If all goes according to plan, makers of Four Loko, Joose, and others will soon be getting a letter from the Federal Trade Commission notifying them that they are in violation of federal law. Following several statewide bans of Four Loko, the Food and Drug Administration is preparing to ban caffeinated alcoholic drinks (or are they alcoholic energy drinks?) nationwide as soon as this week.
The announcement was made by Representative Charles Schumer (D-NY), who has lobbied for the banning of the drinks, and is the result of a one-year investigation into whether caffeine was a safe addition to alcoholic beverages. I could have saved you the time, guys: it isn’t. But when has that stopped anyone before?
On top of the students in Central Washington and New Jersey that we told you about a couple weeks ago, Four Loko is now being tied to the deaths of two Florida teenagers. One of them mixed it with diet pills (probably containing more speed), and the other died of an acute combination of alcoholic poisoning, caffeine psychosis, and a self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound.
“This ruling should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks,” Mr. Schumer said. “Parents should be able to rest a little easier.”
So what if Four Loko is dangerous? So are cars, swimming pools and the KFC Double Down. Is the problem here really that there’s a stupidly potent product on the convenience store shelves with bright labels that attract younger drinkers? Or is the problem that young drinkers are stupid with them? If we’re going to point the finger, there’s a lot to go around.
Why aren’t we pointing the finger at the liquor control system for failing in their quest to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors, but succeeds at getting in the way at so many other things?
Why aren’t we mad that no one has ever explained to these kids what generations of recreational drug users have known: don’t mix uppers and downers?
Why aren’t we angry at the parents who can’t pull their own heads out of the vodka tonic long enough to teach their kids that just because something is legal doesn’t mean we can’t do really, really stupid things with it?
Maybe it’s easier to shake our fist at the government for not protecting us from these products than it is accept that we knowingly engage in risky behavior with full knowledge that it is. It also means that we have to hold ourselves personally accountable the stupid stuff we do. Drink too much? That’s your right, and it’s also nobodies fault but your own. It means that just because we’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, even if we end up doing it anyway.
And that’s why banning it isn’t going to solve the problem. Just taking away the product isn’t going to change the fact that a new generation of drinkers has learned that mixing speed with their booze is a whole lot of fun (until you end up in the hospital). It’s a Pandora’s box scenario. Before it was Four Loko, it was homemade legal speedballs like vodka and Red Bull and Irish coffee. We Americans are nothing if not resourceful, and we’ll find a new, better way to get ourselves puking blacked-out drunk.
That said, let’s make one thing clear: Four Loko is disgusting. It has all the flavor of codeine cough syrup with the stomach-churning effects of a shot of ipecac, and it turns people into especially irritating drunks. But banning it isn’t getting to the root of the problem; it’s a token political maneuver for politicians who want to appeal to their constituents and don’t want to deal directly with complex causes deeply rooted in our society. If Congress really wants to make some headway and look at these, I wish they’d go ahead and do it already so that we don’t have to keep defending this vile stuff.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” will remain in effect pending a Federal Appeals Court review, thanks to a Supreme Court decision (or lack thereof) and a little gentle pressure from President Obama. Yes, the same one who vowed to end the policy on his watch is now advocating for its extension.
But why? You might expect him to be happy about last month’s ruling by district court Judge Virginia Phillips that the 17-year-old policy challenged by the Log Cabin Republicans (a gay Republican group) was in violation of the First Amendment rights of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. But instead he claimed that lifting the ban now could hurt his own efforts to study the effect of lifting the ban, and future attempts to do it.
The White House appealed, and asked Phillips for a stay in the order to lift the ban. When the reasoning wasn’t good enough for Phillips, the Obama administration took it to the Appeals Court who decided that the policy could remain in place for now. The White House also urged the Supreme Court not to get involved.
