While I’m here, why not take a relaxing stroll down memory lane: all the way back to 2005, when the issue of controversial speech on campus was also in the news. Back then, of course, the issue was whether the Commentator was allowed to mock a student senator who I can’t be bothered to name here for demanding that the ODE refer to him as “ze” instead of “he” in their stories. The Insurgent allied themselves firmly with a branch of student government that did its very best to have the Commentator shut down, and provided us with many instructive quotes along the way:

As a student who pays incidental fees, I refuse to allow my fees to promote hate…

That’s Insurgent fellow-traveller Stacy Bourke, expressing her views on the range of opinions the incidental fee should subsidize on campus.

I don’t think students should pay for hateful messages. That’s poor use of student money.

That’s disgraced fomer PFC member Mason Quiroz, in an article that points out that he “is not judging the [campus publication]’s content, but rather how that content might affect students.”

My favorite, though, is:

[Someone who might as well have been Zachary White] is by far not the only person who feels threatened by the [campus publication]’s material, just the first person with the skills and courage to start dealing with it. people have been complaining for years about the way the [campus publication] reinforces oppression, it’s just that there hasn’t been a coherent attempt to deal with it before now. honestly, i’m not sure why people are complaining that it’s happening now rather than asking why nothing was done before.

That little gem is the work of Insurgent collective member Pira “Anti-Capitalism? I Thought You Said Anti-Capitalization!” Kelly, who strove so valiantly last year to have the Commentator kicked off campus.

One wonders how the Insurgent collective - and especially Ms. Kelly - likes these particular apples.

This is a little outdated, and many of you who are “in the know”, so to speak, have probably already read it. Nonetheless, this is the cover story for the March third issue of the Weekly Standard, written by Oregon Commentator alum Mark Hemingway. It’s already gotten some play in the blogosphere from the likes of Hit and Run and the Volokh Conspiracy, and in my opinion it’s easily the funniest and most interesting article about that unlovable lobbying loser. I mean, it’s all about the making of Abramoff’s Dolph Lundgren film vehicle Red Scorpion. Awesome

Click to enlarge.

As far as I can tell, this children’s book about two hippie (read: unfit) parents who teach their young child about marijuana is not an elaborate hoax. It’s still quite funny.

(Via Screenhead)

Rule-breaking, of course:

The Portland Trail Blazers fined guard Sebastian Telfair on Wednesday after a loaded gun was found on the team’s private jet at Boston’s Logan Airport.

The handgun was found in a pillowcase belonging to Telfair as the team plane was being prepared for a flight from Boston to Toronto, the team said in a statement.

Telfair explained to local authorities that the gun belonged to his girlfriend and that he had inadvertently grabbed the wrong bag when leaving for the team’s road trip.

Why keep the clip in the gun while transporting it?

You are all much better people than I, if for no other reason than your unwillingness to rip into every single one of these.

The previous pop culture models of masculinity, such as James Dean, Sylvester Stallone and Rob Zombie…

Hee! C’mon, that’s funny. Don’t you feel like you just got some psychological insight into the columnist right there?

Oh, you’re right. I should stop. Besides, the rest is this colorless, flavorless morass of

For men to appreciate the benefits of a modern, increasingly feminized world, they must first be comfortable knowing that to be a man is not necessarily to be masculine. Then again, sometimes it is.

To the extent that this means anything, I might agree with it. Then again, I might not.

M. Reza Behnam seems to have been writing this op-ed for the ODE while wearing a stylish tinfoil hat. The issue at hand is the absence of a major in Islamic Studies at the UO. Well, that’s not quite the issue - it’s more the presence of a different major…

What forces led to the inclusion of Judaic studies while excluding Islamic studies? … Are [non-Muslim social science professors] at all responsible for the inclusion of Judaic studies and exclusion of degree programs in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies?

Notice that the very presence of a Judaic Studies major - established via a private endowment, with a whopping two faculty members, and offering (along with a sequence in basic Hebrew) three lecture courses that look to be of quite general interest - constitutes de facto “exclusion” of Islamic Studies.

And the bigoted University establishment won’t stop at this act of exclusion, of course:

Is the plan to hire a specialist on medieval Islam and occasional conferences and special programs on the Middle East a prophylactic exercise to disguise the racism and favoritism of faculty members?

