. Talked to Sean Vandermuelen and TJ Vandermolen in Fish house, agreed with them to meet at 5 PM that afternoon for the GAP protest. Sean said he would probably be napping at 5, and TJ was a little bit upset at having been left out of the loop but once I explained that it was just because I hadn’t run into him before today he was cool with that explanation.

It was a sunny day after classes, and there was a big crowd hanging out by Enviromental Stewardship Coalition’s Earth Day table, which I helped to man. John Reinders and others were getting ready to go downtown and join the Media Mouse critical Mass Bike ride. (I would have gone with them had I not accidentally scheduled the GAP protest for the same day.) Ruth Terry had David Bytwerk’s book on Michel Foucault. I commented to her that I was interested in Foucault (although all I really knew about Foucault was that he was loosely connected to the May 68 Revolution), but she was getting comments about it from everyone. Apparently Foucault is very popular at Calvin.

Lindsey Broersma wanted to go rock climbing, and was looking for people to come. I talked to Ruth Terry about her film class. Evita went back to the dorm for various reasons and changed her clothes 3 times. We also talked politics (Evita said she was voting for Bush, and Ruth got on her case, but I defended Evita’s right to vote for who ever she wants. Then when I asked her about Bush she didn’t know why she wanted to vote for him. )

Evita Lopez and Lindsey Broersma showed up as well. Eric Ebels and Jordon Adema were dancing with Megan while Peter Lagrand played on his guitar. Rob was there also and he talked to Molly Blacquiere about the guy he was setting her up with. Rob and Bear jokingly tried to hold me back from going to my afternoon class. Then I looked at the time and realized I was actually late for my class, and they let me go once I realized that.

Eventually I ended up at the apartments, where we organized ourselves in Bork’s room. As usual with these kind of things, it took a while to get everyone there. My brother Kyle stopped by as well. He had actually gone to the mall right after school with a couple girls (one of which was Jen Knoll, the other one I didn’t know). He had somehow thought the protest was right after school, and they had gone to the mall to join us. Now he said it was too late and he was just going home. I was disappointed, because I would have loved to have him join us. It would have been some great brother bonding time, and we could have used the extra people on the demonstration. When I talked to him earlier, I had been clear as a bell about what time we were meeting. I repeated it at least a couple times when I talked to him on Monday (he must not have been listening too closely because he was playing video games while we talked).

We did have 8 people total though: Myself, Amber, TJ, Bork, Buma, Evita Lopez, Shandra Pasma, and Daryl. Daryl, because of his ambitions in pursing a career in law enforcement, did not want to risk getting arrested, but agreed to wander around the mall and act as our eyes and ears and messenger.

During the weeks before we had made flyers which called attention to the sweat shop labor practices of the GAP.   (SEE HERE). The plan was to hand them out in the mall, but we knew we would get evicted by mall security. My plan was to split everyone up to make it hard for mall security to find us. Therefore we could distribute a lot of flyers before we all got kicked out. However everyone else in the group wanted to go in pairs instead, so I compromised on this point. Because we had an odd number, and because my mission was to put the flyers up in the GAP store dressing rooms, I volunteered to go solo while everyone else went in pairs.

I was able to get in and out of the GAP dressing rooms without a hitch, and left flyers up in all of them. As a group we were able to cover the mall completely. It was beautiful actually. Our flyers were everywhere. We all kept moving as to be a roving target for mall security.

A group of probably middle school or early high school girls were very intrigued by our work, and stopped me a couple times to ask me questions. On the second time they asked if they could help us distribute the flyers, so I gave them about half of my stack. I forgot to tell them that what we were doing, distributing literature on private property, was technically illegal. I doubt they got in serious trouble for this, but I was later criticized by the others for this.

For the 1st maybe ½ hour or longer we had no confrontation with Mall security. In fact we were almost getting bored. Carol (our supervisor from dorm cleaning the previous summer) and her husband were in the mall, and I passed them a couple of times. They were very supportive about what we were doing and gave me high fives of support.

Daryl then told me that Mall security was out looking for us. He directed me down the wing of the mall they didn’t have covered yet, and so I was able to avoid them for a little longer, before one of them told me to please leave the mall.

