In today’s Emerald, Opinion Editor Elon Glucklich wrote a piece titled “Who sucked all the masculinity out of politics?” that sounds strikingly similar to the entire Man Issue. Glucklich writes:

Where have all the cowboys gone? Singer/songwriter Paula Cole wanted to know in 1997. Now I’m asking. Once upon a time this country was imbued with a survivor’s mentality: either kill, or be killed. And while I don’t mean going as far as to advocate pillaging or murder, the idea of taking your neighbor’s land because you have a larger rifle/musket/pitchfork harkens to truer times.

First, what kind of call for manhood starts with a Paula Cole reference. She sang the theme song for Dawson’s Creek. Plus, real men do not have a kill or be killed mentality. For a real man, there is no choice. The only option is kill. (more…)

Forgot to post this very untimely story in last Friday’s Emerald about Econ professor Bill Harbaugh getting the brush off by University Administration.

While Martinez said he didn’t necessarily agree with an approach of not talking or asking questions, he said the University has a responsibility to move forward with what has already been decided. Community involvement has been emphasized from the beginning, he said.

“I think it’s been essential, probably at every phase of the process,” Martinez said.

Of course you may have heard about this from the OC blog when it happened in June.

The Daily Emerald, in their infinite wisdom, continues to push for more police on campus. In an editorial today, the Emerald cites that the University of Oregon only has one EPD officer per 5,000 students. According to the Emerald, Oregon has the lowest ratio of officers to students when compared to schools of similar size.

While the Emerald complains about a lack of police, they fail to mention why we need more officers on campus. No stats are given about a rise in crime, and the editorial does not mention any recent emergency where DPS failed to respond.

DPS can barely keep itself together, and adding more officers to mess things up isn’t going to help. The Emerald should attack DPS for being inefficient and mismanaged before it starts calling for more officers.

Kudos to the Ol’ Dirty Editorial Board for taking the position that the ignorance (or theft) shown by former Con Court justice Jereme Roberts, who “forgot” to repay a stipend he was given while not a student, is unacceptable.

The Green Tape Notebook – made up of the ASUO Constitution, rules and governing documents of all ASUO bodies – states that court justices must be current students. This is the very document justices are charged with upholding. If even one member serving on the court is unaware of such a basic rule, it is a sign that something is severely wrong.

Sen. Nate Gulley was disgruntled that the Emerald printed a story last week bringing to light that Roberts had yet to pay back the money. Those polecats in the Emerald had this to say:

A common joke among reporters is that if your story makes a politician angry, you’ve done your job. It is not our job to be friends with elected officials; it is our job to tell the truth. And the truth is, it is unacceptable for this debt to go unpaid.

You read that headline correct. It’s not terrorism, the war in Iraq or even Lex Luthor that is destroying America. According to the Ol’ Dirty’s Elon Glucklich, it is Japanese cartoons.

“In a society dominated by excess and two-second attention spans, cartoons play a significant role in preparing us for the world. Each can be thought of as a 30-minute babysitter, instilling the kids who watch them with certain values and life lessons. But the landscape has changed”

Glucklich goes on to cite examples of how Anime has led to America’s downfall.

“So what is Pokemon teaching the next generation of kids? The virtues of capturing exotic animals and making them fight for your amusement? I already learned that from Michael Vick.”

Now, I am no anime defender. I find it annoying and pointless. But, is it any better than American Idol, Survivor or Grey’s Anatomy? The answer is no. TV has long been the medium for cheap, pointless entertainment. Networks only care about shows that bring in advertisers. It’s all as high-minded as that.

Is Anime dumb? Yes. Were the cartoons of our generation better? Of course, they were our cartoons. Please check out the comments section for this editorial. Anime fans unite to defend themselves.

On Monday, the centerpiece feature in the Ol’ Dirty was about the alleged under staffing of public safety on campus. There are 14 DPS officers and four sworn EPD officers – three officers and one sergeant – that cover the University campus. The feature highlights the administrations goal to create an official police department on campus. The article, of course, uses the Virginia Tech shootings for leverage.

The ODE followed this up with a article about rising bike theft on campus. Good. Great. Grand. Nice “unbiased” news reporting. Today, however, the Ol’ Dirty Editorial Board had this to say:

“The state should recognize the importance of providing adequate police on a campus of 20,000 and give the University the right to have a fully-functioning police department on campus.”

Is it too hard to understand that creating a full-fledged police force will increase violence on campus? A good majority of University students feel safe walking on campus at any time of the day or night as it is. Furthermore, most students don’t like police figures.

But hey, I say bring it on. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good ole fashioned riot. Let’s bring in a couple dozen ego-driven, trigger-happy authority figures who will eventually get on a power trip and mishandle a situation – and you know it will eventually happen – leading to serious abuse to a student or a group of students. Then, the students can retaliate by rioting and smashing the windows of the police cars. Then, the EPD can join the campus police to stop the surge with tear gas and rubber bullets. Then, more students will be outraged and join in the carnage. Then, the National Guard can be called in. By the end of it all, the scoreboard will be: 53 students hospitalized; 2 students dead; 2 officers hospitalized; $375,000 of damage; 2,780 broken or chipped teeth; 1 embarrassed University; and one hell of a bar tab at Rennie’s Landing. Trust me, my Magic 8-ball told me so.

Also, check out the illustration. It depicts the University campus as Gotham City. Ridiculous.

