It’s good to be back. I’ve missed you all, I’ve missed the fine city of Eugene, and God knows I’ve missed stuff like this.

My column this week serves a dual purpose. Last winter, I was enrolled in Japanese 425… Our final project was to write a 15-20 page paper related to [Matsuo] Basho’s poetry. I never wrote it, and have had a glaring “I” on my winter 2002 grades ever since. So, nearly a year later, and after numerous false starts, I have finally begun.

You can tell what’s coming, right? Oh yes you can. I know a lot more about Matsuo Basho than I did this morning, but the headline really should have been The Dog Ate My Actual Column.

(Apart from being the latest step in my quest for the perfect music-related pun involving the word “Shakra” – with regard to which, by the way, suggestions are welcome – this post’s title refers to the curious ending to this piece.

Watch it with friends, and watch it on DVD, with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound to get the most out of your viewing experience.

Is the the kind of anti-corporate raging we’ve come to expect from the erstwhile DJ Serpentine? Is he taking kickbacks from the Industry and the Man? Enquiring minds want to know!)

A shameful and uncharacteristic shortage of internet has kept me from posting this in a timely fashion. It may an old column, it may be an old joke, it may already have been thoroughly pored over for meaning and picked clean for giggles, but here it is, as it should be: for posterity, dammit. (Where I suppose “posterity” means “as long as the Emerald maintains its archive”.) Merry Christmas, one and all.

Quote? Oh, go on then. Just a little one.

If Christmas trees were humans, we’d be burying them, not decorating them, ornamenting them and then displaying them prominently in our houses.

Yes. And if Christmas turkeys were humans, we’d be cannibals for eating them. Makes you think, doesn’t it? However, there is also this line to consider:

At this point, I might risk becoming a cliché of myself…[sic]

Not at this point, my friend. Not at this point exactly.

(Also: hi, everyone. I’m alive. But jetlagged. How’s it going?)

If you think I’m being too kind to Bechard in my previous post, I invite you to sit through this instead.

Thank you, all poets, philosophers and anarchists of the night. Thank you to colorful leaves falling from trees — colors that I dare not name because doing so would diminish the beauty they bestow upon me.

With apologies to Colin, whose joke this is, allow me to fill in some of the blanks. ORANGE! RED! BROWN! ORANGEY-BROWN! BURNT SIENNA! AUBURN! TAN! RUSSET! UMBER!

I hope that the beauty is not too terribly diminished.

Meanwhile: blah dumpster divers, blah red beans and rice, blah cultivating conversation over convenience (if hippies gave management consultancy seminars, that’d be a real winner – it’s so catchy!) blah. However, I must commend our reigning favorite columnist for getting in a mention of sleep. You just know that’s where he’s a viking.

I cannot believe I missed this.

On Nov. 4, I made my first (and probably last) appearance on talk radio.

I cannot believe I missed this.

Closely paraphrased, the first words from my mouth as soon as we hit the air were: “The mainstream media is all lies.”

I cannot believe I missed this. I’m calling KUGN to see if they have a tape. I cannot believe I missed this.

Been waiting for an opportunity to use that one.

Anyway, a debilitating focus on second-favorite ODE columnist Joe Bechard has perhaps led us to be remiss in informing our readership that the erstwhile DJ Serpentine is baaaack, and he’s taking on the media. The entire thing demands to be read, of course, but here’s a particularly golden bit. The set-up is an excerpt from an IndyMedia post:

While the corporate media were regurgitating the Bush administration’s lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction and giving Saddam Hussein’s Human Rights Abuses record prominent play, what went unreported was the fact that people like Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and Dick Cheney have been putting together a plan for American Military Occupation of the Middle East and control of the region’s oil for decades.

And the punchline, the lesson that our hero draws from this, is:

From these small snippets, I conclude that we must search for news outlets that provide us with depth and factual information — not just homogenized nonsense.

Hear hear! Depth, factual information, and decades-spanning conspiracy theories. One mustn’t neglect the decades-spanning conspiracy theories.

…but Alex Conley makes it so damn easy. 

It seems somewhat ironic that he’s making the call for rational argumentation considering some of his past editorials that have been brought up here.

Truthfully, I’m all for rational arguments and whatever else Conley thinks that the Obama administration needs to do. Definitely in agreement with Conley on having the iron fist approach. Obama should just not allow comments and inform people to accept his opinion as fact, he is the messiah after all. 