We had previously agreed that we didn’t want to risk arrest and would leave as soon as Mall security found us. However I continued to hand out flyers as I walked out of the mall. The same security guy caught up to me and was very upset that I had continued to hand out flyers. I played like I didn’t understand what the problem was since I was on my way out of the mall while I was doing this. He then escorted me all the way out of the mall (radioing in my every turn, and at times I even overheard him telling them what camera to focus on me). Evita had already been caught, and so he knew she was waiting for me by the car.

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have led him back to my car. On the other hand, he must have known our car was somewhere, and it would have been difficult to ditch him. Of course in hindsight the best move would have been not to park the car in the Mall lot at all, but park across the street and walk to the mall. That just never occurred to me, but I’ll have to remember that for next time. This was, afterall, our first time doing this thing

Anyway he wrote down my license plate number after following me to the car and threatened to send me the bill to clean up the flyers, which was something I never anticipated.

Shandra and Mike were already waiting outside after having been told to leave. I gave them away perhaps by talking to them in front of the security guard. They had already been kicked out at that point, but it was still stupid of me because it alerted the security guard to the fact that there was a larger group of us. He asked me to go back into the mall and get the rest of my group.

Amber and Evita had been a pair originally, but had split up for some reason. Amber was probably being escorted out as Evita and I were going back into the mall. (There is some game called “slug bug” where you get to hit someone if you see a Volkswagen beetle. I never heard of this game, but Evita got me 3 times as we walked across the mall parking lot).

I ran into TJ and Bork (our last remaining team). They had avoided detection because they were a bit more discrete than the rest of us. They kept the flyers in their pockets and only brought them out when they gave them to people. I told them what had happened to the rest of us, but they were still in full swing and wanted to keep going, so I kept walking and pretended I never saw them. I kept walking, and eventually returned to the car after a nice tour of the mall.

3 police cars arrived outside of the mall. Daryl told Bork and TJ about this new development, and they decided it was a prudent time to leave (there wasn’t much more we could have done anyway. We had blanketed the mall with our flyers). As TJ later said, the cops probably didn’t come all this way to ask us nicely to leave the mall, and none of us wanted to ride downtown in the patrol cars.

We returned to Calvin and hung out in the apartments telling anyone who would listen about our adventures in the mall. It was a good feeling, and we were all still excited and very pleased with ourselves. Gradually people left one by one until it was just me and the boys back at the Courtyard apartments. Matt Poole came over looking to borrow one of Brett’s CDs, and the boys introduced him to the computer game “Counterstrike”. Billy Schultz came over too, and I harassed him about not showing up the night before. I also told him about my afternoon adventures in the mall.

Cecil and Rob played Frisbee in the courtyard, and I hung out with them for a while. A bunch of the gang went to Dance guild, but they eventually came back, Butterball included. I retold my Mall adventures, and Butterball became really upset with me. “Why don’t you just leave those people at the GAP alone and let them run their business?” he said.

He became more and more worked up as we continued the conversation, so I decided I could act like I was upset too. I wasn’t really that mad, but I felt like Butterball thought he could yell at me every time we talked politics and expect me to just be calm and take it. So I deliberately acted like I was angrier at him than I was. Probably not the most mature thing I’ve ever done. “I’ve never been so appalled at your lack of morals as I am right now Butterball. I hope you end up working in a sweat shop someday.” By the end Butterball wouldn’t even talk to me.

In the evening I went to a party with Brian Bork, Mike Buma, Daryl, Dan Westerhoff, Jeremy Haulford and his girlfriend, Amanda and Leanna ( both of whom were girls I worked with dorm cleaning the previous summer). The party was at Joel Westerhof’s place on Chester and Diamond. I saw tons of people I haven’t seen there for a while, although several of these people didn’t recognize me at first because my hair has gotten so long.

* I saw Brian Barnes’ fiancé (who informed me that they were getting married this summer)

*Tom and Shelly (who were working the door at the party and let me in for free because I was designated driver)

*Nick Vanhouten ( who was very surprised to find out we were living with Marc Bakker. He also told me to tell Bosch that he wanted to hang out with him more )

*A whole bunch of 2nd Boer boys were there: (Brad Fuller, Joe Palumbo, Jason Devries, Michael Bossenbrook, Mark Solle). I gave Brad a hard time because I never saw him anymore. He had broken his leg and wasn’t getting around much because of his broken leg. I told Joe and Jason how I had seen them on CVN.

* I talked to Kyle Deroos and Jason Kramer (Kyle is in a class of mine, but attends so rarely I didn’t even know he was in the class).

