What's a debate?

I wrote my column this week on the ongoing assault on American intellectuality, the diminishing of diverse thoughts and the marginalization of critical thinking.

Debates are supposed to be the culmination of intellectuality, where great thinkers and great ideas clash through dialogue in the search for truth (i.e. Plato's Dialogues). We should expect our Presidential Debates to be just that, a tremendous give and take where policies and ideas battle in an attempt to discover what's best for our country.

Yet, it's quite clear that nothing has developed out of this election's debates. Each candidate merely harped upon the same talking points and each successive debate merely became a sickening repeat of the last. No development of ideas, just repetition of talking-points.

Just watch this clip, synching the debates together. Did we get anywhere?

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Just doing my part

It has been well-reported that The Daily Collegian has undergone financial turmoil, long before the economy broke and Wall Street embraced socialism and welfare.

"We're back on point and making money," editor-in-chief Michael King told The Daily Hampshire Gazette in September, adding that the Collegian had over $25,000 in net income at the end of the 2008 fiscal year. "We're really on our way."

However, we at The Collegian are still far from economic independence, still relying on loans from the SGA that they like to bring up every time we make them look bad - you know, for the sake of transparency.

Well, tonight I was night editing and discovered a bounty of untapped resources in the Collegian Graphics "graveyard."

So I decided to do my part.

"Suggestion: The Massachusetts Daily Collegian should alleviate debt accrued from past unscrupulous spending by selling off its chair surplus," I wrote in an attached memo to "edi-chair in chief" King. "I have compiled our resources for a speedy and efficient liquidation."

I placed the chairs where Mike would find them as soon as he came in on Wednesday. I think this is an issue that should be addressed immediately.

And then I signed it.

S.P.

Humans v. Zombies: Losers Losers Losers!

First off, sorry Melissa. I hope you don't kick me off the Collegian staff.

The show must go on.

The participants of Humans vs. Zombies are all losers. Literally. A bunch of losers. Sour puss losers. Neckbeard losers. McCain losers. Big dirty losers. It must be noted, direly, that I am using the term in its most literal sense - although not completely. Everyone who participates in Humans vs. Zombies is a loser.

"Why, why, why?!" You ask. "These young folk are just trying to have fun. They want some exercise. They need to run around to get their runner's high, the only high they'll ever get. They meet people this way. Maybe one of them will talk to a girl for the first time, albeit that she is a zombie who only wants to eat his brain!"

You're missing the point. The whole point of the game is to lose. To be a loser. The only winners of the game are those who are the first zombies. The original five zombies - representing one for each of the five sections of campus.

Frankly, the casting for these original five zombies upset me. I find it no coincidence the zombie from Central ran around with a joint in his mouth, the one from Northeast was an Asian, the one from Orchard Hill refused to not carry around his Math textbook, the one from Southwest was a rejected football jock, and the one from Sylvan was a transexual anime fiend. What, are we trying to give in to stereotypes now?

These five zombies are the only ones who got it right. They knew if they didn't choose to be a zombie they would be a loser eventually. See, the thing is, these five zombies slowly got the humans. And those humans turned to zombies. And then those zombies got other humans, turning them into zombies. And so on. This system makes everyone but one person a zombie, thus, it makes everyone but one person a loser.

And for that one person, he truly is worth much more than the dishonor of being called a loser. I'm not even joking.

See, they really are are losers. They sign up to play a game where it is literally impossible not to be a loser.

Sadly, though, this whole idea was ignited by my utmost curiosity as to why these people actually walked around with the bandanna on. "You idiots!" I thought, "You know you can't win if you do that! You eventually will be tagged and turned into a zombie!" What this means is, if I were playing, I would sign up and not walk around with a bandanna on. That way, I would never and could never get tagged, and I would probably win, as long as I didn't have to do any check ups, participate in anything to do with feeding the hungry homeless people, and definitely not actually touch any of these players or play with them.

I'm not sure what that implies. To me, it implies that I'm a winner, and I win by any costs, and that all these hundreds of people are losers, who will lose at any cost.

Throwing a wrench at Joe the Plumber

During last night's presidential debate, an Ohio man named Joe Wurzelbacher took center stage. Wurzerlbacher, better known to the country as "Joe the Plumber" was the centerpiece of John McCain's attacks on Barack Obama's tax plan.

Under Obama's plan, McCain claims, small business workers, like Joe, would receive tax hikes and struggle to continue their business.

Joe the Plumber is currently seeking to purchase the company that he works for, but under Obama, he would receive fines and higher taxes.

Shut up Joe, no one cares.

The detail that is left out of McCain's argument is that, with the business, the poor plumber would be making over $250,000 per year, placing him into the section in which Barack Obama would be raising taxes.

