The internet blackout has begun, and Wikipedia isn’t the only one participating in the blackout. sopastrike.com has a full list of all participating websites, which is, to say the least, impressive.

The above, meanwhile, is an actual screenshot of Google’s current homepage. Yikes.

In a move that experts are calling “totally fucking awesome,” a man in Viareggio, Italy was hospitalized Monday after suddenly and unexpectedly ripping out his own eyes in the middle of church. In true hardcore-as-fuck style, Aldo Bianchini, the man among men in question, was totally chill when the medics arrived at the scene, lying in a massive pool of his own goddamned blood and acting perfectly “calm and lucid.”

Many of the 300 mass-goers left in horror, knowing they could never hope to attain such a high level of kick-ass brutality. After emergency responders picked up the eyeballs from the floor, the reverend dusted his shoulders off and continued to celebrate mass like it was no biggie. Bianchini reported that he “heard voices” telling him to commit the act, a feat his surgeons claimed would have required “superhuman strength.” Despite deserving a medal made of bear pelts and fire for excellence in the field of badassery, the surgeons were unable to reattach the eyes and said that Bianchini would never see again.

In the Bible, Jesus says, “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee” (Matthew 18:9). Bianchini must have seen some awesome shit, like three chicks doing it or something.

The OSU community has seen quite a bit of action in the last week or so, here are the most notable events:

• OSU closes early for Thanksgiving break. Snow? Nope, college doesn’t close for snow! Fire, on the other hand, will shut down campus. Wednesday morning the there was a fire in the underground steam tunnels causing campus to smell worse than usual, not to mention the electrical problems it caused.

“The University’s Corvallis campus is closing for the remainder of the day, effective at noon. Damage, smoke issues and other complications resulting from an electrical fire this morning in the university’s steam tunnels has caused widespread problems with electrical service, heating, smoke and network connectivity in a long and growing number of buildings. For the safety of our students, employees and campus visitors, please know that you may leave for the remainder of the day, though essential personnel are expected to remain on the job.”

• Former OSU student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, attempted to set off a bomb during the Christmas tree lighting in Portland, but instead got played by the FBI (props to the FBI!).
• The Corvallis Mosque that Mohamed Osman Mohamud attended was set afire. FBI presume it’s related to the attempted bombing (you think?) and are offering a gratuitous sum of $10,000 for information leading to an arrest.
• ASOSU sends e-mail to students encouraging them to hold hands and sing kumbaya in these troubling times. The e-mail proceeds to say that Mohamed Osman Mohamud’s involvement with the bomb is “sad”  but that students should respect each other. Hmmm, ironic that the ASOSU is trying to teach respect when the bombing illustrates a complete lack of respect…..Here’s the text of the e-mail (emphasis mine):

“…OSU Students,

As some or most of you are aware, there was an incident this weekend in Portland involving a former OSU Student and an attempt to bomb the Christmas Tree Lighting in Portland’s Pioneer Square. At 2:15 Sunday morning, someone set fire to the Corvallis Mosque, a place of worship for the Corvallis Muslim community. It hasn’t been confirmed whether this was intentional or not, but it is assumed that this arson was in reply to the attempted bombing in Portland.

We want to make it clear to each and every student at OSU we operate as a community, a community that works and lives together as one, inclusive of race, religious orientation, sex, gender, age, size, class, or any other factor that might set us apart.

We need to respect everyone’s differences and we need to realize that the actions of one do not reflect the ideals of many. While the suspected “Christmas Tree” bomber did attend the Mosque that was set to fire, that person also attended OSU. We will not place unjust accusations upon groups of people or organizations of which this individual was a member. This individual made his own choices, choices that should not reflect that of our Muslim student population or our Corvallis Muslim community and we should not be putting them at blame. When it all comes down to it, we are all students. We are all striving at the chance for an education that many people do not get. We are all preparing for dead week and finals week and the stress of tests and projects. We are all part of the OSU community and we should all stand by one another.

It is sad that a former student of OSU was involved so heavily with a bomb plot in Portland, but we will not let this rip apart the community that we have created on campus. We are still students of OSU and we will continue to respect one another despite our many differences. We will not allow these incidents to cause a rift between students because of religion or any other affiliation. We will rise above this and we will show everyone that OSU is a place of diversity, a place that respects each and every student, each and every culture, each and every difference that we all may have.

ASOSU”

• President Ed Ray releases a statement, which is then forwarded to students, saying he disapproves of the arson and condemns hate crimes. Effective President Ray, Effective-because extremists and arsonists are going to change their ways due to an e-mail from you. In addition, a candle light vigil was held today, why? Who the heck knows. From President Ray (who might need to consult the ASOSU, as their e-mail was actually more inspiring):

“While it is important to note that in the American criminal justice system our courts determine guilt or innocence, it is equally important to condemn the activities described in the FBI investigation of Mohamed Osman Mohamud as defenseless and reckless and having no place in civilized society. I share the outrage and shock expressed by others that anyone might have planned to cause such indiscriminate death and destruction.

