Today's calvacade of stupid

[sigma7]

GQ editor confirms he spiked story about Clinton team feuds: Ben Smith reports Hillary Clinton's aides told GQ: Kill the piece, or lose access to Bill Clinton, who is to appear on the magazine's December cover. "I can tell you that yes, we did kill a Hillary piece. We kill pieces all the time for a variety of reasons," says GQ editor Jim Nelson.

Proof that the Kansas State Collegian is not the stupidest Collegian in the country -- or even the region -- has emerged: The editor of CSU's Rocky Mountain Collegian newspaper said he's prepared to fight for his job this week in the face of criticism for an editorial published Friday that featured a prominent profanity.... The Collegian editorial page ran a four-word editorial in large type that said, "Taser this. F-- Bush," with the profanity spelled out.... A memo from Collegian newsroom manager Jeremy Trujillo on Friday said the paper lost $30,000 in advertising in the hours following the editorial’s publication and said the pay of student staffers would be cut 10 percent to offset the loss.

Wow. It's idiotic and infantile actions like this that jeopardize the freedoms of those with legitimate viewpoints and stances instead of just shock value (connecting the Tazering of Mr. Rowdypants asking not-a-candidate John Kerry a question to the current commander-in-chief is tenuous at best). I'm not against ever using that language, but you've got to earn it. Bozo the Wonder Editor did not. Suffer. This isn't a First Amendment issue, this is a competency issue; I'm not sure the editor should be allowed to use Adobe Indesign, much less run a real, if student, newspaper.

But the real mind-blowing assertion of the day goes to the president of Iran, Mr. I-Would-Have-To-Cut-and-Paste-His-Name-Anyhow: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like you do in your country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who told you that we have this."

Which poses several possibilities:

1) There's nothing sexually attractive in Iran, so nobody's really attracted to anything.
2) They've all been killed already.
3) This explains the right's burning desire to invade -- this is the magical heterosexual promised land, where everyone gets turned straight and musical theatre is appropriately enjoyed on its own merits and not at all ironically.
4) The census form that asks "Are you a homosexual? If so, please check box 5E and report to your nearest execution center at earliest convenience" may have skewed the results....

Comments

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Perhaps President Guy-I-Won't-Even-Try-To-Spell meant that they don't have as vocal and "out" homosexuals as we do in America? As in, the gay community isn't as willing to let their preferences be widely known (and from the sounds of the news today, that could be a smart move), therefore making them more of a silent minority, rather than picketing/marching/Out and Proud/rainbows and pink triangles and things. Giving him the benefit of the doubt (and I didn't catch more than a moment or two of the speech because I was at dinner while it was on the tv and the news people kept cutting away to remind us of how the college president guy pwned President Iran Guy in the introduction because OMG the US is Awesome eleventyone!!! and using purposely inflammatory language rather than even trying to pretend they were impartially reporting a news event, so I could be way off here) when he said they didn't have the "phenomenon" he might have meant the widespread open cultural phenomenon of the gay community that we have in the US. Not that we're universally accepting of gays (or all that honest about the concept of equality, which was something else they seemed to be attacking President Iran Guy for).

But that's another tangent completely, and no one wants to hear my "Dammit, could we perhaps start trying to fix the suckitude in our own country and spend a bit less time sticking our noses in everyone else's business?" rant again.

[begstodiffer.livejournal.com]

I'm rather partial to Dennis Miller's pronunciation: President Aquavelva-jad.

As far as his curious comments about homosexuals, I think the explanation is pretty simple. This guy is so used to having people accept (or fearfully claim to accept) whatever he says at face value, that it never even entered his mind that an audience would question him, let alone do it on rational, dispassionate grounds. Remember a few months ago, when he announced that Iran had found an herbal cure for AIDS? Yeah, we're not holding our breaths on that one, either.

In fairness, I can see why the right wants to march into Tehran- there's a lot of evidence that they are supplying Iraqi insurgents with arms for the specific purpose of fighting our troops. Regardless of what you may think of the current war, I'm pretty sure that Mahmoud isn't doing it because he loves the Iraqi people. My opinion of Iraq flip-flops daily, but I can say that I'm thankful to live in a representative republic where I don't have to make that decision directly.

