Student paper's piece on "benefits" of rape causes uproar

[flowomo]

linked from http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45 to http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-nebccsu0209.artfeb09,0,4411698.story?coll=hc-headlines-local


Words Reopen Scars At CCSU
February 9, 2007
By MATT BURGARD, Courant Staff Writer

NEW BRITAIN -- Sarah said she couldn't keep her knees from buckling and the tears from welling in her eyes when she picked up a copy of the student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University this week.
Sarah, a freshman at the university who asked that her last name not be used, said she was raped when she was 15. She said all the hard emotions of her attack came flooding back to her - the shame, the rage, the despair - as she read an article in the campus newspaper, The Recorder, headlined "Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It."
"I couldn't believe the things I was reading," she said Thursday, a day after the article appeared. "I couldn't believe anyone in this day and age would write something like that, and that other people would let it be published."
The article, written by opinion editor John Petroski, details several "benefits" that rape has made to civilization over the years. The article describes rape as a "magical experience" that has been a blessing to "ugly women."
"If it weren't for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn't drunk?" the article asks.

(more at links)

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WernhamHogg]

5. Totally agree n/t

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. It makes me wonder if he has that point of view from experience

Seriously! How anyone could take that position with or without a straight face is unconscionable.

[tk2kewl]

71. maybe use his eye socket

[helderheid]

76. !

I cannot believe anyone could call rape "magical"

[Skidmore]

85. Only a serial rapist would think that way.

[ThomCat]

97. I think you may be right.

I'm sure he's probably a rapist who just hasn't been convicted yet. x(

[helderheid]

112. If that's true, I hope beyond hope his victims come forward and get his ass.

[cgrindley]

315. You can't just make those sorts of accusations about people

Accusing someone of being a rapist is actually a crime.

[cgrindley]

314. Hardly

Have you read the article? It's pretty obvious that the point was something to do with prison rape awareness, that it was supposed to be some sort of shock piece, but that it failed miserably and went south in a hurry. You would have thought that it would have been pulled in whatever weekly editorial meeting the paper has. Sometimes satire is just so badly written as to be unrecognizable as satire. The kid is guilty of bad writing and terrible judgment, and the paper is guilty of having a terrible editorial policy and poor editing, but I don't think you can, with a straight face, accuse him of being a "serial rapist".

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. That is vile!

[Deja Q]

3. Given what our society DOES publish, none of us should be shocked.

The writer of that piece is a sicko, have no doubt about it.

[Midlodemocrat]

4. I can't believe the stupidity. How did that ever get to press?

[ContraBass Black]

28. My first guess would be so that the sentiment would be exposed.

[LeftishBrit]

7. That's disgusting!

I just posted on another thread about how student journalists were much nastier in my day (1980s Thatcherite Britain) than now; but this horrible man seems to be proving me wrong.

Pity that he took a university place that could have gone to someone with a brain.

[Katherine Brengle]

8. Something I would expect to see in a right wing hate rag... not a college paper.

I don't care what the "intention" was - the message is loud and clear - victims ask to be victimized and that stereotype refuses to fucking die.

[kenny blankenship]

58. College papers have long been incubators for the right wing rag industry

Around the same time big players like Scaife and the Olin Foundation figured out that they could use their money to monopolize the "marketplace of ideas" by buying pundits, putting marginal scientific experts on retainer, endowing university chairs, and convincing major corporations to become the patrons of news and opinion programming (thus buying editorial slant with long term ad revenues), they also began to funnel grants to any crackpot writer who'd send in a LTTE to their university student newspaper. Patronage shows the rightwing student that there's a future for them in op/ed journalism paved in greenbacks. So they get rewards and an inducement to a career which is not offered to students of leftish persuasion. In a way, they are pushed to compete with each other for who's the "most extreme rightwing crazy", as a strategy for furthering their adult careers. Knowing how their most vicious and aberrant tendencies get encouraged by the rightwing pundit industry, it's not so surprising to me to see an Op/Ed piece like this. This Fascist talent search has been going on on college campuses for probably more than 20 years now. This student probably has no chance of ever being a lucky winner of the Young Republican Gong Show, but that doesn't stop him and others like him at lower tier universities from taking their cues from the seedy atmosphere of righwing carnival that surrounds College Republican groups and their weeklies.

[Katherine Brengle]

92. Excellent points. nt

[nashville_brook]

166. Dinesh D'souza and the whole "political correctness" meme came from this

so few people paid any attention to the mechanics behind the PC phenom. it was completely manufactured on college campuses with SCAIFE money. the PC meme is still with us, albeit in a much less virulent form -- but it was GIANT VICTORY for these monsters.

[nashville_brook]

184. read his actual piece and tell me he's not going to get a SCAIFE grant

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=167130&mesg_id=169241

[Lydia Leftcoast]

190. Yes, I am shocked by the difference between the University of MN's

daily newspaper of the late 1960s (when they attempted to put together a serious newspaper) and the Minnesota Daily of today (good sports coverage, not much other content, lots of stupid right wing raving).

[Solly Mack]

9. Awaits the "lighten up" comments to commence

[bicentennial_baby]

10. Same here

*sigh*

[Solly Mack]

12. Yep *sigh*

Damn shame too

[Katherine Brengle]

11. From the article:

The editors of The Recorder, in another statement released Thursday, said they regretted the harm the article caused, adding they would not have published it if they had realized how people would react to it. Yet at the same time, the statement defended Petroski as a gifted satirist whose intended message "fell on deaf ears."

:eyes:

[Solly Mack]

15. Yeah, I read that

I'm *deaf* from the thunderous roar of misogyny

[Katherine Brengle]

27. Ugh, right?

:eyes:

[Giant Robot]

17. And his message was.....

Waiting.





Waiting.





Waiting.
Dumbass.

[Iris]

141. dead on, Giant Robot.

I've enjoyed the posts you've written on this thread. Especially the last word.

:hi:

[Giant Robot]

145. Thank you Iris!

It's nice to get some appreciation after some negative stuff I've gotten lately!

:hi:

[NewJeffCT]

22. A "gifted satirist"?

That's like praising Hannibal Lecter for his ability to use a scalpel.

And I used to live a few miles away from this school...

