Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Well, that was a fun semester...
Hey party people, thanks for amking my last semester at ASU so fun. And Carol & Nancie, thank you for teaching me something I always wanted to know. My resume will be much prettier now.
But as for issues to discuss, I want to talk about "the holidays." You know how every year people spout that it's not the gift - giving that counts, and that commercialism has taken over what was once all about family and community? Well, how come we're still running around like turkeys buying nonsense? I say, let's stop giving presents, period. Not even the homemade ones you gave freshman year since you spent all your money on beer. Instead, we should be writing letters to one another, and taking one another out to lunch, and basically communicating with the people in our lives while we still have time. My grandmother isn't getting any younger and I'm not getting any less busy, so instead of a smelly candle, I'm giving her three pages of the thoughts of her granddaughter and how much I miss her. Because to me, it's more important that our loved ones KNOW how we feel about them, not that their homes smell like primrose.
So that's my idea for the season, and to spearhead this movement let me say this: you guys are all great, and I've learned so much by seeing the work you have all contributed this semester. Way to rock those font poems, and all your navbars were much cooler than mine. Good job, and good luck in all your futures.
But as for issues to discuss, I want to talk about "the holidays." You know how every year people spout that it's not the gift - giving that counts, and that commercialism has taken over what was once all about family and community? Well, how come we're still running around like turkeys buying nonsense? I say, let's stop giving presents, period. Not even the homemade ones you gave freshman year since you spent all your money on beer. Instead, we should be writing letters to one another, and taking one another out to lunch, and basically communicating with the people in our lives while we still have time. My grandmother isn't getting any younger and I'm not getting any less busy, so instead of a smelly candle, I'm giving her three pages of the thoughts of her granddaughter and how much I miss her. Because to me, it's more important that our loved ones KNOW how we feel about them, not that their homes smell like primrose.
So that's my idea for the season, and to spearhead this movement let me say this: you guys are all great, and I've learned so much by seeing the work you have all contributed this semester. Way to rock those font poems, and all your navbars were much cooler than mine. Good job, and good luck in all your futures.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Look Ma, I'm blogging!
The New Times story was great, it finally shed some light on how horrible Crow really is. The person who decided he would be good for this University should be shot! I'm glad someone finally let the Valley know how horrible he is and how quick he jumps when people with money tell him to. I get it, you have to get money for your school. You don't have to sell your soul to the devil to do so. So what, you saw a nipple! Big freakin' deal, grow up! If you don't want to see it, don't look. Be an adult and take responsibility for yourself. You can control what you see, not what everybody else sees.
-Ashley Barker
-Ashley Barker
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Happy Thanksgiving
I have much to be thankful for. Family, friends and the place I call home. The United States is a wondrous place. We're not perfect, but no place is. It is however, a place where we try to correct our mistakes and move forward as a nation. Thank you all who are in this class you have taught me so much. I am a luck girl.
Monday, November 22, 2004
A reactionary conservative's take on Fultongate, aka Breast-o-rama, aka Piercing Sensibilities
Megan asks us what we thought about the New Times article and the whole controversy in general, and I for one (especially having some time to reflect on the full thing) am ready to take up the call, especially if the extra blogging means extra credit for me.
My first question is... to what degree is this actually an issue of Free Speech-- by which I mean, "free speech"/"freedom of the press" as defined by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? I'm hardly a constitutional scholar, but I think that that means the government has no right to curtail "speech" in this country (but it can regulate/censor material that does not, according to the Supreme Court, actually count as "speech", but rather as "obscenity", "fighting words", "hate speech", etc). The rules for a student newspaper at a campus university, however, could be quite different. Although, we are a *public* university, so maybe not....
That being said, though... either The State Press is considered an "independent daily", or it's not. Either Michael Crow has editorial oversight and executive privilege over student media, or he doesn't. If the SP were from the beginning billed as a news organ that is here at the pleasure of ASU's administration, said administration would be fully within its legal (morality is a separate issue) rights to fire any staffer or indeed pull the plug on the entire enterprise, if they were so dissatisfied.
It's the same principle by which my columns appear in the Press: at the pleasure of my editor, the editor-in-chief, etc. I submit my finished columns to my superiors, and the published product is quite frequently at least a little different from the copy that resides on my hard drive. It gets edited for content, clarity, brevity, etc., and though I am generally not happy with these changes, there is an understanding that the paper I write for is called "The State Press", and not "Eric Spratling's Unedited Opinionating", and that no one is forcing me to write for SP so if I am too unhappy with the arrangement I am more than allowed to find or start my own forum to air my ramblings (which I have been known to do on an occassion or two or three).