In 1925, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that he wanted to kill the Jews and take over the world. Everyone thought that he was just speaking figuratively and we all know what happened (well, unless you live in Iran).

Now, we've got this new guy who says that he wants to kill the Jews and take over the world...

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Ok, I totally missed what he said about the Holocaust, but from what I gathered from the anchor it was a very boneheaded, Mel Gibsonish thing to day, is that correct?

Also, Re: the war, I'm afraid I tend to keep my opinions to myself for certain obvious reasons (especially on the internet) other than to say that I fully support the men and women who serve.

[motteditor.livejournal.com]

Not sure if you consider it Mel Gibsonish, but he's basically denied the Holocaust.

Whether he actually believes it, or is simply using that as propaganda, is up for debate, so at least he's got that on ol' Mel, I guess.

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

He actually said the Holocaust didn't happen?

[motteditor.livejournal.com]

He hosted an entire conference for Holocaust deniers, claiming it was under siply freedom of speech.

From Wikipedia (which means it can be taken with a few grains of salt, though this more or less matches my memories):
In December 2005 Ahmadinejad made several controversial statements about the Holocaust, calling it "a myth", and criticizing European laws against Holocaust denial.[125] In a May 30, 2006 interview with Der Spiegel Ahmadinejad again questioned the Holocaust several times, insisting there were "two opinions" on it. When asked if the Holocaust was a myth, he responded "I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it".[126]

In response to these statements and actions, a variety of sources, including the U.S. Senate,[127] have accused Ahmadinejad of antisemitism. On December 11, 2006 the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" opened, to widespread condemnation.[128] The conference, called for by and held at the behest of Ahmadinejad,[129] was widely described as a "Holocaust denial conference" or a "meeting of Holocaust deniers",[130] though Iran maintained that it is not a Holocaust denial conference.[131]

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Thank you for looking that up.

This is what I get for trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

[begstodiffer.livejournal.com]

Hell, I didn't see any of his speech. I'm just going by what he's said in the past.

I was going to write this earlier, but I got an unexpected late-night tech support call from a friend. I'll just look at motteditor's comments and nod in agreement.

Also, Re: the war, I'm afraid I tend to keep my opinions to myself for certain obvious reasons (especially on the internet) other than to say that I fully support the men and women who serve.

Hear, hear.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but if I were the staff, I'd be PISSED at whoever did that. MY pay has to be docked because someone has absolutely NO judgement on what should be in the paper in big, bold letters? If you ask me, whoever did it should seriously be fired. That's pretty inexcusable, position on the president or not.

My favorite part was this:
“They can’t fire me for content, but they can fire me if there are overwhelming complaints from community and students,” McSwane said of the board, which is currently made up of six students and three faculty members. “I think they might try to fire me.”

That's just ASKING for people to complain just to get him out of office. We all like our drama. :P

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, a committee of ten people with no judgement agreed on it, patch. It wasn't the lone editor, he had the backing of everyone in the editorial committee.

[motteditor.livejournal.com]

At the same time, isn't that the point of college papers? That's where we fuck up so we learn how not to do it when we get out into the real world. Thank goodness I had my (Massachusetts Daily) Collegian to serve as a learning ground.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but even accounting for the educational process, there are some things you just don't do -- put "colored people" in a headline, refer to your dean of student life in a cutline as Osama bin Laden, plagiarize a Dave Berry column, run an ad using Times New Roman designed to look like a news story with details of a falsified drunk driving fatality....

(And yes, all of those happened at my college paper in the space of, what, eight years?)

[motteditor.livejournal.com]

It wasn't in a headline, but I actually used "colored people" once. My first story, as a freshman in college. The phrase I was looking for was obviously "people of color," but it was my very first article and I screwed up. Though I remain pissed that some copy editor didn't fix it and let me know, it's one of the most embarassing things in my life.

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Someone plagiarized Dave Berry? I remember most of the others (but not the ad, and you would have thought the ad department would have vetoed something like that).