STORMY MONDAY

It turned out to be a tumultuous weekend. I've encountered more long absent friends in the last three days than I have in the last three months and a lot of my assumptions have been challenged in the process. It's really too big to tell tonight. At the moment, all I can say is - Victoria, if you are finally reading my blog, my thoughts are with you always and I'm so glad you called with the good news.

HOMETOWN HERO

The underlying theme of this weekend was about activism, as in how far are you willing to commit to changing the status quo, and how far should you go to gain more recruits.

There was some discussion on the lists about coercing known users into going public. My local hero, Elmer Elevator, posted the definitive statement on this theme and I reproduce it here for your edification, in its entirety.

Yep, you make an important distinction: Outing hostile and damaging enemies, vs. Outing people who've just tried to live quietly and avoid controversy and trouble.

During Clinton's impeachment, I think Larry Flynt was offering a big $$$ bounty for anyone who'd blow the whistle on the smarmy extramarital infidelities of any of the holier-than-thou Republican congrassholes who were publicly burning Clinton at the stake. The media was gifted with at least three, one of whom -- I think from Louisiana -- resigned from Congress right in the middle of everything. My guess is his wife told him: "It's bad enough that everybody at the country club knows you were fucking that little slut, but I don't want it all over the front page of The New York Times and Newsweek and CNN for the next six months."

That's a positive and healthy kind of political Outing. I hope to see lots more of it. The most pleasant and entertaining War on Drugs thing that's happened recently has been Outing Bill Bennett for his gambling jones -- Mister Goody Two-Shoes Personal Responsibility tosses millions of his family's inheritance down a Vegas toilet. This kind of Outing shows these puritanical psychos for all their true "character." Likewise, the National Archives still thoughtfully trickles new secret Nixon White House audio tapes to the public, and, better late than never, we see Patriotic Red-White-and-Blue Drug Warrior Nixon as a rabid anti-semite and anti-black bigot. (He was a Quaker -- is that whack or what?)

But I'm talking about Outing people whose worst crime is just keeping their mouths shut and wanting to live a low-profile, private existence.

Outing a closet gay or lesbian steals from him/her the right to decide whether to come out to his family, and steals the circumstances he/she would prefer to tell the family this this is his/her sexual orientation. Many just can't ever bring themselves to confront this nightmare. But it's their personal business, or should scrupulously be their business. It's vicious to tell their families on the cover of a national magazine. Blackmail for political purposes is just as evil and nasty as blackmail for money. Civilized people were supposed to have figured out long ago that the End never justifies the Means. This kind of Outing leaves us hating and fearing progressive activists as much as we hate and fear gay-bashers and homophobes.

So much for the metaphor of Outing gays. Demanding pot-smoking celebrities and politicos come out of their hookah closet and wear the NORML t-shirt at rallies ... we're not going to Make Progress by frightening and coercing timid people to do things they don't want to do. We're just going to make them fear and hate us. Friends can have serious political disagreements, but they both know they respect and honor one another's privacy and choices.

There's a huge spectrum of Public Figures: There's Metal Rockers and Heavyweight Boxers, Shock Comedians, Peter Fonda, Timothy Leary, Gangsta Rappers, and then there are Congressmen and Hillary Clinton, and actors who make their living acting in TV stuff like "Touched by an Angel" and Disney flicks for the kiddies. A Gangsta Rapper can literally get away with murder as far as keeping and pleasing his fans. (Vanilla Ice was constantly criticized and attacked for NOT having a violent criminal record.) Madonna's popularity DEPENDS on the popular fantasy that she has multiple sex partners of several genders. An expose that Bob Marley didn't really smoke pot would have ended his career overnight.

A congressman, or a TV family sitcom star, has just the opposite needs to keep their popularity: Some public figures believe they must appear Squeaky Clean, have just one spouse, one Labrador retriever, 2.4 kids named Sis and Junior, utterly no sex with interns or babysitters -- and no fragrance of pot-smoking or tooting up white powder at some wedding reception long ago. Look at all the trouble Schwarzenegger's in this week about that old Big Mouth interview he gave to Oui magazine. And that old movie "Pumping Iron" has resurfaced, with Mister Clean Arnold tokin' on a jay with a big grin. He's Outed himself, the dope. He's running for Governor of California, and he forgot to wear pants. (This morning he was on Oprah begging her matronly audience to forgive the foolish mistakes of a misled youth just off the boat from Austria who fell in with bad companions in L.A. during the Age of Swingers.)

Some big public ambitions depend on a public Façade. I can criticize the value of ambitions like that, but that's their business if they maintain the Façade without screwing other people. Being afraid and cautious isn't the same as screwing other people. Outers try to make the argument that it is the same. It's not, by any stretch of decent behavior.

Again, I want Us to be and to act noticeably differently from Them. Otherwise, for the great mass of undecided Americans, so many of whom puff away with the curtains drawn at night, why should they feel more comfortable with Us than with Them? Let the cops kick down their doors, that's what cops do. They'll become enthusiastic reformers immediately afterwards.

