Today’s ODE outlines some new process by which ASUO Programs are recognized by the ASUO. From the article, which seems to liberally quote the ASUO press release memo:

The Recognition Review Committee will review groups missions, goals and by-laws to ensure services are not duplicated by other programs and that they are advantageous to the cultural or physical development of students, according to a memorandum from former ASUO President Adam Petkun.

Now, given the difficulties we’ve had in the past, especially the frustrations of just a year ago, I do not think this bodes well for the Commentator. Well, let me put that differently, I don’t think this bodes well for the Commentator’s stress level.

Given the legalities of government-funded speech, even if the RRC decides that the OC doesn’t meet Green Tape requirements, they cannot defund us. Legally, anyway. What’s more troubling, is that the RRC doesn’t actually have any authority under the Green Tape. They’ve done this specifically to avoid accountability. Perhaps this year’s group will do an admirable job, but it’s easy to extrapolate where things will be in another few years: the OC fighting against the diverse petty tyrants of the ASUO. So it has been, and so it shall be.

Since Olly got us back on the topic of things that are both disturbing and hilarious, I present to you this little ditty — a song sung by a grown man with a munchkin voice, told from the perspective of an aborted baby.

Enjoy.

Okay, my last post on this topic was filled with inaccuracies. My apologies.

For those who are interested in joining the Oregon Commentator, we will be having a meeting on Wednesday, October 12, at 7:00pm in EMU Century Room D, which is underneath the Skylight. Bring a friend … a friend named Jack.

A crisp stack of staff applications have been placed in the box attached to our office door at 319 EMU, above the ODE. Take one. Seriously, take one.

We’re always looking for staff positions: Contributors, copie eduhters, business wunderkinds, photogs, precious artistes, astute pontificators, etc … or maybe you have your own idea of what you can offer the magazine.

Gabe Bradley has yet another silly piece in today’s ODE. Behold the Kinsleyesque hubris:

When I write something, I want as many people as possible to read it and hopefully respond. For instance, I wouldnt continue to write this weekly column if the Emerald didnt have a wide enough audience to keep a nearly constant stream of hate mail flowing through my inbox.

Perhaps thats why I dont get the appeal of blogs; theyre not something new to me. Publishing my random thoughts for public consumption is my job, the daily grind, so to speak. There are some differences, of course. I dont get to write my own headlines; I have to write on a certain time frame and follow certain guidelines; I have to ask permission in order to use profanity (shit, piss, damn); also, I have to let other people cut up my words before they see the light of day. In exchange for those restrictions, however, I have access to a much larger audience than is available to the average blogger.

The beauty of blogging is that readers themselves (and not a few liberal newspaper editors) decide which material gets trafficked. Before, opinions were to be found amongst friends and in newspapers, both of which are rather select groups. Now the entire world has the potential of reading an individual’s opinions, well-reasoned and researched or not. Readers are no longer limited to Jenny McBride’s ramblings, your silly pap, or Ailee Slater’s stoned gibberish.

The OC archive should now be up-to-date.Let us know if anything’s missing or incorrect. And yes, the html archive still has horrible holes in it.

Additionally, here is a random picture I found while perusing the blog images folder:

Latest in an ongoing series of serious campaigns addressing serious issues that remain, alas, unintentionally hilarious, here (Hat tip: the H&R bloc). I made it as far as

[The film] opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

before coffee came out of my nose. See if you can do any better.

UPDATE: Goddammit! Why didn’t I think of this
one?

UPDATE ZWEI: Click here to watch the mayhem
— Tyler

Heard this on local news (Channel 16), and did a quick web search, finding this article, because it touches on the whole free speech thing.

A septic servicer in Massachusetts has been receiving complaints from parents of local schoolchildren because of the slogan on the back of his truck. The slogan is, of course, “Shit Happens”.

Now the trucks pull out onto the main road in front of an elementary school where 6- to 8-year olds are subject to their school-board endorsed indoctrination program. Such unshielded eyes might be exposed to the S-word.

Of course, when I was 6, I already knew what the S-word was. By the time I was 8, my friends and I were using it regularly (without parents or teachers around, of course). Does anyone really think schoolkids are innocent when it comes to language?

The funny thing about language is that people are so offended by mere words. What is the difference between the common usage of “crap” and the common usage of “shit”? 4 letters and someone’s perception. When someone says “effing” instead of “fucking”, the mental reason for uttering the “unoffensive” version is exactly the same as the reason I’d use the offensive one.

Really, profanity is in perception and context, and frankly, this septic service guy has every right to say “shit happens” on the back of his truck. It’s shouldn’t be his problem that someone else is offended by some language that is witty and appropriate given what he does for a living.

Some people call it profanity. I call it catchy advertising.

