Lots of good stuff today, but the prize thus far goes to Carl Sundberg for his article on DJ Spooky, in which we learn that:

Unlike a radio or wedding DJ, he doesn’t just mix recorded songs back-to-back. He also creates his own songs and music using borrowed loops, phrases, beats and sounds he finds on records.

Does he really? Well I never!

If you think the OC is right-wing, you’ve obviously never seen this little blog. You’ll be [verbing] with [adverb/adjective] in no time.

A day late (and a dollar short) – but here is an entirely predictable response to yesterday’s ODE editorial:

At first glance, the anti-smoking effort may seem like a suppression of freedoms, and one could argue that banning cigarettes from the campus marketplace would restrict the legitimate right of smokers to purchase tobacco products at the University.

I may have missed this in remedial citizenship classes, but I don’t think we have a right to buy tobacco products on campus. Sadly, we also didn’t have the right to drink beer on campus, and so Clancy Thurber’s bit the dust three years ago for no very good reason. The EMU gets to decide if they don’t want to stock something.

But should they stop selling smokes just because the Campus Advisory Board says so? Of course not. Insofar as the university can be expected to have an opinion on health issues, the sale of cigarettes certainly doesn’t mean that the institution is blind to the consequences of smoking them. For God’s sake, how many warnings have to be put on the pack before the “not an endorsement” angle becomes sufficiently clear?

And after several inches of blather about health risks, the editorial concludes with:

…the University’s mission statement makes no specific mention of a responsibility to physical health of students….

Well, exactly. Keep selling cigarettes, and – come to think – reopen Clancy Thurber’s, too. I command it.

According to an e-mail from the College Democrats’ mailing list, guitarist Tim Reynolds and actress Mimi Kennedy (from ABC’s Dharma and Greg) will be at the EMU Amphitheater at 6 p.m. tonight to show support for, who else, Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

I foresee spew and the smell of patchouli.

Yeah, Brian Meehan does wade through a few obvious points, but his recent column is definitely must read. Key quotes:

Oregon no longer is a state-funded university. This year, the state’s share of the $404.9 million budget has dipped to 13 percent, down from 31 percent in 1990. Tuition, which generates 31 percent of the budget, next year is proposed to increase 12 percent to $5,484 for in-state students.

Oregon has maintained its financial health largely through landing research grants and contracts, which now generate 26 percent of its budget. The athletic department is part of this trend. The $37 million athletic budget is self-sustaining and football largely supports most of the other sports.

Hat nodding thing: Oregon Sports Fan

Thank you. Today is ANZAC Day A day the Austrailians remember the sacrifice of their young men at Gallipoli. WWI is often forgotten, and usually poorly understood. Take a minute today to do a little reading on the subject.
[via Tacitus]

At last! The Anti-Panty is here! Surprisingly, I find this concept only mildly disturbing.

Click here for proof.

Subservient Chicken is a very strange little website where one can order a man in a chicken suit to do things. His poorly-animated flash dancing is really quite something. What exactly, I’m not sure, but it is definitely something.

April 24th is Newman’s Day over at Princeton University, where students try to drink a can of beer an hour for 24 hours. The campus tradition derived its name from a quote attributed to actor Paul Newman: “24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not.” (Although the quote has also been linked to comedian Steven Wright.)

However, Newman is appealing to the university to end the annual tradition.

Good day over at Reason, as Brian Doherty looks back on the Howard Stern contretemps:

NBC chairman Robert C. Wright chimed in with some painfully obvious but nonetheless true bromides in the Wall Street Journal”Ultimately we have less to fear from obscene, indecent or profane content than we do from an overzealous government willing to limit First Amendment protections and censor creative free expression,” he wrote. Damn the FCC for making it necessary for anyone to write tired crap like that ever again and get it published in a major paper!

Whole thing here.

Interesting piece by Radley Balko in TCS, here.

There can be only one King Of The Party

Andrew Sullivan has the most convincing argument for remaining in Iraq I’ve read thus far, citing an e-mail from a military chaplain in Fallujah. Money quote:

We come along and lock up sugar daddy [Saddam] and give these people the toughest challenge in the world, FREEDOM. You want a job? Earn it! A house? Buy it or build it! Security? Build a police force, army and militia and give it to yourself. Risk your lives and earn freedom. The good news is that millions of Iraqis are doing just that, and some pay with their lives. But many, many are struggling with freedom (just like East Germans, Russians, Czechs, etc.) and they want a sugar daddy, the U.S.A., to do it all. We refuse. We don’t want to be plantation owners. We make it clear we are here to help, not own or stay. They get mad about that, sometimes.

Read the rest of it here.

Our old buddy Kyle Dickman is back! With a front-page story in the ODE none-the-less. It’s nice to see that ol’ Kyle has gone from annoying comment troll to Emerald freelancer. You keep up the good work on the lame puff pieces about art museums, buddy!