The Ol’ Dirty isn’t known for the high quality of its letters-to-the-editor, but one Chelsea Beebe really brought her A-game in the latest issue:
My personal experience with the Department of Public Safety has been a terrible one. Freshman year, my car was parked in the dorm parking lot, literally 20 feet from the dorm, and it got stolen. Where was DPS? Luckily my car was recovered, but it needed repairs, so while it was in the shop I got a rental. I went to DPS to get a temporary parking permit for my rental car, and not only did they make me pay for it, they would only let me have a permit that lasted two days at a time. I was busy and didn’t have time to renew the permit at one point, and only two hours after it had expired I had three tickets. So, lets recap: My car got stolen under DPS’s watch and it doesn’t have the courtesy to give me a free temporary permit for my rental car? That’s just not right. I wrote to you because four years later, I still fume about it and other DPS injustices (such as ticketing my fiancee’s car 10 minutes after his meter expired). I think UO students need to be represented and DPS needs to realize it has some unfair ticketing practices.
Unfortunately, it’s Finals Week and, with Christmas Break nearly upon us, the likelihood of the Emerald publishing a response to Ms. Beebe’s philippic seems slim. The Commentator would therefore like to address the following open letter to little Chelsea:
I don’t normally visit the website of the Daily Emerald, mostly out of sheer laziness and some spite, but I was looking today and found this near the bottom of the page in the right-hand column:
The actual hot link says “Sex Toys” and redirects the viewer to vibrator.com. Mostly I’m just curious as to why their only sponsored link is to a vibrator clearing house. I’m not bringing this up to blast them due to some social conservatism that I have, but I’m wondering: Since when can college students afford to buy sex toys?
Maybe it’s just me and my broken wallet, but the last time I dropped $50 or more dollars on sexual pleasure I was on a date.
In light of the increase of attacks on campus, today’s front page story on the OL’ DIRTY is a piece on self-defense. Although the article advises using everything from hot coffee to car antennas (antenni?) as weapons, I did notice one seemingly obvious omission. Therefore, I present this as an alternative to concerned students:
Thanks to OC Publisher Guy for showing this to me. Also, here’s Monty Python’s classic take on self-defense.
Eugene Weekly special investigator Alan Pittman has a great, definitely-not-socialist article in this week’s EW titled “Spread the wealth in Oregon.” Here’s the lede:
With Barack Obama popular in Oregon while calling for a tax increase on those earning more than $250,000, could such a tax plan work here?
Tell me, Alan Pittman! I certainly can’t guess what your answer will be.
If Oregon state income taxes were raised 10 percent on those earning more than $250,000 adjusted gross income, taxes on everyone else could be cut about 4 percent, according to an EW analysis of state tax return data. That’s an average savings of $86.
Why, what a novel idea! It’s practically foolproof. For example, if I was an evil, evil rich person, I certainly wouldn’t move to a different state to avoid getting raped by taxes. Nope, I would sit tight and make less money. All that stuff about people being “rational actors” is just plain phooey. In fact, I’m sure the wealthy would flock to Oregon! Nothing drives entrepreneurs and business into a state like a draconian state income tax. Hold on, I’m going to quote something else silly Pittman said:
Oregon’s wealthiest could easily afford a tax increase. In the last three decades the income of the wealthiest 1 percent of Oregonians has doubled while the wage of the typical Oregon worker has dropped slightly after adjusting for inflation, according to the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP).
Oh yes, easily. But who cares if they can afford it? It’s their fault for being so inconsiderately wealthy in the first place. Pittman is right; the rich are a resource to be harvested, like timber or zinc.
By the way, this isn’t Pittman’s first call to action against the landed gentry. I’m going to go out on a limb and venture that he is not in the $250,000 income bracket. Just a guess.
Sometimes, the Commentator gets mail. Often, it’s pissy. Occasionally, it’s funny. Other times — like today — it’s just plain bizarre. Jump below the fold to see what I found in our mailbox when I came to the office this afternoon.
I don’t like Adbusters. In fact, I hate it. It’s whole Naomi Klein-esque, anti-capitalism posturing is laughable. But Douglas Haddow should get a Pulitzer for his cover story, “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization.” It includes such priceless exchanges with braindead hipsters as:
Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.
“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.
Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”
“Offensive?”
