“Did the original article have pictures of smiling fratboy jocks giving a thumbs-up?”

Well, yes, they actually did, sort of. It was a picture, likely of some other club with a banner, which, of course, the Daily Guardian photoshopped (or not?!) the words Intramural Rape Club. The expressions of the (white, frat-looking) guys were not crazy stupid (i.e., we’re in on the joke) so I am left to consider that the reporters (meh) took an actual pic from some club. I wonder how those guys feel about that. Ain’t on the web, BTW, only the “real” version of the Guardian is online.

But the real reason I made a second post was to link to this:
http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/victims.html

I think there’s something else going on here, also linked to this Kathleen Parker/female soldiers thing, that plays into the Republicans’ Victimized White Male base and the narratives that appeal to such a base.

People like this really do feel put-upon that they can’t give in to their basest instincts. They really feel like they’ve been somehow reduced because they’re not allowed to reduce others.

And that’s what makes me want to stab all of them. The ones I went to school with, the ones I work with, the ones who get paid to write or say things in public.

This sort of thing is definitely a problem. Satire isn’t actually that hard to do, but it’s used best when it’s used on yourself or to make yourself an object of mockery (see The Colbert Report, Moliere’s School for Wives). Unless “Xavier” is actually one of the women named in the article, then it just wasn’t appropriate. And the sense of urgency in these things, the sense that they’re entitled to do it because they’re so manfully brave and stoic about putting up with tolerance the other 364 days of the year, makes me wants Jesus to be real and resurrect them so I can stab them again.

UC San Diego had an April Fool’s issue of The Guardian with a “news” story about the new “Intramural Rape Club.” I believe the Women’s Center photocopied that story (and plastered it around campus) and replaced IRC with “I Love NAMBLA” and asked at the bottom “Still think it’s funny?”

Oh man, more funny!

Did the original article have pictures of smiling fratboy jocks giving a thumbs-up? I can just imagine a picture with two guys looking straight out an Aebercrombie catalog with a fake-caption “Jack Smedley and Ryan Durstman are top scorers in this year’s varsity Intramural Rape I Love NAMBLA Club”

that’ll have me giggling for a while

the editors over at the gazette and the university students council has started responding to the uproar. i’ve posted some of the response at http//soapboxspinster.blogspot.com

or check out the facebook group for updates:
http://uwo.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2268028777

OK, I’m twenty-five and I find myself saying “wtf is up with kids/the world these days” all the effin time now.

Me too! I don’t remember this shit in college, and I graduated all of 4 years ago. There was the occasional obnoxious woman joke, but nothing like this. Same with high school.

I think things ARE different than 15-25 years ago, Zuzu.

OK, I’m twenty-five and I find myself saying “wtf is up with kids/the world these days” all the effin time now. I maintain that our public discourse has seen a sharp decline in the past, oh say, six or seven years – a topic I cannot, apparently, think about without getting “Who let the dogs out (who? who who who?)” stuck in my head. I’m hesitant to believe that such pathetic leaders can bring down decades of cultural progress, but it really does seem apparent that Rove, Bushie & Co opened the gates on a lot of pent-up anger by coming to and maintaining power by such divisive methods. Anger that I think, if things had gone differently (read: if the Supreme Court had stayed out of ballot counting), would have continued to be dissolved by education, familiarity, and plain old habit.

Remember the late nineties? Will & Grace and Queer Eye (at this point, even tokenism looks better by contrast) were crazy popular and America was getting used to having gay people in their living rooms. Overturning Roe was a batshit crazy idea some people in faraway, barely-populated states talked about. And unless I’m wrong, you sure as fuck didn’t write about the glories of rape in your college newspaper.

Or, I’m wrong and should just admit to myself that I’m getting old.

Here’s the info. GIve ‘em hell:

Please also take a few minutes to take action by writing to the Gazette Editor-in-Chief, Ian Van Den Hurk at gazette.editor@uwo.ca. UWO also has policies on equity and human rights that we feel this article severely violates (more info here: http://www.uwo.ca/equity/). You can email the equity services at Western at equity@uwo.ca to complain and to draw their attention to this article.

Your help in spreading the word about this disgusting article is greatly appreciated. (In short: we want the whole internets to hear about Western and it’s misogynist rapist paper.) THANK YOU.

ps if you’re on facebook… http://uwo.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2268028777