Here's an illustrative Cautionary Tale about our neighbors who puff at home with the curtains drawn. Is this guy a hypocrite? Should we hate and despise him for not publicly joining the reform cause? Should we have Outed him before the SWAT Team did? Would it have been better for Us to destroy his life than Them?

Down below I've boldfaced one paragraph, which should be very reminiscent of Tommy Chong's troubles with Them.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education
8 August 2003

Lost Promise

by Jamilah Evelyn

One stupid mistake can cost you everything. Perhaps no one knows that better than David C. England.

On March 12, while Mr. England was president of Des Moines Area Community College, some 20 Iowa narcotics agents raided his home and found a smoky room and more than two pounds of packaged marijuana along with some seedlings. That day, as agents searched his cozy suburban house, Mr. England, 51, thought, "My life is over."

To be sure, his career in higher education may be. After resigning the presidency and resolving the criminal charges with a plea bargain, Mr. England is hoping to write a book about his experience and has started applying for administrative jobs at two-year colleges. But many who believed in him simply shake their heads and wonder why he threw it all away.

"I just thought that for David, the sky was the limit," says J. William Wenrich, who just stepped down as chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District, where Mr. England obtained his first presidency, at North Lake College. "I truly expected to see him turn up at one of the well-sought-after posts in this business."

A onetime community-college student, Mr. England parlayed what started as a part-time teaching gig into a career in administration.

Supporters say he seemed genuinely driven by a desire to reach out to higher education's disenfranchised. He was a charismatic deal-broker, and had succeeded at getting college administrators and faculty and staff members here behind a strategic plan, which was the first in the Des Moines college's 38-year history. Even groundskeepers at DMACC (D-Mack, as it is known locally) praised his approachable, down-to-earth demeanor.

The initial frenzy the arrest stirred at the 13,000-student college has died down, but its infamy still bites. "I can safely say that it was the most embarrassing and well-noted occurrence in our history," says Donavan M. Honnold, the college's public-relations director.

The Raid

By most accounts, it was an especially blustery winter day when college officials got word that something serious was going on at the England home in Johnston, a well-to-do community just outside of Des Moines.

Kim J. Linduska, then vice president of academic affairs, had gone to a nearby hospital to check on her husband, who had recently been in a car accident. Her visit was cut short by a call from Trudy Little, a secretary in the top administrators' office.

Dave Palmer, senior vice president for governmental affairs, was filling in for Mr. England -- who had called in sick for the second day in a row -- at a meeting of the state's 18 community-college presidents at a hotel near the state capitol. He had just finished a lengthy address when Ms. Little called his cellphone.

Mr. Honnold's desk phone started ringing too. It was a reporter from the Des Moines Register who had lots of questions for which Mr. Honnold had few answers. By the time he got off the phone, several broadcast reporters and their camera crews were waiting for him outside his office.

Over at the hotel, Mr. Palmer broke the news to the two-year college presidents. There was stunned silence. Then, one of them asked, "He has teenage kids, right?"

"This has got to be a terrible mistake," Mr. Palmer recalls saying. But by the meeting's end, a ticker was running across the bottom of the broadcast on Channel 13, the local NBC affiliate, which was on in an adjacent room.

The early reports -- which turned out to be true -- stated that after receiving two separate tips that Mr. England was in possession of a large amount of marijuana, narcotics agents raided his home. He was being charged with trafficking. Marijuana was found in every bedroom in the house. Charges would be forthcoming against his entire family. He was smoking a joint when law-enforcement officers raided his home. The charges could land him in jail for more than a decade.

Back on the main campus in Ankeny, Alfred Butts, a custodian, had been gathering trash when some co-workers summoned him to a lounge to hear the incredible news that was being reported on the television.

Damage Control

"Everybody was in shock, but nothing really surprises me," he says. He went back to the trash.

By midafternoon, Ms. Linduska, Mr. Palmer, and several other top administrators had gathered back at the campus to do damage control, and to come up with a plan. When Joe Pugel, the chairman of the Board of Directors arrived, he swiftly made the decision to place Mr. England on paid administrative leave, and to name Ms. Linduska acting president.

The phones kept ringing. It was students, parents.

"They wanted to know, does this affect accreditation? Will my degree be worth anything?" says Ms. Linduska, who fielded many of the calls. She left campus that day around 10 p.m.

At about the same time, Mr. England was in a cell at the Polk County jail, trying to ignore the banging of a nearby inmate. He cried. He stared at the ceiling and eventually drifted off to sleep.

The Aftermath

Fallout from the arrest has varied.

College officials ordered an audit by law and accounting firms to determine whether any college funds, students, or employees could be tied to the charges. The audit eventually turned up nothing. The officials also monitored enrollment closely in the weeks after the arrest to see if students were jumping ship, but their head count actually was much higher than at the same time the previous year.

Just as a fund-raising drive to acquire a building adjacent to the Ankeny campus was beginning, some alumni and a few other donors asked why Mr. England was still on the payroll. Nevertheless, Mr. Honnold, the public-relations director, says he is unaware of any promised donations that were withheld.

Two weeks after his arrest, Mr. England resigned, forfeiting his salary of nearly $200,000 a year, perquisites, and pension. He eventually pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with intent to deliver it, maintaining that he had shared it only with his wife. (Under Iowa law, such a claim fits a trafficking charge.) He received a deferred judgment, which means that his conviction will be cleared if he stays out of trouble for the next two years.