“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”
The massive comment thread tends to reinforce the writer’s argument. For example:
Be that as it may, we’re the ones having the time of our fucking lives. No one pretends it’s a ‘counter-culture’ movement, it’s just some kids who like dressing up and know how to have fun. That’s probably why we’re uncomfortable with the ‘hipster’ label.
Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the term because you’re a vapid, contemptible twit.
P.S. For extra fun times, read the article again but replace every instance of the word “hipster” with “Jew.” It suddenly becomes Henry Ford’s unexpurgated autobiography!
I’ve got a convenient bullet-point wrap-up of the Senate meeting after the jump, but first The Big News:
The Oregon University System is taxing the Incidental Fee. Yes, they’re taxing a tax – a tax of a tax on students. Apparently this is a regular practice (known as “assessment”), but it was brought up tonight in the Executive announcements because the OUS upped the tax from two to three percent … after EMU and PFC budgeting. This basically screws over student programs, as well as the EMU operating budget. Furthermore, there is no cap on how much the OUS can tax the I-fee.
The ASUO will lobby to set the I-fee off limits to the assessment tax. To be honest, I’m a little bit out of my depth on this; this is all what I gleaned from the Senate meeting. However, Michelle Haley, who is on the EMU Board, will be writing more about the issue.
Facing decreasing ad revenue and increasing production costs, the ODE, like many papers around the country, is slimming down it’s print content and moving online. As part of its new strategy, the ODE is finally forcing its staff to blog. Prognosis: delicious!
I went to a party on Friday night. It was themed and at a frat [!] just down the road from my apartment. Quite convenient, I figured. It wouldn’t be too long of a walk in my scanty little dress that I’d bought earlier that day at the street fair for only five dollars- what a bargain. As I sexified myself [!!], I danced to loud music in my room and pre-gamed it with my roommate and some friends who would be accompanying me. They were in similarly scant outfits and we were ready to party!
Reality hit us hard across the face [?!] as we stepped outside into the bitter cold of the early October evening. It had begun to get cold just a few days before. Fall seems to do that. We all could feel it, but all the same, walking to class when it’s cold in jeans and a sweatshirt isn’t quite as extreme as going in dresses meant for hot, sticky summer nights.
We made it to the party only to find that as soon as we stepped inside, we’d entered the haven of a hot, sweaty college party. Relieved, we threw ourselves into the orgy that is a frat party[!!!] and instantly, our goosebumps disappeared.
[…]
Even when it’s pouring rain and we have to risk our hair getting wet, college girls will almost always choose to party. Because getting dressed up, dancing, and making out with cute college boys is worth it.
In completely unrelated news, Strgar is hereafter invited to all future Commentator parties.
P.S. In fairness, the sports blog and photo blog have a lot of potential, and I’m glad the Emerald is finally getting a handle on this whole “Internet” thing.
Perhaps you have noticed that there are quite a few register to vote people out there that insist on treating students like they are children who constantly need to be reminded of their responsibilities. I’m guessing that you are as annoyed as much as I am with these officious people, and with that in mind I would like to mount a protest (Don’t worry – a protest utterly lacking in picket signs, slam poetry, and organization). My idea is that when people are asked if they want to register they write Frederich Nietzsche as the name of the applicant and then promptly walk away. This will waste their voter registration form, make it clear that their efforts are unwanted, and ultimately make them hesitant about asking students. Understand that I’m not against voting in the slightest, I am registered and certainly will be voting, but I loathe the people who seem to assume that I can’t handle my civic duty. I realize that this is a little late, but I only recently thought of it.
In today’s Ol’ Dirty, Matt Petryni has done the world a favor by distilling the last eight years of the progressive movement’s bitterness, victim posturing, and recent Obamic messianism into what is surely going to top peoples’ lists for “Cutest Little Article of the Year“, starting thusly:
Since the 1980s, political liberals have largely been thought of as the minority. Their views were quickly discredited, their programs systematically dismantled, their diverse ranks were painted as latte-sipping demons who sought to micromanage the lives of “real Americans.” Any attempt to deny this is to deny reality…
The liberal voice was, for the most part, silenced.
Thankfully, the revolutionary vanguard was struggling to ensure that folks like Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, every pot-smoking, bedreadlocked college kid, and millions of anti-whatever protesters were spared a midnight visit from the Gestapo during these last 28 years of jackbooted oppression!