[asthmaticeog]

41. Wow, thats some tight, concisely written disingenuousness there.

"they regretted the harm the article caused,"

They apparently didn't regret the breathtaking stupidity or the totally uncloaked misogyny, just "the harm," read: "sorry you got pissed." :eyes:



"adding they would not have published it if they had realized how people would react to it."

How else were people going to react to a freakin' rape apologia? "Oh, dear heavens? Have you heard Petroski's latest delicious bon mot? 'She asked for it,' he said! Oh, the wit! Oh, the felicitous verbal cunning! Hold me up, for I may swoon!"



"Yet at the same time, the statement defended Petroski as a gifted satirist whose intended message 'fell on deaf ears.'"

Satire? Oh, forgive me, for in my Philistine ignorance I guess I must have missed the devious rhetorical point behind "Well, what was she wearing?"

Whatta buncha yutzes.

[Katherine Brengle]

47. Yeah, "I'm sorry that what he said made you angry..."

Not, "I'm sorry that he said it." Or, "I'm sorry that we printed it."

[bettyellen]

136. they are "blaming the readers", oh that's rich.

For that statement, they should fucking resign.
The arrogance, feigned ignorance and the abdication of responsibility turns their rag and themselves, into asswipes.

[asthmaticeog]

160. Well, maybe the readers asked for it.

I mean, what were they doing reading something like that to begin with? They probably wanted it just as bad as the writer.

[bettyellen]

165. LOL, see this proves when someone skewers the media, i can actually discern this

hey did you know, i met your bud chavez and cassandra a few weeks ago. very nice peeps. that was nice
:hi:

[Solly Mack]

That was wonderfully said!

[myrna minx]

95. Your post is fantastic.

:applause:

[WolverineDG]

144. What drugs were they hopped up on?

Who in their right minds would think that that piece wouldn't cause any harm or even pass as satire? :crazy:

I hope they're all tossed out on their asses.

dg

[progressivebydesign]

178. I'd say Petroski is not really a "gifted satirist"

But an idiot, actually. A gifted satirist UNDERSTANDS the bounds of human decency.

[myrna minx]

19. I know.

:cry:

This reads like:
"If rape is inevitable, you may as well lay back and enjoy it"--Bobby Knight

[lastliberalintexas]

24. Clayton Williams also said that

He was a repub candidate for Gov in Texas who ran against Richards in 1990. That statement, along with his refusal to shake her hand at a public function, very likely caused his defeat.

[myrna minx]

35. Some "satire" when it comes straight out of the mouths

of real "people". :eyes:

[lastliberalintexas]

75. Yeah, I didn't know that Knight also said that, though given his

public persona... The only good thing that came of Williams' comment was his defeat in Texas of all places. I wonder whether the resultant backlash would be the same today, though. *sigh*


I am very sorry about your friends, myrna.

[myrna minx]

84. Thanks.

:hug:

[Solly Mack]

26. Reads exactly like that

with an added...and be grateful for it!

[myrna minx]

49. Oh Solly, this is just the last nail for a horrible week.

*sigh* I am so tired. :cry: I guess I'll sulk away to my corner and try to "lighten up." What is extra horrible is that while I was battling away, trying to explain he horrors of gay-bashing on a liberal message board :wtf:, I just learned last night that my friend was jumped in the Mission District in SF. In SF! He and his friend were ambushed by six men. Thankfully they didn't need to be hospitalized, but oh! I just feel so sick. :cry:

[Solly Mack]

61. (((myrna minx))) It can be exhausting

I hope your friends will be OK. I'm glad they didn't need to be hospitalized but we both know that such injuries run deeper than cuts and bruises.

[myrna minx]

101. Isn't that the truth. Thanks.

:hug:

[ThomCat]

114. I hope your friends are okay.

:(

It never ends. And so many people who aren't affected think it's all no big deal. x(

I'm not ready to sulk. I'm a confrontational bastard and don't mind admitting it.

[myrna minx]

126. Thanks.

:hug: They were jumped on Saturday night, but I just found out about it last night. Jason was able to get a 911 call out before they smashed his phone and the police responded quickly. They had $600.00 between the two of them, but they weren't robbed, it was definitely a bashing. They were pretty roughed up and Jason's shoulder was dislocated, but ultimately, they were "ok". :cry: I just can't believe out of all the places in the world, that he would be bashed 1 block away from his home in San Francisco. :cry: It's chilling reminder that it can happen anywhere, even in SF. :cry:

Thomcat, you are always there fighting the good fight and I really respect that. I promise I won't sunk either, I'm just pretty bummed out today.

on edit: spelling. :silly:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

193. Goodness, myrna, that's terrible

I have a lot of gay friends, too, and I 'd be upset if anyone attacked them.

[myrna minx]

202. Thanks Lydia.

I'm so grateful that they are physically ok. It's still so painful to think about what they went through, though.

[wryter2000]

137. I'm so sorry

The "lighten up" crowd needs to waken up. :hug:

[myrna minx]

140. Thanks.

:hug:

[mzmolly]

91. Lighten up!

Kidding. :hide:

I can't help but hope it's satire. The scary thing is - our society breeds this intellect.

[Solly Mack]

94. "The scary thing is - our society breeds this intellect"

It for damn sure does


:hi:

[mzmolly]

100. And, unfortunately we have evidence of that fact HERE on a fairly regular basis.

:shrug:

UGH!

:hi:

:pals:

[Morgana LaFey]

116. and if it IS satire?

Does that excuse it or something in your mind??? "No harm" if it's only a joke??? I don't get your comment at ALL.

It doesn't matter whether it's satire or not. In some ways, it's worse if it IS satire. How the hell thinks rape is something to JOKE about? A misogynist, that's who. A misogynist spewing misogyny and hoping not to be called on their stuff, that's who.

----

Fortunately, the President of the school gets it:

Jack Miller, university president, said the article crossed the lines of journalistic freedom.

Miller said he planned to convene a panel of students and faculty in the coming weeks to discuss the issue, but he stopped short of taking any action against Petroski or the paper's editors and faculty advisers.

"Rape is a profound violation of body and spirit, and to make light of it, even in satire, is abhorrent," Miller said. "We need to be sure that students understand that such hateful speech is not protected and simply is not worthy, on any ground, of publication."

