Since CNN and MSNBC have been eulogizing Ted Kennedy for the past 78 hours straight – apparently having a talent for demagoguery and maintaining power make you an American hero – I thought I’d share a little remembrance of Ted that I heard from a friend of mine who’s worked in the restaurant industry in D.C. for a while:
A friend of hers worked at the New Heights restaurant, where Ted often dined and drank … and drank some more. (According to said friend, he would order tumblers filled to the rim with bourbon.) Anyways, one time this lady saw Ted Kennedy scratch his back with his butterknife … and then proceed to stick the same knife in his bottle of ketchup.
“[Y]ou could hardly ask for a more poignant fin de civilisation image than a stampede of broody lesbians stymied only by defective semen, like some strange dystopian collaboration between Robert Heinlein and Russ Meyer set in a world divided into muff divers and duff donors.”
The Oregon Commentator was supposed to have a photo shoot with the new President of the University, Richard Lariviere, today. Sadly, less than a week ago we received sudden notice that the President was canceling our appointment. “These things happen,” we thought. “President Lariviere is probably devastated that he had to forfeit a half-hour with the Commentator staff in order to glad-hand with some local apparatchik, business notable, or member of the Athletic Department.” We understood, of course; important men frequently are required to do bland, unimportant things to keep the wheels moving, as it were.
That’s why it was with a heavy heart that the Commentator learned what President Lariviere was actually doing instead of hanging out with the Commentator:
Nice tights.
I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn you were in a Morbid Angel cover band… but Motley Crüe, Mr. President? That’s just disgraceful.
We’ve been getting pretty deep on here in the last few posts. I missed some of the more ridiculous things that happen in the world that we usually post about. Admittedly there have been some hilariously insane commentators in the posts but it’s nothing like, oh, I don’t know:
If you ever start thinking that maybe the world is boiling down to just politics and that we’re splitting down party lines everywhere never forget PETA, they’re always around to make sure that you remember terrible PR campaigns and general craziness.
Like this commercial that was, for obvious reasons, banned:
Well, anyone who’s been following the news in the last few days knows that the European Left took a bit of a drubbing in recent elections. In some ways it’s heartening. But then you remember that fascists like the BNP won some seats and that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.
Anyways, the preceding paragraph merely served as an excuse for me to link to this YouTube video:
Journalism grad student Dan Lawton has a new post over at his blog with responses to his recent ODE opinion piece on the lack of ideological diversity on campus. The responses are all very predictable (“There are no Republican professors because you have to be smart to be a professor. Hurr hurr hurr!”). But then you get to the comment from UO journalism teacher Dan Morrison, who is on the record as saying (emphasis added):
You may be very upset that the University of Oregon, which, I may point out, is funded by people who live in a liberal state, and therefore, no surprise, tends to be liberal, attracts professor applying for a job who tend to be liberal. But as a student you have a choice. You do not have to come here. You most certainly can choose to spend your money to go to school in Alabama, or Texas, or Mississippi, or Georgia, or Louisiana or South Carolina. And if you like conservatism, you can certainly attend the University of Texas, and you can walk past the statue of Jefferson Davis every day on yourway to class.
Whoa, whoa, hold on. Full stop. Really? I don’t know where Morrison gets off, but the last time I checked, being conservative does not mean one is some sort of neo-Confederate. In fact, that’s a fairly disgusting and disingenuous statement to make. Way to really raise the level of discourse there, tiger. Of course, maybe Morrison has just been yukking it up with his UO colleagues so long that he doesn’t realize everyone’s not an effete, latte-sipping pinko. (Do you see how that works?)
Second, perhaps some of us can’t afford out-of-state tuition. Perhaps some of us simply want a decent education at the state’s supposed “flagship university.” And as a “flagship university” or a “hot brand” or whatever the UO’s touting itself as these days, maybe we’re upset because we’re paying to sit in class and listen to pious, liberal professors tell us how evil cars/Bush/guns are instead of trying to provide us with an actual education.
P.S. I forgot to mention: Lawton challenged Morrison to an open debate of the subject, which Morrison declined.
In the latest issue of the Student Insurgent (at least I think it’s the latest… aside from a calendar advertising events in May at the “Eugene Free School”, I can’t find a date anywhere on this thing), noted advocates for fiscal responsibility, Joey Beats and Cimmeron Gillespie fire a devastating broadside against the Student Rec Center, admonishing the Rec Center for its profligate ways.
