Column: Pot, protestors and presidents

I thought I was going to make it through the whole year without a rant. Sorry.

• Everyone knows by now that J.J. Redick got busted for smoking weed last week. Sorry. Everyone knows by now that J.J. Redick was, according to a police report, caught with "red, glossy eyes and a strong smell of marijuana about" his "person" in a room that smelled like marijuana and contained a bong "with pieces of green leafs in the water and a strong smell of marijuana emitting from the top." I'm not sure what rules or laws Redick violated, nor am I sure what punishment his actions warrant. What I am sure of, however, is that he should not have been in the room. Yes, most college students have smoked before. And yes, Redick probably wouldn't do something that he thought would affect his performance on the court. But there is a bigger issue here.

Redick, who is on scholarship, is a star of one of the most respected and visible basketball programs in the nation. Thousands of American children admire him. Like it or not, everything he does will be noticed and, in many cases, emulated. He and his teammates definitely need to be a lot more careful in the future, because most fans would rather that others associated Duke basketball with classy players like Grant Hill and Shane Battier than individuals who push referees, get named in a possible rape case, beat their girlfriends, shove other coaches and use illegal drugs.

• It should be clear to almost anyone who has watched the news recently that those in the "no blood for oil" movement were dead wrong with most of their predictions about "the next Vietnam." But it is now also clear that they possess disturbingly low amounts of respect and maturity. The stunt that Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Jessica Rutter and about two dozen others pulled at last week's Duke Student Government meeting crossed too many lines to count. Asking a student government to consider a matter of international policy is one thing. But storming into their meeting to chant - about a decision they reached after debate - until they call recess is quite another. Let's face it, the tactics employed by the protesters last Thursday were not even slightly resemblant of intellectual discourse.

They reminded of me of a time earlier this semester when Al-Bulushi invited me to speak on a student panel about the war. I thought that he could put his biases aside while organizing it and agreed to represent the Duke Conservative Union at the event. He proved me wrong, however, and stacked the panel. The five-person "lineup" included a representative from Duke Democrats (who had previously said that the war was being waged in part to acquire oil); someone speaking for Students Against the War; a member of Students Against Sweatshops (read anti-war); and, referred to as the "Wesley Fellowship representative," "Peaceville" organizer Dave Allen. I told Al-Bulushi that I saw no reason why SAS or Wesley Fellowship needed to be represented at a panel about war with Iraq and suggested that he either uninvite them or include more speakers. I'm not sure what he did after that. Hopefully he realized that the group probably wasn't balanced enough to legitimately discuss a war that, at last check, only 16 percent of Americans say we shouldn't have waged.

• Individuals speaking about DSG President Joshua Jean-Baptiste are 100 percent correct in contending that his "character and credibility" have been "placed in jeopardy," and that he has "already been convicted in the court of public opinion." They are completely incorrect, however, in attributing this to The Chronicle's alleged negligence and/or racial irresponsibility in reporting his arrest.

Quite simply, the reason that Jean-Baptiste's character has been questioned is that he was arrested. I highly doubt that anyone casually read of his arrest and assault charges for participating in what the police basically described as a three versus one beatdown and then lowered his or her opinion of him only after hearing the testimony of a supposed eyewitness.

Neither Jean-Baptiste nor his spokesperson should be pointing fingers at anyone, at least until they explain to the student body why their president was arrested for assaulting a person who that night was treated for serious injuries. The March 31 article and the reaction that followed are exactly what one should expect in the wake of a violent beating and subsequent arrest of a major University's student body president - regardless of his skin color.