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R E C E N T L Y

Geometry and hot pix
By Chris Colin
Returning home from college, a young man is caught between his troubled younger brother and X-rated Web sites
(10/14/98)

Financial roulette with Sallie Mae
By Kristina Blachere
Make no mistake, the corporate mistress of student loans will get you in the end, but in the meantime you can play her at her own game and sometimes win
(10/12/98)

Creeps on campus
By Dawn MacKeen
Do bad guys have a right to higher education?
(10/09/98)

My crabs or yours?
By Dan Stern
Protecting yourself from the creatures of the sexual swamp
(10/07/98)

Ask Camille
By Camille Paglia
Trouncing feminist film criticism and its cadre of ass-kissing puritans
(10/07/98)

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Competing for grades is one thing. But facing off for parking spaces means all-out war.

Every war has its truce, and it was during the Santa Monica College parking war truce that I met my friend Ruth.

The problem, which began when Lot D closed, was simple: too many cars and not enough spaces. At first, students complained to the administration: We circle around the lot and garage for half an hour, the side streets have restricted parking, it's impossible to get to class on time. So the administration came up with an ingenious solution: Leave home earlier. The students left earlier, then went back to the administration: We're leaving earlier, but so is everyone else, and unless you get there by 7:30 a.m., you'll never find a space. So the administration had another brilliant idea: Take the bus. Now, if you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you know that waiting at a bus stop is like waiting for Godot. You see buses on the street, but they never actually stop to pick people up. So the students went back again, but this time, instead of offering another half-baked solution, the administration issued a terse statement: "It is the sole responsibility of each student to arrive at class in a timely manner." Clearly, negotiations had failed. This meant war.

The war, however, turned out to be students vs. each other. While the administrators pulled into their wide, cordoned-off spaces marked "Staff parking. All violators will be towed at owner's expense," students in honking Civics and Tercels darted around lanes like cowboys from the Wild West. It was mayhem out there, every driver for him- or herself, and the enmity quickly became personal. You got to know your adversaries by the music they blasted or the bumper stickers on their cars. Spice Girls or Sarah McLachlan, Jesus fish or Darwin fish, Sigma Chi or Phi Delt, pro-choice or pro-life, animal preservationist or fur lover -- from causes large to small, it was all ammunition to be hurled as insults in retaliation for a stolen space.

But one car, in particular, always arrived at exactly the same time mine did. The car was an obnoxious, fire-engine red BMW, with those stupid-looking graduation tassels dangling from the rear-view mirror and an "Impeach Clinton" sticker superimposed over a faded "Clinton/Gore '96" sticker next to another one proclaiming, "It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind." This was Ruth's car.

In the campus parking wars, Ruth and I were like France and England. We vehemently hated each other, but we couldn't quite figure out why. It probably had something to do with the way we waged our battles.

N E X T_ P A G E .|. Plan A: The stakeout