We couldn’t agree more! In fact, former OC Editor-in-Chief Ted Niedermeyer scooped the Insurgent on this story about two years ago (story begins on page 20). Still, it’s nice to see the Insurgent kids finally take notice of the massive misallocation of student dollars at the University of Oregon:
This problem of funding as [sic] been a constant issues [sic] for the Rec. Center, as they have gone before student government asking for more money, year after year and received in full, [sic] their requested funding… Such waste is intolerable given the national financial state and our own Fat-Katz administration’s promises of ‘fiscal responsibility’.
No doubt it’s only a matter of time before these newly minted fiscal conservatives at the Insurgent join the Oregon Commentator in demanding higher standards of accountability and less wasteful spending of student money across the board in the ASUO.
Will they reverse their support of that notorious money sink known as OSPIRG? Hope springs eternal.
Then again, one of their letters to the editor in the latest issue describes how the Insurgent gang gave some random anarchist a ride to the Bay Area in a “state-owned” van and proceeded to go “to the co-ops in Berkeley for a naked, neon good time,” so I’m not getting my hopes up.
One can only wonder if that trip was paid for by student money and, if it was, how the Insurgent staff squares that with their sudden commitment to prudent fiscal management.
[EDIT]
The next column in the Insurgent, attributed to “Greenwash Guerillas”, lambasts the U of O for it’s attempts at “greenwashing” through the use of carbon offsets. It begins with the paragraph:
Carbon offsets follow the same logic as indulgences did for the Catholic Church centuries ago. Offsetting argues that if you do something “bad” you can mitigate that by paying someone to do something “good” in your name.
Did we buy up the Insurgent with some of that blog contest money and someone just forgot to tell me, or something?
Well it seems that campus had that special visitor, I think his name was Rob? Lets call him LTD Shouter. He rides down 13th now and then yelling some random thing about LTD. Well good ol’ polecat CJ happened to get a word in with him. Turns out that he hates LTD because they kicked him off the bus and then banned him for life. He claimed it was because of a disability, but I have a hunch it’s because he’s nuttier then a peanut factory.
Look what popped into the Commentator inbox today:
Were coming back this saturday!! Another concert in support of OSPIRG…11AM…same place as before…This is us calling out all the big talking students behind their computer screens, including ring leader CJ Ciaramella(that started the whole online blog battle by saying we were “Eugene’s crappiest metal band), all the people that said our fans were fat single mothers, anyone that was involved in the whole battle we went through last time we did this, anyone that made comments on my orange shorts, and my white pasty skin complexion?, that said we were eugene’s crappiest metal band and then back-peddled and said we were still better than 95% of the bands in Eugene, all the people that threatened us behind their computer screens, its on, lets battle global warming!!!
Just keep in mind, we never threatened anyone, we are just a happy heavy metal band, that has a severe dislike for uneducated public opinions, why don’t you come out and see for yourself?
Oh noes, we’ve been “called out!” Not only that, but we’ve been called out so much that “it’s on.” I’m not sure what this means, though. Pistol duel at ten paces? Scowly face contest? Furthermore, I’m not sure how calling The Athiarchists crappy is “threatening,” and I’m pretty sure I was in front of my computer screen. Oh, but I digress. My reply letter to The Athiarchists is after the jump. (more…)
The whole “Obama = communism” thing is a little stale (George Bush not exactly being the paragon of fiscal restraint and all), but it is funny to see vapid college kids get sent through the ringer.
P.S. Be on the lookout for ASUO Vice President Johnny Delashaw (he of the dirty mustache), who has probably the most awesome spot in the video.
A few months ago, I wrote about the publication of a comic book version of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Not to be upstaged by the Japanese, Red China is planning to stage Das Kapital: The Opera:
Normally disdained by revolutionaries as a bourgeois art form, the show’s producers insist that in the confident, modern-day People’s Republic, opera is a novel way to explain the proletariat’s triumph in the class struggle.
[…]
Mr He, who is best known for a stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof, plans to open the production in Shanghai next year, and will borrow elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows. There will, however, be no trivialisation of the book’s core messages: an economist from a local university has been asked to ensure that it remains intellectually respecful of Marxist doctrine. [emphasis added]
Marx + opera + Jackie Chan? This could be worth seeing.