We must not compound the harm already done by this incident but rather come together as a community here at Oregon State University and throughout the broader Corvallis community. With the support of that broader community we are educating our students to be global citizens and helping students learn about cultures, languages, histories and faith practices around the world. The fire reportedly set at Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center on Sunday is an act of hate and cowardice, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. Members of the mosque include faculty, staff and students at our university, as well as friends and neighbors and are an important part of who we are as a community. They deserve our most heartfelt regrets for this despicable act and our ready hands to help rebuild what has been lost….

There will be a candlelight vigil tomorrow evening, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center, 610 N.W. Kings Blvd. As other opportunities to support our friends and neighbors arise, we will share them through OSU internal media.”

It seems that our friends at OSU have been a little less than boring lately.

The fifth annual zombie walk was held on Valentines Day, described as a general screw you to the cliches of the Hallmark Holiday. Bloody festivities started at Pioneer Cemetery, where the organizer laid down the rules, including “Don’t bite anyone, don’t get in the way of traffic, and don’t overcrowd the bars.”

After waiting roughly an hour for stragglers, the horde began its grisly walk to Taylors and the festivities began. If a venue was at capacity, the almost-undead moved on to the next. Walking dead were seen at Diablo’s, John Henry’s, and the Horse Head in addition to the bars around campus.

“Bar’s love us,” remarked a participant, her mouth caked with fake blood made from starch and food coloring. Indeed, Diablo’s had gone out of its way to accommodate the walking dead with skeleton themed decor and DJ’s that played Thriller.

But all good things must end, and by the time the horde left Diablo’s, it had fractured into smaller cells, which quickly split off to go to their own pubs. See all the gruesome action below.

For weeks now we’ve been debating back and forth about the Pacifica Forum, and the subsequent maneuvering its protesters have done to try to make the discussion about “student safety”. It came to a head last week when the ASUO Senate Rules Committee passed a resolution that politely asked the Pacifica Forum to fuck off.

It seems that through a highly convoluted series of events, the Student Insurgent has coincidentally “intercepted” a message from Billy Rojas, which has been denied as being a fake. Even if the e-mail is real, it’s long and boring and I don’t really need to go over its contents. The best part is that the Black Tea Society has decided to call on anti-Pacifica supporters from all over the state to protest the next Pacifica meeting on the 12th because of the e-mail.

Here’s where it gets juicy. The Black Tea Society intends to bring militants to the University of Oregon campus in order to protest the Pacifica Forum. That’s right… militants.

“Militants wishing to participate in this action should arrive in front of Agate Hall on the University of Oregon campus, this Friday February 12th at 4:30pm”

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Here is Phylicia Haggerty’s reply to ASUO Sen. Tyler Griffin’s previous email:

“Tyler,

I appreciate you writing me back. To clarify a few things 1) I am not ignorant and 2) I never said ASUO members have never been discriminated against. I did say that most of you are probably not taking this situation seriously because based on who the Pacifica forum is gearing hatred towards most of you would not classify. I think it was very unprofessional for you to say and I quote “how dare me” and that I should be ashamed of what I said. I think it is truly sad that some of the ASUO members have to thought twice about an issue that is blatantly wrong. I think it is ironic that from what I said in my e-mail that you would have the audacity to claim that you are scared of me. It is too bad that this issue probably will not be resolved until someone gets hurt. I do apologize for saying that nothing has been done about this issue because I know most of you do understand and that you are trying to find a solution. I will not be contacting you on any other circumstances and I do appreciate your time because I know you are very busy. I did contact Student Affairs and I have falsely accused ASUO Senate members in that the policy decision making is not left up to you completely in that the President makes final decisions. Thank you again for your time.

Phylicia Haggerty”

At this point in time, since Griffin hasn’t responded to Haggerty (or hasn’t forwarded us his response) we might as well take a swing at this one. Let’s start with her first e-mail, one which is astoundingly hilarious in its authors minute grasp of rational thought, or a basic concept of the U.S. Constitution.

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Apparently the Pacifica Forum protesters discussed a rumor that the Oregon Commentator would, “Send 30 or 40 people to protest our protest of the Pacifica Forum.” Looks like they were wrong.

Apathy is a human right.

“Rage against the machine, man! Now, where’s my stipend paycheck?”

The Student Insurgent had its PFC meeting tonight, one in which they asked for a mere $23,519. Unfortunately, they had to settle for just $22,222.

There were several crucial moments in the hearing, most of which hovered around the Student Insurgent‘s rather dubious delegation of their funding. The Insurgent admitted to printing only 7 issues last year (actually, they guessed because “no one could remember”. We personally think it was more like 5) on a budget of $21,427 – a whopping $3,061 an issue. They vowed to increase their production this year all the way up to 9 issues, meaning each issue for next year will have a reasonable price tag of just $2,469.