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

123. Um, yes.

If it's satire, and it obviously is, then the worst he's guilty of is bad writing.

Which is why he's in college to begin with.

[Morgana LaFey]

139. No, he's quite guilty of misogynism, whether it's so-called

satire or not.

And I'd say the same about those who defend him in this way. And don't give me no free speech crap. Becaue someone is legally allowed to say something doesn't make it right or appropriate, or mean there shouldn't be strict sanctions for promoting this kind of hatred and bigotry. Free speech is NO defense of bigotry.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

142. No, he's not.

Not any more than Jonathon Swift hates children.

[bettyellen]

149. where is the skewering of the media in the piece? how come no one can see it?

i see him making fun of rape victims, but you can't read that and take away any commentary on the media from it. It just isn't there.
That kind of blows away his satire cover story. The piece makes fun at the expense of rape victims, that's there in black and white.
If he intended this media attention, he could say it's a performance piece skewering the media, but the article itself, no. It's a rehash of misogynistic jokes for shock value. If it wasn't skewering rape victims, then it was pointless and completely unoriginal. not satire at all.
even shitty satire has a point, a target, it is more than just for cheap laughs. find some substance in the piece, an actual point being made, and you might have a point yourself.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

151. I don't know, it's a terrible piece of writing.

"i see him making fun of rape victims"

nonsense.

[bettyellen]

156. can't do better than "nonsense"? i see a whol lot of joking about rape, so who's expense is

is that at? it's the literary equivalent at making "ugly girls" and rape victims take pratfalls for him.
Critique of media, my ass. He's not that clever.

[nashville_brook]

186. you might actually want to read his piece:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=167130&mesg_id=169241

[sendero]

277. You're wasting your time here..

.... these folks don't get it and they never will.

[girl gone mad]

286. No, I get it.

Some dumbass 'Punked' fanboy thinks he can make his lame point at the expense of others. I'm sure he never gave one second's thought to how a rape victim reading his little article would feel.

[sendero]

299. Oh I see..

... so now it's "meta" satire, and so having turned 180 degrees is no longer "satire".

Oh I see, I must never write or say anything that might upset anyone. God forbid. Even a Republican.

If there was one scintilla of a chance this is not pure satire, I'd have some sympathy for the outrage.

But as it is, this entire fucking board is turning into an all too real parody of the impressions many have of "liberals", i.e. that they are always looking for something, a candy commercial, a piece of parody, a dead stripper, ANYTHING to become outraged about.

Sorry, I'm outraged out.

[girl gone mad]

301. A little bit melodramatic, doncha think?

I never said any such thing about offensive writing. Please leave the straw men out of it.

As far as this piece of offensive writing is concerned, no I do not consider it pure satire. Not before and especially not since reading Mr. Petroski's prior work.

It seems you believe that simply by way of being offensive, this editorial deserves to be treated with a special respect, else we may be percieved as PC liberal dummies. It reminds me of the state of modern art a few years back, when no one would call garbage what it was for fear of overlooking the next Picasso or Warhol and being called stodgy and out of touch. Well, crap is not always art and offensive writing is not always satire.

[sendero]

312. Special respect..

.... no. If it offends you, ignore it. It is the call to arms over every god damned little thing that has me fatigued.

And here is something you should consider. YOU don't get to decide what is satire, within certain parameters in which this piece clearly falls. Becuase if YOU get to decide now, some fool like Bush or Falwell will get to decide later, and THAT would be an offense worthy of outrage.

We have to live by the same principles we set out for everyone else. I don't know how to say it any more simply, nor do I think it could be a more fundamental civil liberty.

[mzmolly]

127. Uhm NO. I couldn't even stomach reading the shit.

Rape has touched my family in a very personal way. I don't take the subject lightly.

Any other questions?

[cwydro]

169. In what way is this satire?

I do not see it. Someone should be fired from that paper.

[Giant Robot]

13. Words fail

What the hell happened to this man?

[Morgana LaFey]

113. I'm much more focused on what SHOULD happen to this man

I'll spare you the details of my fantasies....

[Giant Robot]

122. I'm at work now

And it would look bad if I were curled up in a fetal position crying for my mommy after I heard the details.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Satire is tougher to write than that, Mr. Petroski.

The defense is that he's a brilliant satirist. IMHO, he's not so brilliant if readers can't figure that the piece is intended as satire. A simple explanatory note labeling the piece as satire or labeling the writer as a satirist would have gone a long way to cut the hurt. Better still would be to choose a less emotionally damage topic for his "satire."

[Bunny]

16. Did you see what this asshat said?

<snip>
Rowan said Thursday that Petroski and other editors felt the article was a humorous condemnation of media sensationalism. Rowan said the controversy over the article has proved the point it was trying to make.

"The front page of the paper had a very important story about students losing their Social Security numbers, an issue that affects the entire campus," Rowan said. "But nobody is talking about that. They're only talking about the rape article."<snip>

Does he really think that people would be more upset about a story on Social Security Numbers than they would on rape? Of course, maybe HE would be more upset about his SSN than a woman or rape survivor might be. I mean after all, what are the chances that he'll ever be a rape victim? :eyes:

[Prophet 451]

30. Higher than you'd think

Men being raped (usually by other men) is perhaps not as common as female rape but it does happen quite often. You just don't hear much about it because it's even more under-reported than female rape and people tend not to take it seriously.

[fishwax]

48. hell, if it happens in prison, it isn't a joke, it's a punchline

That seems to be the sensibility of many people, anyway. x(

[Prophet 451]

68. Yeah

If it happens in prison, it's a punchline. If it happens on the street or a public restroom or a private house, no-one wants to hear about it. One of my big problems with modern feminism is that while they drew much needed light on female rape, they also created the impression that rape only happens to women.

[fishwax]

45. no kidding. even his "defense"

makes clear some rather hideous assumptions on his part. But then, we see similar arguments here on DU quite often, as in the claim that the Snickers story or the articulate story aren't "real" issues somehow, and should be relegated along with Prince's guitar to some "shiny object of the day" forum :eyes:

[wryter2000]

59. WTF

What the hell does rape have to do with media sensationalism?