The Ol’ Dirty has a rather interesting editorial up today decrying the Oregon State Supreme Court’s decision to overturn two sex show laws. It isn’t worth my time to address the Editorial Board’s entire opinion, so instead I’ll focus on the last four paragraphs:

Business managers at clubs argue that those involved in sex shows are consenting adults who deserve their rights to free expression. Yet such a viewpoint ignores the slippery slope from nude dancing to prostitution.

Of course there’s a slippery slope from nude dancing to prostitution. But slippery slope arguments don’t hold much weight in my mind, as they can be used to disrepute pretty much any freedom we citizens have. There’s a slippery slope from occasionally drinking alcohol to being an alcoholic, from owning a gun to hunt to owning a gun to kill another person, from using abortion as a means of last resort to using abortion as a regular form of birth control, from driving a car safely to driving a car recklessly. People should have control over their own bodies, even when it means using said bodies for practices the majority finds immoral or disgusting.

In a strip club, dancing on stage garners less money than a lap dance, which garners far less money than a private sex encounter with a John in a motel room. Such monetary earning patterns partially explain how strippers become gradually more comfortable with the idea of prostitution.

And why is that? Because “a private sex encounter” is illegal and thus scarcer. This illegal encounter is far more dangerous for both parties than a legalized and controlled encounter would be. (And, of course, more profitable for the middleman pimps.)

As long as prostitution remains morally objectionable in Oregon, the legality of live sex shows should not be validated by the court. The Oregon Legislature should address this issue by crafting laws that specifically prohibit the exchange of sex for money.

Another worthless, hypocritical argument. Homosexual marriage remains morally objectionable to most Oregonians, if the last ballot measure is any indication. Does that mean it should continue to be illegal? Of course not. Individual rights should trump the right of the moral majority to invade people’s bedrooms and hotel rooms.

The court’s decision to authorize private sex performances is in compliance with neither the values of constitutional framers, nor with the values of most Oregon citizens today.

Since the ODE suddenly values the opinion of the moral majority (and the imagined morals of a bunch of dead politicians) over that of an individual’s rights, one would expect the Editorial Board to soon come out against abortion in red states and assisted suicide and gay marriage nationwide. We’ll see. It’s funny how organizations with no institutional memory change over the years.

Chin-stroking ponce Richard Pryor has constructed something theoretically difficult but perhaps not admirable: a several-hundred-word column that is utterly devoid of semantic content. Seriously, apart from the reference to Oasis, I defy you to find anything at all to agree or disagree with in his latest. It sports a thick patina of meaninglessness that your eyes just skate across helplessly. It’s virtually Spew-proof, although I’ll try to find a way around that in due course.

On the other hand, it’s possible that this is a clever spoof on banal opinion columns, in which case my hat is off to him.

Radley Balko has an excellent article up at FoxNews.com about our favorite neo-prohibitionist organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. We’ve heard most of the arguments before — the most important one being that MADD has moved beyond its original mission of strengthening the incredibly flimsy drunk driving laws of the late ’70s and early ’80s to undermining the criminal protections of the citizenry. From a civil libertarian point of view, this is incredibly distressing and cannot be mentioned enough.

Balko explains that MADD has become a defacto government agency, receiving millions of dollars in state and federal funding, not to mention having a “quasi official relationship” with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and local municipalities, which can force DWI offenders to participate in MADD-sponsored alchohol recovery groups. I know from experience that universities do this as well.

When I was a freshman living in the dorms, I was written up five times for drinking. The University, deciding that I was a threat to the roadways — what with my non-existent drivers license or car — told me that I would have to perform 20 hours of community service at the local chapter of MADD. For 20 terrible, mind-numbing hours I sat in that MADD office, stuffing envelopes, listening to Toby Keith warble from the radio, and avoiding the stink eye I received from the high school girl volunteer when I went outside to smoke. While working there, I was privy to all sorts of documents. Surprise surprise! Most of the documents had little to do with drunk driving, focusing instead on an abstinence-only style approach to teaching high school kids about alcohol. There were also a number of documents concerning the dangers of marijuana cigarettes.

The money quote from Balko’s piece comes from Candy Lightner, the original founder of MADD:

[MADD has] become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.

Indeed. I wonder what she thinks of the current leadership.

Okay, so here’s the deal: The first Oregon Commentator meeting of the year will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 6 at 7:00 pm in the OC office, 319 EMU, above the Ol’ Dirty office. Ian will be sending an email to all of you who are currently OC staffers shortly. For those of you who are not yet affiliated with our fine publication but may harbor an interest in possibly joining in the future, you are urged to come by and check things out. Seriously. We’ll even buy you a drink at Rennie’s (and by “we” I mean Dan Atkinson Tyler Graf). Staff applications can be found in a box affixed to the door to our office.

To summarize:
What: OC staff meeting.
Where: EMU Century Room D (Near the skylight, on the upper floor.)
When: 7:00 pm, Wednesday, Oct. 6.
Who: You.
Afterwards: Drinking, naturally.

