Bearcardo Watch - ASUC In your Bedroom

It's been a while since we've had an installment of bearcardo watch. Perhaps you may have started to think that all this blog's concerns about him using his office for radical causes were overblown.

Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.

Indeed, we now have confirmation, by way of the September 1 Senate meeting (reported just now because the Senate's meeting minutes take forever to produce because they last so long) that bearcardo has not only been using his office to promote radical beliefs, he's been using your money. From the minutes:

Mr. McLeod said he wanted to thank Mr. Gomez for his work against the cyber university. He asked about the Disorientation Guide, how the distribution went and how much it cost. Mr. Gomez said they had 3,200 copies and it cost $1,300 to print them. They brought together campus constituencies, students, workers, alumni, and faculty to help. The copies went really quickly and the reaction has been good. If there's enough demand, they'll probably do it again in the spring. The Web site received 4,500 hits in the last few days. In comparison, it costs about $1,600 to send seven people to a UCSA conference. The Guide cost $1,300 and went to thousands of students. Mr. Gomez said a goal of his office was to find cost effective ways to engage students and have them ask questions and come up with solutions.

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And what is this "disorientation guide?" At the risk of inflating Mr. Gomez's traffic levels and thus his ego a little bit more, check out the web version.

Most of it is the predictable revolutionary garbage we talked about in the first installment. But there is one article in particular that is interesting for a completely different reason. And remember, this was printed and distributed to thousands of students using MANDATORY student fees (warning, not PG-13 - or R for that matter):

If I had the power to give you a homework assignment, I’d ask you to partake in some weird sex, either by yourself, with a partner or more, or vicariously over the internet. But alas I have no such power. The thing is: weird sex tends to feel really good and be enjoyable on an mental level as well. So try something new. If you’re nervous to try with a partner, try it on yourself when you get a spare moment alone. Also, if weird sex to you means fantasizing or masturbation, you’re not the only one. It’s not a race to be hardcore the quickest, it’s about having the most pleasurable journey possible.

Uh, thanks Ricardo? I'm sure this is exactly the kind of service to the student body the founders of the ASUC had in mind when they created it in 1887. But wait, there's more. Apparently your ASUC sponsored bedroom fun need not be restricted to one person (no word on whether it is also ADA accessible):

Q: Does having several lovers make things more complicated?

A: In all honesty, I think that if it’s not complicated, you’re doing it wrong. Luckily, complicated does not necessarily equal dramatic, so long as people can be open-minded, communicative, understanding and patient. This of course is not always possible.

Q: Isn’t casual dating for young people who will grow up and settle down?

A: Not necessarily. There comes a point when the idea of a monogamous relationship just feels downright oppressive, and one would no sooner go back to that than to the dreadful years of middle school. People can sustain emotionally invested multiple relationships for years, longer than some marriages.

Look, I have no problem with talking about sex. The Daily Cal's Sex on Tuesday is totally fine. Even if this was a student group doing this as opposed to an ASUC official, I'd probably have no problem with this.

But it shouldn't be funded by mandatory student fees. If bearcardo and the rest of whomever he is working with want to publish a magazine, they should either raise the money themselves are at the very least go through the same ASUC application process as everyone else. I also don't see how this has ANYTHING to do with the mission of the External Affairs office. Even if you accept the position that the EAVP can use his office to advocate on behalf of anything he or she pleases, I fail to see his this accomplishes any change for the student body.

If you want to represent the students, you have to speak FOR them, not AT them.