[Ian David]

73. He thinks the media pays too much attention to rape, because it's really not that important (to him)

[wryter2000]

132. Thanks

That makes sense. It also makes the whole thing worse.

[Ian David]

69. Serial rapist targets (straight) men in Texas

A serial rapist has attacked at least five young men in the suburbs of Houston since April, police say.

In the most recent assault, The Baytown Sun says "the victim was forced out of his home at gunpoint and assaulted. As in the four previous attacks, the assault involved demands of sex by the suspect, who also wielded a knife."

Experts say it unusual for a man to prey on other men.

"It's the least prevalent kind of serial rape, and largely underreported," Jack Levin, a leading criminologist, told the Associated Press.

That's why police say they're concerned there are victims who haven't come forward.

"There's a lot of emotional damage that goes with being raped, especially when the victims are men," Lynn Parrish of the National Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network told AP.

More:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/12/serial_rapist_t.html


(Artist's sketch of suspect provided by the Baytown, Texas, Police Department.)

[Catherine Vincent]

153. Here is his pic:

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou070208_ac_baytownsuspect.630b4889.html

[RubyDuby in GA]

125. I'm sure he might think differently if it were his mother on the receiving end

But then again, maybe not. I don't think this is a person capable of such human emotions.

[girl gone mad]

285. It's a very sheltered man's idea of a joke.

that's the impression I got. This guy has never done anything with his life, never been exposed to anything resembliing reality, never opened his heart or his mind. He's immature on every level. there are a lot of guys like him walking around. Rape is a joke to him because he thinks it doesn't really effect him. He's just in his own little universe.

I can't explain why the hell the editors actually print his nonsense.

[lastliberalintexas]

18. Certainly satire

Those statements are so over the top, the piece has to be satire. Right?

[Cabcere]

29. Even if it was meant as satire

(which was my initial impression), it's still horribly inappropriate, IMO. There are certain things that are just not funny in any context, and rape is one of them.

(BTW, I'm not attacking you, lastliberalintexas - hope it didn't come off that way. :hi: )

[lastliberalintexas]

44. But satire isn't supposed to be funny

As I noted below. I think that if this was satire, it's that of a poor writer- but not because it isn't funny. Satire is predominantly used to make the reader *think*, not laugh.


And I have much thicker skin that that! Your post didn't seem an attack at all. :)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

50. Oh, I disagree there.

Satire doesn't have to be funny.

But the really good stuff is. The best way to slay an enemy is to laugh at him.

[TankLV]

131. but then may I direct you all to "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift...

there was not a single "sarcasm" smiley or note to be found in the entire essay. It is probably one of the most profound SERIOUS pieces of satire in history...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

135. Well, no, he didn't use any emoticons that I recall.

It was, however, hilarious.

[Cabcere]

60. Good point

I guess I didn't phrase myself quite clearly - I meant that I didn't think it was a particularly appropriate satirical target, especially in the context of a college newspaper. Not that outrageous or shocking things can't be satirized (Swift's A Modest Proposal comes to mind), but the fact that it was published in a college newspaper, where people like Sarah and other rape victims could quite easily and innocently come across it and be hurt further. I'm not saying that nothing controversial should ever be published because of who might read it, or anything like that - I just think that such an obviously inflammatory (and, IMO, inappropriate) article should not have been printed in a publication like this. :shrug:

[NashVegas]

288. Americans, Increasingly, Do Not Think

I read the full piece and appreciate what he was trying to do, but no, he didn't do it well and the last paragraph is badly tacked on. He might have done better to run it by an English prof first.

[RaleighNCDUer]

64. The intent of satire is not to be funny.

It is to provide commentary with overblown particulars.

Satire is meant to be disturbing, but it takes real skill to write and this columnist apparently does not have that skill. If the target of the satire is the type of person who actually believes these barbaric statements, it should have been framed in such as way as to show the comments coming from that type, not seeming to come from the columnist himself.

of course, since we don't have the column itself to peruse it's hard to say what the intent was or what the writer's skill level is.

In any case, he obviously blew it.

[Cabcere]

72. See my post above (#60)

:hi: Apparently it's a good thing I'm not an English major or a speechwriter of any sort...I am not good at expressing myself clearly. :blush:

[Ian David]

77. It's satire, poorly executed, and for the WRONG reason.

The point of his "satire" was to say the the media spends too much time reporting on things like rape, when there are much more important issues, like stolen social security numbers, to worry about.

In any case, the guy is suffering from a severe case of CTD (Conservative Thinking Disorder).

[lastliberalintexas]

83. Maybe, but given his abortion rant

posted later in this thread, I'm beginning to think it was only labeled as satire by the author *after* the bruhaha began.

[NashVegas]

287. I Think The Part About the Roman Empire Being Flawless

Was a bit of a tip-off.

Have you ever read Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho? If it weren't for the chapter on Genesis, I might never have realized that was supposed to be satire, either.

[salin]

308. funky thing about clumsy satire - it boosts up folks who don't *get*

the satire who actually agree with the sentiments expressed. To those folks it is a validation of their beliefs -ala "see other folks agree with me - heck they would applaud me..."

Still stuns me to think about the person who raped me in college. Image was all american boy. Back then, though friends adviced me to speak out - at the least to a female Dean - but I couldn't. I saw what happened to another female who had brought a charge. Can you spell ostracized or disbelieved?

What makes me so sad, is that while the statistics per the rape of women hasn't changed much over the past two decades (1 in 3 women between the age of 16 - 30), that noone on the paper raised a redflag before the article was published. They couldn't anticipate the reaction. Says that there is still a strong 'blindness' per the frequency and devastatingness of rape.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Geez, what's next?

An essay about how we should eat poor children?

[lastliberalintexas]

25. *snort*

Though I'm afraid this guy is nowhere near Swift's league as a writer.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. No, of course not.

But very few do.

[Katherine Brengle]

32. Are you implying that this...

came anywhere close to coming across as witty, Swiftian satire?

If so, I am gravely disappointed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. witty?

No.

[NewJeffCT]

34. Now Swift was a gifted satirist

If this guy was that gifted, he'd be writing for the New Yorker and not for a student newspaper at a mediocre college.