Will the exclusion never end? They’re even hiring a specialist on medieval Islam, the devious bastards.

I’m quite sympathetic to the idea that the UO should offer a major in Islamic Studies under the general social science umbrella, and I’m sure that, if there’s sufficient interest from the student body, this’ll come to pass. What’s more, hiring experts in medieval Islam - besides helping disguise the fact that all the professors who study other things are obviously terrible racists - will help foster this interest. You’d think that people who actually want this to happen would be all for expanding course offerings for students in the social sciences or religious studies - after all, the more pluralistic these faculties are, the more chance they have of attracting undergraduates. It is, however, possible that there is another policy goal here:

Until then, in the interest of balance and fairness, Judaic studies should suspend operations.

Ah. I should have guessed, really.

UPDATE: The ODE feedback forum presents an exciting pop quiz:

“Do you not see the parallel between the black civil rights movement of the 60’s and the rights of the muslim community now?”

No!

“So do you blame the Catholic diocese for its wayward child molesters?”

Yes!

And so on.

I feel bad for not providing more context in the last post: after all, this is no laughing matter. That thirty-five (or three-and-a-half - hey, who’s counting?) billion dollars is, in fact

the amount of money slated to be spent between now and 2011 on reorganizing all Army forces as well as increasing active Army combat brigades by 30 percent.

There. Context! Alas, this is immediately construed as

In five years, the U.S. Army will occupy 30 percent more of the world — good news for weapons industries and global outsourcing opportunities.

No. That’s not what the last sentence you wrote means.

Oh, alright. If nobody else is going to point this out, I can’t resist. Here we have the peerless Ailee Slater thinking out loud about the federal budget.

The number 35 billion is so large it takes a minute to comprehend what it really means. There are 1,000 millions in a billion.

Yes. Yes, there are.

That is akin to 1,000 $1 million stacks of money. And $1 million is a sizable stack of money.

Very true.

Needless to say, 3,500 stacks of $1 million is an even more sizable amount.

Once again I am in complete agreement. It’s especially needless since this number - the one that we’re taking a minute to comprehend - would amount to 35,000 of these stacks, not 3,500 - but whichever way you look at it, “needless” is the word.

Anyway, after a bit more fun with numbers, we eventually learn:

Just like the years before it, 2006 will be gone in the blink of an eye. Perhaps only then can the nation evaluate whether this year’s federal funds have been wisely spent.

Now, I wasn’t a journalism major, but this may not be the best way, in January 2006, of ending a column that evaluates whether or not this year’s federal funds are being wisely spent. I’m just sayin’.

ESPN.com “investigative reporter” Mike Fish has a hyperbolic front page story on the Oregon athletic department’s relationship with Nike founder Phil Knight. ESPN, home of Playmakers, the World Series of Poker and ESPN Hollywood, promotes the story on its front page in the following manner:

Can someone please explain this photo and caption to me?
As for the story itself, you already know what to expect. Fish devotes only one paragraph to Knight’s sizable non-athletic contributions and portrays him as a selfish, childish puppet-master. Maybe Fish can get a job at the Eugene Weekly when ESPN abandons real sports entirely.

My biggest double-take of the year: the other night I was perched at a table in a labyrinthine downtown bar, when I spotted an eerily familiar face at the 5 for the Sydney Kings. My subsequent spraying of beer across the table and frantic attempts to explain how awesome this was were greeted with, at best, bemusement.

Needless to say, now I have to get tickets. Doesn’t everybody love a happy ending? (His height is listed at 210cm on the team page. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.)

OK, fair’s fair. Having laid into Ms. Brock a few posts below, I should say that this response, by grad student Tami Hill, is annoying for different reasons, a few of which I’ll address here.

In regards to history, it is an acknowledged fact that the U.S. illegally took a large part of Mexicos territory in The Treaty of Guadalupe. The U.S. government is not above acting illegally.

This sort of rhetoric is a pet hate of mine: it’s about on a level with shouting “Yeah? Well, this whole court’s out of order!” during your arraignment for public drunkenness. Even if the above statement is true in every particular, so what? The US, along with every other damn country in the world, was founded on a vigorous program of armed conquest, land seizure and other very bad things. The existence of laws - even, sometimes, laws that Tami Hill disagrees with - is not some unjust reward for historical pillage: it’s the way we try to mediate the pillaging of the future. (We may complain a lot about eminent domain abuse, but at least people aren’t being executed over it.)

