Little Green River

Six months after graduation, the calls for cash have started. Scripps wants me to give $100 to the general fund. I said no. For one thing, I just spent way too much money on app fees for law school. For another, I have basically zero confidence of the Scripps administration. I’m not giving a single discretionary cent until Dean Wood and Rhonda Risser are gone and I have some confidence that their replacements aren’t cloying, paternalistic Umbridges. I know a number of fellow alumnae who feel the same way.

So I was perusing the Scripps website, seeing what opportunities there were for targeted giving. The online form allows you to give to various vague categories (”student/faculty scholarship”); the most specific it gets is it allows you to give to a specific CLORG. But, unless I’m close to campus and talk with current students, how am I supposed to know which of my favorite CLORGS needs investment? And what if there are specific projects that aren’t CLORG-based but worth funding? Fundraising works best when the outcome of the money is tangible and exciting. That’s what makes special campaigns for new buildings (assuming the building is expected to be useful) work. But you shouldn’t just be harnessing that assignment for buildings–there should be a list of smaller (say, < $10,000) projects that alumnae can read about, give to, and propose. Large, wealthy donors can productively give toward specific projects because they can give enough to accomplish the goal all by themselves. (One senior-now-alumnae told me that if she became wealthy and Dean Wood were still in charge, she'd offer to leave all her money to the school if Wood would wear a red clown nose at all college functions. For example.) Less wealthy (especially recent) alumnae need an infrastructure to enable the same. It both bolsters enthusiasm for giving generally and brings those of us who distrust the Scripps administration into the fold.

Basically, the alumnae office needs to start using Fundable, or something like it. Seriously. Obama got elected by harnessing microdonations. Scripps should do the same.

Berkeley is the obvious choice. #1 for intellectual property law, well ranked overall, and near lots of nerdy potential employers. It’s not that expensive for a law school, since getting residency is easy. Like half my friends live in the area, and Nelson liked it when he lived there. We could maybe even achieve Nelson’s dream of having orange grove, if we lived inland, at least.

But. I’m not confident I can get in, for one thing. It’s one of those where there’s no guarantees, no matter how good your grades are. But I’m also unsure about going back to California. Granted, it’s not LA, thank goodness. But California is an alien, if generally agreeable, culture. I don’t think I want to settle down there. Having your own orchard would probably be considered settling down. How long can I safely reside in California before “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave” kicks in?

So to the other end of the geographic spectrum. The U of M. Also cheap, thanks to in-state tuition from the get-go and a Midwestern standard of living. Good for international law, with an exchange program with the University of Uppsala. Located in sweet home Minneapolis (and a cool neighborhood thereof) in the beautiful state of Minnesota, near family and some of my high school friends. Familiarity.

But. While the U isn’t ranked *badly*, on US News it’s at #22 after slipping a few spots. While I think the US News rankings are an easily-gamed crock of shit, it’s our crock of shit. Biglaw only interviews at top schools, public interest law is even more selective (!), and law professors apparently only come out of Yale. The legal profession is basically a bunch of snobs. So even if I and all my fellow students agree that the rankings are stupid and say little about the strength of a lawyer, we cannot avoid taking the snobbish reality into account. I’d definitely be able to get a job out of the U in the Twin Cities or Chicago–but would it be good enough for firms outside the Midwest? Not going somewhere in the top ten seems to close (if not lock) a lot of doors.

Also, the new UMlaw dean seems to be taking the school in a very practical, practice-oriented direction; the school has a higher clinic-to-student ratio than like everybody. Normally, that would be a positive in my mind, except: 1.) I *like* theory and am considering an academic career path and 2.) none of those zillions of clinics is in IP or anything related. The U *has* IP classes and such, but it is definitely not an IP school.

Harvard: Zittrain! The Berkman Center! Unimpeachable credentials that can travel anywhere! What’s not to like?

Well…

First, Harvard has a reputation for having lots of highly competitive assholes. I’d rather not get my throat ripped out. I like it where it is.

Second, so far as I’ve been there, Cambridge/Harvard Square gives me hives. It’s just so…commercial, much more than I expected. And the cost of living is ridiculous. Boston seemed alright, though, so long as you don’t ever drive and can tolerate ridiculous accents.