[JVS]

230. everyone has to start somewhere

[Rosemary2205]

21. Some "jokes" just aren't funny.

why people think jokes (satire) about death, lynching, rape and those sorts of things is funny is beyond my understanding.

[lastliberalintexas]

39. It isn't intended to be funny

Satire, that is. Satire is supposed to be cunning, biting, likely controversial, but not funny. Like Swift's A Modest Proposal, noted by hooligan above.

[Giant Robot]

46. Satire also has some point or truth to make

That is sometimes easier to get across in terms of comedy, a la All in the Family and Archie Bunker. I am struggling to see what point he was trying to make. Other than he is a failure as a satirist.

[lastliberalintexas]

54. That's my problem too

I can't for the life of me see a valid point behind his attempt at satire.


And I agree with you and hooligan that satire can be devastatingly funny. It just usually isn't.

[Giant Robot]

65. Satire shouldn't be funny

But usually is. At least if it is done well. And makes one think hopefully. I am just sitting here with you trying to understand what he was trying to accomplish with this, IF it was satire, and not some frat boy schmuck who was feeling pissed at women on this date. I would like to hear that answer if this person is so gifted, obviously he is beyond my intellect, and I need it explained. As I said elsewhere I am a curious guy, so I would welcome him trying to explain this to me. Exactly what was your point sir?

[sarge43]

138. As Molly Ivins pointed out, satire's target should be the powerful, not the powerless

A rape victim by definition is powerless. Swift's A Modest Proposal targeted the cold indifference of the English oligarchy to Ireland's misery, not the misery itself.

[NuttyFluffers]

311. thank you. there are subtle guidelines, and what this was completely ignored all

i really think serious literature courses should be mandatory before allowing people to dabble in their college newspaper. language and expression is an art, and there's a very real right way and wrong way to get the message across. without proper exposure to the nuances of these skills ugly things like this are apt to appear. i find the lax attitude, if not outright dismissal, towards the arts having a continuously detrimental effect to our society.

[sarge43]

319. You're welcome.

As noted below, satire is a difficult form. The practitioner has to navigate a very narrow line between sarcastic black humor and moral outrage. Even the masters like Twain sometimes tipped over.

The satirist sees something wrong and wants something positive done. As Ivins said, targeting the powerless is not only cruel; it's vulgar. More importantly, it's ineffective. The writer who targets the powerless isn't a satirist; he's a bully.

[TankLV]

134. ...to make the hideous and unbearable more bearable...

that's why such jokes exist on one level - there are always those who get off on enjoying the misery of others, tho, on the other level...

[Prophet 451]

23. Oh. My. Lord.

Y'know, I'm as much of a fan of questionable taste humour as anyone and I've read and laughed at some satire pieces that would probably outrage a few people but the point about satire is to make a serious point in a humourous manner. What point was being made here? I've read satire which proposed the Homosexual League To Molest Babies. That was actually funny (believe it or not) because the writer (deliberatly) went so over the top that it was impossible to take seriously and just ended up making the people who really do believe this junk look stupid. What was the point here? What serious subject was meant to be tackled?

Personally, I'd like to lock the author in a windowless room with any one of the girls I taught rape prevention to.

[Cerridwen]

31. Molly Ivins on 'satire'

• There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.

This guy needs some serious writing lessons - yes, I read the article and recognized what he was trying to do. Trying, being the operative word. He failed, miserably.

[Katherine Brengle]

38. Best post here so far. Satire is only satire...

when it is used by those with few other weapons in their arsenals.

"Satire" by the powerful is simple mockery at its best and outright scorn at its worst.

[Rosemary2205]

43. THAT'S IT!

Molly was obviously better with words than I'll ever be! :)

[Cerridwen]

57. Better with words than I'll ever be also, exactly why I used her words.

Why re-invent the wheel when she did such a great job with it in the first place. :D

[lastliberalintexas]

51. I'm really not even sure what his intent was

After all, true satire usually has a purpose, but for the life of me I can't come up with anything this kid was even attempting to say, whether poorly or not. Did he mean that rapes are underreported because of how we treat the victims? Was he arguing that stricter sentences are needed for convicted rapists? Who knows, maybe his writing is just that bad and he did have something important to say. But it seems more like frat boy speak posing as satire to me.

[Cerridwen]

63. I read where he said he was trying to show how *most* people

ignore what is important, something about media focusing on those things of minor worth. The problem is, he didn't point to examples of media idiocy or even the powerful 'most' people who ignore what is important. In other words, he didn't 'make fun of' anyone in power which is, historically, the motive and justification for satire.

[lastliberalintexas]

67. I also saw that in another post in this thread

Yet another reason that he is a horrible writer- the satire must at least bear some relationship to that which is being lampooned. Media and rape? I don't see it at all. :shrug:

[Cerridwen]

74. Part of me wonders why

if he is such a 'gifted' satirist, why he so missed the mark on this issue?

Yeah, I know - paranoid, tin foil and over sensitive am I. /snark

[nashville_brook]

185. read his actual piece -- RAPE is of minor worth

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=167130&mesg_id=169241

[Cerridwen]

207. I did, thanks.

See my post #31 above

Cerridwen (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Feb-09-07 10:06 AM

Response to Original message

31. Molly Ivins on 'satire'

• There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.


This guy needs some serious writing lessons - yes, I read the article and recognized what he was trying to do. Trying, being the operative word. He failed, miserably.

Then I read another article which he'd written and noted

Cerridwen (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Feb-09-07 11:21 AM

Response to Reply #111

128. After reading his screed about abortion

Edited on Fri Feb-09-07 11:22 AM by Cerridwen

I'm going to hazard a guess that, at the very least, he has some serious 'issues' with women. Beyond that, he's a lousy writer (he misread his audience), he has a platform and he shouldn't 'quit his day job'. This is my opinion. YMMV.

screed about abortion

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

53. I'm bookmarking this thread because of your Ivins quote.

Thanks for that!
:hi:

[Cerridwen]

70. You're welcome!

And a link for more Ivins quotes.

:hi:

[Dastard Stepchild]

87. Exactly!

She was a wise one, that Molly.

I'll also give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to do what I think he was trying to do. But yes, he failed.
It's one of those subjects that are not amenable to humor, so if you try it... well, let's just say that the chances of failure are pretty great, and you'd better be a pretty good word smith to attempt it.

