Letters
Letters... We've got Letters...
Dear Raechel Simms [sic],
We here at KWVA would like to thank you for your unadulterated banter on the essence of KWVA in the April 16 issue of the Oregon Commentator. You have single-handedly increased our underwriting sponsorship and upped our listener base. Most importantly, you have reassured those of us who dedicate time and effort to broadcasting under-represented music that we are doing an outstanding job and living up to our mission statement. If you would like to bless the airwaves of Lane County with your selections of Weezer and Sublime, applications can be dropped off at the Crisis Counseling Center. Thank you and good luck with your journalistic career.
Music Director, KWVA
Oh, c'mon KWVA, those Arbitron ratings haven't come out recently, and getting more Goth kids to listen to you doesn't really count as "upping the listener base." Besides, you missed the point completely - no one said that ALL the music you play sucks.
-Ed.
Dear Vin-Vin:
The nomenclature by which I am addressed is Michael J. Kleckner... I am, needless to remark upon, struck by an enormous sense of pride and self-importance... I am having to physically restrain myself at this point to keep from erupting into spasmodic seizures of a paroxysmal nature; however, the urgency of my mission and the sanctity of the standards and public credibility of the hallowed muse impel me to continue unabated... Vin-Vin says that I... am "totally untrained, mostly uniformed and completely egotistical."... I possess, in fact, both traits... This is not to suggest that I am capable, qualified or adept at the tasks... I do, in fact, know how to get quite jiggy with the common people, and I enjoy doing so on a semi-regular basis... Even the drooling morons in Average Land have some semblance of human dignity and I always willing to grace them with a wink or kind word... I would think my columns and editorials would have illustrated this proclivity by now... May goD [sic] have mercy on us all for your destructive misstep... Outrage!
-Michael J. Kleckner
Editorial Director
Oregon Daily Emerald
Our apologies to Mr. Kleckner, as his letter was acidentally put through the paper shredder before it went to print. After several hours of carefully rearranging the text, we came to the conclusion that no matter the order of the words, the message remains equally absurd. Logically, one wonders if Michael's columns are actually written in some sort of cryptic code that can only be understood by translating the text to binary code and sniffing a line of glue. Regardless, thank you for the kind words, Mr. Kleckner.
-Ed.
Commentator Slipping
I have been an avid reader of the best campus publication, the Oregon Commentator, for a year and a half now. However, lately it seems the quality has fallen off a bit. Here are some complaints:
1) Delivery has always been erratic. During an eight-week span in spring last year there was no new OC. Sometimes two come out in a week. Usually there is no rhythm at all. These peaks and valleys have driven many readers to deepened alcohol dependence and bouts of morbid depression.
2) The [sic]s and "umms" and "long pauses" recorded mockingly in even sympathetic letters and unpopular interview subjects are just as unprofessional as missing deadlines for a finished product and distribution. When on the opposite page from Willie Thompson's interview runs an animal research professor's interview clear of any speaking irregularities, your bias is shown in a petty way. Are we to believe that Dr. Morrocco never once said "umm," clarified himself, paused, farted or coughed during the entire interview?
3) Lately the lack of substantive material in the OC is alarming. The last several issues have included more of an emphasis on drunken revelry, ridiculing, and silliness rather than relevant campus and conservative issues, upsetting the balance between the two that has meant success for the OC. By the way, the Knob interview? Priceless. The undergraduate class reviews? Neither funny nor informative.
4) Lack of visibility is a result of lack of substance and reliable distribution. In one and a half years, I have seen exactly three people on campus reading the OC, while countless thousands continue reading the trite dribblings of the ODE that will eventually give them syphilis. Promote yourselves. More on this in the solutions section.
5) Most issues have already been fought and resolved badly before the Commentator hits the stands, leaving no chance for student community leadership on the part of the publication. If you want to say, "hey, here is what I think," and then do nothing more, consider writing for the Harvest instead.
Here we go with my solutions to the problems, if indeed this is how your staff and currently invisible readership view them.
1) Meet your deadlines! State when and at what intervals the issue will hit the stands. Have more stands. Put flyers on the front of the stands telling when the next issue will be there and what pressing issue it will address, if there are any. Longer issues wouldn't hurt; I'm done with it in about twenty minutes. I'm sorry to be an armchair publisher and take all the fun out of spending your budget on cheap whisky, but while this has never been a problem before, the quality of the overall publication is suffering.