The fact of the matter is, our political process benefits most when people actually talk about the issues and forgo idiotic comments that don’t contribute anything to the discussion. Imagine if you were trying to have a genuine conversation with someone about, say, the stimulus package, and someone else in the room kept chiming in with “I like cheese!” or “Obama’s the next Hitler!” None of that brings anything useful to the table and only serves to annoy those who actually want to talk about the issues.

It’s funny because in the Right-wing hypocrisy column, that is linked to above, Conley basically pulls the “Republicans equals Nazis” card. He might have said that he liked cheese as well, but I imagine he’s lactose-intolerant. 

Oh, Conley, Conley, Conley. Do you not see your own hypocrisy once again portrayed here? Or do you not read your columns before throwing them at your editor?

I never had the pleasure of Shakra but Conley is my generation’s shadow of Shakra (I know Conley can’t compare to Shakra in sheer oddball).

[Via Hit & Run] The Daily Illini’s editors have decided that they’re just not competent enough to run editorials.

It is the standard of most respectable professional and college newspapers to run editorials regularly and frequently in its opinions pages. But such standards presuppose a definite utility for fulfilling the newspapers’ mission: providing fair, truthful, balanced, important, interesting and necessary information to the community they serve. Our editorials do not meet this goal and to continue publishing the editorials the way they have been would be a disservice to our readers.

Kudos to the Daily Illini’s editors for realizing their own shortcomings and quitting before embarassing themselves further. If only some other college paper had that sort of honest self-assessment, then they’d be able to give more space to the true geniuses among them.

Heroically undaunted by what happened the last time they tried it – in short, an achin’ world was introduced to Aaron Shakra, and never looked back – the ODE is doing this.

Best of luck to them – either it’s a marvellous smorgasbord of local journalism, or else the Spew section just got a whole lot easier to write. I’ll be tuning in regardless.

Ailee Slater has a new column in today’s Emerald titled A look at the BRIGHT SIDE. It’s vintage Slater: whiny and incoherent. Granted, this is an improvement over her previous column, which supplemented these qualities with a massive dose of fear mongering. Let’s take a look at each.

The walls are closing in on women begins hilariously enough:

Nation-wide discussion regarding womens rights has taken a recent interest in privacy, and for good reason. Newly appointed Judge John D.
Roberts is seen by many conservatives as the golden ticket to a sweet candy fountain of babies; he could be the vote responsible for overturning Roe V. Wade.

Ahh, the sweet candy fountain of babies. What’s so bad about these pro-lifers anyways? Candy is delicious!

Can the argument be made (as was done in Roe V. Wade) that the Fourth Amendments protection against unreasonable search and seizure is tantamount to the protection of privacy, and therefore the right of a woman to seek abortion?

Unfortunately for Ailee, Roe v. Wade has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment. Roe v. Wade hinges on interpretations of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, which delegate rights to the States respectively, or to the people and holds that [n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, respectively. Search and seizure has nothing to do with it.

I have discovered this: These discussions are not about privacy, they are about personal space, and it is time that they were framed (possibly in the Constitution) in such a way.

A right to privacy covers a citizen’s personal space. The pro-life argument is that a fetus also has personal space that should be respected.

Women especially have felt the brunt of Americas personal encroachment; think everything from the Patriot Acts wiretaps to pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control. This sentiment of anger over losing space emerged in myself after a recent experience with two girlfriends.

How in the hell do wiretaps disproportionately affect women? And private businesses, including pharmacies, have the right to not sell products they don’t want to sell. If your pharmacist won’t sell you birth control pills, then take your business somewhere else.

For the first part of our evening, my friends and I sat in the living room with all blinds closed, on account of the large hookah resting atop our coffee table. We always close the shades, but at least a little fear remains. In a perhaps paranoid state, my friends and I got to wondering, what if the federal government had reason to suspect one of us of terrorism? After all, we are three very liberal college students who have signed more than one petition, with a valid name and address. If through an investigation someone came across our big blue hookah, we would be prosecuted in an instant.

You are write in a paper of record that you own a hookah, yet you are afraid of someone finding out that you own one? And you think you’d be prosecuted on terrorism charges as a result?

So we sit with our shades closed; often lamenting the fact that we cant peacefully smoke on our own porch, without the threat of intervention.

If you’re smoking tobacco, then it’s perfectly legal and acceptable to smoke a narghile outside. I’m sorry you can’t smoke pot outside, in public, without possibly being caught. That’s the breaks of smoking something illegal, I’m afraid.

On this night, once it was completely dark and about an hour away from midnight, the three of us decided to walk four blocks to the nearest store and buy fruit.

Unfortunately, the Eugene outdoors after dark did nothing to give us the space we had been craving while trapped inside the living room.

Shadows fell up and down the street, run-down pick-up trucks blocked cool yellow lights.