Meanwhile, a radio station's morning disc jockeys and their callers cooked up lots of jokes that college officials did not find funny. The college eventually pulled its advertising.

A local resident whipped up T-shirts emblazoned with a marijuana leaf and the words, DMACC: School of Higher Learning. Gary Shatto, a friend of the local entrepreneur and a student at the community college, says the shirts still are "selling like hotcakes."

Reporters from the Register filed a Freedom of Information Act request and pored over Mr. England's e-mail correspondence, telephone records, and expense reports. If they found anything unusual, they didn't report it. But the request cost the college some $23,000, mostly in lawyer's fees.

Days after Mr. England's arrest, three national community-college associations held annual meetings in Phoenix. Between sessions on shrinking state budgets and homeland security, Mr. England's name was on everyone's lips.

One well-known leader of a sizable college district remarked to a reporter: "If all of us who hit one when we went home at night got busted, there'd really be a leadership crisis. ... Still, what was this guy thinking?"

The Dream World

Unemployed and with his name now absent from the daily headlines, the 6-foot-6 former president is loquacious, contrite, and yet dignified during a three-hour confessional from a sumptuous floral love seat in his living room.

Dressed casually in a cream-colored T-shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of moccasins, he appears at peace with his transgression, ready to get some things off his chest. "I made a very big mistake in my personal life," he says. "I'd like to think that doesn't erase my accomplishments."

His Texas twang trembles only when he recalls pleading with law-enforcement officers to spare his wife, Donna; daughter, Jessica, 23; and son, Charlie, 17, from being charged. (His wife and daughter also were charged with felony possession and trafficking charges. His son was charged with misdemeanor possession. All three also were given deferred judgments.)

Mr. England says he liked to smoke pot perhaps two to three times a week, and only late at night. He had a stressful job. He came of age in the '70s. He had, in fact, been convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession when he was 19. Throughout his adulthood he had "run into it occasionally but wasn't always a regular smoker." His wife, he says, joined him infrequently; his kids never did.

He resents any suggestions that he was selling the drug. But a college president can't exactly cop bags on the street corner. So he bought in bulk. Then he decided, "since we had seen some commercials linking the drug trade to terrorism, and my wife has a green thumb, we decided to grow our own."

The couple kept the plants locked away in a tiny pump room in the basement and had only started growing them two weeks before the raid, he says. They had found evidence that their son was smoking pot, and they had disciplined him for it. They weren't sure whether their daughter, a junior at Iowa State University, was using marijuana. "We just weren't the Cheech and Chong family that everyone seems to think," he says.

As to what he was thinking?

"I wasn't, to be honest," he says, fiddling with his wedding band, one leg folded over the other. "As a college president, you can get pretty arrogant, detached from reality. ... I had drifted off into my own little dream world."

Never Say Never

Mr. England, who says he hasn't smoked marijuana since the day of his arrest and plans never to do so again, stays in touch with only a few DMACC officials, Mr. Palmer among them.

"David and I actually bumped heads a lot on the job," says Mr. Palmer. "Since the 'incident,' I've only gained more respect for him. He's owned up to his mistake with as much finesse as anyone could possibly muster. That takes heart. I now consider him a friend."

As the college moves closer to selecting a new president -- a search committee last month announced four finalists, including Ms. Linduska - -- students, administrators and faculty, and staff members are largely forgiving, though they haven't forgotten.

"We've had to work really hard to recover from the shock," says Melissa Jacobson, 31, a student who had met Mr. England at a college-sponsored breakfast. "It was embarrassing, and it overshadowed all the good things going on here."

As for Mr. England's chances of gaining another presidency, Larry H. Ebbers, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Iowa State, thinks they are slim.

"I would never say never," says Mr. Ebbers, who conducted DMACC's latest presidential search "He does have a lot to offer, but most boards would probably be wary, considering. It probably depends on his personal connections."

For now, Mr. England says he is enjoying spending time with his family. He has an agent and hopes to find a publisher for his book, which he says will be about how he became so obsessed with success that he forgot about what is important.

Ultimately, he is hoping to work his way up to another CEO position. He has just begun applying for some top administrative posts, his applications attached with a long letter of explanation. "I've done a lot of good things, and I still have a lot to offer," he says. "I just made one really big mistake."

DAVID C. ENGLAND

Born: May 4, 1952, in Chickasha, Okla.

Education: B.A. in English/history, M.A. in English/creative writing, Permian Basin campus of the University of Texas; Ed.D. in educational curriculum and instruction and educational administration, Texas A&M University at College Station.

Academic career: President, Des Moines Area Community College, 2001-3; president, North Lake College, 1996-2001; vice chancellor for planning and information systems, Community College of Baltimore County, 1996; special assistant to the assistant commissioner, community- and technical-college division, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 1995; English instructor and vice president for institutional effectiveness, McLennan Community College, 1991-95.

Personal: Married to Donna England, an artist and interior designer; two children.

(c) 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

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And that my dears, is the last word.