Second, if you know anything about U.S. immigration policy, you know that we have changed our policies over the years for our own convenience, depending on labor needs…

The most damning indictment of all, that one.

Third, part of the reason Mexicos lack of infrastructure exists is not its own problem, but rather a result of how the U.S. has exploited this less powerful country over time.

And this is a symptom of the weird kind of egocentric guilt complex exhibited by many Americans on the subject of the lands beyond their borders. Poor countries are poor because America made them poor, and recover economically through American (or UN) munificence. If this is actually Hill’s contention, she should be supporting a closed border for the good of Mexico, one would think - but apparently not. While I’m at it, the scare-quoting in this column is absolutely epic: “journalism”, “illegal”, “criminal”, and, bizarrely, “Mexican”.

Building a big fence along the (”Mexican”) border is no kind of solution at all. Dealing with Castro to keep Cuban refugees out of the US is despicable. Having a group hug and giving visas to everybody isn’t a solution either. Why not? Because, as Glenn Garvin points out in that essay I linked to earlier, these (for example) backbreaking, insecure agricultural jobs simply would not exist if the pay was set to what most of us consider a living wage. Before that point is reached, it becomes cheaper to mechanize production or to just import the stuff from a different country, where it is being grown and harvested by people working in similarly awful conditions. I’m not sure that anything can be done to fix this - farm work has always been thoroughly nasty, and that’s why industrialization is generally regarded as positive progress. Still, the jobs are there, for now. And where there is opportunity, people will come. That’s America. I think part of the reason for the defense illegal farm workers get from people like me is that their stories - entrepreneurial vigor, determination, hard work at a thankless job bucking a remorseless bureaucracy - are pretty much classic American immigrant narratives. It might also have something to do with the fact that I’m reading this right now, which makes a similar point about a different country.

(So, before I do finally give this one a rest, I might as well take the opportunity to preemptively instruct all further ODE columnists tackling this subject to bite me, also. Oh, and I say this as a time-serving graduate student myself: informing your audience in the very first clause that you’ve been one for ten years will not necessarily get you a better reception.)

Just when I think I’m out, ODE columnists keep pulling me back in. What subject is almost guaranteed to trigger an angry blog post from your humble correspondent? That’s right, immigrant-bashing. Kirsten Brock’s focus, as I’m sure she would point out, is illegal immigration, but count me as one non-citizen who isn’t terribly reassured by what she does here: take a crucial national security problem and treat it as if it applied only to one particularly vulnerable segment of the population.

And then there is this spectacular money quote:

While increasing security is a step, we must remove the incentives for crossing the border.

This is, to say the least, a novel approach to the issue: removing the incentives for crossing the border. Yes, if only the US economy (not to mention US salaries) were on a par with Mexico’s, if only people didn’t want to come to the US to build a better life for themselves and their families - in short, if only the United States could somehow be made to suck more, we wouldn’t be drowning in all these goddamned foreigners.

Brock deploys every related fallacy in the book - immigration as antisocial behavior, immigrants as drain on public resources rather than as the engine driving a substantial part of the economy, etc - with enough space left over to call ‘em all terrorists. After all, she points out, they’ve already broken one law, simply by being here! Why, these fiends will stop at nothing! The moral distinction drawn here between good-guy legal immigrants and nefarious illegals is, to put it politely, nonsense: to pick one obvious example, Mohammed Atta actually received the student visa he’d applied for, six months after September 11. This points to a massive systemic problem, to be sure, but it’s one that can be conveniently disregarded the moment an easier populist target comes along, such as the work visa scheme Brock is busy decrying.

Bite me, Kirsten Brock. And when you’re done biting me, read this.

While I’m at it, this editorial is hilarious:

Writing about alcohol-fueled endeavors on your blog or posting a photo of yourself peeing on public buildings on Facebook may seem like a private act…

Yes, it might, if you are very, very stupid.