2) Just fix the errors in a letter, unless the point is to expose shocking grammar. Use the content of letters and interviews as content for writing them off, not the pauses of a nervous pinko jackass (Thompson). You inhibit even sympathetic letter writing, and more importantly prospective columnists or other help, by making fun of anything you can find about anyone. While this is the kind of shit that splits leftist groups, it is not supposed to faze rational conservative alcoholics, who enjoy chillin' and Reagan.
3) Balance the funny shit in; usually it rocks. However, when it becomes the entire issue your main duty, as a conservative journal of opinion, is unfulfilled. Keep the good pieces on the OPS, ASUO, OLCC, OSPIRG, and all the other stupid acronym programs coming, and keep them balanced with pieces about where in Eugene can be found the cleanest prostitutes, cheapest booze, and most idiotic hippies.
4) Promoting. Make some snazzy T-shirts with built in beer-gut paunch areas and slogans. To appeal to Greeks, try incorporating this into an existing alcoholic product label graphic; they're suckers...for that, too. Dumping your back issues all over campus was a great move. Now use that extra acre of office space for columnists to be recruited more actively. In sum, make the OC a relevant, highly visible campus publication.
5) Try to assume more of a leadership role in shaping campus fights against the PC rabble, ASUO and executive, OSPIRG, etc. The OPS issue was the best example of this yet, though it could have contained more funny shit.
I am done now. Thanks for reading, and if a fragment appears in your next issue and ridiculed, I would like to say, "fuck you" in advance. Also, as an avid and concerned reader I am here to help and if spending your money, drinking your beer, and taking your women can be called consulting, I would be a willing consultant. How can we help keep this the best publication around?
Ben Cox, sophomore
First, we generally do meet our deadlines. The Commentator tries to put out four issues a term, which translates to a new issue every two weeks or so. Sometimes we'll push an issue back if something big breaks, which is exactly why it took so long for our DPS issue to come out. Still, we try our darndest to be consistent.
Secondly, we include the errors in Question and Answer interviews because some people really are jack-asses who could not put together a coherent sentence with krazy-glue and an instruction manual. We have tapes, someplace, to prove this. The [sic]s in the letters occur because we are not the copy editors for every half-baked loon that writes to us. If people who send us letters don't want the errors published, they can edit for themselves. It is not our job to make sure people don't make themselves look like morons...quite frankly, we enjoy the embarrassment and pain people often put themselves through.
Thirdly, the OC does not lack for substance. The Humor issue was just that, humor. The DPS issue was almost completely news, as was the ALF issue. Recently, there have been articles about the Chinese Student Scholar Association and DPS. We've got news; you just have to read the magazine to get to it. Suggesting that we balance the "funny shit" seems like a valid observation, but you also said that the DPS issue "could've had more funny shit." So, which is it, you silly hypocritical fuck? We do news and you either don't read it or think it needs to be funnier...so we try to be funny and you think we need to do more news.
Fourthly, we have a limited budget. Every last dollar of the minimal budget that we get every year goes to publishing the magazine. We don't have the left-over cash to make catchy promos for the TV generation. Ask the PFC for our purchase orders and you'll see what we mean. None of the staff gets a stipend, we don't buy anything we don't need. If we were OSPIRG or some other hippie-run organization we might be able to misappropriate the funds to do a little advertising or buy some more boxes.
Fifthly, you're a self-righteous little nancy-boy. You heard what we said. Your entire letter is one big holier-than-thou critique of something you are either too dense or too lazy to understand. Your hypocrisy is amazing. In one part of your letter you suggest that we use the content of letters to rip them apart, but at the end you give us a preemptive "fuck you" in case we rip your letter apart. For Christ's sake, could your head be any farther up your ass? Your so-called "suggestions" are things we've already considered or, in the case of copy editing letters, go against our mission. Thanks for taking a break from pleasuring yourself to write to us, but if you don't like the magazine, don't fucking read it.
Finally, our words may seem cold and soulless, but this is the Commentator after all. What were you expecting, a warm happy thank-you for pointing out all of our flaws? Not bloody likely, amigo. Given your interest in the affairs of the magazine, why don't take your own advice and show up at one of our staff meetings? You sound like our kind of asshole.
-Ed.
Just begging to have your beautiful prose ripped apart by drunken, lecherous magazine types?
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Oregon Commentator
P.O. Box 30128
Eugene, OR 97403
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ocomment@darkwing.uoregon.edu