Yes, the nighttime is dark and oftentimes creates shadows. I apologize on the sun’s behalf. And yes, some people can’t afford to trade in their run-down pickups for modern yuppiemobiles. I apologize on their behalf, too.

As luck would have it, we left the house discussing the possibility of intruders; in a few moments, when a tall male neighbor walked out of his house, the silence between the three of us was cue enough that no one was comfortable with this walk.

Oh my God, what’s going to ha…

But no one said anything, so we walked on.

Phew.

After all, our neighbor probably wasnt a rapist or murderer; at any rate, he didnt try to attack us.

A bold concession. You’re really letting him off too easy here, Ailee.

Just the same, my friends and I hovered toward the middle of the street. We then chose sides to walk on, based on their darkness/bushes ratio. When we reached a busy street, our three sighs of relief were audible.

Until, still jumpy and now walking past a dark field, we heard a male voice shout from the road. Though his words were indiscernible, the hecklers meaning was clear: You cant be a girl and walk at night in shorts.

You didn’t hear what he said, but you know it had to do with wearing shorts? OK.

We ran the rest of the way to the store, hurrying in, shaking. It took me at least a minute to get myself together and pick out a peach.

We were desperate for a safe place. All night, we had been searching for safe space.

Here’s the thing, Ailee: I’m willing to bet that you were perfectly safe at every point during the night. Three college-age women walking together should be safe in all but the most dangerous neighborhoods. You were scared because you and your friends got stoned and started talking about politics. As a consequence of the deadly mixture of THC and an idiotic worldview, you and your friends became extremely paranoid.

There are very strong arguments to be made for better lighting on streets, self-defense training for both women and men, and the condemnation of assholes who shout mean things from cars. Will you address these in the rest of your article?

Home was not safe because we could be spied on by people who would send us to jail (even if this situation was not probable, it seemed way too close to possible).

While the Patriot Act has introduced some very dangerous anti-privacy measures, you would not have been sent to jail unless there was probable cause that you had committed a crime.

The community was not safe, or ample in space because the threat of violent attack kept the three of us women confined. We huddled together; we only walked on certain streets; we will certainly never take such a trip again, nor wear a certain type of clothing after dark.

You will never walk to the store with two of your friends after dark again?

The threat of male violence is still keeping women confined, and inevitably trapped at home, begging the question of how far our society has come.

The threat of violence from and towards all different people is an everlasting problem that will never be fully overcome but must be fought against. Specifically, male violence against women is a serious problem, but women are not "inevitably trapped at home" once the sun goes down in Eugene.

Besides the threat of violence, womens bodies are also privy to constant encroachment of the surrounding world. Television commercials and programs tell us what to eat and what not to eat. Dont you hate it when your mother bothers you about food? I hate it when my television set, every 30 seconds or so, reminds me about eating and the way that I will look as a result.

Here’s a solution: Don’t watch TV. It isn’t like ABC executives have forced their way into your home and chained you down in front of the television. You have the choice to not watch.

Women everywhere are tired of this capitalist, classist tirade which relies upon someone else looking at my body and my space and telling me what to do with it.

Damn you capitalism! Stop looking at me!

The right to abortion, of course, is of the same logic. Its not just a right to privacy, its a right to have the personal space to do what we women feel is right for ourselves. No government can ever know the situation with a fetus better than the woman carrying that fetus herself; she, and no one else, should have the ultimate decision on her body.

Or, the opposite argument would go, the fetus itself.

The Constitution shouldnt be framed to persecute the guilty, but rather to protect the innocent. It is often easier to find and punish the guilty than it is to find and save the innocent. Im not impressed by what the Patriot Act helps America do, because my friends and I know the statistics on how many women are victims of sexual assault, violent crime and domestic violence. According to current numbers, one of us three has or will experience some form of sexual abuse or assault within her lifetime.

The statistics on sexual abuse and assault are horrifying. More must certainly be done to stop these sorts of violent sexual crimes. But I fail to see what they have to do with the Patriot Act. Did the Patriot Act open the door for molesters and rapists to commit crimes? If anything, the statistics on sexual crimes are an argument for an expansion of government powers in monitoring potentially criminal activity.

Until those statistics change, the government cannot with good conscience eliminate Roe v. Wade; it is time for the misogyny to end. How dare the Supreme Court tell me (and accept as beneficial to the nation) that I am losing my space and my body to the man on the street, the man in my home, and the man in the judges chair.

The man on the street didn’t take your space or body, there wasn’t a man in your home, and I really doubt that Judge Roberts gives a shit that you got high and then decided to buy fruit with your friends. You’re just trying to spread fud.

