Commentary

Oddities Abounding

This summer was teeming with news, both bad and worse... and that's not even including a musical review of Tonya Harding's new band.

Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak at 2,131. Jerry Garcia is dead. The world's most caring and open-minded nation, China, hosted the United Nations International Conference on Women. Bosnians are still killing Croatians who are still killing Muslims. O.J. is still sleeping with Marcia Clark, the secret sister of Mark Fuhrman. Douglas Coupland published his best book yet. Roseanne pissed in the gene pool again.

You'll notice the only event worth celebrating was the first.

Baseball: I swore I would NEVER EVER go back to baseball. The bickering between the owners and player's union holds less logic to it than ASUO proceedings.

Then, in a panic the night before it occurred, I begged my father to tape Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game.

I read a coffee-table baseball book this summer in which the author proclaimed, "Football sells the team and the rivalry. Basketball sells the individual players. Hockey sells the violence and speed. Baseball sells the game and tradition. Baseball isn't measured in minutes, hours, quarters, innings or even games. Baseball is measured in decades." He likened the game over the last two seasons to seeing a great play put on at the local elementary school. Spectators suffered through it but thought back to the day they first saw it performed on Broadway.

Cal Ripken, Jr. is the Iron Man, the Work Horse, the Common Man's Hero. He hasn't missed a day of work since May 13, 1982. In 1982, I was 8 years old and missed about a week of school with the chicken pox. Only two other players are still active from when Ripken came into the league. Wade Boggs of the Yankees missed a few games in the Eighties when he sprained his back while putting on his cowboy boots. After one game this summer, I noticed Ripken came out of the tunnel wearing boat shoes.

I watch players like Ripken of the Orioles, Jay Buhner of the Mariners who has more Runs Batted In (RBIs) than hits as of this writing, and Greg Maddux of the Braves working on his, like, 50th Cy Young Award and realize that slowly the stage is, once again, being taken over by the great ones. And if not, well, just repeat after me: Whip me, beat me, hurt me, just keep playing...

The Dead: Jerry's dead. Whoop-Dee-Do. Marijuana prices just went through the basement because people can't give it away. No one wants to get depressed by smoking out and reminding themselves of a year lost following a band like a family of gypsies.

Imagine all the thousands of people who have no meaning to their lives since the Hobbit-King is gone. What are these people going to do with themselves? "Tomorrow on Ricki Lake: Deadheads who had to find real jobs and discover bathing."

People always associate the Dead with a drug culture. My sister told me something profound about pot: "Old people are wise and will usually outsmart young people when they get the chance. The only thing young people have to protect themselves is energy and passion for something. Smoking pot makes you lethargic. Young people lose their passion and enthusiasm and then they're screwed." I always wonder why all my friends think she's smarter than I am.

Feminism: There are more branches of feminism than there are of Christianity. The main difference among them is different levels of orthodoxy, lots of scapegoats, and an assortment of goals, some of which are scary (insert gyno-fascist conspiracy theory here).

Probably the funniest thing in the news this summer was announcing China as the site of the International Women's Conference. I giggled with delight as the promoters were "shocked" that China's government has police spies and a transportation system worse than New Jersey's. It's like the Gun Owners of America holding their national meeting on the James Brady estate or the Ku Klux Klan rallying, well, anywhere. Some things just shouldn't be held in some places. Just what the hell did they expect?

Ethnic Pride: Bosnia's civil war is what happens when people are just a little too proud of their heritage and try to force other people into it or keep others out. The newest solution is for NATO to bomb them back to the Middle Ages until they sue for peace. Then, we'll stop bombing and they'll start shooting French U.N. Peacekeepers who are too busy wearing blue berets and smoking cool-sounding cigarettes to notice.

"Eh, Pepe! You are bleeding, no? Geev me your peestol and Galouis'!"

At some point, the U.N. wanted to split Bosnia into ethnic zones. I'm sure there are still political analysts who hold that as their opinion. Can you imagine trying to do that here?

"White? You go there. Black? You go there. Hey! You, Asians! Get back over the fence and into your ethnic zone!"

Some how, I don't think it would work too well. Why would anyone want to keep a particular race from something like a Math 241 class? I cannot imagine.

O.J. Simpson: I really have no idea what's going on in the case. I tried very hard to block out "Simpson-mania" this summer. I did hear on National Public Radio that the case might be done by the turn of the century, so that's good news.

A good way to end the trial quickly would be to stop paying the lawyers by the hour. Some legal expert (a lawyer, I would assume) said that putting O.J. on the stand would bring a quick end to the trial, too. Everything that the defense had done until that point would be moot. Either the jury will believe him or they won't.

Microserfs: Coupland, author of Generation X, one of the Commentator's favorites for its dismal view of our sometimes-whiny generation, wrote my favorite book of the summer. Steeped in nostalgia of Legos, bad TV, Atari, full of theories from area code importance to advertising invading the time/space continuum, it contains more ideas than I could handle at one reading. The similarities between University students (who graduate in the time-frame of one decade) and the characters are staggering.

Roseanne: She had a baby. Poor thing. The child will end up more bizarre than Drew Barrymore, uglier than Juliette Lewis, and fatter than Raymond Burr.

Imagine the gene strain that could be created with her child mating with a child of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. Utterly frightening.

The Pitch: Half of our staff graduated last year. We are in need of people to help us produce this fine work of journalistic integrity. Graphic artists, people with an affinity for getting money, copy editors and reporters are encouraged to apply. For information, call us at 346-3721 or send inquiries to our email at ocomment@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Anyway, that's a roundup of things that really aren't important. Smoking is still legal, handguns are making a fashionable comeback, and the day I finally turn 21 is quickly approaching.

Thom Schoenborn, a junior majoring in journalism, is Editor for the Oregon Commentator