After this pouting, he intones a litany of boilerplate college progressive criticisms of the Bush Administration and Republicans in general, with a dash of hyperbole thrown in for good measure (“Our economic crisis, now front and center, will likely rival even the Great Depression in its severity.” The horror!)
But all that’s just a warm-up for the real meat of the article: Liberals only want to help, so vote for change! After informing his readership that there is no “good” way to resolve our country’s problems, he assures us that “[t]he only true way to effectively resolve the crisis we face is the liberal way”:
Liberals seek not to overburden the taxpayer with regulations, with social and diplomatic causes. They seek only to prevent the taxpayer from being burdened with the consequences of not pursuing those causes and regulations. Without levees, cities flood. Without allies, wars fail. Without regulations, greed prevails, and dangerous risks are assumed. And without environmental protections, natural resources are degraded. Without planning and prevention, consequences and costs result.
All of these terrible things are, of course, assumed to be the natural by-products of “conservative” boogeymen and their disastrous policies, which he goes on to limply admit that are arguably not to blame at all.
Instead of attempting to actually refute that criticism, however, Petryni simply suggests that we, as a society, “change” and start living up to our responsibilities as members of the “American community”, by which he presumably means “vote for Barack Obama”. After all, once Obama is President, things’ll be so great that taxes won’t even really be like taxes anymore — they’ll really be more like “investments”! Whether or not American “investors” will be “investing” their money in stuff like billions of dollars of bailouts for the financial industry and Detroit is left unsaid.
It must be the first day of school because those “radical Marxists” are out at the entrance of the University again, pushing their commie rag on polisci undergrads. Usually I just pass by them with a frosty stare, but I noticed they had a wide array of hilarious signage this year. To wit:
I was quite intrigued by this, so I decided to ask one of the people at the table about it. At first he was reluctant to talk to me, saying that they do not usually do interviews. I only managed to quote him by promising anonymity. Apparently the revolution will neither be televised nor on the record. There’s a transcript of our enlightening conversation after the jump. (more…)
Most of the time, when you hear about censorship on college campuses it’s in response to something political in nature – a “bias incident,” a lecture or a newspaper editorial. This, however, is a new one to me:
One thing is clear. This is un-American. This isn’t Havana. What’s next? No yelling? No grumbling? No heavy sighing? How are students supposed to effect change at their school? Morse-code flashlights? And if they can censor students at the stadium, what’s to keep them from doing it on The Lawn?
Reilly is right. This isn’t Havana. This is college athletics, where it’s the student section’s job to harangue the opposition into a neurotic mess. If the UVA athletic department is so concerned about hurting people’s feelings, maybe it should relegate itself to activities like croquet and knitting circles. Or perhaps it should promote a positive game-day experience by, I don’t know, winning games. (The UVA football team had a lackluster 5-7 season last year.)
Fortunately, the UVA students are not standing for this nonsense, either. At their most recent home football game, thousands of UVA students held up blank pieces of paper at predetermined times to protest the new rule, proving that freedom of speech is just as alive and well in the sports arena as the political arena. Protest organizers even quoted fellow Virginian (and UVA founder) Thomas Jefferson, who once said ” .. a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing …”
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription wall), this is what the college crowd is reading right now:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
Eat, Pray and Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
Dreams of My Fathers by Barack Obama
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Hellboy, Vol. 8: Darkness Calls by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, and Dave Stewart
Two of those are political wankfest autobiographies, one is a comic book and two others are part of a series about a girl who falls in love with a vampire (and later a werewolf). Number 11 is probably a Family Circus anthology or a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Evidently, allocating time for Hillary Clinton to speak at the Democratic Convention in Denver is evidence of “white privilege” in action, at least according to Jo Ann Bowman at Blue Oregon:
Since I have been old enough to vote, the primary winner was the winner period. Of course normally the presidential primary winner was a white, male millionaire.
They were not expected to give airtime to the looser. [sic] They were not expected to have their caucus votes counted on the floor. Why have the rules changed since an African American Man has won the nomination?
It appears that Ms. Bowman, in her fit of sputtering outrage, seems to have forgotten Barack Obama’s keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention — even though he wasn’t even a candidate at the time. Why, it’s almost like they give special privileges to prominent members of the Party! Oh, the injustice of it all!
(All of which is not to mention, as Kari Chisholm does in the comments section to Bowman’s post, that primary losers often have prominent speaking roles at conventions.)