For example, earlier this semester I dropped the "f-bomb" a couple of times on an entry in my Web Devil blog (linked above), and soon enough got an email from Kristin Gilger, who politely informed me that the same rules apply to the Web Devil as to the State Press, so the f-word is not acceptable. Did I talk about the constitution and how my work is being censored? No, I simply went back and edited the post to more PG-13 levels (and sorry, but "freaking" just isn't as funny as, er, the other way).
But that's a side rant on knowing who the boss is. If my understanding of the Press' situation is correct, Crow isn't our boss, he's not in charge of us. He is in fact not someone I'd even trust to be in charge of a check-cashing business, but that's neither here nor there. I understand fully that donors are important for business and we should try to accomodate them if we can, but what it boils down to is that Crow simply had no right to try to throw his weight around like he did.
And honestly, I don't think that he's so stupid that he would have actually tried to shut down the "official" campus newspaper, as the fallout from that having actually happened would have ultimately been far more costly to ASU than losing Ira Fulton. Having his flunkies march down to the newsroom to talk about kicking us off campus was nothing more than the act of a self-important blowhard making empty threats, trying to scare our journalists into compliance via excessive bluffing. Fortunately our badass editors and our J-school professors (who quite frequently piss me off to no end, but right now I've never been prouder of) looked the villains in the eye and called their bullshit.
But one last little thing, and it's something everyone forgets: "censorship" is a word too commonly bandied about these days, a piece of careless rhetoric sometimes used by people who won't stomach any criticism of their whathaveyou ("Don't think my statue of a naked Jesus making out with a transvestite Pope, all covered in goat urine and made entirely out of used condoms is good, huh? CENSORSHIP! FASCIST!"). We've forgotten that censorship can be a very very good thing, and is something we all in fact all exercise.
For instance, if I creep into my roommate's bedroom while he's in the kitchen or something, then steal his credit card and give away all the information from it on the Internet, that's a crime (at least I think/hope so). If and when he called the cops on me for doing that and I cried "I'm being censored!", then frankly folks, that wouldn't stop them. In this case my roommate would have a very good reason to "censor" me.
Or, for a more realistic example: Megan, when we were discussing possibilities for this year's Stale Mess (the State Press' last-day-of-school, junior-Onion parody paper for those of you not in the know), I mentioned the possibility of me calling my fellow columnists "a bunch of liberal fags" (obviously this would be for the joke paper, because I'd never use such language in real life), and you said we couldn't do that, because you didn't want to use the word "fag", even in a joking context.
Well, see, there... you censored me. I didn't complain, because a) you're the boss, and b) I'd be a real fa-, uh, sissy boy if I complained about something so minor that I could work around anyway. You have moral objections to using the word "fag", (presumably) because it's a derogatory and offensive term for homosexuals; similarly, Ira Fulton was offended by the appearance of naked breast on the cover of SPM because he, as an article of his religious faith, believes that human sexuality and nudity are very private and personal matters... not to mention how offended he might be that the institution he donated tens of millions of his hard-earned money to has a paper promulgating what he views as immoral images.
Of course, the situations are not the same in every respect: Megan is in charge of what goes into the Stale Mess and thus has editorial veto power (not to mention that she's earned the right to ask me, as a friend, to not use terms that personally offend her) over its contents; Ira Fulton has no such position with student media and thus no such right to dictate our output. My point with this stuff is that let's not all charge off and laugh at the Prissy Mormon Stereotype just because he got offended, when in fact very few of us are immune to being offended. Except for me of course, because I don't care if I piss off homosexuals, and I loves me some boobies.
Bottom line: this is a college, we're all alleged grown-ups here. It's not some rinky-dink, high school, Mickey Mouse operation where the principal can scold us out for talking "dirty", and frankly very few people, if any, who saw that cover saw something they hadn't already seen. President Crow needs to chill and make an apology to the State Press and the university as a whole, which would be easier if he weren't such a glory-seeking turdweasel.
My first question is... to what degree is this actually an issue of Free Speech-- by which I mean, "free speech"/"freedom of the press" as defined by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? I'm hardly a constitutional scholar, but I think that that means the government has no right to curtail "speech" in this country (but it can regulate/censor material that does not, according to the Supreme Court, actually count as "speech", but rather as "obscenity", "fighting words", "hate speech", etc). The rules for a student newspaper at a campus university, however, could be quite different. Although, we are a *public* university, so maybe not....
