Sweet Suite Sweetness!

I had been waiting 10 years for this day to come. I'd actually given up hope a while back. Thank you so much Alex and Jessica for hooking it up with these "sweet" suite tickets last week at Staples Center. We had the time of our life watching a variety of talented artists perform!

I'm sorry, but all I got on camera that night were a bunch of pearly whites... oh well.

We chose to be adventurous and take the Metrolink for the first time into L.A. It was an unforgettable experience. Everything was so tranquil (beats L.A. traffic in the heat), cool (A/C was kickin') and plush (clean and freshly upholstered) until this sheriff came through an roughed up this young man (typical racial profiling stuff that minorities complain about) that bought a student (discounted) ticket. I mean the kid was not talking back, but he was avoiding the questions (and the truth) for awhile. I felt uncomfortable when the cop began to cuff him, threaten to throw him in jail, search him, use some explicit military terminology, then take a PERSONAL PHONE CALL, then continue to badger, taunt, and chastise the dude. This last part was done while he was writing him a citation and informing him he would be booted off at the next stop. Dude, but who buys a discounted ticket, then lies to a cop about not having ID on him (he actually fessed up to his age in a timely manner) and avoids answering a simple question like, "What year were you born?" I hope I don't sound like Obama did this week when he criticized the police for roughing up a Harvard professor who was breaking into his own home, but c'mon! The other thing I noticed right away when the cop was dealing with the situation was that I would have dealt with a similar case a lot more chill in my classroom. Why? Because I've had worse cases where kids have NEEDED the treatment that the cop was dishing out. I've so far been unable to incorporate these "strategies" into my pedagogy.