According to Obama, his intended tax increase for those that make more than $250,000 per year would only affect about five percent of the U.S. for everyone else, Obama claimed, there will be a tax decrease.

Not that McCain cares.

With the plight of poor six-figure salary Joe the Plumber in mind, McCain repeatedly declared that Obama was raising taxes. McCain argued that, in the country's current economic crisis, no one should be getting higher taxes.

Especially rich people - rich people love John McCain.

The argument boils town to the pure democratic and republican views on taxes. Republicans want to keep the money they make, democrats want to "spread the wealth." And that's not getting settled any time soon.

Joe the Plumber's had his fifteen minutes of fame. We've heard the struggle of this real-life Mario and he crawls out of his economic hole because he can't purchase the company he works for.

Poor Joe, his life's going down the drain.

Nothing wrong with a little HvZ action

Now that HvZ has started up again for its third semester, I thought I'd take a little bit of time to defend the game. To start off, I don't play. I will never play it. I have no interest in nerf guns and zombies. But that doesn't mean I think everyone who does choose to participate is some sort of weird enigma.

Unlike many of my peers, I don't brand players as mouth-breather nerds who can't get laid. I don't understand why so many college students have gotten on their high horse to condemn people having a good time.

When did college students become pillars of maturity? Sure, shooting marshmallows at "zombies" with nerf guns is juvenille. But who cares? What is so great about what the rest of us are doing?

At least HvZ is doing something truly great. In just two semesters, players contributed a ton and half of food to the Western Massachusetts Food Bank. This year, the game is hosting a blood drive.

Over 1000 students have played HvZ. How many RSO's are engaging that many students on campus in just three semesters? So not only is HvZ keeping students occupied, but the game is also contributing to the community.

HvZ isn't for everyone, but that doesn't mean we have the right to unfairly judge those who do choose to play. You don't have to like it. I don't even like it when the sock launching gets a little to close for comfort. But I respect what HvZ is doing and has done in the past and so should you.

-Melissa

Be Weary of Power: Thoughts on the Financial Bailout

One of the most astonishing things about this most recent excessive usurpation of power by the federal government and the Federal Reserve is perhaps not the depth and extent of power now held by these institutions, but rather the failure of many to object to such a seizure of power. Economist Arnold Kling chimes in:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/10/the_political_e_1.html

Note from the Underground #1

Herein commence my digital contributions.

It's 2:22 AM. I'm settled into the Learning Commons with a Coca-Cola Zero (Coca-Cola proper was sold out @ Chadbourne vending ...,) a pack of Camel Reds and four unwritten pages of 'close reading.'

('Close reading' is a painful process of textual analysis. A frustrating rock, upon which an English major's degree is built.)

There are only a few of us here -- from my console I count 8, including myself, in the main computer block.

Per usual, I will spend much too much of the night with MS Word closed, and Firefox open. Facebook is the great black hole of undergraduate time. It will suck up my early morning hours, and drive me to a desperate last-minute rush. I will compose my first page in two hours, and my last page in twenty minutes.

Often during the week, I stand in the line for the computers here and fume at the Facebook-checkers, YouTube-watchers and MySpace-updaters who are wasting away my precious daylight internet time. I might need to send a few quick emails, or print a paper for my next class.

Standard fare.

As long as my needs are academic, I'll allow myself to be secretly self-righteous. "Who do these people think they are?" "Why doesn't someone yell at them?" "I would never be caught dead checking Facebook instead of working ..."

Put a computer in front of me, and my tune changes. I want to update my status. I want to tweak my "Favorite Movies" entry. I wonder if that Springsteen show in July was really as good as they say. I check "YouTube." I'm guilty on all charges.

It's getting near 3:00, which, as you know, is the officially accepted start-time for 'close-reading.' Homework calls.

The moral of the story is this: unless you are 100% immune to Facebook-checking, YouTube-watching and the likes, you are no longer allowed to complain. Not even to yourself.

It's 2:58 AM, and that's my opinion.

James M.

Justice for Jason, The Collegian's complicity and UMass Yak Back!

Recently, The Collegian drew the ire of the Committee for Justice for Jason Vassell, a community group advocating justice for a UMass student who allegedly stabbed two men that attacked him and yelled racial slurs.

The Collegian has covered the case in recent months, and ran a column written by SGA Speaker Shaun Robinson this spring in Vassell's defense.

The CJJV took exception with a column by Alana Goodman, however, which was critical of CJJV and expressed skepticism over Vassell's innocence. Student Government Association President Malcolm Chu demanded The Collegian print his 1,800 word response, unedited.