That being said, though... either The State Press is considered an "independent daily", or it's not. Either Michael Crow has editorial oversight and executive privilege over student media, or he doesn't. If the SP were from the beginning billed as a news organ that is here at the pleasure of ASU's administration, said administration would be fully within its legal (morality is a separate issue) rights to fire any staffer or indeed pull the plug on the entire enterprise, if they were so dissatisfied.
It's the same principle by which my columns appear in the Press: at the pleasure of my editor, the editor-in-chief, etc. I submit my finished columns to my superiors, and the published product is quite frequently at least a little different from the copy that resides on my hard drive. It gets edited for content, clarity, brevity, etc., and though I am generally not happy with these changes, there is an understanding that the paper I write for is called "The State Press", and not "Eric Spratling's Unedited Opinionating", and that no one is forcing me to write for SP so if I am too unhappy with the arrangement I am more than allowed to find or start my own forum to air my ramblings (which I have been known to do on an occassion or two or three).
For example, earlier this semester I dropped the "f-bomb" a couple of times on an entry in my Web Devil blog (linked above), and soon enough got an email from Kristin Gilger, who politely informed me that the same rules apply to the Web Devil as to the State Press, so the f-word is not acceptable. Did I talk about the constitution and how my work is being censored? No, I simply went back and edited the post to more PG-13 levels (and sorry, but "freaking" just isn't as funny as, er, the other way).
But that's a side rant on knowing who the boss is. If my understanding of the Press' situation is correct, Crow isn't our boss, he's not in charge of us. He is in fact not someone I'd even trust to be in charge of a check-cashing business, but that's neither here nor there. I understand fully that donors are important for business and we should try to accomodate them if we can, but what it boils down to is that Crow simply had no right to try to throw his weight around like he did.
And honestly, I don't think that he's so stupid that he would have actually tried to shut down the "official" campus newspaper, as the fallout from that having actually happened would have ultimately been far more costly to ASU than losing Ira Fulton. Having his flunkies march down to the newsroom to talk about kicking us off campus was nothing more than the act of a self-important blowhard making empty threats, trying to scare our journalists into compliance via excessive bluffing. Fortunately our badass editors and our J-school professors (who quite frequently piss me off to no end, but right now I've never been prouder of) looked the villains in the eye and called their bullshit.
But one last little thing, and it's something everyone forgets: "censorship" is a word too commonly bandied about these days, a piece of careless rhetoric sometimes used by people who won't stomach any criticism of their whathaveyou ("Don't think my statue of a naked Jesus making out with a transvestite Pope, all covered in goat urine and made entirely out of used condoms is good, huh? CENSORSHIP! FASCIST!"). We've forgotten that censorship can be a very very good thing, and is something we all in fact all exercise.
For instance, if I creep into my roommate's bedroom while he's in the kitchen or something, then steal his credit card and give away all the information from it on the Internet, that's a crime (at least I think/hope so). If and when he called the cops on me for doing that and I cried "I'm being censored!", then frankly folks, that wouldn't stop them. In this case my roommate would have a very good reason to "censor" me.
Or, for a more realistic example: Megan, when we were discussing possibilities for this year's Stale Mess (the State Press' last-day-of-school, junior-Onion parody paper for those of you not in the know), I mentioned the possibility of me calling my fellow columnists "a bunch of liberal fags" (obviously this would be for the joke paper, because I'd never use such language in real life), and you said we couldn't do that, because you didn't want to use the word "fag", even in a joking context.
Well, see, there... you censored me. I didn't complain, because a) you're the boss, and b) I'd be a real fa-, uh, sissy boy if I complained about something so minor that I could work around anyway. You have moral objections to using the word "fag", (presumably) because it's a derogatory and offensive term for homosexuals; similarly, Ira Fulton was offended by the appearance of naked breast on the cover of SPM because he, as an article of his religious faith, believes that human sexuality and nudity are very private and personal matters... not to mention how offended he might be that the institution he donated tens of millions of his hard-earned money to has a paper promulgating what he views as immoral images.
Of course, the situations are not the same in every respect: Megan is in charge of what goes into the Stale Mess and thus has editorial veto power (not to mention that she's earned the right to ask me, as a friend, to not use terms that personally offend her) over its contents; Ira Fulton has no such position with student media and thus no such right to dictate our output. My point with this stuff is that let's not all charge off and laugh at the Prissy Mormon Stereotype just because he got offended, when in fact very few of us are immune to being offended. Except for me of course, because I don't care if I piss off homosexuals, and I loves me some boobies.
Bottom line: this is a college, we're all alleged grown-ups here. It's not some rinky-dink, high school, Mickey Mouse operation where the principal can scold us out for talking "dirty", and frankly very few people, if any, who saw that cover saw something they hadn't already seen. President Crow needs to chill and make an apology to the State Press and the university as a whole, which would be easier if he weren't such a glory-seeking turdweasel.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Subvert this, bitch!
