Longs ine T
Continued from Page 8
credit card and leave a paper trail.
Do this in a major city. Doing it at
the Lincoln airport probably won’t
work. Carry more than $1,000 in
cash on your person. Carry two
grand, just to be safe. Then, pay
cash for a ticket to another major
city, round trip, no overnight stay.
Then, when the Drug Enforce
ment Agency guys approach you,
tell them it’s none of their business
why you paid in cash (it is your
legal right, after all). Also tell them
that it’s none of their business why
you’re only going to be in Miami for
a few hours. (It isn’t any of their
business, after all)
Then, after they confiscate your
money and your cellular phone,
just try to get it back Apparently it’s
quite difficult.
Even more discouraging is the
fact that few people know this
happens. When told, most people
don’t believe it. After all, we were
all taught in high school civics that
in the United Stales a person is
innocent until proven guilty.
Since 1984 we are innocent until
proven guilty, except in forfeiture
cases. Technically you are innocent
until proven guilty, but your prop
erty, having no legal rights of its
own, is arrested and held without
bond indefinitely. You must prove
its innocence — a difficult and
expensive task, should you choose
to undertake it. Eventually your
property is sold and the proceeds
are distributed to law enforcement
agencies.
In some cases, your property
may actually be “guilty.’’Suppose
you own an air freight service and
someone ships some drugs in pack
ages marked as flour. You may be
innocent, but your property can be
taken, as it wasused in the commis
sion of a drug-related offense.
The only answer that I have to
those morally superior men and
women who wrote, voted for, and
now enforce the forfeiture laws
comes from the Constitution of the
United States of America:
4th Amendment 1791
The- right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unrea
sonablesearchesandseizures, shall
not be violated, and no warrants
shall issue but u pon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the person or
things to be seized.
5th Amendment 1791
No person ... shall be... deprived
of life, liberty or property without
due process of law; nor shall pri
vate property be taken for public
use without just compensation.
Gary Longsinc is a terminal senior in
economics and international affairs. He
readily admits that casual experimenta
tion with drugs is no excuse for not
having graduated.
Mindless pleasure
Giving up the TV wasteland
Television is a dulling, lime-con
suming drug; a n acceplanee of bore
, dom.
Television’s vislial coherence and
simplicity of soundbites produces a
trance-inducing, data-reducing or
gan of manipulation and medioc
rity. A call for corporate environ
mental responsibility can be re
duced to a series of well-done
infomercials on recycling. A
president’s manipulation of a third
world country ca n be reduced to an
infograph in USA Today.
Television perpetuates the eco
nomic and cultural importance of
the feudalistic few whose own con
cerns have more to do with short
term profitability than cultural or
personal growth.
First, our sensory antennas go
up, our mind’s processing units go
down and we become the human
receiver of a corporatequarterback
Then we begin to depend on the
comfort of our daily dose of beta
wave zoning.
To zone is to prolong or accepi
boredom
o I failed as a human being when
' 1 got cable.
Recently I’ve been experiencing
the lingeringly painful effects of
hellish withdrawal. * r\
How will 1 tape “Ren & Sump)!?’
Will 1 be lost in the middle offra
conversation about a "Saturday
Night Live” skit J ririissed? What i
Joel and Maggie kiss again or
“Northern Exposure?" Will I have tc
begin reading the paper? Whicl
paper? Waaaa, 1 waiu^my movi<
channels back. V/
But they’re gone. All I’m left witl
is a television painted green with i
“Kill Your Television” sticker on it
Fox Cable and the shool-’em-u|
station 61. What happened to Mucl
Music?
1 am a visual information addict
I need constant fixes of sensop
overload. Television leaves me irri
tated, like a glass of caffeine pills
I used to see every movie tha
came to town for any reason at all
but I can’t even do that anymore
I’ve moved to harder stuff, man
I’veseen “The Raptu re,” “The Player
and “Barton Fink.” I need more
American meta-movies.
My VCR is connected precari
ously by sprawling open wires am
I’ve already watched every episod«
of “Ren & Slimpy” 30 times. They’n
bedtime candy.
It’s fun. It’s hedonism in the fao
of economic failure and environ
mental destruction, but it’ll tak<
you down, man. I know. I’ve hai
many internal battles over whethe
I’d do something creative or waicl
See POPCTTT on 1
Overcoming addictions
Addiction has many faces. It is as
much a part of human nature as
eating and sleeping.
Webster’s new lexicon vaguely
describes addiction as “to have
given oneself up to a practice or
habit ... and become unduly de
pendent upon it. ” It could easily be
referring to first-world energy con
sumption, extended credit, or power
associated with political position
and financial status.
Sometimes, the object d’addiction
is chocolate, diet soda or tobacco.
Some practice bizarre toilette ritu -
als. Some must eat in a designated
pattern. Some prefer Marla Maples
shoes.
We don’t often assign our own
behaviors to addiction. It’s a condi^
tion we prefer to associate*with
-44
It is not, and has never
been, the drug or the
substance. It is the hol
low empty space within
that we must fill
-»t -
removed from our neat, clean Chris
tian living rooms.
A labyrinthine world lies within /
See FUNHOUSEon 11
. "I
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