Time To Hand In Your Homework
Last month, we helped the seven college students assigned 5-page essays by Judge Edward Redd write about their experiences after being arrested during the ALCS victory celebrations. We begged the court to give us a peek at the finished products, and yesterday it obliged. And it seems the ruffians took our help to heart.
In our post, we attributed an anti-authority rant to an Emerson College student. But it was Emmanuel College freshman Michael Jauquet who fit that profile.
“I was angry about the government,” [Michael] Jauquet said in an interview after the proceeding. “I tried to be radical. It didn’t work out for me.”
It seldom does, kiddo. Just ask Rosie O’Donnell. In his essay, Jauquet elaborates that his anti-police chanting during the celebration stemmed from his feeling about the Iraq War.
“Thinking back on it now, it was neither the time nor the place for a political form of protest,” he wrote. “I learned from this experience that I must choose more wisely the path I follow.”
Indeed. Maybe you should look into supporting our favorite presidential candidate, Michael. Ron Paul wants to bring the troops home immediately.
We anticipated a Harvard student would be the one to view their arrest as an opportunity to learn about the prison system firsthand. But it was Massachusetts College of Art student Monica Majewski who bitterly complained about the horrible conditions in jail.
After “endless introspective cogitation,” Monica Majewski. . . complained about her jail cell’s “freezing, hard cement bench” and “horribly ugly steel toilet.”
She loses points for using “cogitation” when should easily could have said “thought” and for not using lurid words to describe the aesthetically unappealing plumbing fixture. What about the toilet was ugly? Did it have graffiti? Was it dirty? Paint the reader a picture of the horrors you experienced, Monica.
Majewski goes on to say she appreciates the plight of those who have been arrested.
“I had a strong sense of being both violated and handled in an unnecessarily hostile manner. . . . Upon entering my cell, what remaining dignity I had was stripped clean when I was asked to show my chest to the guard in case I was concealing. . . . Considering the mortifying conditions, regrettable choices and stifled existences endured by prisoners across the country. . . . I feel as though I can begin to understand the acute horror it is to actually serve time imprisoned.”
While we didn’t get the pumped-up fan bluster we anticipated from a Northeastern student, Matthew White came the closest.
“A diehard Red Sox fan is what I am; this situation will not change that,” Matthew White, 18, wrote in his essay, titled “Farewell Fenway.”
“I cannot run around freely screaming everything that comes into my mind. . . . I have contemplated about my actions many times and come to appreciate that it is not always good to have the ‘go big or go home’ mentality,” he wrote. “This has been a very informative and eye-opening experience and because of it I am now a better person.”
So are we, young Matthew. We hope that the media circus surrounding this successful means of punishing out-of-control kids can be extended to other crimes as well. We would love to read the essays explaining what the Commercial Street flasher and the prostitute in a dryer were thinking.