[Radical Activist]

111. Yes, he failed at making a point.

It was a poor attempt. It doesn't make him a rapist and it doesn't mean he actually believes the ugly things he wrote, which is apparently what most people responding to this thread think.

[Cerridwen]

128. After reading his screed about abortion

I'm going to hazard a guess that, at the very least, he has some serious 'issues' with women. Beyond that, he's a lousy writer (he misread his audience), he has a platform and he shouldn't 'quit his day job'. This is my opinion. YMMV.

screed about abortion

[WernhamHogg]

177. Holy shit!

After reading some of the quotes from his rape "satire", I didn't think this guy could get any worse. However, looks like I was wrong. Is this supposed to be "satire", too?

"A woman’s claim that “it’s her body” ends when another’s grows within it."

:puke:

[Cerridwen]

221. Just 'peachy,' ain't he?

After I read that, I knew his take on rape and his attempt to pass it off as 'satire gone wrong' was crap!

I can't tell if he's more pissed because his girlfriend/wife aborted 'his baby' or because he didn't have the means to control what she did. Maybe both.

I wonder if he attacks the guys that say "I don't have any kids, that I know of *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*" as not taking responsibility for *their* actions. Just a tangential thought I had as I was typing this post.

[sarge43]

143. Cross post, Cerridwen

Satire is probably one of the most difficult of genres. Few writers have been successful at it.

[Cerridwen]

147. Great minds thinking alike?

:D

Me, you and Molly? LOL Thank heavens we still have her words.

[sarge43]

150. We'll always have her words and her example - a noble soul n/t

[NewJeffCT]

159. My high school English teacher gave me a great definition of satire

I posted this in another thread... but this is what he gave me way back in 1983 or 1984. For some reason, it has stuck with me through today, even though I went on to start out as an engineering major in college, and switched to business.

But, his definition was:
Wit & humor used to ridicule individuals or institutions of man's devisings. The true satirist attempts not to tear down, but to evoke change.

If it really was satire, what was the author trying to change? I can't see anything.

[WI_DEM]

36. Perhaps Mr. Penroski will one day experience the joys of being raped

and he'll see for himself all the fun he has been missing.

What an asshole.

[MamaBear]

52. ...by someone who isn't drunk.

:grr:

[flowomo]

40. A quick public service message:

I originally saw this story in Jim Romenesko's "column" at poynter -- dubbed "Your daily fix of media industry news, commentary, and memos."

Romenesko is a staple read for working journalists and often contains media-related stuff that DU'ers would find interesting. I recommend checking it out now and then.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

56. Is there any link...

to the offending editorial itself?

[TorchTheWitch]

78. Follow the link in the OP and read the comments...

On, I believe, the second page of the comments section, a poster pasted the entire article that appeared in the paper... it's horrible (and says a lot about what that asshole thinks of women).

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

Hmm.

It appears that the target of his satire was the media and rapists themselves.

Note the people here advocating rape for the author. That's the sort of person who this person's trying to target, it would appear.

[flowomo]

86. it's in the OP.... the Hartford Courant

[flowomo]

93. ooops.... sorry.... you meant the student paper....

another poster supplied. Thanks.

[Eric J in MN]

318. text of op-ed

"Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It

Most people today would claim that rape is a terrible crime almost akin to murder, but I strongly disagree. Far from a vile act, rape is a magical experience that benifits society as a whole. I realize many of you will disagree with this thesis, but lend me your ears and I'm sure I'll sway you towards a darkened alley. If it weren't for rape, Western Civilization might not exist as we know it today. When the Romans were faced with a disproportionate ratio of women to men in the early kingdom, they had to do something, lest their flidgling society die for lack of sons. To solvetheir little dilemma, they did what any reasonable man would do: they threw a festival for their little dilemma, they threw a festival for their Sabine neighbors, and then stole and raped their women. It's quite logical; in fact I don't understand why the settlers at Plymoth didn't do the same to the local Indians--it certainly would have saved on shipping costs.

Obviously, in the case of the Rape of the Sabines, rape was a tremendous help to society. The Sabine women, for their part, didn't seem to mind so much, as they threw themselves between their brutish old Sabine husbands and their charming new Roman ones to prevent bloodshed when the Sabine men came to relaim their wives. Yet even when society was totally against a rape, the raunchy act has benifited society too. Where would the Romans be, after all, if it weren't for the Rape of the Lucretia infuriating the people to the point of overthrowing their last king, Lucius Tarpuinius Superbus? If it weren't for that event, the world might have never had the Roman Republic for a pristine example of a flawless government.

Rapes glorious advantages are not, however, exclusively found from 2,000 year old examples. In actuality rape advantages can very much be seen today. Take ugly women for example. If it wern't for rape, how would they ever know the joys of intercourse with a man who isn't drunk. In a society as plastic-conscious as our own we are really to believe that some man would ever sleep with a girl resembling a wildebeest if he didn't have a few schnapps in him? Of course he wouldn't--atleast no self-respecting man would--but there in lies the beauty of rape. No self respecting man would rape in the first palce, so ugly women are guarenteed a romp with not only a sober man, but a bad boy too; and we all know how much ladies like the bad boy. Ugly women are not, however, the only people who benifit from rape--prisoners enjoy as many perks too. What, after all, could be possibly be more boring than spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day? Then answer, of course, is spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day and never getting some hot action. With rape, prisoners never have to worry about that. Instead, they merely need worry about treating their rapist with enough love and respect to earn a quick reach-around.

But if there is one bread and butter reason for why rape should not only be accepted, but even endorsed, it is because our news editors are in dire need of interesting stories for our front page. Bookstore stories? Fossils? One dollar coins? Please. Now, some saucy circle-jerk rape action? Yeah, that's the ticket."

[Starbucks Anarchist]

42. What the fucking hell?

:wtf: :puke:

[NoGOPZone]

55. I suggest he experience the 'benefits' first hand

by volunteering to spend a few weeks in the general population of his nearest federal prison. Then he can rewrite the article with the benefit of this new perspective.

[mainegreen]

62. I doubt anyone close to him has ever been raped.

Otherwise he would choose another way to make his point.

