Not Worthy

No Press Can Be Good Press

Craft Center Workshops: The Spring Calendar Edition used a teal color plate and consisted of four pages totally dedicated to the classes and activities occurring in the EMU craft center. The fine layout could not save the dragging content. If love hurts, then I really love reading this thing.

Oregon Cycling: The magazine reports not only on bikes, but also on bike culture. Its content varies from bike parking issues to biking law issues to bike races to biking foods. More fun than riding a real bicycle.

The Asian Reporter: An international and local newsweekly published specifically for the Northwest. The paper tries to stay relevant to individuals representing hundreds of different cultures and nearly two billion people. Somewhere between ten dead babies in one garbage can and one dead baby in ten garbage cans.

The Christian Science Monitor: Doesn't believe in medicine or doctors. Believes that with prayer, God heals all...they'd better start praying for their irrelevant magazine. Where's that Charlie Manson's fruit punch when you need it?

Student Leader: The forum for America's emerging leaders. The Spring issue consists of articles on electronic elections, accepting criticism, funding a yearbook, and creating campus coalitions. If the readership of this magazine got sick, not even the Christian Scientists would pray for them. Comparable to the added Jabba scene in "Star Wars."

Eugene Weekly: Let's say the Insurgent made sweet, sweet love to the Oregon Voice. Then the Voice kicked the Insurgent out for never taking a shower and shacked up with the Willamette Week. Knock, knock-it sucks.

WOW Hall Notes: A written extension of the concert hall that thrives on volunteers and loyal local bands. Hard to believe, but the paper actually captures the WOW Hall's unprofessionalism and lack of talent. If close to edge please push so that head is lost.

Sentiment Times: Dedicated to "sharing information that will assist in the personal evolution of [their] reader." A full-color free-for-all which showcases unskilled writers. An unwelcome counterpart to the Peaceworker.

Outdoors Program: The Spring 1999 issue is a graphic-heavy description of what the University of Oregon has to offer outdoors. An easy read, well-rounded characters, a surprising ending. Honest and believable. A staggering achievement.

OSPIRG Impact: Self-promulgating propaganda, which has noticeably decreased in size and content since the UO chapter was defunded. For all their concern that environmental issues would not be addressed on campus without a fully funded OSPIRG, the compact OSPIRG Impact showed that defunding the group actually conserved paper. Like falling off the Empire State building and landing on a bicycle with no seat.

KWVA Magazine: A newsletter in magazine format. Full of obscure pictures, abstract articles, and unknown artists. The magazine is as irrelevant as its airwave-travelling counterpart. Da da da dahh, it sucks, da da da da da. Da da da dahh, it sucks, da da da da da.

Comic News: Isn't either.

Forever Green: Its claim to be an ecotourist's guide to Lane County is just a cover for its numerous Marxist ideas. In bed with the Insurgent, OSPIRG, and the Oregon Daily Emerald, while Noam Chomsky looks on approvingly.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I’ll admit right away that I’m biased against KWVA because I’m tired of peopleclaiming that they’re "sticking it to the man". I don’t care who you are, or what you’redoing--whatever it is, if you actually believe that you’re somehow sticking something toanybody, you’re definitely not.

That said, I’d like to focus on the friction generating between KWVA, the campusradio station, and an apparently growing number of students who are bugged enough bythe station’s playlist policies to crank off letters to the editor about it. KWVA’s criticsare accusing the station of behaving like a xenophobic enclave of pretentious snobs. Thishas not at all deterred KWVA from its "if you think we suck, then we think you suck"stance. According to an Emerald from 1995, the station has come under fire in years pastfor its generally clique-ish attitude and have had a lot of experience ignoring complaintsfrom the students who help fund the station.

The argument began in December when Frank Jezukewizc and Brett Johnson triedto get a specialty show revolving mostly around the Grateful Dead and Phish. Theirrequest was denied because, said Jezukewicz in a letter to the editor in the Emerald, theprogramming director "hates" those bands. A response from KWVA General ManagerEmily Walter threw some gasoline on the fire with an unhelpful retort also in the ODE,"If we don't play the Grateful Dead and Phish it's because no one here wants to do it." Ah. So basically what she’s saying is that if they don’t hire you as a DJ, it might bebecause they all hate the music you want to play. Nice rebuttal, there.

"In a world that continues to be annexed by corporations, pacified by beer,homogenized by style and dwarfed by consumerism," argued Walter, "KWVA isuntouched by the mainstream." Except the FCC, of course--you know, the massivegovernment agency designed explicitly to supress anything it finds remotely offensive. Not that the relationship is voluntary, but KWVA seems just as happy playing the victimof Big Government as they are playing counter-cultureTM rebels, arguing that theirmission statement "was approved by the FCC to obtain our license. Should we ever wishto change the mission statement, we would have to reapply to the FCC when our licenseexpires in six years." But why change it? If they see keeping students with varyingmusical interests out of their clique as fulfilling the statement’s fourth objective--providing an "open forum for student expression"--then I doubt they’re in a panic to amend it.

The funny thing is, I’ve seen the shelves full of CDs up in the KWVA offices andI can say for sure that I would much rather hear most of the music they own than a lot ofthe crap that might get played if the station was "open" to the tastes of the averagestudent. But that’s not the point. The point is that the UO affords its fee-paying students the right to determine, to some extent, how their fees are spent. I don’t believe that students have a right to try to influence the radio station just because they don’t like what they hear on it, but because they don’t like what they hear on it and they’re also helping to pay for it. This case is simply a matter of input and output. Student money goes to support KWVA’s anti-student campaign and that situation should be dealt with at theuniversity level if KWVA is unwilling to relax their closed shop policy. Let the costs befully borne by those whoever benefits from the service that KWVA provides.