He’s swearing to push the issue on his “lame-duck” Congress, which began its session this week, before the newly elected take their seats and the GOP regains control. This puts him in a strange position of advocating a policy he is against until enough research and planning has been done to lift it responsibly.
Obama wants to give the military time and resources to prepare for the open service of gay people, such as through of providing programs for soldiers to “out” themselves to their comrades.
The military says it will comply if asked to stop enforcing DADT, but some are still worried about unforeseen consequences. Some military officials have warned that lifting the policy could disrupt operations, troop morale and recruiting, and “irreparably harm the public interest in a strong and effective military.”
Mirroring the sentiment of Obama (or is it the other way around), Sen. John McCain came out against it, saying that “Once we get this study, we need to have hearings. And we need to examine it. And we need to look at whether it’s the kind of study that we wanted.” Debate about studying a study isn’t just the bane of student government reporters; it’s also one of the pitfalls of conservative politics in this country.
It’s good to be weary of radical political change, and even better to study and flush out details of the changes before they happen – but it can also lead to stagnation, which is especially dangerous when we’re talking about the First Amendment rights of a group being systematically repressed.
Hopefully Obama is dragging his feet on making this happen because he is just concerned about doing it in the most responsible and sustainable way possible for all parties involved. Hopefully it doesn’t turn in to “I tried to stay true to my campaign promises but THEY wouldn’t let me” political fodder for elections to come. Hopefully it isn’t because lifting the ban wasn’t going to have his name attached to it if it were allowed to pass last month. Hopefully we finally get around to fixing this mess, and restoring rights to Americans who fight for them.
To all the men and women who have served and risked their lives for our great nation, the Oregon Commentator thanks you from the bottom of our hearts. Our lives would not be the same without you.
As my distinguished colleague Spencer Madison pointed out, sometimes guns hurt people. Because of this, Madison seems to think that guns are bad. He elaborates that the constitutionally enshrined right of this country’s people to own them is bad as well. He is confident that the recent events he discusses will not have significant influence, backing his point by deploying a brilliant non-sequitur: “because people are extremely forgiving of the liberties a bunch of entitled slave owners gave us.”
How this should be an argument against the constitutional right to own guns is beyond me.
The Washington City Paper, faced with maintaining the veil of journalistic objectivity (and being unintentionally hilarious), wanted to make sure its staff knew exactly what was expected of them if they planned to attend this past weekend’s Stuart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear to America. Luckily for us, though, the editor posted the instructions on the paper’s blog. To laugh or not to laugh? It’s not that easy. What it boils down to, though, was a general edict to “Whatever you do, do not apply your own personal cognitive skills to determining the humorousness of any particular clip. Such an approach exposes us to charges of bias.” I think they succeeded. I doubt anyone charged with following a checklist like this could end up finding humor in anything. Bonus points, guys.
TO: WASHINGTON CITY PAPER STAFF
FROM: MICHAEL SCHAFFER, EDITOR
RE: STEWART/COLBERT RALLY
Colleagues—
Several of you have asked me about this coming weekend’s satirical National Mall rallies featuring Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. As you probably know, at least one other news organization, NPR, has forbidden news staffers from attending. Others, including the Washington Post, have reminded staffers that newsroom policy permits them to witness events, but not to “participate” in ways that could call into question their impartiality—i.e., by chanting, waving signs, etc.
At a time of grave concerns about our economy and our national security—not to mention a period of tumult in our industry—it is obviously crucial that all media organizations develop appropriate guidelines for staff attendance at mock-political public appearances by cable-television celebrities. After significant consultation with Washington City Paper’s expensive outside team of professional ethicists, we’ve settled on the following guidelines. Please read and follow them closely:
1. You may attend the rallies in a non-participatory fashion.
2. However, because the rallies are comic events, you may not laugh.
3. The act of not laughing, though, can be just as politically loaded as the act of laughing. Therefore, staffers are advised to politely chuckle, in a non-genuine manner, after each joke.
