Apologies for my latest lengthy absence; I was enjoying another great British summer. Back in the US now, where the weather is arguably even worse. Semi-regular posting to resume at some point.

Okay, the good news is that the new issue is done and it’s been sent off to Web Press. It’s not on the website because Jeremy and I are stupid and don’t know how to do it. Hey, (temporary) ignorance is as good an excuse as any … wait, no it isn’t. Anyway, Sho will post it online either tonight or tomorrow, so keep checking; it’s pretty damn good, if I do say so.

Here’s the bad news, unless there is another explanation that is more reasonable: One of our boxes is missing. It’s the box that was located by the Knight Library. As far as I know, we haven’t moved or scrapped any of our old boxes yet (am I right, Tim?), so this leads me to believe that those filthy, pedophilic, First Amendment abridging, fat ass, box-dumping vandals are back, and this time they’ve gone too far.

Dumping a few issues, although reprehensible, does not require us (read: University students) to spend a lot of money on replacements. Now I need to purchase a new box, which was a distinct possibility for next year, but now I’m forced to do it as a result of this immature behavior. Jesus, you’d think that we were publishing a serialized version of Mein Kampf illustrated with child porn.

If this continues, I will have little recourse other than complaining to the ASUO and asking for more money — perhaps a rainy day Vandalism Fund, or, better yet, an OC Armed To The Teeth Fund. My vote goes toward the latter.

At least make it about Penny Arcade. [Via Lore]

I just received a press release today from the National Lampoon (yes, strangely that hallmark of brash, politically incorrect 70s humor still exists in the form of a website, and for some reason they are sending me press releases), which notified me of its latest heelarious satirical venture, a parody of MoveOn.org.

I was actually surprised by how ambitious the site was; it features video clips and animation, and there are moments when its pretty spot on (the way they constantly ask for donations is a nice touch). For the most part, though, it’s pretty hit or miss the Fahrenheit 9/11 parody I Am Not An Asshole, although well made, is pretty stupid, but the video Bush is Hitler and Worse is kind of funny.

This site and the National Lampoon homepage sort of make me yearn for the good ol days, when the National Lampoon had writers like John Hughes, P.J. ORourke and huh,Paul Greenfield? What the fuck!

Also, they ripped off my schtick.

This is a real job. He will have to amuse and provoke — although failure to do so will no longer risk beheading.

Words fail. (Hat tip: Anna.)

This isn’t on the same level as the latest mortification of the Volunteer State, but is like a delicate lilting counterpoint: the Washington GOP has apparently accidentally nominated Bruce Miller (or metric equivalent) for a state position. Wanting to field some candidate – any candidate – they neglected to actually consider his platform, and the results are – well, see for yourselves.

How often does this happen? The guy in Tennessee is running against a safe incumbent, this fellow is going against a three-term winner; presumably no sensible career politican wants to get set up for a fall in races like these. So I imagine there are lots of eccentric major-party candidates out there. Please keep your eyes open. (Especially you, WWB.)

Its late, Im tired, and I have to wake up early tomorrow for another day at Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe. But before I head to bed, I thought Id share this bit of news from my home town, Ashland. Its about a group of protesters who decided to stage a nude game of croquet outside of the City Council to protest a new law outlawing public nudity in the park. Its a rather nostalgic reminder that, although Im a few hundred miles from my old stomping grounds, Im really not that far away at all. We can protest with the best of em in A-Town.

The protest was headed by one Ryan Navickas, whos something akin to Ashlands version of Zach Vishanoff. My brother went to school with the guy, and according to him as reliable a source as Ive ever had Navickas lives in a self-constructed tree house with his girlfriend, a recent transplant from New Hampshire. He also owns an organic farm — a farm that is so organic that Navickas tills and hoes the earth with his bare hands. He actually squats in the earth and digs at it with his finger tips. Perhaps there is a connection between his living in a tree house that he constructed from spare lumber and his actions as a farmer.

Heres my favorite quote from the story: He urged them –quoteNOT to criminalize the human body.

I just find it funny that the writer actually wrote the word “quote” before a perfectly delineated quote. The quote is pretty funny, too.

Weep for me, for this is my representation.

[Union president Eric] Lindgren said the mathematics and biology departments hire undergraduate graders as a rule, adding that this also violates the GTFF contract because the University has to offer that work to the GTFs first.

