Check this out, Jethro: there was in fact a concerted negative response to the Insurgent’s Jesus-imagery issue. Perhaps you missed it because you played a central role in it, I don’t know. The Commentator ridiculed the Insurgent. The Emerald wagged its finger at the Insurgent. The Administrators in Johnson Hall revoked the Insurgent’s bulk mail funding. President Frohnmayer condemned the Insurgent’s actions in a letter to the Emerald. A lot of people, in fact, wrote letters to the Emerald. A lot of different perspectives were voiced regarding student journalism and the history and current role of Christianity. To me, it seemed an awful lot like an open, informative discussion. Bill O’Reilly even got in on the act– I don’t know how you missed that part, as you were there on his show, sporting your crucifixion couture bling.

To what do you make reference when you ask for a response equal to that “when a paper over steps it’s (sic) bounds, and attacks minority groups or sexual identities”? I’m guessing you’re making reference to a little scuffle the Commentator got into in a previous school year. Since you seem to have not been paying attention, I’ll tell you what the campus community learned from that affair: a) the Commentator did not actually attack minority groups or sexual identites, and those who are incapable of grasping the true meaning of our words can either keep their confusion to themselves or lose whatever fight they pick with us, and b) regardless of our content or the content of any other publication on campus, no one is an any position to control it. Ultimately, the Commentator was neither censured nor censored. Sure, some people put up some charming little flyers about how evil they perceive us to be. Is it a stretch to surmise that the people making the flyers were the same people that were so pissed at us they wanted us defunded? Here’s a suggestion, Jethro: if you don’t think this campus’ reaction to the Insurgent has been sufficient, go ahead and print up some flyers about how evil you perceive them to be. You or somebody else in your big ol’ affinity group. You’re the ones in the position to do it, because you’re the ones who feel strongly about it. Better yet, start your own ASUO-funded paper. See if it makes you feel any better.

You are correct when you state that if the Emerald made demonstrably untrue claims about an ASUO official, there would be a retraction forthcoming. Do you really not know why that is? No one forces them to take an interest in credibility. They’re interested in being the paper of record so that people will think of them as a paper of record, so that they will have lots of readers, and therefore revenue from advertisers, and so that their employees will seem like good hires at other publications after they graduate. The Insurgent isn’t interested in all those same things, and that’s why they don’t have the same interest in credibility.

But seriously, man, what are the viscious lies they supposedly printed? Mostly they printed opinions– silly, unimportant opinions. As to their claims of fact, most people agree that the Inquisition and such horrors did actually occur at remote points in history. There isn’t much to gain in wondering why the writers at the Insurgent thought the reiteration of such facts would be significant, other than the simple observation that on the whole, the Insurgent bunch is not terribly bright. Everyone knows about the Inquistion, and nobody in their right mind holds Catholics in contempt for it. It was a long time ago. But if you want to claim it never happened, I guess we can lump you together with the Holocaust deniers and other revisionists.

So, um, yeah … is this a suicide note, or what?

Remember, kids, we have always been at war with Eurasia.

Why is the U of O paying for the inturdgent? For free speech.
What does your group want? To have the University coerce an apology, thereby abridging free speech.
Would you like the government to have a massive fact checking department so all published materials must be approved prior to printing?

You know who holds others responsible when offensive material is published? The UO community. It just happens that the majority are not offended by it so the backlash against the inturdgent wasn’t as strong as you’d like probably.

Especially when the media makes us out to be the enemies of free speech, and I am personally offended that the writer of this article felt like he needed to teach me about what is and is not allowed to be printed.

Ablaut confuses a great many people.

But doing it simply in response to this incident reminds me of those “one person ruins it for the whole class” schemes that middle school autocrats loved to employ. You know, the ones where you couldn’t go to the bathroom because some idiot decided to toke up during 5th period? It was just absurd logic.

In the mean time, I’ll ponder the idea of abolishing the student fee on principle.