Lately I’ve been wondering if anyone who’s anyone in Santa Barbara gets together on a daily basis and asks each other, “How can we fuck Sean in the ass today?” I bet their morning agenda goes something like, “First, let’s condemn his house. Let’s scare a bunch of asshole DP residents out of their houses so that we can build parks or some shit like that. Let’s kick them out because half of a caisson is exposed even though there’s something like 64 of them in the cliff.”

Where my logic gets a bit hazy is when the county is all for building a seawall on Goleta Beach, but as far as the DP seawall goes, one’s not environmentally safe. Maybe it’s part of a grand, elaborate scheme to basically get rid of DP. Maybe I watched a little bit too much “X-Files” as a young lad, but is it really too presumptuous to think that there is some sort of crazy conspiracy to fuck all of us over?

It’s no secret that no one in power likes us – they think that we’re all a bunch of violent, drunken fuck ups who are ruining the university’s reputation. So maybe the UC has been pumping out Nobel Prize winners faster than Albertsons has been selling out of those wonderful $3.99 12-packs of Reibenbach – but, honestly, I think that there is some larger power at force here trying to dispel our image of a party school. Mr. Mike Zimmer’s eviction of Del Playa Drive was just the beginning, for he is just a puppet in God’s – or maybe some UC regent’s – master plan of eliminating DP altogether.

Seriously, why would they want to do that? What do they think goes on at DP on weekend nights? I don’t know about the rest of you, but on Friday nights my roommates and I enjoy sitting out on our oceanside balcony to eat vegetables, read the Bible and discuss the thematic universality of The Red Badge of Courage. OK, OK, let’s be honest here – the regents want us to be up there with UCLA and Berkeley in national prestige, but let’s face it – we’re always going to be a wonderful drunken alternative for those of us who couldn’t get into Cal or UCLA.

So maybe those accusations are a bit far-fetched, but as far as I know, California is broke. Last time I checked, my fees have been pushed up 20 percent, I got punked by financial aid and this year some of our best programs, such as EOP (Educational Opportunities Program) and CLAS (Campus Learning Assistance Services), were in jeopardy because of budget cuts. That said, the state, or someone, still has enough money to throw at the I.V. Foot Patrol to stop us from drinking. Let’s start over – we don’t have money to keep CLAS or enough money to help 49 percent of the financial aid-receiving student population, but they do have enough money to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars to track our kegs and give out $3,000 fines. Maybe it’s just me, but I am increasingly befuddled every time I read about these new grants.

In the last two weeks the state has granted the IVFP $327,000 to essentially keep us from getting kegs. What’s absurd is that this grant targets responsible 21-year-olds and lets irresponsible random minors get off the hook for drinking someone else’s beer. Additionally, the difference between an MIP (minor in possession) and a furnishing ticket is paramount. An MIP is a slap on the wrist, a month’s worth of pay and enough to scare kids into shape, but not destroy their collegiate careers. A $3,000 fine means goodbye UCSB, hello criminal record and hello Sac State – at best.

So this is where my conspiracy theory comes into play: Someone, Chancellor Yang, Gov. Schwarzenegger, Mike Zimmer or God himself is out to get us. The bottom line is this – no one likes us, at least until we stop getting hammered and ruining our precious school’s reputation. The UC, the county or whoever the hell is pulling the strings needs to get their priorities straight. UCSB is a damn good school – everyone knows that – but for fuck’s sake, get your priorities straight because, at some point, it would be nice if our school actually gave a shit about us.

Check back next week when Daily Nexus assistant opinion editor Sean Swaby explains how aliens stole his Keystone Light.