Here I am, up at two in the goshdamn morning, even though I have to be at PT at six. Can't sleep, so I blog instead.
Here's something that just set me off the other day. A movie website posted the trailer for the remake of John Carpenter's cult classic "Assault on Precinct 13". I haven't seen the original, even though I've heard about it endlessly from devoted movie nerds; seeing it is one of those things I know I should get around to, but never do (sort of like I know that I should start purchasing food that is neither deep-fried or 80% cheese). There's a whole other rant on remaking movies (general rule: remake the bad ones, leave the good ones alone, okay?) I could go into, but that's a story for another day.
Anyway, in the original movie the bad guys were apparently an army of crazed gang members (side note: anybody ever see "The Warriors"? It's the best movie ever, I swear) declaring all-out war on everyone inside police precinct 13, forcing the cops AND the criminals inside to work together just to survive. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Yeah, well they change that in the remake. In the remake, there's one particularly dangerous criminal inside, Laurence "Stop trying to hit me and hit me" Fishburne, who knows too many specifics about police corruption, so all the numerous bad guys trying to get inside are (drumroll please)........ corrupt cops.
Gah, that's friggin boring as hell, but whatever. The retarded, overweight webmaster of this fansite goes on to note, "Now, if that isn't subversive and f'ed up I don't know what is."
What the hell? Did I step into a timewarp back into the 1940s where the idea of Hollywood using legions of corrupt cops as bad guys would somehow be considered "shocking" and "subversive"? Actually, no wait, I agree with this guy, but not the way he thinks it: truly, NOTHING is subversive anymore, because "subversive" has become the bleeping NORM.
I hate to break it to the people in charge of the entertainment in our country, but there are some bad people roaming the streets. There are criminals out there who would kill you soon as look at you, and not feel a shred of remorse afterward. They'd do it to cash in on your insurance money, or for your car, or for ten bucks in your wallet. Some of them might even do it to make you shut up.
And yet we get movies now where who are the bad guys? Not the bloodthirsty subhuman scum who regard your life as forfeit to your whims, but rather the police who act as our first line of defense against these monsters. What has our society come to where we fear corrupt police officers more than hardened criminals?
Remember that movie "The Manchurian Candidate" that came out earlier this year? Well, there was another movie called that, about forty years ago. It involved a U.S. soldier getting kidnapped and brainwashed by communists to become the perfect assassin. It was awesome. This remake, for those of you who saw it, exchanged the communist villains of the original for (drumroll again)...... an evil U.S. corporation, brainwashing a U.S. soldier so they could puppeteer him into the White House through a campaign ("compassionate vigilance") playing on the public's irrational fear of terrorism. Yeah, I love my political satires when they're so ham-handedly obvious even an eight-year-old could understand them, don't you?
People, I hate to break this to you, but communism was and is a real ideology. It was responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people just in the latter half of the 20th century. It was a global disaster of epic proportions, and many of the countries under its thumb had interests in taking down the U.S. and acted or attempted to act on behalf of those interests. These are not fanciful flights of the imagination, these are facts.
But no, that's too boring. Why make a movie where the villains are communists, when we can make them instead symbolize the ultimate expression of capitalism? Yeah, that's the ticket. Values have eroded so much in the world that the only bad guys are good guys. Communists aren't dangerous, but overzealous anti-communists are. Vicious gangs of human street predators aren't to be feared, but policemen who cross the line are. Osama bin Laden isn't a threat, but John Ashcroft is (except when the case can be even remotely made that going after Saddam Hussein somehow "distracted" from hunting Osama, in which case Osama is suddenly Dr. Doom, a nefarious supercriminal god whose every minute of continued existence is a damning indictment of the Bush administration's failure to capture him. But otherwise, hey, do we really need these orange alerts?)
Subversive, my ass. Hollywood's a bunch of moral relativist, navel-gazing leftists and I'm supposed to applaud them for being "daring" every time they Expose the Ugly Truth About Real Life in Suburbia (or whatever). To hell with that. Start making movies with real bad guys again, or else I'll... well, I'll probably just bitch about it more, and maybe read some comic books. Good lord, the way they changed "The Sum of All Fears" from the book version to the movie version was only the beginning....
Here's something that just set me off the other day. A movie website posted the trailer for the remake of John Carpenter's cult classic "Assault on Precinct 13". I haven't seen the original, even though I've heard about it endlessly from devoted movie nerds; seeing it is one of those things I know I should get around to, but never do (sort of like I know that I should start purchasing food that is neither deep-fried or 80% cheese). There's a whole other rant on remaking movies (general rule: remake the bad ones, leave the good ones alone, okay?) I could go into, but that's a story for another day.