So, this has become a bit of a local controversy, and Lindgren’s statements here are, shall we say, not universally shared. (For anyone reading this who doesn’t already know, I am a graduate student in the math department. A GTF is a graduate student who teaches a class, which we all do. The GTFF is our union.)

One could make the case that graduate students in mathematics who are currently unsupported should be considered for grading jobs, rather than undergraduates. This isn’t the case that is being made, though, because there aren’t any of these students. The department takes care of us very well and gives us, you know, actual classes to teach (Hence the T in GTF, you would think.) Personally, I would prefer to see our undergraduates used for this kind of work, because they have more recent experience of the classes they’re covering, are more competent, and can use the opportunity to hone their skills. Still, I would be amenable to having down-on-their-luck grad students from other departments pick up some of the slack. The real problem, though, is economic. A grader makes $7.50 an hour, four hours a week, which comes to about $900 over the course of a school year. A GTF makes about ten times that. Plus tuition waiver. Plus health care. There is absolutely no earthly way that this can work without monumentally fucking up the organisation of the department. We have enough trouble funding our own people; we can’t take care of all the errant sociologists as well.

As I said, our department looks after us, and we have an excellent relationship with the faculty. I am genuinely sorry that graduate students in some humanities departments get shafted. However, I am also sorry that our union seems to consider the appropriate response to try and pull us down to their level.

“I would like to see the University argue that undergraduates are more qualified for that kind of work,” Lindgren said.

By this logic, you’ll notice, graduate students shouldn’t be going through homework with the answer manual, putting ticks and crosses next to right and wrong answers, since professors would be much more qualified.

[VP of research Richard] Linton said hiring undergraduates for this sort of work is standard practice for all research universities.

True, but who cares? Welcome to silly season.

So it’s his last piece, after a lengthy tour of duty, and the ODE not only can’t be bothered to bring in a decent cartoonist to mark the occasion, they saddle poor old Jan with a Sullivan offering that doesn’t even have anything to do with the column. Dissed!

(Incidentally, hope all’s going well in California, Jan.)

Hey, where is everybody? Oh, right: it’s August. Very cunning. Do join us tomorrow for Still Empty Campus Day.

Megan McArdle/Jane Galt, proprietrix of the indispensible Asymmetrical Information, has a new blog project up called Unpopular Culture. It sounds like a fine idea.

The Utah Jazz still haven’t quite found a worthy successor to John Stockton, but you have to admire their moxie.

This little beauty arrived in as a warning in the package of my spiffy new computer desk.

This may require registration, but it’s a beaut: the city of Oxnard, Ca. has banned the Dallas Cowboys’ signature blue star in an attempt to cut down on gang violence. Coincidentally, guess which California city will host the Cowboys’ training camp this Saturday?

Ah, must be nearly football season.

In case anyone other than me finds this sort of thing funny, the Eugene Weekly letters page has kicked off one of their semi-annual hissyfits over the erotic chat and “escort” services that run in the back by the personal ads. The impetus, this time, was this piece, which I swear I have seen run a dozen times in one form or another since I’ve lived here.

Best quote, courtesy of one Christopher Logan:

I turn gingerly to the back pages, hoping that “No Exit” will make me laugh, which it often does. But I know that in those pages, girls I’ve never met are going to be staring at me, and they WANT ME BAD. Only they don’t. They want a hundred bucks or whatever. They want to exploit me and have no interest in my feelings or personality beyond what it takes to acquire what I’ve worked hard all day to earn.

Can you hear the tiny violins playing? It seems a little much to expect interest in feelings and/or personality from hookers, really. Also, No Exit can bite me.

(Incidentally, I realise that pointing this out makes me a bad person, but one of the correspondents this time is even named “McWeeny”.)

As to the piece by Schmidt, there absolutely are issues to be raised about sex workers’ rights, coercion, and abuse. (In each of these cases, incidentally, the prohibitionist mindset cannot be said to have done anything whatsoever positive for women’s rights.) Unfortunately, as long as people like Schmidt blithely conflate pornography with prostitution with sexual violence, shamelessly describe the sex industry as “enslavement and exploitation” or “sexual slavery”, and – hey, why not? – make comparisons to white supremacists, I don’t think those issues are ever going to make it to the table.

UPDATE: With regard to the Logan quote, Courtney points out that interest in your feelings or personality will probably only cost another $25.