4. To avoid any perception of bias, please make sure to chuckle at all jokes, whether or not you find them funny. As journalists, we must make sure to not allow our personal views of “humorous” or “non-humorous” to affect our public demeanor.
5. Likewise, it could be devastating to our impartial reputation if our staffers were seen laughing at something that was not intended as a joke, thereby appearing to mock the entire event. If we are lucky, the comedians will have a drummer on hand whose rim-shots may be used as a cue for when to politely chuckle.
6. If no non-verbal cues for laughter are available, please observe audience members around you. If they are laughing, imitate their laughter with a non-genuine polite chuckle. If they are not laughing, remain stone-faced. Whatever you do, do not apply your own personal cognitive skills to determining the humorousness of any particular clip. Such an approach exposes us to charges of bias.
7. On the other hand, a situation could arise where partisan foes of the Comedy Central hosts laugh at them in a derisive manner unrelated to the timing of their on-stage jokes. In this case, your failure to join in the mockery could potentially be interpreted as a sign that you disagree with the derision—an equally distasteful indication of bias. Please follow the above guidelines and also chuckle politely, but not genuinely, at any instances of counter-comedy.
8. In our experience, public appearances by comedy figures also draw audiences whose members frequently make jokes amongst themselves. These attempts at humor might not necessarily fit into the rational example of protesters versus counter-protesters outlined in the guidelines above. However, you could nonetheless indicate a great deal about your personal biases via your decision as to whether or not you laugh along when the person next to you riffs about, say, marginal tax rates. Please make sure to follow the above guidelines and respond via polite, non-genuine, mild guffaws to the jibes of amateur comics in the audience.
9. We’re also aware that the large crowds expected at the rallies could produce a cacophonous din, one in which you are unable to discern which jokes are being made by audience members, counter-protestors, or the day’s main attractions—and, worse still, where observers may think you are laughing at an anti-Republican joke when you are actually laughing at an anti-Democrat joke. To protect our cherished reputation against such a danger, I have arranged for each of you to be issued a pair of earplugs. Should the event grow too raucous, please insert these earplugs immediately. Once you have inserted the earplugs, please chuckle politely, and non-genuinely, every 74 seconds, to maintain the appearance of non-biased and appropriate responses to the event.
10. You are free to laugh heartily and genuinely at any jokes that target the terrorists.
Please feel free to see me or Mike Madden should you need any further clarification.
Best,
Mike
Obviously Jimmy McMillan is not going to win, and I don’t even think he should, not that the identity of New York’s governor is any of this Oregonian’s business. But I read the Register-Guard mailbag every day, and see a few letters every day from suspiciously on-message letters from people purporting to be everyday citizens who wrote them all by themselves. No excess, no matter how slime-smeared* from the Republican or Democrat parties can be considered shocking at this point, but you even see third-party no-hopers using this tactic, or assailed by it.
Additional viewpoints and political alternatives, no matter how whacked-out and gratuitous, are by definition welcome in the America in which I believe. My spirits drop, however, to see so-called alternatives, ones who have no realistic chance of winning, ape the win-at-all-costs methods of the establishment parties, though.
There may be some of that to Jimmy McMillan and his Rent is 2 Damn High Movement party too. I haven’t checked. Honestly, I don’t even know whether or not rent is too high in New York. But he seems more a shrill voice of the popular id. Rather than a hopeless pretender dressing up in the king’s clothes, he’s the gadfly all third parties ought to be. His rent is too high, he’s angry, and he’s not shutting up about it. Politics builds in its practitioners a thick skin, and perhaps his opponents’ skin is already thickened beyond the point that he can “sting (them) and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” But at least the man is trying.
Maybe McMillan is the Socrates of our era. Where the original had complicated ontological queries, the new model has only rage, articulated simply. But maybe, cometh the confused, soundbite-obsessed, shallow hour, cometh the focused, soundbite-friendly, uncomplicated man.