I used to edit the section, and I can tell you this is something that would never, ever fly.

Chu and the CJJV were told they could have 750 words in response to Goodman, which is in of itself an exception that is occasionally made for special circumstances. The typical limit for a letter is 550 words.

They weren't having it. I would have liked to tell the CJJV that their letter, which can be found here, could've been under limit if they cut out those pesky modifiers like "dismissively," "reckless," "irresonsible," etc. In their defense, Goodman used quite a bit of them, too - bemoaning those "furious activists" - but she kept it under word limit, at least.

I digress.

The CJJV website said that The Collegian published Goodman's piece "without reservation" - members of CCJV can't possibly understand why the racist Daily Collegian wouldn't publish Chu's "Honest Look at Justice for Jason," for which he provided no sources, unedited.

The SGA tried a similar stunt last year when they asked us to print their "news story" about the student strike, written by their own members in the first person, on the front page of the paper.

These are smart, dedicated and good-intentioned human beings. But they have no clue how a newspaper works. None.

Again, I used to edit the section, and I can tell you we're terrified when stuff like Goodman's piece comes in. But we're also first amendment-o-philes, and we don't dare shut someone up just because what they have to say is controversial.

I pored over the police report Goodman handed in with her column. Despite allegations to the contrary, she did have one, and she did quote it accurately - if not selectively - in stating her case. People were incredulous that a college journalist would have access to such privileged information as a police report.

They should familiarize themselves with the Freedom of Information Act.

The "factual errors" that Chu and Vassell's attorneys "corrected" in their letters were made by the police, not Goodman, if they were made at all.

I am not of the opinion that Goodman's piece is an accurate account of what happened that night in Southwest. I think the CJJV and Vassell's lawyers were right in responding to Goodman's piece, which detractors claimed was "biased."

Well, I hope it was biased - it was in the opinion section.

But Goodman is entitled to her opinion, which I don't agree with, just as CJJV is entitled to theirs, which I also don't agree with.

Goodman's most solid argument - the one she should have focused more attention to, and less attention to trying to prove Jason Vassell guilty with a police report - is that the CJJV has left out facts.

Of course they have. They are a well-intentioned advocacy group, and what they are doing is great. But advocacy groups always skew things in their favor. While I am sympathetic to the CJJV's cause, their attempts to lionize Vassell, rather than humanize him, are misguided.

Anyway, beloved blog-dwellers, I urge you to familiarize yourselves with the subject. Read The Collegian's news stories on the case. Read Robinson's column; read Goodman's column; read Chu's and Vassell's attorney's responses; read them all. And make up your mind.

Because a man's life is at stake - a member of our community nonetheless.

Goodman appeared on UMass Yak Back!, everyone's favorite editorial talk show which I produce with UVC's Matt Volpini [he does the better part of the producin']. On the panel were Afro American Studies professer Ekwueme Michael Thelwell and yours truly, the hapless buffer between the two.

Without further ado, this is UMass Yak Back!:



S.P.

Check out Nick playing the Bassoon

First!

With the editorial/opinion section's triumphant transition to the Internet, it seems only appropriate to discuss the rabble that inhabits this electronic realm.

With the advent of message boards, digg.com, farm.com, 4chan.com and countless other internet forums that are laden with inflammatory comments and communities of sarcasm and cynisism. That's not to say that everyone on these sites are terrible people, they just act like it.

There's a well known equation that directly explains how people behave while on the internet:
"Normal person + Annonymity + Audience = Douchebag."

Just look at any youtube video or blog, you'll see negative comments for some of the most obscure things. I have a youtube video of my bassoon teacher and I playing flight of the bumblebee on bassoon at a community concert. We didn't have much time to practice, so it wasn't very good.

The Internet could care less, though. The video, posted so my mom and my teacher could see it, somehow now has 20,870 views and has 109 comments, which include:
"I know whats next, two cats, a chainsaw and and electric knife! " -keeppeacer
"00:30 sounds like screwed up pokemon yellow version when doing missing no. cheat....." DrKiwiHouse
And finally,
"We'll never forget that cause it sucks. " -itsnotanoboe

Only time will tell how this blog will end up. We certainly have some characters in the ed/op section and have some equally colorful commenters on the Daily Collegian website.

Hopefully, this blog will prove impervious to the pressures of the annonymous rabble on the internet. And if you do end up not liking this, well...

STFU N00b

Welcome to the Ed-Op Blog

This is the official Ed-Op blog for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Blog posters are Ed-Op columnists who seek to voice their opinions in a new medium. Let's face it, there are never enough pages in the newspaper to accommodate everyone's beliefs.

This blog solves that problem.