Trying Not To Be Indelicate

[Guest Deanne65]

Okay, I get it. I have been likened to some prim and proper gentleman-dandy. So, the one leveling the accusation must certainly read ALL of my posts? I suppose the colliquy is destined to me, no? Anyway, I thought I would show you guys that we Yanks are just as geeky as you Brit potheads!

So, I propose to break the ice; drop my guard for this one post...and to make it interesting for the lot of us, to boot. Okay, so here's a word-play, irony-game of sorts, but don't let that daunt you! The game goes as such:

I was thinking of a friend of mine, who works at University, when a funny thought, unrelated to the friend, occurred to me. I thought about all those times I happened upon the same campus myself, stoned often. Its ironically, really, this being stoned on campus thing. Twice over, I had been a student at this respectable unversity in the Mid-West. Never once had I been so much as drunk on campus...well, maybe once, but that was when I was much younger than now.

The seasons come and go, measured in my greying beard, and wrinkled visage.

My near-Alma Mater (never finished, just started; so I guess its a story in the making) has shaped me, as I, in perhaps imperceptible ways, have shaped the institution. Alas, something has changed; yes, I am much older now, and grown world weary, but something else has changed, and it hasn't troubled me, until now.

And that is, that when I read in my own beloved University Newpaper (I grab a copy when visiting my instructor buddy on campus) about some anonymous students being arrested for marijuana possession in their dorm...I just lost it! I went very un-gentlemanly...of course, I was pretty ripped. And this is what I have circuitiously arrived at: the thing which aggrieves me! I find it troubling that a University-any University-would be in such a position to really give a damn one way or the other. Students may drink and smoke, and, also engage in coitus, even with the roommate present. But Marijuana possession or consumption? Never!

It is such a sad case indeed, when a university opens its doors to its august halls of learing, that those expectant, young minds cannot tell their erstwhile teachers to leave them alone; that the lessons have been taught, and it is now time to forge ahead, onto adulthood (Whether you like those snot-nosed kids or no, "Each on of us has been a child's teacher at one time or other."

But never you mind about the those young students arrested on a university campus, for wanting to ingest a plant that might have held the key to...well, maybe that is being a bit over the top, but there is a point to be made about all this. It might appear that if one breaks a law one should be willing to pay the price, and that such story as the above, applies here. But there is something deeper. What do drugs (Cannabis) and morality have anything to do with the other, intrinsically? Nothing! And what does Cannabis and Universities have to do with one another? A lot! So why the continued stupidity and sadomasochism perpetrated on the (tuition paying) student who chooses to smoke pot? Must authority not be questioned? Is the student to be protected? The campus? What possibly more can universities now of that might change this zeal to prosecute the casual, student-stoner?

The fact is, the American University is a diploma mill, whether one goes to a state funded or Ivy League School. There are more so political controls over the former, and the university is beholden to the state, much more so than private universities, and privately endowed. Still, regardless of the type of university, I think it ironic that smoking weed would be so universally translated as a "NO-NO" , in practically every state in the Union, and overseas!

This is a travestity no doubt, and that the university cannot-or while not-place itself above the fray, well, that is cynical! I think that the manner in which my particular university handled this affair; in the manner in which the campus paper reported, in cool, obsequious statistics; and, the ongoing draconian policies of the University, shown the "deviant" marijuana consumer.

The university is a place of higher learning and ideals. It is about the shaping and forming of those minds which will go on to shape and form...but what? I truly doubt the absence of marijuana in our colleges and universities, and in its students' bodies, will lead to a future of drones. But, one cannot help but wonder if such measures really do anything at all? There will still be students smoking pot, and maybe getting busted; there will certainly be the odd article or two, now and again: The same bland, obsequious, double-speak college Journalism.

But perhaps amidst all those cellphones, ipods, and whatever other digital-divide devise the letter "e" and "i" can attach themselves onto, something integral will be missing! Where have the hacky sacs gone? Wherefor art thou, Uni-cycle riding friend? But the bars are crowded, especially on the week-ends, serving western cultures accepted ceremonial libation...and does it flow.

This de facto persecution of students by the university is no business of the universities, and in no way constitutes a harm or threat to anyone, but those monied interests. The tempation is all about us, yet the choice of a college student to smoke his joint or bowl is verboten, and constitutes the gravest....What? There has been no temptation in wishing to relax, to open one's mind; maybe even to problem solve. But this is strictly interdit, and the university officials, those responsible for promulgating and managing this entire affair over "controlled substances", have, many themselves, partaken of the sweet leaf. This shameless display of moral duplicity and intellectual shortsightenedness on the part of my cherished university, and countless others, for making marijuana and higher learning, incompatible- and prosecuted! Shame on you, and your vampires!

Edited February 8, 2010 by Deanne65

[Eddiesilence]

Has the persecution of cannabis smokers in US colleges increased?

If it has, did this follow the corporate invasion of the US educational establishment, and is there a direct relationship?

[Archangel]

My word of the week is "Laconic"

[ramblingmadman]

My word of the week is "Laconic" :wink:

my phrase of the week is "sesquipedalian loquaciousness"

[sam-i-am]

Has the persecution of cannabis smokers in US colleges increased?

If it has, did this follow the corporate invasion of the US educational establishment, and is there a direct relationship?

You mean like the current corporate takeover of our education system where the end consumers are now defined as the employers rather than the students?