Note: Credit to the New Yorker’sAmy Davidson for the blog post that alerted me to McMillan’s existence.
As Politico and The Huffington Post can attest, Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell is nutters. Since a good campaign slogan is catchy and lets a voter make sense of the candidate’s views, I propose these new slogans for the O’Donnell campaign, as well as the quotes their based off of:
“It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can’t masturbate without lust.”/ “I’m a young woman in my thirties and I remain chaste.”
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: If you get aroused, the terrorists win.
“I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven.” / “One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar.”
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: I will turn Chris Coons into a fucking toad!
“You know, these are the kind of cheap, underhanded, un-manly tactics that we’ve come to expect from Obama’s favorite Republican, Mike Castle… Mike, this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.”
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: Mike Castle is a pansy.
God may choose to heal someone from cancer, yet that person still has a great deal of medical bills.
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: Obamacare is a sin.
“During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God. He said, ‘Credibility.'”
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: God tells me what I don’t have.
“American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”
Christine O’Donnell for US Senate: I am bat-shit crazy.
Central Falls School Superintendent Frances Gallo fired a total of 94 teachers, administrators and assistants on Feb. 22 because of poor student performance.
With a graduation rate of less than 50 percent and abysmal standardized testing scores, Gallo implemented the “turnaround” model of reform or, the removal of all staff.
The firings come after the teachers’ union rejected six conditions Gallo presented to improve the school. Those conditions were: extending the school day by 25 minutes, requiring teachers to tutor students weekly for one hour before or after school, eating lunch with students once a week, undergoing more rigorous evaluations, meeting once a week for 90 minutes to discuss education and planning, and attending two weeks of paid professional development in the summer.
Other than the professional development, extra compensation did not accompany the proposed conditions.
The First Amendment is a delicate subject — surprising given its nature, which is one that protects the opinions and speech of all. Such was the argument of a federal appeals court that dismissed a suit against a group of extremist Christians who picketed the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder in 2006.
The protesters (Baptists from Kansas) were holding signs that, “maintain that God hates homosexuality and that the death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is God’s way of punishing the United States for its tolerance of it.”
I’m not going to enter the semantic realm of Christians arguing that God punishes evil; that seems an open invitation to interpretation and an unwanted diversion of attention. Instead, what I’d like to point out is the incredible irony that arises out of the situation considering the death was that of a serviceman.
Although I could never do it myself, the burden our military people put on themselves in the line of duty is something I admire in and of itself. Regardless of the conflict, the self-sacrifice–putting yourself in the line of danger for my safety–is something I will never understand, never experience. But I am damn grateful for it.
As a Marine, Lance Cpl. Snyder undoubtedly believed that he was helping to protect our citizens and therefore our Constitution, in some way or another. As such, he actively helped protect the same governing laws that allowed, rightfully, a handful of religious zealots to make light of his death and his sacrifice.
Do I believe the picketers were wrong to protest Lance Cpl. Snyder’s funeral? Yes, but only on moral grounds. Having such disrespect for another human’s life is to be despised, and the grief put upon his family is more than they should have to endure. But as I sit here, with a picture of my grandfather in full Naval uniform staring directly at me, I have to remember that my morals are not solid basis for the policy of this nation’s laws. During WWII, he fought to protect my right to protect myself, to protect my home and my right to speak my mind. There is no doubt that Lance Cpl. Snyder fought to protect those things as well.
That is why when the Supreme Court hears this trial, I hope they will find in favor of the protesters. Not for their sake, and not for their expressed views; those I can live without. Instead, I hope they find in favor of the First Amendment. For all of us. That way, Lance Cpl. Snyder’s service will not have been in vain.
Her sign reads, “Sorry Daddy, I don’t have $1 trillion to loan you! =)”
There has been quite a bit of talk lately about a growing political movement by newly-minted Constitutionalists called the “Tea Party movement”. It has been touted as a “grass roots rebellion” all over the conservative airwaves and news media, despite the huge names endorsing the ideas.