Third, hella expensive. Though Harvard’s LRAP’s the second-best I’ve seen, it’s still public interest-only.

On to Michigan, my other probable top choice. While it’s not in Minnesota, it is the Midwest, and Ann Arbor sounds like a wonderful, livable city. Michigan isn’t known as an intellectual property star, though it’s very well ranked overall, but its dual degree with the School of Information pretty much looks like the most perfect course of study ever for a free culture-minded high-tech fangirl like me. I like their interdisciplinary approach and friendly, humane academic environment.

But: Ann Arbor is not that large a city. Detroit is an hour away, but it’s mostly abandoned and on fire. Would Nelson be able to find a job there? Michigan (like any place that’s not an in-state state school) is also hella expensive.

Next, UPenn. Well-ranked, interdisciplinary, intellectually curious. It’s also in Philadelphia, a city I’ve always felt comfortable in. I dunno what it is–maybe the high concentration of Lutherans and Quakers–but I’ve always liked Pennsylvania. It’s like a little piece of Midwest transplanted east. Having grown up in New Jersey and gone to Swat, Nelson’s also got plenty of connections in the area.

Downsides: Not particularly intellectual property or techlaw-oriented. Rumors that it has been slipping in the rankings. Expensive, and their LRAP isn’t all that good.

If UPenn is expensive, Yale is downright extortionist. However, Yale also has the best loan repayment program I’ve seen. Anyone making less than $80K (even in a non-public interest job) qualifies, with few restrictions. By the rankings, Yale is the #1 law school in the country. It’s a small, close-knit, and extremely selective. It also hosts the annual RebLaw conference, which sounds about as fun and debaucherous as law school gets.

But. Do I really want to live in New Haven? Does anyone really want to live there? And could Nelson get a job there (especially competing with Yalies)? The nearest large city, where most grads end up, is New York. I still don’t like New York.

Yale doesn’t have grades–they have one of those HP-P-NP systems. I can appreciate that for defusing the hypercompetitiveness that would probably otherwise result. But, at the same time, I dislike the potentially-associated attitude that because one got into Yale one can just rest on one’s laurels. Not everyone who gets into Yale is a wunderkind; see: George W. Bush.

My understanding is that UChicago has the complete opposite approach; instead of “Welcome, you’ve made it!” it’s “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” They work you like a dog. They have you pay crazy expensive tuition. And, again, while it’s a well-ranked school overall it isn’t particularly strong in IP or techlaw so far as I can tell.

What attracts me to UChicago, though, is just the whole Hyde Park atmosphere. UChicago sounds like a really cool place to be intellectually. You’ve got the Friedman libertarians, thinkers like Cass Sunstein, a very centrist, pragmatic ethos alongside idealists from both ends of the political spectrum. And it’s another Midwestern school, in a big city with plenty of law offices.

University of Virginia has Siva Vaidhyanathan (though he’s undergrad, not at the law school) and is relatively cheap (by the time I would be attending, I could probably get residency). I mostly applied there, though because it was free. Outside of Siva, it doesn’t seem to be a huge IP powerhouse. And Charlottesville not only is a small town (with accordingly fewer legal jobs, especially in something as specialized as IP/techlaw public interest), it’s particularly non-Nelson-compliant; very few vegetarian-friendly restaurants and no Asian supermarkets as far as I can tell.

Duke’s also in the South, but the Research Triangle seems to be fairly culture-compatible. Vegetarian restaurants, Asian groceries, tech companies, and general blueness–it’s kind of pathetic, but the fact that North Carolina went for Obama this year makes me significantly more open to living there. Duke is well-ranked both generally and in IP; Jamie Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins, and the Center for the Public Domain are there. They have a study abroad program with the University of Copenhagen.

But still. North Carolina? Really?