[onenote]

66. gee- how could someone possibly misunderstand this asshat's intent

So it was the fault of the readers' not the author? Well, consider that just maybe the readers were familiar with some of Petroski's other opinion pieces, like this one on abortion...

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=132

This guy is a major league asshat, and those apologizing for him are no better.

[dorkulon]

79. Is the article available online?

I'd like to read it before I pass judgment.

[Cerridwen]

88. Link below

this links to a .pdf copy of the newspaper - go to page 7 for the article.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/currentissue.pdf

[flowomo]

90. the link is in the OP..... second link to Hartford Courant

[Az]

80. A failed attempt at A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift once wrote an article called A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (sic).

In this work he suggested that the poor eat their children. The entire work was a mocking of the current system that rendered the poor to oblivion. This was perhaps the first time such a method was used to mock the power structure and as a result many people believed the work to be serious.

The Modest Proposal technique is very effective when delivered by someone that understands it and has sufficient skill to deliver it. It is obvious this author did not quite make it.

[ThomCat]

115. I would like to hope that he really was trying to

emulate Swift. I'm not so sure.

[skypilot]

81. I think that a big part of the problem...

...and the reason that some people end up writing shit like this is that too many people out there think that they are funny. Too many people trying to be Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Parker and Stone. They think that they can satirize any-fucking-thing. Lots of people are alot less funny than they think.

[Sapphire Blue]

82. Sick. fucking. sociopath; perhaps he should experience the "benefits" of the Bobbitt treatment...

... after having experienced the "benefits" of being brutally raped by another sociopath: Gary Ridgway.

[TorchTheWitch]

89. FULL ARTICLE IN QUESTION HERE

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/hartford-courant/T9LTO0FOADIEM8G8F/p2

The poster of the second comment on this page included the full piece that appeared in the student paper.

[dorkulon]

99. Darn.

I was hoping it would actually be a meaningful piece of satire, but that was just juvenile and dumb. Now I can't argue with everyone.

[Katherine Brengle]

105. Having read that in its entirety now...

I hope no one ever hires this guy and pays him to be a writer. Aside from the fact that he chose his subject poorly and managed to piss of probably thousands of people at this point, he's just not very good at it...

[LeftishBrit]

164. Agree; he's not a good writer!

Having read it, it's neither serious comment nor true satire. It reminds me a bit of the two-and-a-half-year-old I met in a train once who kept saying, "Fuck it!" loudly to enjoy the shocked attention from the other passengers. This bloke, too, wants to enjoy people's shocked attention, but he does it in a nasty and idiotic way.

Unfortunately, there are some journals that hire writers for being just like that.

[nashville_brook]

224. neither is klANN Coulter or MALkin, but

he'll prolly find a lucrative contract, because people like Richard Mellon Scaife have the money and the will to promote these sorts of hacks and "OUR" side doesn't.

Management of the Scaife family foundations

When Scaife refocused his political giving away from individuals and toward anti-communist research groups, legal defense funds, and publications, the first among these was the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

Through contacts made at Hoover and elsewhere, Scaife became a major, early supporter of the Heritage Foundation, which has since become one of Washington's most influential public policy research institutes. Later, he supported such varied conservative and libertarian organizations as:

* American Enterprise Institute
* Atlas Economic Research Foundation
* Center for the Study of Popular Culture (headed by David Horowitz)
* Federalist Society
* Foundation for Economic Education
* Free Congress Foundation (headed by Paul Weyrich)
* Freedom House
* GOPAC (headed by Newt Gingrich)
* Independent Women's Forum
* Intercollegiate Studies Institute (which operates the Collegiate Network)
* Judicial Watch
* Landmark Legal Foundation
* Media Research Center (headed by Brent Bozell)
* Pacific Legal Foundation
* Pittsburgh World Affairs Council
* Reason Foundation

By 1998 his foundations were listed among donors to over 100 such groups, to which he had disbursed some $340 million by 2002.

[Katherine Brengle]

231. I have to disagree... Repugnant as I find Coulter,

she's not a bad writer, just an asshole.

[nashville_brook]

269. perhaps there's a matter of taste -- :) but, objectively Coulter is guilty of laziness

specifically with the use of word-for-word lexus-nexus searches as a perch for her boorish polemic.

but i'll totally grant you a measure of technical ability. that doesn't make a "good writer," though.

[The Backlash Cometh]

96. Holy shit. And I thought that our right-wingers were bad.

[Az]

98. Heads up people. This was a failed attempt at satire

Wiki Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal to see the form it was supposed to have taken. It is unfortunate that the author did not have Swift's skill. But then even Swift got into trouble due to his satire.

[dorkulon]

102. This just wasn't funny, nor did it illustrate a larger point.

It just plain sucked. I don't think the guy should be jailed or anything, but it just wasn't any good. Comparing it to swift is like comparing Carrot Top to Lenny Bruce.

[Az]

110. I agree it sucked

But a lot of people are mistaking the intent.

[onenote]

120. how can anyone distinguish it from his other articles?

What makes it more obvious that this was satire than, say, his earier piece on abortion rights, which doesn't appear satirical to me.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=132

[Katherine Brengle]

106. Okay, need we bring back the Snickers ad?

Many, including myself early on, considered that a failed attempt at satire. It wasn't.

[NewJeffCT]

162. true satire attempts to get the satirized object to change

what is the author trying to change by writing his article?

[nashville_brook]

167. do you have a link to his original piece? i'd love to read it too.

[lukasahero]

205. Who the fuck cares?

Are your hands sweating from reading the first paragraph thinking someone out there really MIGHT believe this shit? How's your breathing? Your heart rate?

Well, my hands are sweating, my breathing is starting to slow back down but I'm pretty damn sure my heart rate will be screaming for another hour or so while I try to calm myself down. Have YOU ever been raped? Do you know how it feels to read this kind of shit?

I agree with the Molly quote above - this isn't just cruel, it's vulgar.

[girl gone mad]

295. AFAIK, no one was actually...

eating poor children back when Swift wrote A Modest Proposal. No parent or child who read his piece and had to relive a painful experience. Rich landlords were offended by Swift, not poor cannibal victims.

