The official announcement went out today that Joe Malchow of Dartblog took first place in the America’s Future Foundation College Blogger Contest 2008 and will receive the $10,000 prize. The Oregon Commentator blog was runner-up, which would be somewhat anticlimactic except that one of the judges has decided to give us a $1,000 second place prize out of his pocket. Third place went to Surveillance State.

David Kirby of the AFF told me it was a close race and that we received a few first place votes. Going into the competition, we understood Malchov and company were heavy favorites; the fact we gave those Ivy League guys a run for their money calls for a big West Coast cheers.

“I’m so pleased that AFF has had the opportunity to shine a light on so many of the talented writers and journalists who are up-and-comers in the fight for liberty,” Kirby said. “We’re looking forward to building on this year’s success to turn the AFF College Blogger Contest into a consistent leader in encouraging freedom-minded writers to speak up on campuses across the country.”

Thank you AFF for hosting this competition and to all the judges, and a special thanks to the fine gentleman who created the now award-winning OC blog, Mr. Bret Jacobson, Mr. Oliver Ruff, Mr. Pete Hunt, Mr. Sho Ikeda and Mr. William Beutler, and to everyone else who has contributed to the Oregon Commentator for the past twenty four and a half years.

The Commentator is a tradition like no other and it’s a pleasure to continue advocating for conservatism, free thought and individual liberty at the University of Oregon.

Gustavo Arellano, author of the nationally syndicated and controversial iAsk a Mexican! column, announced in this week’s edition that he’s calling it quits. From the column:

It’s no longer necessary to explain Mexicans to Americans because Mexicans are Americans. Gracias for all the fights, the propositions of sexy time explosion and the slugged-back tequila shots after book signings, but there’s a little ranchito in Zacatecas waiting for me and a barefoot muchacha ready to cook dinner. Vaya con Dios, America, and always remember: Order the enchilada-and-taco combo TO GO. 

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the column, but I did thoroughly enjoy how much it pissed off Eugene’s progressive crybabies (or, as Arellano would call them, “PC pendejos“). Adios, Mexican. It’s been a fun ride.

Now that the ecstasy of Barack Obama’s visit to our humble city is beginning to wear off (though one keeps expecting his most ardent disciples to show up on the doorstep one weekend morning wearing “Hope” t-shirts and asking if one has “heard the good news”…), the Democratic primary is once again looking like a political campaign rather than a messianic ascension into the hallowed Oval Office.

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Ah, the Internet - a wonderful creation that allows unsound information to be spread to millions of gullible users. “Zeitgeist: The Movie” is the latest piece of flashy drivel to capture the imaginations of stupid people everywhere. Available to watch for free, the film is making its way across the Internet faster than you can say “nonsense on stilts.” In fact, today is apparently “Zeitgeist Day”; the movie is being screened all around the world, including on campus. Here’s part of the Zeitgeist Day manifesto, as lifted from the website:

The greatest fraud of our time is the social conditioning that leads us as individuals to operate out of our own personal self-interest and nothing more. Material, poverty, war, genocide, manipulation, crime and corruption are the results. The removal of the grand illusion known as “separation” is the true ‘activism,’ as everything else is a mere result of the consequential ‘elitism’ inherent in the need for self-perpetuation. [Blah, blah blah. Corporatism, religion.] The revolution is now.

The film is a hodgepodge of various conspiracy theories divided into three parts - Christianity, 9/11 and the international banking system. These parts that are ostensibly connected in an “everything’s connected” kind of way, but since I couldn’t make heads or tails of the “big message,” I’ll address each part separately. (more…)

With the perhaps not-so-stunning revelation that Barack Obama’s friend, pastor, and mentor, Jeremiah Wright (the title of “The Audacity of Hope” comes directly from Wright) has, among other things, suggested that the United States is responsible for AIDS, blamed the U.S. for bringing 9/11 upon itself, and suggesting that African-Americans (emphasis on the “African,” evidently) sing “God Damn America”, Barack Obama is once again in the same boat as he found himself when his wife made her “misunderstood” remarks about only just now being able to be proud of America. That is to say, the man who was supposed to be above it all, the man who was supposed to be beyond race, the man who was supposed to represent “change” is being dragged down into the slime of identity politics.

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On Friday, the Pacifica Forum met to continue it’s discussion, “Pacifica Forum: Attacks on and in.” The meeting addressed media coverage of the forum, as well its recent controversial lecture on Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, the forum never got around to answering my question as to why it had allowed itself to be overrun by complete assholes, but there was plenty of other fodder for discussion.