I should be rooting for Stanford more than I am. Home of Lessig, the Samuelson clinic, the Center for Internet and Society, it’s the other (more expensive) Bay Area law school with all the advantages that locale entails. Stanford’s #2 for IP, and Silicon Valley’s right there. By reputation and practice area, it would totally be an excellent place to go. I think my creeping lukewarmness isn’t because of the school itself but rather a reflection of my belief that I have little chance of getting in. Not only is it (like most of the other schools on this list) an extremely competitive school, where my stats only put me at the median for the 2007 class, apparently Stanford “recommends” (though doesn’t require) three recommendation letters. I only have two–the requirement for all the other schools–and I’m not sure who I’d ask for a third even if it wasn’t so late in the game. So I fear that might rule me out. Those feelings of inadequacy shouldn’t affect my actual chances, though. We’ll see what happens if I do get in.

Finally, Georgetown. I applied mostly because I got an app fee waiver, it’s well ranked overall, and to provide for the case where I decide to stay in DC for some reason. Extremely strong in constitutional law/civil liberties and international law; not as much in IP/techlaw. I REALLY hope the hack who testified in front of Congress that the NIH mandate violates copyright law (*insert baffled noises here*) isn’t representative of the GU IP faculty, either politically or intellectually. That really did not improve my opinion of Georgetown.

So I’ve got some first choices, and some less-than-first choices. I think I’ll just have to accept that there’s no perfect choice; the geographic distribution of my friends and family alone guarantees that. The roll of the dice, where I get in and where I don’t, will trim some of my options off, so some of these considerations will likely no longer be relevant.

Still, though, it’s worth considering them as if I got into every one. Since I’m applying a year in advance, if I only get into my less-than-first choices I’ll have to decide whether to settle for what I got or to try again next year (at the price of uncertainty for Nelson’s job search). The very fact that I am applying early will count against me in the admissions progress–meaning that it is reasonable to believe that I could reverse some of my inevitable rejection letters if I tried again.

I was completely unable to focus on work yesterday. All the time, refreshing blogs, reading voting stories, worrying that, somehow, this was gonna get screwed up.

When they called Pennsylvania for Obama, a McCain win was nearly impossible. When they called Ohio for Obama, it was done. At that point, Obama could lose Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, AND Nevada–and, short of all the Democratic ballots in Iowa, Minnesota, or the West Coast spontaneously combusting, still get to 270.

Of course, at that point all the news networks just talked about how a Republican has never won without Ohio, it’s looking rather bad for McCain, blah blah blah. Only the friggin’ mathematician was willing to actually call it. Of course, the media has an interest in making a race close, or appear to be close-it keeps people watching longer. Or maybe the news networks were charitably trying to encourage voting on the West Coast, so all the Californian Obama folks wouldn’t go home and let Proposition 8 pass. (Unfortunately, it looks like it did anyway. California! What the hell is wrong with you?)

In any case, at that point I walked to the grocery store to buy a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine, and some broccoli (don’t ask) and updated the cashier on the results. As a young black dude, I figured he had about a 93% chance of being an Obama supporter. Yep. He was.

DC went nuts at the news, as you’ve probably heard. My roommate went downtown to join in and asked me and Nelson to join him. I almost wished I was still unemployed, so that I could have spent the night screaming and dancing and hugging random people in a fully historic fashion. But we didn’t. Instead we sat in the exercise room of the condo building (we don’t have a TV, and I was having a hard time getting the news outlets’ online streams to work) and watched McCain’s concession and Obama’s acceptance over a glass of wine.

Last night in part of his speech, Obama reprised New Hampshire, and I was reminded of when I first saw him speak. I was at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place with Elaine, getting food before attending an acapella concert at USC. They had a tiny TV on the wall, tuned to Obama’s speech after losing New Hampshire. When I say I “saw” Obama speak, I mean it literally. The TV’s sound was off, so I didn’t actually hear what he said that evening until later when I ran across the ‘Yes We Can’ video. But I just looked at him, addressing the crowd, and I knew–this is the next president of the United States of America.

Obama’s right, that the struggle has just begun. The two most recent movies I’ve seen are An Inconvenient Truth (finally) and the short version of I.O.U.S.A. They’re kind of frightening. This country has hella problems. They’re gonna be challenging to fix. Right now there is no goddamn way the government can afford to support all the programs I wish it would, even if Obama supported all of them (he’s significantly closer to the center than I am–still mad about FISA) and could get them passed (Democratic congress, yes, but many close victories and centrists there too). Our country is neither solvent nor sustainable at this juncture. But I think that Obama’s the guy to tackle these things. He won’t be able to fix things right away, or ever without grassroots commitment and support. But I trust him to talk to experts instead of industry hacks, to cross party lines, and to present some very interesting ideas. I can’t wait to see what’s to come.

