What it is, what it is, come check the noise...

As mentioned before, last week was great.
The focus, via my teacher, was The Presidency. We heard from every realm of the political spectrum: White House biographers, staffers, speech writers, and analysts. Once I get around to it, I'll post more specifics, but I believe we heard from two great speakers. Amazing eloquence and wise words. Just all over, a great week.

Somehow this week has already started and is logistically almost over, as far as classes go (tomorrow is Roshashana = we will not have class, and that leaves Wednesday aka one speaker and a class simulation). Long days, but interesting all the same...

I love to be able to draw connections between classes and experiences and make pragmatic use of school. I do not want to learn about Plato's political philosophy just because some head of a department thinks it is important. A basic overview is fine, but a whole quarter devoted to it is a little ridiculous. In my opinion.
SO today, within the past hour, we finished class. We had a speaker from the US Park Service/Police. He has dealt with everything in the department... Homicides, drug crimes, burglaries and robberies. Really interesting stuff, regardless of what specific political aspect one wants to focus on (although he made a point that no one has needles in their cars except for drugs "no diabetic has syringes lying around their car"... Obviously, he hasn't seen my car/room/purse/gym locker).
I am taking a class on American U's main campus entitled Justice and Public Policy. For this class, we have to "complete a 10 page paper in which you research the environmental causes and initial consequences of a justice related public policy".
Well. I've always been interested in criminal justice. Law and Order. NYPD Blue. JAG. Some other great show back in the day about advocates for justice. Most recently, in a California Politics class last quarter, I found it interesting that California has marijuana laws that undermine the federal laws. Why? What makes weed in the Bay different from weed in the Nation's Capitol? As I learned today, the suppliers in DC = gangs. Pretty sure most weed is provided via clubs, who receive their product from the hills of Humboldt County and the happy hippies chillin' in their trees. That is a major difference right there.
I was originally going to write my paper on the Three Strikes law (I hate to reference Wiki, but it's the most basic/reader friendly), but I've found (in the past hour) that the Three Strikes law almost directly ties in to the decriminalization of marijuana. There seems to be a lot of variance with both issues, but Three Strikes may be stickier because of many factors. Who knows. What I do know is I have a lot of research to get on.