After an introduction by PF founder Orval Etter, Michael Williams, a member of the Community Alliance of Lane County’s Anti-Hate Task Force, addressed the forum with the following written statement:

One reason for the persistent criticism of the Pacifica Forum is that the forum has provided an approving and affirming environment for the expression of bigotry and hatred aimed first at Jews and now at African-Americans.

[…]

These diseased expressions of bigotry and hatred find a safe harbor in Pacifica Forum. Instead of correction and healing, this sickness is given encouragement and support; hatred is legitimized. This is what the community sees when it looks this way, this is what journalists hear when they accept the invitation to come and listen. This is why Pacifica Forum has developed such an unsavory reputation.

I invite you to consider whether racism and anti-Semitism are qualities you want to encourage, are attributes you want associated with your forum and your name. Because this is not the doing of a plotting media - you are doing this to yourselves by your silence, by your approval, by your applause.

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I must say, I really must say, that I am sick and tired of election season already. No, I am not talking about the ASUO Elections. Those have just started and I am giddy in anticipation for the first grievance to be filed. I am sick and tired of the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nominee. It dawned on me today that maybe the Democratic Party is not torn between two transformational leaders, but that it simply is not satisfied with what it is left with. This is not to say that Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton are not transformational leaders, or that the DP doesn’t like them.

Maybe the initial media hype of “the first woman president” and “the first African-American president” that kept both candidates high in the polls (this speaks more to Obama polling higher than Edwards) is beginning to wear off. With almost identical policies, characteristics (combative, strong, dedicated, organized), and messages (Clinton’s initial campaign slogan was “If you are ready for change-she is ready to lead”),  the only things differentiating these two are their skin-color, gender and that Obama got a better graphic designer. Hopefully not a single one of these differences will be the one that decides who gets the nomination, but then what will?

Wait…I don’t care so shut up about it already! 

The Eugene Weekly ran an article today on the Pacifica Forum, covering much of what I wrote about yesterday. However, here’s a nice tidbit I hadn’t heard yet:

[Michael] Williams, who has been monitoring Pacifica Forum meetings since 2003 on behalf of the Community Alliance of Lane County’s (CALC) Anti-Hate Task Force, distributed a leaflet including a comment Pacifica Forum regular Valdas Anelauskas made on the Oregon Daily Emerald website and his critique thereof. Anelauskas’ comment, in response to columnist Deborah Bloom expressing support for the Iraq War, argued that the war was only being fought for the security of Israel and included statements such as, “Even if the author’s name wasn’t Deborah Bloom, after reading your opinion piece in the Emerald (Feb. 7) there is no doubt that it was written by someone who is Jewish. Because only from people of that peculiar tribe can we expect such Talmudic hatred for humanity. There is even a famous saying that wars are the Jews’ harvest. And today it is truer than ever.”

Eva Sylwester, who wrote the article, has her ongoing coverage of the forum archived here.

This Friday, 4 p.m. in the Walnut Room of the EMU, the Pacifica Forum will be meeting to address recent OC coverage of the group.

According to several emails I received, Editor-in-Chief of the Eugene Weekly Ted Taylor sent Orval Etter, the founder and organizer of the Pacifica Forum, an email on Feb. 18 asking him to confirm several details from my story. On Feb. 27, Etter announced that the forum topic of that week was being changed to “Pacifica Forum: Attacks on and in.” (The Pacifica Forum’s immediate reaction when questioned or criticized for its often deplorable content is to claim it’s being attacked).

That Friday, Feb. 29, Jimmy Marr, the delightful fellow who previously called Martin Luther King, Jr. a “moral leper and communist dupe,” read the email from Taylor aloud to the forum. In it, Taylor asked Etter to comment on my question as to why the forum had allowed itself to, as I wrote, “be overrun by complete assholes.” Etter reportedly said this would addressed at the next meeting (March 7).

I will be there, of course, recorder in hand, dutifully capturing all the wackiness. To catch up on the Pacifica Forum, start here. Also, contributing writer to the Eugene Weekly Eva Sylwester has her coverage of the forum archived.

Is anyone really surprised that a white woman living in Eugene, OR has been caught peddling fake memoirs of growing up as a half-Native American orphan, running drugs for the Crips in a Southern California ghetto?

The kind of “street cred” that comes along with a story like that is the wet dream of countless bored, white, middle-class “progressive” types who seem to associate people trapped by poverty, violence, and misery with some sort of authenticity. Remember Ward Churchill’s various chicaneries regarding his military service and supposed Native American heritage? Even more extreme examples include the perverse glorification of the Palestinian “resistance” and breathless assurances that life in Castro’s Cuba is lovely, thanks to 100% literacy and free health care — excuses in both cases proffered by comfy activists much like Margaret Seltzer, who justified her lies by claiming she was “[putting] a voice to people who people don’t listen to.”