Crossing my fingers: Bruce Schneier for Homeland Security chief and Lawrence Lessig for FCC head/IP czar, anyone?

On the one hand, to be fair, as someone who tends to cheer for the Democrats, the party is exceptional at pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. I can’t help but feel like Charlie Brown waiting for Lucy to pull the football away again. You never know how many percentage points to subtract for incompetent and/or fraudulent election administration. You never know when a candidate’s gonna die in a plane crash. I’ve been doing a lot of knocking on wood.

On the other hand, the small dose of CNN I have seen recently makes me want to set the exercise room television on fire. With C4. And plutonium. For mostly the same reasons as this comic.

Is Obama a noncitizen Muslim terrorist who never graduated from Columbia? No! Is he the anti-Christ? No! Does McCain have a chance of winning Pennsylvania? No, unless Obama devours a live puppy on live TV today–and even then, like a third of voters have already voted! Yet the mere utterance of these things is apparently enough to obligate the media to dignify and amplify them with coverage…

After two years of long-distance musicianship, Nelson’s band, Wrong Side of Dawn, has finally finished mixing the tracks and has put out its first EP. You can listen on the band’s Facebook page and (soon) buy on CD Baby and iTunes.

Mostly, though, this post is an excuse to post the cover art I drew for them.

Yay pretty things!

Obligatory soundtrack: O Shenandoah, from last year’s Concert Choir concert.

Nelson, Gavin, Nelson’s friend Dean, and I went “leafpeeping” at Shenandoah National Park last weekend. It was cold but excellent. Besides looking at trees, we hiked, climbed rocks, found someone’s totally bitchin’ sunglasses in a crevice, and saw a natural spring (not that exciting but still kind of cool).

More pictures on Nelson’s Flickr.

Afterward we stopped by a tourist trap and bought a gigantic sack of apples, apple cider, and fudge. The trip took a turn for the unfortunate when it turned out that the (plain, no nuts) fudge I purchased nevertheless had peanuts in it. And Nelson had eaten some. So the rest of the evening was occupied with baking soda baths, Chinese medicine, and other attempts to ameliorate Nelson’s swollen throat, horrible stomachache, and full-body rash. Sigh.

Various projects, not all of which are done/public yet. But some are–including my half of the Voices of Open Access video series, which was released on Tuesday for Open Access Day. Check it out, I’m a filmmaker!

Sharon Terry, Patient Advocate from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

André Brown, Grad Student from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

Diane Graves, Librarian from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

The other three videos (by the illustrious Matt Agnello on the West Coast) are located here.

This weekend, I attended two conferences in the Bay Area. One was the first-ever conference of the Seasteading Institute, held by Nelson’s friend and Mudd alum Patri Friedman. It involved possibly the highest concentration of Libertarians I’ve ever experienced. Also the highest concentration of men–out of 60-70 conferencegoers, Kat and I made up half the ladies. I suppose that’s to be expected with any new frontier, though… A couple more Seasteading Conference pics here.

Then, on Saturday and Sunday I attended the 2008 Students for Free Culture conference. Lots of brand name speakers–Lawrence Lessig, John Lilly, Pamela Samuelson, etc. You can see the identica microblogging stream of the conference here. I also filmed “shout-outs” for Open Access Day, with various conference-goers telling the camera why open access is awesome:

OA Day shoutouts from the Students for Free Culture conference from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

The second day, the spontaneous participant-organized “unconference”, provoked a lot of good conversations and was surprisingly productive–by the end of it, everyone agreed to what people are calling the Wheeler Declaration (after the building we were in): an agenda for Students for Free Culture to focus on for next year. We’re still arguing about what to call it (since Open University is trademarked, apparently), but the idea is to pressure and grade our campuses based on five criteria: opening access to research, creating/using open courseware, embracing free/open-source software and open document formats, using university-held patents for the public good (think cheap drugs for the developing world), and keeping the university network unfiltered and uncensored. We’ll see how SFC executes this plan, but I think it’s an excellent target for the org to have.

