The Siren steals our rack, talks some shit, sucks some ass
Long-winded invective after the jump.
When I walked into the EMU last Friday at 10am, I couldn’t help but notice that our rack by the elevator was not full of our beautiful new winter issues, but was stocked with some drab, grey little publication with an unflattering name: The Siren. Needless to say, I took the time to hoof down to the Womens Center to ask them nicely to keep their publication away from OUR boxes which WE payed for, only to have some jaded desk jockey tell me that “we only distribute in front of our office.” Look ladies, I get it: we’re the Commentator, we’re the enemy, blahblahblah… just don’t ask me to believe that your rag magically flew across the EMU and built a little nurturing, nonjudgemental nest in our distribution rack.
So, I read the damn thing, and it turns out that the Siren is a lot less nonjudgemental than I had assumed. In fact, the “Editor’s Letter” devotes almost an entire endless sentence to totaly mischaracterizing the Commentator. Here it is in it’s “one giant (sic)” glory.
“If the editors of the Oregon Commentator “bring you the shadow (shallow?) side of free speech” and have seen fit to publish articles such as, ‘Why I Hate Fatties’ and have provoked anger for their hateful portrayal of transgender folks, and if the the Insurgent has seen fit to print provaocative images of Jesus as a means to challenge dominant culture, I think it is high time that the Siren institute a feature that allows for the robust expression of opinions.”
Forgetting for a moment the fact that this sentence literally constitutes the majority of the paragraph in which it appears, and that it makes almost no sense of any kind, there are a few specific beefs that need to be aired here. First, this is the fall issue which is appearing in February, and quotes from issues of the Commentator from last Spring and Summer terms. In other words, your inability to put out issues in a timely fashion is your problem, but don’t make it seem like we haven’t had anything to say since August. Second, we understand the technique of using out-of-context quotes to make someone look bad (we call it Spew), but there’s a limit to its usefulness, and your “shadow (shallow?)” quote is way over the line. The quote in question is from my Summer editorial… here it is in full context.
“But Free Speech is not just about cherry-picking, or hearing exactly what you want… We bring you the shadow (shallow?) side of free speech in Best Of The Blog, excerpts from oregoncommentator.com. We’ve got irate evangelists, ASUO character assassins, and degenerate alcoholics; in short, all the worst abusers of First Ammendment rights. But we tolerate them, and even enjoy them. We savor their logical missteps and incoherent rants in knowledge of the fact that their every word gives us that much more credibility. The idiots who abuse our last ounce of tolerance define the difference between the excercise of free speech for it’s own sake, and something more: speaking in hope that someone might listen and respond.”
These words now ring with bitter irony, considering that the Siren would rather not “listen and respond,” but would prefer to “take a sentence fragment and convince their readership that it encapsulates our editorial position.” Besides, it would have been a lot more timely if the Siren editors had misquoted my Kool-Aid Issue editorial… the out-of-context fragments “we fail in ensuring our own good governance,” or “we tell a generation of future leaders that the only constituent worth listening to is their own ego” would have been funnier, more timely, and even more accurate than the chestnut the Siren ran with. But hey, they were too busy making magazine magic… let’s take a look, shall we?
The rest of the editor’s letter is a mealy-mouthed call for the Womens Center to become more overtly political. Editor Haji Quinn thinks that the Women’s Center’s commitment to political neutrality “is affected by stereotypes that figurewomen as timid creatures– soft-spoken in conversation, unfit for the political sphere, submissive to authority,” a position which exhibits the symptoms of self-consuming radicalism. Don’t worry Haji, if anyone is aware of the plethora of stereotypes that women face, wouldn’t it be the Women’s Center? Besides, aren’t their more than enough outlets on this campus for the generically leftist causes that you happen to think that your entire gender must want to support? Speaking ofwhich, the quote of the issue, and the best argument for cutting at least one budget line item is from the report on the “Creating Change Conference.”In describing a (student funded) trip to a conference where “the rainbows outnumbered the smiles,” the authors shared with their readers the real reason that the trip was worth their hard-earned incidental fees: “So be it coffee with the girl from Towson we affectionately called Veggie, smoking cigars on the balcony of a hotel with Cosi from Syracuse and Meg, from Central Michigan, or dancing with Dana, a Spokanite, every minute spent that weekend was infused with a greater purpose.” I can see the MasterCard ad now… “Coffee $3, Cigar $10, Hotel Room $80, putting it all on the Incidental Fee tab, priceless. ” Throw in some crappy poetry, a “radical cheer,” and some more self-reighteous “tips for cruelty free shopping” from the endlessly preachy Carrie Packwood Freeman, and you’ve got an issue of the Siren. Look for it wherever you usually find the Commentator.
