This past Saturday night I was chased by an angry Amherst College police officer. I know it's not quite as exciting as it would have been had I said, "I was chased by the LAPD" or "The DEA did a stakeout in my front lawn," but let me reiterate. This police officer was very angry.

After responsibly having a few drinks (i.e. I could still walk) in B-Dorm, I planned on moseying on over to the Luau to join in some good clean-cut fun. As soon as I stepped out of the door, I turned my head to see a police car about a 100 yards away with its headlights pointed at me and a police officer frantically coming after me. Never one to think well on my feet, I reacted by doing the only thing I knew to do. I ran. 

Thus, my peaceful, responsible, good clean-cut night took a turn for the worse as I now found myself in the middle of a police chase scene much like those I've seen a thousand times on FOX. As I ran, I swore I could hear that cheesy narrator saying in an authoritative voice, "This guy thinks he can beat the law. Well this villain doesn't know that the German Shepherd K-9 unit is being released so that he can run, but he can't hide. Soon he'll be able to do all the running he wants, in the county slammer that is. Mwahahaha." It was all happening too fast for me to realize that I hadn't done anything wrong.

I ran back to the B-Dorm and punched my code in as fast as I could, watching the police man getting closer and closer out of the corner of my eye. When he was just a few feet away, the door unlocked and I burst through. I started sprinting up the steps, but after two flights I came to a dead end. I looked for a fire escape, a window to jump from, a door to knock down, but there was nothing, so I surrendered and waited. My chaser was coming up the steps now and as I watched him running up, taking two steps at a time, it hit me that I was not guilty of any illegal activity. I experienced the glorious realization that I am 21 years old and have every right to consume alcohol.

When he arrived at the top of the staircase, out of breath, he vehemently asked, "Are you the one who threw a rock at my windshield?"

I thought to myself, "Threw a rock at your windshield? I really didn't do it. I'm innocent. Hallelujah, I'm free." "No, sir, that definitely was not me," I replied, confused, relieved and embarrassed for having come from a background that gave me the instincts to run from policemen. 

"This isn't the guy," he said into his walkie-talkie after getting a better look at me. "He was wearing a blue shirt."

With that he left. I remembered that famous shot from the movie "Shawshank Redemption" where Tim Robbins has escaped after 20 years of unwarranted incarceration and stands in the rain with his arms out. I took a moment to savor the freedom that I was, just a minute before, on the verge of losing. And when the moment passed, I was left with disappointment and anger at the fact that someone had thrown a rock at a police officer's car.

So now I feel the need to say this: the more acts of stupidity that are committed to piss off our lenient, forgiving and diligent police force, the worse the already suffering Amherst social scene will be. Last year is a testament to this fact. So boys and girls, if we want to have good clean-cut fun on the weekends, which we all do, then please let's refrain from knocking statues over, stealing police cars and driving them into trees, and, most recently, throwing rocks at police car windshields. I know it's a lot to ask, but I think with just a little self control we can do it! The next time I get chased by the police, I want it to be for something a lot cooler than throwing a rock at a windshield.

Jeremy Collins '05E

Revolutionize room lighting

The lighting in Amherst dormitories is generally awful. The only exceptions that I can think of are the mods or Appleton, but that's at least in part because the rooms are so small. In the older dorms-Moore, Morrow and Pratt, for example-the room lights seem to be there more to provide for a gloomy atmosphere than to serve any useful purpose. A typical Moore room has two dim lamps hanging from the 20-foot ceiling, pointing vaguely towards the opposite wall. The best thing we can say about the light is that it's yellow. It's neither bright enough to let you read nor dim enough to let you sleep. It heats up the room and it casts far too many shadows. Basically, those overhead lights are a waste of a lot of electricity.

This is not just about Moore or Amherst: it applies, to a greater or lesser degree, to all incandescent lamps. They do not all have all of the faults, to be fair: 100-watt bulbs are hot but not lurid; 20-watt bulbs are downright macabre but fairly long-lasting; frosted bulbs waste electricity but have less unpleasant shadows and so on. But each fault can only be avoided by incurring another, and the greatest fault of the light bulbs-their wastefulness of electricity-is impossible to get around. So why do we still use the things?

It's not because of a lack of alternatives. Fluorescent tubes, which have been around for a while, are more efficient, cheaper and brighter. For these reasons, they are used almost exclusively in offices, classrooms, hallways and all other essentially impersonal settings. In less prosperous countries they are also the standard form of middle-class lighting. However, virtually no American household uses tubes. The aversion to tubes is irrational of course, but it seems to be both intense and persistent. It is not a passing sentimental hang-up, nor is it mere conservatism, because tubes are not unfamiliar. It is uncommon for inventions of this importance to be ignored for so long-so uncommon, indeed, that we must blame the tube for it. Fluorescent tubes differ from all previous forms of lighting in two ways-first, they are not spherical sources and second, they are a different color. The first makes it impossible to arrange tubes in chandeliers and other pretty patterns; the second supposedly makes it impossible for people to look pretty in their light.

Since most light bulbs-in the dorms at least-are not arranged in pretty patterns, I suspect that the second problem is the weightier one. In the relevant jargon, yellowish light is "warm" and bluish light is "cold" and people supposedly look better in warm light than in cold light. In fact, however, the vast majority of people do not. Barring another revolution in the technology of lighting, we should rediscover the fluorescent lamp and adopt it for all dorm rooms.

Sarang Gopalakrishnan '06