More awesome projects are on the way… just you wait!

I’m having a jam-packed extended weekend in the Bay Area! On Friday I’m attending the first-ever seasteading conference in Burlingame. Then Saturday and Sunday I’ll be at the 2008 Students for Free Culture conference, and possibly also hurdling around Berkeley on a tandem bicycle. (Long story.) So if I know you, and you’re in the Bay Area, we should hang out!

I might liveblog one or both conferences here–we’ll see. I’m also on SPARC duty at the Students for Free Culture conference taping open access day shoutouts, hanging around the PLoS booth, and filming some of the speakers, so I might be too busy.

As my job search slags on and the economy tanks and making my student loan payments starting next month becomes a very real concern, I’ve been concerned that I blew my parents’ money and got myself into a whole heap of debt for nothing. They gave us that whole spiel about how you can use a liberal arts degree everywhere (and nowhere) because employers like critical minds (have yet to see THAT on a job listing). I mean, I guess there’s something to it–in this country, it is very hard to get a well-paying job *without* a bachelor’s degree. But a Scripps BA? A liberal artsy BA? There’s a reason the most common job title for first-year-out psych majors is “administrative assistant”…

So what might I have done differently?

Consider state schools, but if they’re not a good fit, that’s okay. I still think I would have gone to Scripps (or rather, if I didn’t, it would be for reasons unrelated to money and I’d replace it with Swarthmore or another liberal arts college). I wouldn’t've done well at a big school and Morris just didn’t appeal to me. As much as the handwave-y “don’t worry–of course you’ll be able to find a job with a liberal arts degree!” bullshit annoys me, there is something to the critical thinking skills, discussion-based coursework, and intellectual immersion that for me are part and parcel with college. Further in your career, or if you apply to law or grad school, those will be very real skills. But if a state school is your cup of tea, jump on it and get all the scholarship money you can handle.

If you really don’t know where you’ll be after college, try to go somewhere nationally known. Most Scripps graduates stay in California. California is basically the only place the Career Planning and Services office is at all useful. Here in DC, while people have heard of some of the other Claremont Colleges (particularly CMC), Scripps is a nonstarter. This is not something I considered at all when I was thinking about colleges. Part of it was I hadn’t done all the internship-hopping around the country that I did during school. But I knew I didn’t want to settle in LA, and the signs were there. Oh well.

Major in something useful, if at all possible. I convinced myself that I was doing this with Media Studies. Web design skills are skills, right? But a.) “media studies” sounds like a slacker major to outsiders and b.) the Claremont program really doesn’t teach a marketable set of hard skills. I came out of Scripps not knowing Illustrator, not knowing InDesign, not knowing anything about color theory or wireframing or search engine optimization, and having only a rudimentary sense of PHP (which I taught myself outside of class). I gained some skills, but not a sufficient number to actually get hired by somebody. If I’d majored in CS instead, I would almost certainly had a worse GPA (CS 60 kicked my butt) but what employer looks at your GPA?* Then I’d have the credential to go after all the web development/programming/backend jobs which so far as I can tell are a.) more numerous and b.) pay significantly more than the positions I’m qualified for. Sure, I wouldn’t be doing as much of the pretty stuff (though you’d be surprised how many positions expect candidates to do both design and low-level coding), but at least I’d have a full-time job in my chosen field.

Right now CS and engineering are the big “getting jobs with actual paychecks” majors. Math, stats, chemistry/physics, economics, and accounting folks tend to do well also. From what I’ve seen, even an English major can be a powerful tool if you take classes in or otherwise learn a bit of marketing–think PR, think communications. If you wouldn’t mind working abroad (or even if not–think Spanish), a minor in a foreign language can set you apart. If you are absolutely completely not interested in any of the successful disciplines, don’t do it. But consider them, at least. You have PLENTY of non-major credits to minor or double-major in your liberal artsy loves. And hopefully the currency of your practical major will make it possible to find the job that combines your interests.