Anyway, in the original movie the bad guys were apparently an army of crazed gang members (side note: anybody ever see "The Warriors"? It's the best movie ever, I swear) declaring all-out war on everyone inside police precinct 13, forcing the cops AND the criminals inside to work together just to survive. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Yeah, well they change that in the remake. In the remake, there's one particularly dangerous criminal inside, Laurence "Stop trying to hit me and hit me" Fishburne, who knows too many specifics about police corruption, so all the numerous bad guys trying to get inside are (drumroll please)........ corrupt cops.
Gah, that's friggin boring as hell, but whatever. The retarded, overweight webmaster of this fansite goes on to note, "Now, if that isn't subversive and f'ed up I don't know what is."
What the hell? Did I step into a timewarp back into the 1940s where the idea of Hollywood using legions of corrupt cops as bad guys would somehow be considered "shocking" and "subversive"? Actually, no wait, I agree with this guy, but not the way he thinks it: truly, NOTHING is subversive anymore, because "subversive" has become the bleeping NORM.
I hate to break it to the people in charge of the entertainment in our country, but there are some bad people roaming the streets. There are criminals out there who would kill you soon as look at you, and not feel a shred of remorse afterward. They'd do it to cash in on your insurance money, or for your car, or for ten bucks in your wallet. Some of them might even do it to make you shut up.
And yet we get movies now where who are the bad guys? Not the bloodthirsty subhuman scum who regard your life as forfeit to your whims, but rather the police who act as our first line of defense against these monsters. What has our society come to where we fear corrupt police officers more than hardened criminals?
Remember that movie "The Manchurian Candidate" that came out earlier this year? Well, there was another movie called that, about forty years ago. It involved a U.S. soldier getting kidnapped and brainwashed by communists to become the perfect assassin. It was awesome. This remake, for those of you who saw it, exchanged the communist villains of the original for (drumroll again)...... an evil U.S. corporation, brainwashing a U.S. soldier so they could puppeteer him into the White House through a campaign ("compassionate vigilance") playing on the public's irrational fear of terrorism. Yeah, I love my political satires when they're so ham-handedly obvious even an eight-year-old could understand them, don't you?
People, I hate to break this to you, but communism was and is a real ideology. It was responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people just in the latter half of the 20th century. It was a global disaster of epic proportions, and many of the countries under its thumb had interests in taking down the U.S. and acted or attempted to act on behalf of those interests. These are not fanciful flights of the imagination, these are facts.
But no, that's too boring. Why make a movie where the villains are communists, when we can make them instead symbolize the ultimate expression of capitalism? Yeah, that's the ticket. Values have eroded so much in the world that the only bad guys are good guys. Communists aren't dangerous, but overzealous anti-communists are. Vicious gangs of human street predators aren't to be feared, but policemen who cross the line are. Osama bin Laden isn't a threat, but John Ashcroft is (except when the case can be even remotely made that going after Saddam Hussein somehow "distracted" from hunting Osama, in which case Osama is suddenly Dr. Doom, a nefarious supercriminal god whose every minute of continued existence is a damning indictment of the Bush administration's failure to capture him. But otherwise, hey, do we really need these orange alerts?)
Subversive, my ass. Hollywood's a bunch of moral relativist, navel-gazing leftists and I'm supposed to applaud them for being "daring" every time they Expose the Ugly Truth About Real Life in Suburbia (or whatever). To hell with that. Start making movies with real bad guys again, or else I'll... well, I'll probably just bitch about it more, and maybe read some comic books. Good lord, the way they changed "The Sum of All Fears" from the book version to the movie version was only the beginning....
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Sex Sells - Same Bitch Different Generation
Why do you think this blog exsists? We want to know what you think and what's important to you. The most important part of this blog is the need for the 18-24 year old group no matter what side of the issues you might be on to speak. So stop bitching and tell us what your issues are, what you want and most importantly why. And don't be afraid to engage in debate. No yelling will be tolerated, but civil discourse is welcome.
BTW, my generation had the same bitch. Same problem; different day. I think it gets better with age.
The Lovely and Gracious
BTW, my generation had the same bitch. Same problem; different day. I think it gets better with age.
The Lovely and Gracious
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
"Bring me cheesy fries!"
Hilarious audio from one of those "real-life" recordings of a real On-Star customers. Just a reminder that even some of America's premier truth-tellers can have trouble with their vehicles....