*I talked to Harvey (Dennis’s old friend. He told me Dennis was doing well).

*Talked to my cousin Allysa Bruinsma (We both complained about our paper in history class)

*Joel Westerhof (who is still working for Weesees landscaping, and thus often is at my parents house doing yard work for them).

And many others. Eventually the cops came, and everyone under 21 was told to leave. (I was sitting outside on the porch with Marcus Fuller when the cops came, and we watched the cop cars drive up). The people who owned the house yelled at all those under age to leave, but everyone was slow in doing so and just gently flooded into the street instead. The cops then tried to get people not to just stand around on the sidewalk and stuff.

J.K. (Who I didn’t know well, but had been one year below me at Christian High), was out looking for a fight, and started yelling at this kid in the church parking lot where everyone had parked their cars. I don’t know what the kid had done, but J.K. was just trying to get him to fight. J.K. was really looking stupid, going out of his way to play the hard ass. The kid in question was Canadian, and because the party was at Joel Westerhof’s house, about half of the party goers were Canadians as well, and so the sympathy was somewhat split along national lines. (That is, to the extent J.K. had any sympathy at all. Even his friends were looking a bit embarrassed by his behavior.)

J.K. was convinced to leave, but as he left he make threats to kick the kid’s ass later when he wasn’t expecting it.

There was another party just a couple blocks down which Bork, Buma, me and the rest of the gang walked to, and we ended up going back and forth a lot deciding which party we wanted to go to. The gang was quite impressed that where ever we went I knew a lot of people. They made jokes about what a socialite I was.

Eventually we wound up back at Joel Westerhof’s place. The cops had left by this point. I am of course 22, but all the people I was with were still underage, so they were somewhat cautious.

We hung out there a while longer. Buma and I wanted to head back, but Bork wanted to stay, so we kept staying longer as a compromise. I wasn’t having all that bad of a time anyway. Buma had drank a lot of Beers, 10 by the time we ended up leaving. He certainly held his beers quite well-probably due to his Canadian upbringing. But he did become more silly, and stumbled a bit on stairs, and was hiccuping a lot, but other then that held things well.

When we were walking back to the Calvin apartments, Buma had such a hard time on the stairs (falling twice) that I eventually just put his arm over my shoulder and steadied him. Dan Westerhof was laughing so hard he couldn’t even open the door for a while. Eventually we got Buma inside.

I hung out with the Boys back in the Delta apartment. Margaret Irwin’s brother Jon was staying with us, and my boys had already gotten him addicted to Coutnerstrike. We talked for a while and then went to bed.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
In the fall of 2000, Andy Schrier and Laura Carpenter started the Hattie Beverly Tutoring Center, named in honor of Beverly. It continues to serve Grand Rapids's Southeast Side (specifically the Madison Neighborhood)

Link of the Day
Via Whisky Prajer, here's an interesting Slate article comparing the 4 different versions of "The Office". Very interesting article, even though I have to admit I've still only seen the British one.

Journal Entry 1/24/99

(Retrospection)

Woke up and worked on this journal. Brett Nelson came in and caught me. It was the first time I admitted to another Calvin student that I was keeping this journal. (Or anyone for that matter-although my sister Kirstin did see me work on it during xmas break. And, come to think about it, I had mentioned it to Abby as well- but this is the first time another Calvin student has caught me in the act).

Brett wanted to go to Arby's and I accompanied him (I had nothing better to do). He debated this journal w/ me. I said I wanted to keep a record of College memories for when I got older. Brett said being old isn't as bad as I always make it out to be. He said I’ll be the same person only older; and his Grandpa still remembers things that happened to him when he was little, so I don't need to write everything down to remember it.

Brett bought me a Calvin special (2 Roast Beefs) at Arby's. On the way back, I told Brett about the spring break offer (I had heard about it from Margaret in the weight room Friday). He was super excited, and called Bosch when we got back. Rob was debating what to do (he wanted to go with us, but his parents were going to Hawaii).

Brian, our RA, came into our apartment to hang out with us for a while. There was a beer bottle cap right where he was sitting, and it bugged me a long time, until I went over and sat by him, then grabbed it when Brian was looking at Cecil. It wasn't the smoothest thing I've ever done in the world, and I suspect Brian might have noticed but just chose not to make an issue out of it. Also, Rob Patton and Melissa were in the next room in the same bed, which was also a violation of Calvin apartment housing. Brian and Brett were planning a football game, but I left to go tutoring.