Networking is apparently key…so good luck, chump. I’m finding it’s virtually impossible to find a job that you don’t have an “in” for. This sucks when you don’t have very many connections. Dad knows people in various tech companies…all of which are in MN or CA. My aunt apparently knows some people in DC, but I haven’t heard anything more from her so I guess none of them need a webmonkey. SPARC has connections with a number of organizations, none of which are hiring. I signed up with a paralegal temp agency in July and never heard another thing from them. I’m already working part-time at Nelson’s former employer. All the rest of my friends are entry-level employees on the other side of the continent. My network is looking pretty depleted. I guess the lesson is, make more rich, geographically-distributed friends than I have. :p

Avoid pairing off early? It would be dishonest to say that being in a relationship hasn’t limited my options. The previous two summers, while my internships were generally enjoyable and provided some useful experience, neither was at a place I would have been likely to work in the future. Part of this was due to the job market, my need to have a paid internship, and so forth. But part of it also may have been because my internship search was less directed based on what would open the most doors career-wise and more based on being in the same geographical location as Nelson. I couldn’t (and still can’t) consider job opportunities elsewhere in the country or abroad due to being tied down. I decided to not attend law school immediately after college in part because I wanted to pay down my student loans a bit and do something different (given my difficulties finding sufficient work, I am now questioning this). But I also made that decision in an effort to time my schedule to Nelson’s law school completion.

Of course, being in a committed relationship can also have financial and career benefits. Not only do I have a built-in roommate, Nelson’s parents have been allowing me to forgo paying rent until I can afford it. Nelson got so tired of me worrying about how much fresh/organic fruits and veggies cost that he buys all our produce. Being non-single means I don’t spend as much money to be social as I might otherwise–I’m not cruising bars and clubs, going to concerts, or going on fancy dinner dates. Nelson and I generally watch movies at home, go berrypicking, or play low-stakes poker with Nelson’s friends. Nelson’s internship at SPARC got me an “in” here, which thus far is my most enjoyable and successful gig and is probably responsible for most of the interviews I’ve had. And when I periodically freak out over how I’m never going to get a real job and I’m going to go bankrupt and live in a cardboard box, at least I’ve got a free source of snuggles and backrubs.

As it stands, my relationship is one of only a few things in my life that is really going well right now. And if I hadn’t been in a relationship, there’s no guarantee that I would’ve gotten a dream internship or that I’d be set in a dream job. There’s just too many variables. So I don’t think I would’ve done this differently. But just something to consider.

In any case, I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. I’m here now. What do I do?

All I can do is keep doing my work, keep racking up back rent, keep applying for relevant jobs (with the economic downturn, employers seem to be demanding more experience–more than I have–so this is getting more difficult), and hope and pray that something works out before December. Everything else is out of my control.

Still, I wish I could decide what to cheer for–that the dumbass pork-laden bailout actually works and the economy turns around so there’s plenty of jobs…

…or that the financial establishment craters, America as we know it ends, and my student loans just don’t matter anymore.

* Because the legal profession is snobbish, most law firms do. I get lots of compliments from them. Of course, they still don’t hire me.

Story here. I know, rather biased source, right? But the facts are confirmed by this Army Times story.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

[T]his new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

…

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack…The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said.

According to the first article, this violates the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, which govern the circumstances under which the military can be used on American soil. Can anyone confirm this? It seems to me that these sorts of duties are the purpose of the National Guard (which is controlled by the states); why don’t we just call the Guardsmen home from Iraq instead of bringing in some random brigade?

Having the US military take on this role creeps me out. Nelson called it “proto-fascism.” Even if the intent of the program is to “help Americans” (as the Army Times effuses) there’s a reason why uses of the military are limited at home. There’s a reason we don’t use those powers here. It’s a frightening precedent.

We’ve already tried militarized the police force in this country, and in aggregate they regularly abuse their tasers and other crowd-control weaponry *because* they’re “only” nonlethal (even though tasers are only supposed to be used in cases where you would otherwise use a gun). Now we’re going the other way around, with a bunch of soldiers back from the Iraq war zone. Do you think they’d have *more* restraint than a cop?

And it’s only one slight policy change from here until the guns come out.