Happy Columbus Day! And to our friends at the Longhouse, Happy Indigenous Solidarity Day! The Ol’ Dirty had an article focusing on today’s event put on by the Native American Student Union and the MCC. For some reason Chuck Hunt is speaking at it.

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In a show of truly great journalistic solidarity, the Ol ‘ Dirty printed the word “fuck” in huge type in their opinion section today. The editorial board made the decision to run the piece to show support for both their brothers and sisters at Colorado State as well as the always handy First Amendment.

The Colorado State editorial board came under fire recently because they wrote “Taser this…FUCK BUSH” in response to the “excessive” force used by officers in restraining a man at a John Kerry event. (more…)

Someone over at the the Ayn Rand Institute must be having fun trolling the the OP/Ed pages of the country’s college papers, and someone at the Emerald must be biting, because today’s paper featured not one but two letters from America’s favorite objectivist think tank. One’s about how it would be immoral not to invade Iran, the other is about stem cell research.

I’m a little surprised that the Ol’ Dirty published both of these. There is a name for the practice of low-rent advocacy organizations sending out mass LTEs to newspapers, but I don’t remember what it is called. Generally, when you see a letter or guest commentary from somewhere far away, and it isn’t in relation to a news story, it is because it was sent out en masse. I fell for this in rather embarrassing style when I was the Opinion Editor. (I received about eight or nine of these things over a period of a week.)

Still, if it weren’t for the tireless objectivist editors of the ODE, and their Randian overlords, we wouldn’t know that: “Retaliating against Iran doesn’t mean embarking on an Iraq-like crusade to bring its people the vote; instead, it means using military force to make the regime non-threatening-for the sake of defending American lives.”

I can’t wait until the next issue of the Emerald, when the Heritage Foundation will run two commentaries, an editorial and this cartoon.

The Ol’ Dirty reported today on the House Bill 2147 that is about to be signed by Gov. Teddy Kulong that will suspend the license for 90 days of anyone who gets an MIP, or they will have the option to go through a bullshit deference program. Now I could care less since it doesn’t affect me directly, but I see this as an attempt to pump more money into the absurd addiction places that are everywhere.

I had to go through 16 weeks at Emergence for a DUI and can tell you that they are a waste of time unless you’re a 45-year-old waste of space with at least 4 drug addictions. Now the state is going to toss in thousands of Oregon youngsters every year into these “recovery” joints so that they can pay for the treatment of Meth heads, crack addicts, smack dealers, beans babies and torpedo tweakers.

Yeah, like nobody here knows that the Insurgent is a waste of money and effort. It’s an enjoyable read though, and Graf makes the case well. If only he had mentioned the nekkid boobies in the latest issue, we could have had O’Reilly back for a rerun. Meanwhile, over in the ODE comment section, Jethro Higgins has discovered that the Insurgent only does this stuff for the attention. Tune in next week, when Higgins realizes he’s been giving them exactly what they want: legitimation of the tactics of crying oppression, and of course, the attention. I swear to god, there must be something hallucinogenic in that grass pollen, because this campus goes insane every spring.

The comment section over at the ODE website have been hosting some discussion on the recent string of commentaries on race relations. Since some people seem afraid to engage in debate here on our site, some of us have been mixing it up over there. Check out the discussions on recent pieces by Diego Hernandez, Ty Schwoeffermann,  and our own Andrea Blaser.

On a related note, I really wish the ODE would stop moderating comments. What are you afraid of? You guys refused to post one of my comments a while back… was it because I linked to this site? Here we are linking to you, now get over yourselves and stop censoring.

Our own Andrea Blaser, managing editor for the OC (not publisher), wrote a beautifully moving and well-substantiated commentary in today’s Ol’ Dirty. I encourage all to read for an honest and courageous point about the current “racism issue.”

Diego Hernandez, who we last saw losing the election for EMU Board Senate Seat 6, wrote a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Ol’ Dirty Emerald in response to Sean Jin’s criticism of Ty Schwoeffermann’s guest commentary from last Friday.

While Jin’s letter was critical of “people of color” who held contemptuous attitudes toward white people, it was written in a rather conciliatory tone:

As one that identifies as a minority, I feel that it is my responsibility to emphasize how important it is to practice what we preach, and that the true solution to racism and ethnic bigotry is to create positive connections amongst different cliques and groups on campus. While I cannot fully understand the hardships and frustrations that many people of color have endeavored through to be where they are now, I have come to the firm conviction that community connection and communication is the ultimate key to equalizing opportunities for people of color.

Now, let’s contrast Jin’s words with those of Hernandez:

Sean Jin said that he had never experienced racism before he came to the University and it was not until people of color started “expressing their hatred and contempt for whites” that he saw ethnic bigotry… To assume that people of color only have hatred toward white people is bigotry. If standing up to racism and if fighting for equality is hatred, then so be it.

All right! Throw an accusation of bigotry at your editorial opponent. Way to come out swinging!

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Much as I loathe to bring attention to anything Ty Schwoeffermann writes, especially since I regard him as a racist hack*, it is hard to ignore his excruciatingly shrill guest commentary in today’s Ol’ Dirty.

Schwoeffermann starts out in typical style with an opening sentence filled with glaring factual errors and legal inaccuracies:

When the Brown v. Board of Education verdict forced public schools to desegregate on May 17, 1954, the national conscious officially reconciled the half decade of Jim Crow laws.

A “half decade” of Jim Crow laws? If Schwoeffermann is trying to make the point that we need more African-American history classes using himself as an example, well then, I guess he’s doing a bang-up job right off the bat.

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