(post future-dated, courtesy of Dr. Brown)

Well, I guess posting when a new issue is done is all the rage nowadays, so here’s a post indicating that the issue’s off to the printers and available on the website. We were hoping to get it done a day earlier, but them’s the breaks.

Also, apologies to those alums whose content we couldn’t include. It’s obviously a jam-packed issue (laying out the thing was a damn nightmare,) and there simply wasn’t enough room for everything we wanted in. Originally, we were not going to include any articles by current staffers, but we felt Dan’s excellent wine guide was too good to pass up. Plus, Dan himself has been with the magazine longer than it takes most wines to ferment, so I think his article’s inclusion is more than fair.

Anyways, read and enjoy some of the best works from the Commentator’s past twenty-two years.

Also: Grape Ape is one of our nation’s least understood cartoon animals. Discuss.

I hate to hijack the OC Blog for a cavalcade of policy wankery, but being a confirmed Measure 37 obsessive, I can’t pass this up.

For all of its pitfalls and pratfalls, Measure 37 is at the cutting edge of legislative takings law, going way beyond US Supreme Court precedent defining the scope of the 5th amendment prohibition on uncompensated property takings. Yet by its awkward design it may undermine the protection of reasonable expectations — the vital core of property law — just as much as it secures it.

Which is to say, whatever you may think of Measure 37, it is interesting enough to leave everyone at least a little displeased. Hence, the need for a symposium, albeit likely a biased one. So if you’re a law or policy geek, you might want to check this out:

Sustainable Land Use & Measure 37 Symposium
Sponsored by the UO Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation

Friday, October 7th
9:00 A.M. 3:00 P.M.
Knight Law Center, Room 141

Schedule of Events

9 a.m.-10 a.m. The Initiative Process in Oregon — Judge David Schuman, Oregon Court of Appeals.

10:10 a.m.- 11 a.m. Debriefing the Legislative Attempts — David Hunnicutt, Oregonians In Action; Glenn Klein, Harrang Long Gary Rudnick.

11:10 a.m.- Noon. Land Use in Oregon, How Did We Get to Where We Are, and Whats Next? — Carrie Richter, Garvey Schubert Barer; Bill Moshofsky, Oregonians In Action; Carrie McLaren, 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Noon 1 p.m. Lunch.

1 p.m. 2 p.m. Local Government Response to Measure 37 — Glenn Klein, Harrang Long Gary Rudnick.

2:10 p.m. 3 p.m. The State of the Litigation — Susan Marmaduke, Harrang Long Gary Rudnick; Carrie McLaren, 1000 Friends of Oregon;
David Hunnicutt, Oregonians In Action.

3:10 p.m. 4 p.m. Sustainable Development and the Siting of Gas-Fired Power Plants — Professor Tom Lininger, University of Oregon.

I swear this isn’t a PSA. I honestly find this interesting, guys. Please don’t give me another wedgie.

Nicholas Wilbur, the Ol’ Dirty’s go to guy for Brian Bogart coverage, has another fascinating piece about our first graduate student in peace studies. Apparently he’s not much for the classroom interaction:

“I don’t have to attend the classes because I’m keeping up outside of (them),” Bogart said. “What I’m doing outside the classroom is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of that course.”

Um, not exactly. For graduate students, 55 percent of the grade involves classroom participation in one form or another. One would think that Bogart’s vehement desire not to participate in class, regardless of the intentions, should result in a failing grade. Using Bogart’s odd logic, I could claim that all of the hours I’ve spent in this damn, dusty office over the years should garner me credits toward my journalism degree. Tom Bivins, I think, would disagree.

But political science windbag Jane Cramer agrees with Bogart, claiming that he has more knowledge than his classmates and therefore should be exempt from the requirements of his syllabi (as sad an indictment of the political science department as I’ve ever heard). This is according to the ODE editorial, which we should take with a grain of salt considering that it directly contradicts Wilbur’s news story by stating that Bogart is only taking one class, rather than the three implied by Wilbur’s piece.

If you think this is a strange discrepancy, maybe you should use the “Ask the Editors” feature at the ODE’s highly trafficked blog to get an answer.

Wilbur’s article continues:

“Bogart said it’s exhausting to do outreach for five hours a day discussing his three years of research and 15 years of personal experience in the defense industry.”

Yeah, he’s really overextending himself by sitting for five — that’s right, five — hours a day in a lawn chair and chatting with your standard collection of anti-war wingnuts.

Greetings to all from the fair city of Sydney. I’m still homeless and basically indigent, but despite my material suffering I can’t help but wonder: how was the People’s Practical Petition for Peace, or whatever it was called, received? Has the war machine finally been driven from the palace of higher learning? Have Bogart and Goldman worked out some sort of timeshare agreement for the EMU amphitheater, or are they doing a Simon and Garfunkel-style act? Enquiring minds want to know.