Soon, very soon, Rebel Girl will be back to doing her duty, posting poetry and the occasional rant. Her silence hasn't been due to lack of material. Indeed just yesterday she marveled at the military recruiter cruising the faculty parking lot in his low slung green sedan, one hand on the wheel, the other on his cell phone. Round and round he drove, purring into his phone.
Then there was her midday encounter with the perky pair of women from the Laguna Woods Democratic Club. They've been on campus of late, registering voters outside the Student Services Center. Rebel Girl stopped by to thank them for their civic spirit just as they were patiently and cheerfully explaining to a student that just because he had "turned eighteen" he hadn't automatically been registered to vote. The young fellow thought that that was how it worked.
They disabused him of that notion and sat him down with a pen and a form. Ah, democracy.
"You should come back next week on Club Day," Rebel Girl encouraged the pair, "There will be lots more students out here then."
That's a good idea, they responded, but we've already been told they don't want us here so often.
Yes, one of them said, they told us they already had too many Democrats on campus.
"Really?" replied Rebel Girl. "That doesn't seem right. I don't think they can restrict your presence based upon the content of your speech or your frequency."
Rebel Girl shot a meaningful glance over at the omnipresent FREE BIBLE card table, fully stocked in multiple translations and staffed that day by a man in a wheelchair and another slouched in a lawn chair. That table, she thought to herself, is on campus more often than I am.
That's what they told us, the woman insisted.
"Well," said Rebel Girl, "I'm late to class now but let's talk about that."
Stay tuned.
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And here's children's author, Lane Smith, holding forth: It's a Book.
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9 comments:
Can they do that? Tell people that they can't come on campus and register democrats? Restrict activity based on political affiliation?
I saw that guy in the green car. He was pretty hard to miss - the car was all duded up and so was he. I don't know if he was recruiter. I suspect he was a Marine waiting to pick up his girl.
Semper fi.
Good point.
That Free Bible table is out there nearly every day - are there restrictions about frequency? Are such rules applied to ALL groups? Or only the groups that are not so - ah - desirable?
Perhaps someone just mouthed off to the two ladies from Laguna Woods without thinking. I can imagine that happening easily.
For the record, the civic-minded women from the local democratic Club were registering ALL voters - Dems, Greens, Republicans, etc.
They don't discriminate.
Wow! Even as an anarchist, I've gotta say that is messed up. If they start censoring democrats on campus, what's next?
Scary green car, free Bibles, dark forces restricting old lady voter registrars. Didn't I see this on an episode of that old David Lynch tv show "Twin Peaks"?
And if you have high school kids and want to avoid recruiter contact, you must sign a special no-contact form, which the school runs out of because everyone(ok,the moms)wants one, but you were nosing around for free PTA coffee when those got handed out, and then the district is slow to print more because cutbacks have reduced the print shop staff to one overworked hamster pedaling as fast as he can, so a very polite Chief Petty Officer ends up calling the house all semester and you get to leave message slips that say: "While you were out, the Navy called."
It might be helpful if the people who enforce the policy actually READ and COMPREHEND the policy - and avoid making random comments to applicants without fully understanding the possible consequences.
Sounds like lawsuit material.
I hear the recruiters get free parking. WE have to pay - the lady dems have to pay but not the recruiters. Look at their dashboards.
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