In an article by David Barstow, he describes the movement as being a separate mechanism away from the Republicans, and that it has a more “traditionally conservative” background.
“[A] significant undercurrent within the Tea Party movement that has less in common with the Republican Party than with the Patriot movement, a brand of politics historically associated with libertarians, militia groups, anti-immigration advocates and those who argue for the abolition of the Federal Reserve.”
Barstow’s article goes on to describe the aforementioned Constitutionalists as only recently coming to political awareness when they realized that “Washington was a threat”. Further, several of them mention the possible, if not probable, impending need for revolution, “Mrs. Stout said she felt as if she had been handed a road map to rebellion.” This theme of militias actually being called into action is widely apparent throughout Barstow’s article and in Tea Party ideals.
“In Indiana, Richard Behney, a Republican Senate candidate, told Tea Party supporters what he would do if the 2010 elections did not produce results to his liking: “I’m cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I’m serious about that, and I bet you are, too.”
What has essentially happened, however, is that the Tea Party movement has been touted so fervently by conservative media that it hardly qualifies as a grass roots movement. Last April, Fox News pushed for the Tea Parties so hard that it actually fabricated video footage in order to make a Tea Party seem larger.
Sarah Palin gave a speech to a “tea party” a few days ago, one in which she said “America is ready for another revolution.” Palin’s comments, according to a Register-Guard article, were typically hilarious.
“We need a commander in chief not a professor of law.”
“Foreign policy can’t be managed through the politics of personality,” she said.
Which is exactly why the M.I.L.F decided to quit her job halfway through to join Fox News as a “pundit”. Oh, it gets better.
She assailed the $787 billion stimulus plan — “Did you feel very stimulated?” she asked
As I read through the hard copy of our latest issue, I noticed something that Distribution Manager Kiefer VerSteegh pointed out to me earlier in the week, “There’s a lot of anti-Obama stuff in here.”
Now there should be some clarification on the subject. Indeed, if one follows classic voter theory, Obama would probably not be many of our staff’s first choice. Seeing a few articles ridiculing him, therefore, is not such an unexpected thing. The point should be made, however, that in recent years the Commentator has strayed from national politics as its focus, instead relying on local–sometimes campus only–politics as its realm of study.
What I’ve been discussing around the office the last few days is my own growing attitude towards national politics. That is to say, my growing negative attitude. It can be summed up in the recent debacle around South Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s mis-step involving a reference of welfare users to stray animals. Bauer clumsily tried to explain the need for a new welfare system (a conservative mainstay that involves job training, de-funding or inexplicably, both) with a folksy reference to the feeding of stray animals. Jon Stewart, among others, had a field day with Bauer’s comments even though it doesn’t take half a brain to understand what he was trying to say (or that he said it poorly).
It seems that James O’Keefe, the pimp in the ACORN prostitution scandal, has been arrested for trying to tap the phones of a Democratic Senator from Louisiana.
Of course, as I reported in our Holiday Issue, I’ve seen O’Keefe speak in person. Oddly enough, he spoke during an “Ethics in Journalism” portion of the seminar. The consensus between Drew, Guy and I was that O’Keefe had a loose concept of journalistic integrity. That or he chose to ignore it. Either way, he advocated asinine concepts like, “Start insane student groups that your student government wouldn’t want to fund. Then report them to your students when they do fund something like ‘Students for Beastiality’ ” as the Dartmouth Review did in the 80’s. Other gems of wisdom from the disgraced O’Keefe? “Kill your Dean’s dog. That’s a headline!”
Obviously O’Keefe was never respected for his moral compass. Even the nature of his ACORN scandal was still more along the lines of manufacture than of investigation. Now, with O’Keefe facing criminal charges it’s hard to wonder how anyone took him seriously in the first place.
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.