I picked up Nhi at her house, and than we drove to Lan's house. Nhi made me some egg rolls, and I ate 3 of them plus some kind of desert thing she had made (I was getting full fast though-I had 2 Roast Beefs and a Slim Fast drink at my apartment before I left). I helped them on their homework. Lan had a lot of math that I could help her on (she was making a lot of mistakes that day, and she felt bad, but I guided her through 2 lessons). Nhi didn't have math anymore-almost all of her classes focused on learning more English. I gave her some suggestions on her paper, but she didn't want me to see what she was writing (in the revised version) so I let it be.

After the homework was done I stayed and talked with the girls for a while. Lan wanted to talk to practice her English. I was asked if I liked girls with short hair or long hair better, and when I answered both, Lan said it was a smart answer, but then they pressed me for a real answer. Finally I said I like short hair, but I like long hair too. Since Nhi had been complaining about how her father wouldn't let her cut her hair, I didn't want to say anything that would make her feel bad. Lan also gave me various pictures of Chinese celebrities, and I had to tell her who I thought was the prettiest. I used all the Chinese phrases that Jared English had taught me, and Lan recognized them all (although sometimes my pronunciation was so bad I had to say it in English also before she realized what I was talking about.)

I left around 8, and went back to my apartment. There was a message that Molly was coming over to get temporary tattoos with us as we had agreed. Rob stopped by on his break from work, and said he didn't know where we would get the Tattoos, and I didn't either, so we decided to just do something else with Molly. Brett came by, and Holly V visited him. She had just broken up with Dave Y, and they talked about that for a while. I kind of just hung the room while they were talking. I figured if they wanted privacy, they would have gone into the other room, and besides I had been there first.

Holly eventually left. Jon A stopped by and talked about all his Hollywood connections. Molly called and asked to speak to Rob. Rob made faces as Molly complained and complained about no tattoos. I talked to Molly for a while. It was somewhat awkward-- I was stretching for things to say at points but I kept talking and there were no big silences. Abby stopped by and she gave me a rough time about being on the phone so long and I took this as my escape. I offered to pick Molly up from NVW, and drove over there and got her. She brought a photo book over, which we looked at.

Rob made a comment about a compromising picture of Brett. Molly tried to grab Rob’s pictures, while Brett and Rob and I tried to hold her back. I knew the picture was in the closet, and tried to get it but Brett stopped me "Are you trying to ruin me?" he asked, and I stopped. After wrestling about the pictures for a while, Brett left to hide them elsewhere in the building, while Rob and I kept Molly in the apartment.

Molly got out after Brett had hid the pictures, and was looking all over for them. Brian (our RA) came in building, and hung out with us for a while. Finally Brett made Molly promise not to harm the pictures, and got them out, and the three of us looked at them. Brett laughed at a lot of Rob’s pictures. Molly took one of Rob's pictures of her and crinkled it up. (She thought it was an unflattering pose, because her mouth was open). We rescued it from her.

She asked to see it again, and promised she wouldn't hurt it. Then, despite this promise, when I gave it back she ripped it in two. Rob was outraged and said he was going to use the negative to make posters, T shirts, a web site about that picture, so Molly tried to crinkle up the negative but we stopped her.

Rob was eating whip cream from the can (as was his custom). Molly wanted to try the whip cream, and squirted a bunch into her mouth. But then after filling her mouth with Whip Cream, she spit it out at Brett. Brett was covered with Whip cream. "I can't believe you just did that Molly," he said. I was really laughing hard at this.

Brett threw some of the whip cream back at Molly. Some of it got in her hair, so she wiped it out. Then Molly got a hold of the whip cream again and put it in her mouth. Brett threatened her with the sprayer on the sink, so she spit the whip cream out on Rob instead. Then she squirted Whip Cream over Brett and got it down his shirt, until Rob and Brett held her down and extended the sink sprayer out enough to douse her with water.

Molly whined a lot about being wet, but then when we turned our back she grabbed the butter container. Brett ran after her yelling "Molly No! That’s not our butter!" Indeed we had borrowed the butter from the girls in the apartment upstairs. Heedless of Brett's concerns, Molly grabbed out a handful of butter and smeared it all over Rob and he smeared some of it back. Then Molly complained that her clothes were soaked and smelled like Butter.