This week’s Slater article, however, A look at the BRIGHT SIDE has a completely different worldview:

Sometimes, it really does seem like its the end of the world. Iran just announced its plan to ignore nations pleas and restart a nuclear program; 48 percent of the American public thinks that President Bush is an honest man; New York Governor George Pataki (who may seek a presidential nomination in 2008) vetoed a bill to dispense Emergency Contraception without a prescription; and if London can be hit by terrorists, anyone can be hit by terrorists.

Think of it less as the end of the world and more as politics as usual.

Luckily bad news is what regularly hits the headlines of morning papers, and readers are lucky because the world is hardly ever as bad as it seems. Most importantly, forgetting about the pain and sorrow in the world is probably the key element in coming into a future that is happier for all.

Alcohol is the answer. We finally agree on something, Ailee!

To begin with, although countries are steadily mounting weapons of mass destruction against one another, not everyone is resorting to violence in order to be heard. For two days, Cindy Sheehan has stood near the entrance to President Bushs ranch, and says that she will not leave until she can speak one-on-one with George W. Bush about the war in Iraq, where Sheehans son was killed. From a mother to the president of the United States, Sheehan just wants to sit down and have a conversation, explain her position to Bush and try to deduce his reasons for continuing combat in Iraq and persuade him to please reconsider.

Wow, Cindy’s sure showing those countries! Kim Jong-Il take note.

Mothers are the talkers; politicians are the fighters, and the world slowly goes to war with itself. Still, the resilience of women such as Cindy Sheehan certainly shines. By all accounts Sheehan would be justified in becoming deeply depressed and living an angry and bitter life. Instead, she is recovering from the death of her son by improving the future for everyone else in a manner that is peaceful and safe for all. Even if governments nationwide havent yet taken such mature steps, it is promising to remember that if everyday people can change the world for the better, we dont have anything to worry about. I can think of at least 10 people in my immediate life who could certainly run Earth (Im sure you can too), and I like the thought that they just might have the chance.

I can’t think of anyone who could run Earth, actually.

Also promising about the future is that many citizens are taking individual steps to make the world a better place. As reported by Newsweek, California has begun creating small communities that are so energy efficient, power bills are reduced the less than half.

what

Houses within these ZEH communities use solar panels to regulate temperature, and host low-energy appliances. Best of all, any excess solar power flows into a grid, which is then tapped into by everyone else in the neighborhood.

Good for them. Excellent. Now who made those solar panels? Corporations. I guess they’re good for something besides just criticizing your body.

Projects such as ZEH communities should be receiving major news headlines, captions that proclaim everything is going to be OK as long as we all just take simple steps to make it so.

These ZEH communities may be commendable, but I’m afraid they aren’t going to end terrorism and solve world hunger.

New York may be readying itself for a chemical weapons attack, but isnt it just as important that Shell gas stations are working with General Motors to provide hydrogen fuel pumps?

Why try to compare them?

I would venture to say that your personal world, like society in general, is a lot better off than you think. In fact, humans have this awesome, evolutionary ability to get over stuff. Your body and mind must be able to recover from fear, loss, disappointment and all sorts of physical harm. Resilience is key to adaptation and therefore successful evolution.

Wait, aren’t you to afraid to leave your home?

Expressing heartbreak is important, but forgetting about the past and looking toward a happier future seems the golden ticket to a better world.

Wait, aren’t golden tickets supposed to be used for baby fountains? I need to get me some of these multi-use golden tickets.

Just imagine an earth wherein all murder because of revenge suddenly ended, and countries eradicated all weapons for the sake of deterrence (so, really, all weapons). Without a strong focus on past violence, no one would want to take such dangerous steps as building nuclear bombs in order to stop the possibility of future violence. Like Cindy Sheehan, maybe we could all move on.

There is much that needs to be fixed about our planet and our society, but that change cannot come until we change ourselves. And what better place to start than optimism? After all, the world is not as bad as it seems.

Well, I can’t disagree with this. But why the sudden sea change, Ailee? One week the entire male population of Eugene is out to assault you and your two friends, and the next week you’re arguing for optimism.

Was the Emerald really worse in years past? I mean, at least Shakra’s articles were hilarious.

[links to the relevant articles weren’t included since the Ol’ Dirty’s site appears to not be working at the moment.]

[Timothy Adds: Links Added Above. ]

Why is the ODE running this nonsense? Have they run out of lunatic cartoonists? Why is someone named Jeff, from Virginia Tech, pleading with us to THINK OF THE CHILDREN on the commentary page?