Unfortunately, the question is not whether students deserve a right to privacy in their online communications…

Unfortunately? It’s a non-issue. You have a (limited) right to privacy in your online communications. You may, however, choose to waive this right by posting material in a public forum. I feel stupid even having to point this out, but your Facebook profile is not a private online communication. The lack of privacy is kind of the point. Otherwise, people wouldn’t be able to read it. And I’m not just using lots of italics to emphasize this fact, I am also pounding my fist on the table, although that might not be audible from this far away.

Coming soon from the ODE editorial board: fire is hot and will burn you if you stick your hand in it - unfortunately, the question is not whether students are flammable.

I’m taking a less active role chez OC these days, but sometimes it’s just irresistible:

Thanksgiving weekend, Wal-Mart gleefully became one of the only big box retailers to surpass expected holiday sales.

Apparently, the recent documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price didnt achieve its intended outcome…

UPDATE:

And who picks up the tab on workers who, by general standards, should be insured by their employer? Local taxpayers who give money to support public health care programs, which then benefit the workers who should have been covered by their employer in the first place.

Wait. Hang on a second. Ailee Slater is arguing against public healthcare subsidies? Did I miss a meeting?

UPDATED UPDATE: At least Wisconsin is standing up to the pernicious scourge of Wal-Mart and making sure prices stay appropriately high. (Hat tip: H&R.)

AND FINALLY: By way of the last link, allow me to recommend this counterpoint to Slater’s piece.

Yesterday’s ODE commentary from Bradley, wherein he takes the ROTC protest to task, here.

Okay, but I think he may have missed some points.

1) It is abundantly apparent that the protestors wished to be arrested for the purpose of airing their views in a newspaper headline, which they accomplished at slight taxpayer expense but without inflicting violence on themselves or others.

2) Being university types, the protestors situated their event on campus grounds, quite possibly because a) this increases the likelihood that the Emerald will cover the story thoroughly, and/or b) it’s more of a central location to the parties concerned than the Federal Building downtown.

3) There aren’t that many places on campus where the presence of fifty people would be seen as anything out of the ordinary, let alone a matter of trespassing. Sure, they could have clogged up Johnson Hall– but, really, that’s been done.

4) By the logic of Bradley’s commentary, if the protest had been staged at Johnson Hall, it would be anti-administration; and if it had been staged at the Federal Building, it would have been anti-federalism. There isn’t any claim made in the article that the writer knows the disposition of the protestors– it’s entirely within reason, and statistically probable, that some of those in attendance have loved ones in the service. This opens up the question of what is meant by the term “anti-military”: does it refer to a hatred of those in uniform, to the opinion that there are some problems more amenably solved than through the imperilment of those same servicemembers, to some other notion within a wide range of possible perspectives, or to all of the above? We can safely assume that, whatever it means, no one who has loved ones in the military is opposed to the welfare of those loved ones or those loved ones’ comrades in arms.

5) It’s easy enough for some to recall the civil rights movement as a historical event fixed neatly within the same decade that gave us the walk on the moon, and to think of it as a decisive moment later universally understood as the triumph of absolute right over absolute wrong. A closer look informs us that a lot of people disagreed at the time– whether the movement should be happening at all, whether those behind it had laudible goals, whether those goals were acheivable, how exactly to pursue them– and there are still any number of people disagreeing over the peripherals of that debate. I’ve had occasion to speak with people– living, breathing Americans in the twenty-first century at points north and south in our far-flung Republic– who feel quite strongly that the position of absolute right did not win out. By that I mean that there are people who perceive the civil rights movement to have hardly begun to occur, as well as people who perceive that it has but who are not at all happy about it. Just a heads-up to anyone reading who thinks that all the matters of right and wrong have been ironed out for us by previous generations.

6) There are people who think that this war is a good one, and they make a number of arguments to support their position. Among them, some define the terms of the argument in terms of right and wrong– the victory of freedom over terror, etc. Then there are people who think this war is a bad one, and conversely they make a number of arguments too. Not surprisingly, many of these arguments are also grounded in absolute notions of right and wrong– the reprehesibility of government officials who make misleading claims that eventuate in the exacerbated misery of a nation on the other side of the world where we need to be making friends among potential enemies instead of the opposite, playing fast and loose with the integrity of our military and the lives of our soldiers and in the process rendering our nation ever more vulnerable to new threats. All these people are Americans. None of them are joking.