We started cleaning up all the mess we had made. Since Rob's shirt was dirty anyway, I used it to clean the kitchen floor. (He had taken it off after getting butter all over it) . Rob really over-reacted when he found out I was using his shirt to clean the floor, and I laughed a lot. Rob tried to leave the apartment and go to the laundry room to wash his shirt, but he was so upset he forgot to unlock the door. He pulled the door, realized it was locked, unlocked the first latch, pulled again, and then unlocked the second lock, pulled one more time, and finally got the last lock. Brett and I were rolling on the floor laughing.

Molly wanted to borrow some of our clothing, since all of her stuff was covered with whip cream and butter. She wanted Rob’s Hawaiian shirt, but he didn't want to give it to her. There followed an epic wrestling match with Molly trying to grab the shirt and Rob trying to guard it. Finally Rob got so frustrated he rubbed the shirt all over the less clean areas of his body so that Molly wouldn't want to wear it anymore. At one point he stuck it down his pants and said "It’s surpassed the underwear Molly." At that point Brett and Cecil started saying, in mock official sounding voices ,"Surpassion, the new fragrance by Rob Patton".

{Thereafter the shirt became known as "The shirt of Surpassion" and no one wanted to touch Rob when he wore that shirt}.

Finally, Molly agreed to take Rob’s Budweiser shirt, with the frogs on it. We went to the laundry room and I helped Molly wash her shirt and socks. I tried to keep her entertained with a series of jokes, but I was somewhat struggling for material. "This washer eats clothes-are you sure you don’t want hot water?" At one point Rob creeped in from behind and startled Molly, and she screamed loudly.

Molly's socks weren't dry, so Molly and I went back into the apartment to get her a pair she could borrow-after making her promise not to wake the rest of the boys up (they were all in bed by now). She was very picky but we finally found a pair she would tolerate.

I volunteered to take Molly back to her dorm. Cat Calls from boys were directed towards me as we left the room, but I ignored them and quietly hoped Molly hadn't heard it.

Brett had brought sheets out for Molly, and I offered to let her sleep in apartment, but I said it very casually and didn't press it when she said she didn't dare. Molly wouldn't even come back in room when I was getting my shoes on (I don’t know if she was just being silly again, or if she thought I was trying to pull something on her). I made a snowball, but Molly asked me not to throw it and I threw it away. "Despite the fact, Molly, that if our situations were reversed and you had the snowball, I have no doubt in my mind it would end up in the back of my head," I said.
I cleaned the snow off the car, and gave Molly the keys to start it up. Then she tried to drive off with out me. I got in front of the car, but when I tried to stop it I just was pushed along the ice when I put my hands in front of the car. I tried to push against the car but I was just pushed backwards. Then Molly got the car stuck in the snow, and I agreed to push her out if she promised not to lock the door and try and drive off again. After we got unstuck, she did lock the door, and I was pushed backwards by the car for quite some time, until Campus Safety drove by. Campus Safety didn't do anything, but neither of us were looking to get in trouble for dangerous horseplay, so Molly relented and let me in the car at that point. It was really snowing hard now, so we went to do donuts in the offices across Calvin College. The snow was really slick, even though there wasn't too much built up on the ground. The car didn't spin that well and Molly (who was still in the driver's seat) didn't push it. Went by NVW. I agreed to walk in with her and make sure her card still worked. She said she would stop by tomorrow at 11 to drop off clothes and pick up clothes, and I said I would be up. I went home, set alarm for 10, and went to bed.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
In the episode "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" of the TV series The Simpsons, the following exchange takes place:
Marge: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon.
Homer: That's not how I remember it

Link of the Day
(Via Bierma's Blog)
Colin Powell, in a 1992 press briefing as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President Bush:
Saddam Hussein is a terrible person, he is a threat to his own people. I think his people would be better off with a different leader, but there is this sort of romantic notion that if Saddam Hussein got hit by a bus tomorrow, some Jeffersonian democrat is waiting in the wings to hold popular elections. (Laughter.) You're going to get -- guess what -- probably another Saddam Hussein. It will take a little while for them to paint the pictures all over the walls again -- (laughter) -- but there should be no illusions about the nature of that country or its society. And the American people and all of the people who second-guess us now would have been outraged if we had gone on to Baghdad and we found ourselves in Baghdad with American soldiers patrolling the streets two years later still looking for Jefferson.

(Also don't forget these quotes).