Making website owners or ISPs legally liable for the audience they attract is a logistical nightmare, entirely dodged here in favor of some hand-wringing over “pornographers who prey on the children out there who make innocent mistakes in their typing of Web sites.” (Another great turn of phrase: it’s “a step backward in the fight to protect children and other unsuspecting innocents from unwanted invasion of moral decency.”) If we’re going to have to put up with the likes of Jeff, I think it should be via a reciprocal agreement in which Shakra gets sent on tour.

Thanks to the ubiquitous Bret for this one.

Usually I just read the Pulse section for the highly entertaining ramblings of Aaron-Im-not-a-journalist-Shakra, a genius in his own right, so forgive me for missing this doozy of an article.

It describes the Day of Solidarity for Eugene Political Prisoner Jeff Free Luers, which will take place at the Wow Hall on June 12th (Ticketmaster doesnt book this one, so youre on your own). Free, as you may remember, was the individual behind the fire-bombings of three SUVs at a Chevrolet dealership in Eugene.

The activists involved in the solidarity movement are quite upset over Frees imprisonment, going so far as to call it politically motivated. This seems to be a bit of a stretch to me; I mean, the guy did blow the shit out of several SUVs. Im no lawyer, but I do believe that demolishing somebody elses private property is a punishable offense, no matter how symbolic the action may seem to you personally.

Free received a 22-year sentence for his political statement. Im sensitive to non-violent offenders being punished excessively for their actions, which is why I usually disagree with mandatory sentencing as a rule. Thus, I understand the argument here. However, I feel little pity for Free, as he has aligned himself with the increasingly violent eco-defense movement. And unlike drug offenders, whose actions rarely disrupt the lives of everyday citizens (well, maybe the late-night pizza delivery guy), Free actually went out of his way to commit an implicitly violent act. I dont care how many precautions Free took to ensure that nobody was hurt, it was still a stupid act intended to strike fear in the hearts of the owners of the dealership, and it could have easily caused a person to get killed or injured.

Here is my favorite quote, attributed to Jesus Sepulveda, a Spanish GTF: It was a political statement and he didn’t intend to hurt anyone … It was a political statement against violence — violence is anything that harms living creatures. The only real terrorism here is state and corporate terrorism, which goes against people and the planet.

Indeed. Its not even worth it…

I should have caught this before, actually. As reported here, many OC favorites have picked up prestigious honors from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Assocation.

Steve Baggs bags second place for cartooning, Peter Hockaday first place for best writing, and – drumroll, please – Aaron Shakra’s Pulse section first place for best section.

Congratulations, all. However – and there’s no polite way of saying this – now I really want to see this state’s best student cartoonist. Also, how badly do the other sections of other papers suck?

Five minutes browsing the Portland State Vanguard (winner in the “Overall Excellence” category) didn’t turn up anything particularly noteworthy, except for this line:

And the art! Oh, the art. If spring is a time for love, then the art is a reflection of that: the shows this month are aglow with trembling excitement of the new season. And as I find myself, wandering through the flowering trees, with the glimmer of spring dew in my eyes, I realized people still say the stupidest goddamn things.

Heh. Nice one.

Thursday has traditionally been Shakra Day, but this week we have a Pulse section totally devoid of its editor’s stylings. I am heartbroken, but confident that wherever he is, he’s cookin’ up something special. Meanwhile, we are left to marvel at other things. I know it’s childish to point out that there’s a Swiss hair metal band with the same name as our favorite columnist, but seriously, how perfect is this?

In marginally more serious news, there’s this (found linked on Wonkette). Money quote goes to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), on the subject of Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI):

Now when I hear someone talking about a Rhode Island politician whose father was a senator and who got to Washington on his family name, used cocaine, and wasn’t very smart, I know there is only a 50-50 chance it’s me.

The greatest revelation, however, is that Dick Armey released a CD entitled Dick Armey’s Favorite Hits. I must find this. I must find it at all costs. Please, please let him have covered Blitzkrieg Bop. Or, you know, something by Shakra.

New Issue! New Issue! New Issue!

The new issue of the Oregon Commentator is up, and it looks amazing. Special thanks are due to Sho Ikeda for the cover design, “Pete’s friend Dave” for the cover art, Marla Traweek for the cover story and the rest of the OC staff for their work on this excalibur issue. Ohhhh…. least I forget, thanks as well to Aaron Shakra for his infinite supply of spew.

To Rennie’s!

OC January Stats:

Hits: 39390

Unique Visits: 2902

Average Unique Visits Per Day: 93

Olly’s Aaron Shakra posts: Priceless