If anyone doubts the “authenticity” aspect of all of this, the New York Times excerpts a few bits from her book:

There are “some parts of me that did die in L.A.,” she adds, “and that I’ll never get back, and other parts of me that die daily because I exist away from the city, in a world where people can’t begin to imagine what it was like where I grew up… I made it out of L.A. with what life I had left. ”

Like Ward Churchill’s various pronouncements on the tragedy of Native American history and by-the-numbers declarations of genocide in Gaza by Hamas PR men, Seltzer’s narrative is intended to instill both a sense of shock and reverent awe among the Prius-and-latte set as well as a sense that the world has gone horribly wrong and justice must be restored.

But while her former editor called Ms. Seltzer “very, very naive,” the truth is that Margaret Seltzer was just another comfy charlatan activist who made it her business to profit from the misery of others, supposedly in the service of a “larger truth”.

In case you missed it, the Peer Health Educators at the University Health Center ran a “Safer Sex Menu” in today’s Oregon Daily Emerald. The ad described its safer sex menu as “tasty” and “sure to have something for everyone to enjoy.” It was divided into three categories: Appetizers, Entrees and Desserts. Here’s some of the good, clean fun that the UO wishes upon its students:

• Playing strip poker, strip backgammon
• Petting with no clothes on
• Licking whipped cream off your partner’s body (except for unprotected body openings)
• Making sexy videotapes or playing with a camera
• Talking to each other about safer sex

Wow, the UO is so hip and “with it.” I mean, I really felt like it understood my generation after it advised me to slather my partner in whipped cream. And nothing says kinky like whipping out the ol’ backgammon board. Yeah, baby, I just rolled double sixes. Take it all off!

Today’s cover story in the Eugene Weekly is about the UO Veterans and Family Student Association and their new play Telling. Friend and contributor to the OC Sean Jin is quoted and even has a nice mugshot. (But why so pouty looking, Sean?)

The play consists of veterans telling their stories on stage - life, bootcamp, combat, coming home, etc. Performances run 8 pm Friday, Feb. 8, and Saturday, Feb. 9, and 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 10, at the Veterans’ Memorial Hall, 1626 Willamette. The VFSA is doing a lot of great stuff for veterans on campus, so go check it out.

Apparently, the folks over at the Oregon Voice are all flustered about our making fun of them in the latest issue. (Apparently, the Oregon Voice also has a blog). Here’s Editor-in-Chief of the OV, Tuula Rebhahn:

I’ve always done fairly well with the philosophy of, “Ignore it; it’ll go away.” […] It works for unwanted attentions on the Indigo District dance floor. It works for the mysterious bruises that appear on my knees after said fun-filled nights at Indigo. But it’s not working for the Oregon Commentator, the illustrious campus “Conservative Journal of Opinion” […] [N]ow, we’ve got a whole page and a half in the new OC issue dedicated us, so here I am.

First, the Indigo District? Lame. Second, they just realized this? C’mon, we’ve been making fun of the OV for, like, fifteen years. Third, we make fun of the Daily Emerald on an almost daily basis; in fact, we make fun of everyone, including ourselves. No need to get butthurt, guys. (more…)

President George W. Bush’s final State of the Union address last night was awesome! He even quoted Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA.” How cool is that? Well, he said “made in the USA,” but we all know “W” was rocking out in his head while he spoke.

Highlights at a glance: shedding 151 bloated government programs totaling $18 billion (harrumph); trust people with their own money (harrumph, harrumph); Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq and this enemy will be defeated (harrumph, harrumph, harrumph); and a well-deserved ovation for Bob Dole. Of course, the nit-picky democrats just had to respond indifferently. (more…)

As I previously reported, the Pacifica Forum held a discussion on Friday titled “Martin Luther King: Communist?” Given the forum’s recent move towards white nationalist conspiracy-mongering, I predicted it would be a smear of the esteemed civil rights leader. Sadly, I was right. Jimmy Marr, a Pacifica Forum regular, opened his lecture, “Martin Luther King: The Man Behind the Media Mask”, thusly:

Look at your calendar. The founder of this country, George Washington does not have a federal holiday in his honor. Thomas Jefferson doesn’t. Abraham Lincoln doesn’t. Neil Armstrong […] doesn’t. What did King accomplish to merit or deserve to be honored above George Washington? Yet every year in January Americans endure the same propaganda blitz when the media go into a kind of almost spastic frenzy of adulation for this so-called Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King.

[…]

But the truth is that he was everything but that and certainly no hero that any American should look up to. To start with, even his name is a fraud.

And he’s just getting started, folks! (more…)