If you’d like a little comparison, the Commentator expects to produce 15 issues this year at an average cost of about $1,500 an issue.

A question was then raised about the conduct at the Anarchist Book Fair in San Francisco. Sen. Alyssa Diamond mentioned a letter from a non-Insurgent staffer that was printed in an issue of the Insurgent last Spring. In the letter, Diamond mentioned that the student had reported “Not attending the fair and that all they did was party”. Abby Bluth, an Insurgent Co-Editor noted that, “It goes against what we are to control what people are doing [at the book fair].”

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[Due to technical difficulties, the body of this post has disappeared. The Commentator is working on repairing the problems. Look for the story in the upcoming edition of the Commentator.]

Morality has never been hotter.

There has been a disturbing run of PSA’s on MTV lately (not to mention South Park syndication) that I am sure will throw Nancy Grace into a hissy fit.

Athinline.org is the website the MTV ads are pushing lately, and I’m sure that for some people the website does some good, so I won’t write it off completely. Most confusing about the advertisements, however, is their appearance on MTV itself – a channel which produces constant surveillance of celebrities and promotes the over-sexualization of precarious individuals.

Conversely, the website’s messages of “Anti-Sexting” (sexy-texting for those of you who don’t speak LE3T) and how to counter “Constant Messaging” doesn’t seem to coincide with the basic concept of MTV’s programming.

In any case, I’m glad that MTV has decided in recent years to run seemingly obligational, horribly contrived messages to their younger viewers preaching responsibility. It fits right in.

Now, who’s up for a wet t-shirt contest in Cabo? Spring Break is right around the corner.

As this decade (the Twenty-oughts) comes to a close, the Commentator will inevitably examine the impact of several movements, from politics to pop culture, from the last ten years. In kind, much has happened over the last ten years to the Commentator itself, and I believe it to be important, dear readers, for you to learn about who we were at the turn of the century, if only to better understand who we are today.

Perfecting the Art

Just one month before the turn of the century, the Oregon Commentator was in some relative hot water over a front cover they had ran purporting then University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer to have died. Frohnmayer famously had a heart attack at a medical conference in Bethesda, Maryland but had escaped the ordeal relatively unharmed.

At the time, “Das Frohn” was rather upset about the cover, “Quite frankly, he was pissed off,” said then-OC editor Bill Beutler.

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The Emerald Magazine came out today.. as an insert.

I for one am thoroughly outraged at the under representation of one very important part of the holiday season.

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Korean present wrapping traditions…

Where is winter solstice?

GAP understands me.

Why the Commentator receives e-mails like this I will never know. But Jesus, I’m glad we do. All I can say is that the world is slowly getting dumber, one rogue at a time. I’ll let the e-mail do the talking:

While the former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate has achieved success with record book sales and support for a 2012 presidential election bid, she has also achieved something else few public figures ever have:   heroine status in a children’s book.

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I fear I can’t write something that will do justice to that ASUO Senate meeting. It was “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” It was “Don Quijote.” It was “The Four Seasons.” And I? I am merely William Hung, tuneless, charmless, clueless.

Let’s plunge in anyway at a most unexpected commencement: A surplus request from the Holden Leadership Center. Your typical surplus request is reliably boring: a group requests money and then is granted it, typically with some resistance if there is an off-campus conference involved. I poised my hand above the snooze button of my consciousness. Then John Duncan, the HLC honcho, coiled his body round the Service Learning Program, dislocated his jaw, and requested the Senate’s permission to dine.

The Senate, awestruck by his display of serpentine elasticity, mustered little resistance or even comment on the subject, and so Duncan, with surprising efficiency, swallowed the SLP whole, along with whatever money the ASUO allocates to it. This means, of course, transfers the program to the jurisdiction of Duncan’s stomach, which allows students significantly less oversight into how it spends its money than the Programs Finance Committee, which had previously administered it.

And that acrobatic act of gastronomy was merely the first act in an operatic meeting, about which read more below the fold. (more…)

From the Ancorage Daily News:

Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill — signed into law by Knowles — that banned the practice statewide.

“There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla,” Knowles said

A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla’s newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.

“(But) the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests,” the newspaper reported.

It’s unclear how much Palin personally had to do with the policy, but her appointed police chief objected to its end, and I’m assuming that the mayor of the town could have set a place for it in the budget. However, what’s just as disturbing to me is that the town of Wasilla with its population of 5500 at the time could possible have enough rapes per year to need $14,000 to pay for the exams. That’s possibly 46! Granted the interviewed police chief gives a range of $5,000 to $14,000 and the article says exams cost $300 to $1200, but if you take the mean of both you’re looking at a budget for 12 rapes per year…in a town of 5500. Generally in the US you’re looking at 0.3 rapes per 1000 so in a town of 5500 you’d expect between one and two annually.

Something’s rotten in the town of Wasilla. Damn.