[Eddiesilence]

My paragraph of the week:

One characteristic of the emerging postmodern science is its stress on nonlinearity and discontinuity: this is evident, for example, in chaos theory and the theory of phase transitions as well as in quantum gravity. At the same time, feminist thinkers have pointed out the need for an adequate analysis of fluidity, in particular turbulent fluidity. These two themes are not as contradictory as it might at first appear: turbulence connects with strong nonlinearity, and smoothness/fluidity is sometimes associated with discontinuity (e.g. in catastrophe theory); so a synthesis is by no means out of the question.

[sam-i-am]

My word of the week is "Laconic" :wink:

my phrase of the week is "sesquipedalian loquaciousness"

with a few more of these we can sellotape them together randomly to start a new thread :wink:

e2a and Ed's bit that arrived while i was typing

Edited February 10, 2010 by sam-i-am

[Eddiesilence]

Has the persecution of cannabis smokers in US colleges increased?

If it has, did this follow the corporate invasion of the US educational establishment, and is there a direct relationship?

You mean like the current corporate takeover of our education system where the end consumers are now defined as the employers rather than the students?

Yeah, something like that!

To flesh out the reference - it comes from Blair's former education advisor Michael Barber, who in 1997 said that schooling is now to be an 'end user' activity; and the 'end user' of education is the employer. Students are no longer educated for themselves, to round out their characters and prepare them for life.

But if their 'education' is no longer for the student, so does it even qualify as 'education'? If it is to benefit the corporation then surely it's training. If indeed the school and university system does follow the corporate-favour New Labour template, (which appears to be obvious), then why are students required to pay for their own corporate training?

Forget education as enlightenment. A long, seemingly deliberate deterioration of our schools at the hands of Margaret Thatcher, through the 1980s and 90s, prepared neatly for the switchover to meeting corporate interests instead of student enlightenment. Then in 1997 education was replaced with a programme of making students deployable tools for corporate elites.

[Comrade Stoker]

Eddie, have you noticed loads of rich businessmen are sponsoring "Academy Schools". I noticed quite a few big names are sticking cash into these things and I do not believe it was pure philanthropy that drove them to do it. I cant work out what they would get out of it though? Any ideas?

[Arbuscule]

I noticed re-reading the OU prospectus recently that now everything is linked to the value for employers/employment. That has definitely changed since I studied with them a few years back. Thought the OU at least would hold back a bit on being corporate whores Guess I was

[Eddiesilence]

Eddie, have you noticed loads of rich businessmen are sponsoring "Academy Schools". I noticed quite a few big names are sticking cash into these things and I do not believe it was pure philanthropy that drove them to do it. I cant work out what they would get out of it though? Any ideas?

It's another disguise for a Labour scam, in which they throw loads of tax money to wealthy businessmen. There was a revealing article about it in New Statesman some time ago:

hxxp://www.newstatesman.com/200409200021

[Comrade Stoker]

I did notice that a fair number were/are Tory supporters. To name a few, David Mellor, David Ross.

Edited February 10, 2010 by MartininLondon

[Eddiesilence]

They're all capitalists, which makes them extremists. That's enough to cause serious concern. Why are our schools allowed to be deliberately infected with, and steered along, a narrow political ideology which is collapsing around us?

[Guest Deanne65]

I have got to stop posting when I drink and toke. Anyway, the post went much further than I had wished. My whole point is that Cannabis and higher education are compatible, even if such is only tacitly accepted. The irony in all this is that as corporate entities, individual universities-certainly as it obtains with American institutions of higher learning-are in the business of promoting themselves on their respective strong selling points.

Universities, or more accurately, those university officials who set the many "agenda" of said university , have the duel challenge of translating and maintaining its institutional values and norms, while being sensitive to the need of cultivating a learning "atmosphere" , which is both freeing, yet needfully restrained (?). It is of paramount importance that a university carefully balance the needs of the student with those of the institution, all in the spirit of higher learning, and the university's continued economic viability. It isn't merely cynicism that informs the latter, but hard economic reality!

The present-day student is a savvy consummer, and so the universities have had to modify themselves: this has been somewhat of its own undoing. The university, perforce, has no right to set its own policy on drug usage on its campus, at variance with that of its surrounding communities. However, it does have considerable flexibility, if such was considered by the respective university administration, in how it communicates and impliments its version of drug prohibition.

As far as I can tell, the university I target in my post has not changed anything in regards to the "means and ends" at its disposal, in handling drugs, and its users, on campus. I will not go into any particular details, however, suffice it to say, there is a two-tier system in place in regards to drug use: The procedural rules for those licit drugs; those for the illicit, the two being very unalike in many substantive and telling ways (as an important aside, that student who is unlucky enough to be sent before a university "committee" of adjudication (made up of both administrators and student representatives) on a drug infraction, must show the proper deference and contrition, which more than likely, for many, includes the unquestioning acceptance to attend "substance abuse" counseling. In contrast, underage drinking is more often an administrative concern, at least for a first-time infraction.) I suggest, as a backdrop, that one read Thomas Szasz's "Ceremonial Chemistry: the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers", so as to better understand how universal the war on drugs has become; and the university institution is not above the fray on this "war over ceremonial chemistry". When I think of the numerous package stores in my town selling their tobacco and alcoholic poisons, and I look at the continued persecution and double-speak of my beloved university, vis a vis those ceremonially "unacceptable" drugs (and a plant, for Pete's sake!), I cannot help but wax indignant.

Edited February 12, 2010 by Deanne65

[DANZIG]

My paragraph of the week:

That's weird Your paragraph of the week is the same as my bollocks of the week