I swear, if I see one more post comparing this moran to Swift, I'm going to scream. Swift's writing was brilliant and nuanced. There is absolutely no indication that Petroski's intended target was the media, rapists or any entity aside from ugly women and rape victims. A reader might impart his or her own values into the writing and assume that his exttremist prose has to be a joke. However, a perusal of Petroski's earlier writing could also lead the reader to believe this editorial is entirely earnest. No person could successfully argue that this is satire based solely on the article itself. That fact leads me to conclude that it isn't satire.

[cynatnite]

103. Completely tasteless satire n/t

[zappa_parappa]

104. His jokes are old and dated, ugly girls, prison sex...blah blah

I've heard it all before

Perhaps if it had some fresh rape jokes I'd have laughed, but that was just a poor attempt. If you're going to write something offensive, you better have some comedy or insight to back it up.

[Katherine Brengle]

107. "Fresh rape jokes" ?????

Are YOU joking?

[zappa_parappa]

119. No, i'm not joking, I don't find rape jokes off limits

if you do, thats fine and I respect that, i just won't tell you any.

[Katherine Brengle]

233. You have fucking issues. nt

[Midlodemocrat]

281. Wow, how astonishingly progressive of you to make light of

someone's misfortune. Kudos.

[Jamastiene]

309. You sick fucking bastard.

Prime example of the people I was talking about in an earlier post that got deleted too. If you ever get raped one day, I want to see how much you laugh about it afterward.

[ThomCat]

118. That's truly disgusting.

So it's okay to make jokes about rape?

Real satire would be welcome if it poked holes in the the way society handles rape, or how women are blamed for rape, or if it lampooned the way guys justify rape, but this article article doesn't really seem to be making that attempt.

But making the victim's the but of jokes instead of the rapist? x(

[zappa_parappa]

121. I'm not talking satire, im just talking jokes in general

not every offensive joke needs to be presented in a satirical context, I happen to find all sorts of offensive jokes funny, if you don't thats fine, I'm not forcing my sense of humor on you.

[Recursion]

108. The rally was for a safer environment

What I think sometimes gets lost in the sound and fury about this is that POS articles like this don't get printed in a vacuum. If there are students willing to write and publish "satire" like that, then it's already a dangerous environment. It's not that the article itself is so dangerous; it demonstrates how dangerous a campus can already be.

[Turn CO Blue]

109. Could it have been a snark / satire piece, like The Onion?

It certainly is heinous, but I just wonder if this was written by a stupid person who thought his satire would shine through...Here is one of the lines that makes me wonder if the author was serious and think that maybe the whole thing was a stunt to stir up readership:

~snip~

But if there is one bread and butter reason for why rape should not only be accepted, but even endorsed, it is because our news editors are in dire need of interesting stories for our front page.

So, if the author was serious, then he should be held by authorities on suspicion of rape or at the least, suspicion of being an asshole.

If the author was not serious, then it was in despicably bad taste that shows the author has poor judgment and no humanity -- he should be fired from the student paper and expelled.


On edit: replaced the word "sarcasm" with the word "satire" which is what I meant in the first place.

[BreweryYardRat]

117. Damn, talk about being a fucking asshole.

Some things are never appropriate for satire, and rape's one of them. What sort of idiot doesn't realize this by the time they're in COLLEGE?!

This reads like a frat boy somehow got a slot in the paper.

[BoneDaddy]

124. Wow, the fact that the paper printed this

is worse than the scum who wrote it.

[Hobarticus]

155. Yeah, hard to decide which is worse:

The jackass who wrote it, or the jackass who allowed it to be printed.

[Marie26]

191. They might be one & the same

He's listed as the "Opinion Editor" for the newspaper, & it seems like he decided his own opinions were the best & only ones worth publishing.

[Hobarticus]

204. You're probably right...

I'd think that they'd have some kind of a faculty review board, but I'm using my high-school paper as a comparison. I guess in college, they must figure you're smart enough to not need adult supervision.

[TankLV]

129. I can't believe this - then again, I can - considering the state of repukes andconservatism today..

I wonder what mommy and daddy think of their budding rapist?

Is there some sort of list that keeps track of sex offenders, etc. like they do with kids, etc?

This guy needs to be on some list, along with his editors, etc. that couldn't see the obvious, to make note of them when they do eventually act-out...

"Sarcasm", "Speculation" and "trying to prove a theory" is not an excuse...

So, once again, it's OUR fault that we "took it that way". Which other way was it to be taken? Did this prick forget to leave out our DU "sarcasm" smiley?

First the smearing of good people, then the waging of wars based on lies, next the excusing of torture or trying other euphemisms - did we all really expect anything less?

The REPUKES and the bush* CRIME FAMILY have made it safe for the climate in this country to devolve to such a point where what was once only evil thoughts is thought safe enough to openly spew...

[Giant Robot]

130. OK so I understand the point of the "satire" a little better

And I am not 100% convinced that this was coming from a good place in his heart. If his intent was to use satire to look at media reactions and rapists' belief structures, well, I can SEE it, but, this was so poorly done as to cause harm and confuse many readers. If no one had said anything about it on the board here, I would not have figured it out. In the end it just causes chaos and pain, definitely not what he wanted (I hope).

Now that I am done trying to understand this, honestly what the hell was he thinking? It seems clear he has no idea what empathy is, and could not apply it to his writings. It seems obvious to me that, with some fore thought, a normal person would imagine that this piece would re-traumatize a certain growing segment of our population and cause a lot of spillover pain and suffering. Obvious to me anyway. Dumbass.

[sakabatou]

133. John Petroski...

http://hosted.thegroupofthey.com/failed,_please_die.jpg

[smoogatz]

146. I'm often amazed at the cluelessness of (male) college students.

And I teach them for a living. A solid 2/3 truly don't know shit from Shinola, and won't really figure it out until they're thirty or so.

[Porcupine]

148. Yeah!! Who raised all these dumb boys?

I can't imagine. It must be that they grew up in houses without women in them.

[smoogatz]

152. Media culture raised them.

Somebody plunked them down in front of a TV set the moment they were old enough to sit up, turned the damn thing on and walked away. At least that seems generally to be the case with many of the kids I deal with.

[Porcupine]

158. Well, I guess that absolves the parent(s)......

who purchased the TV, the power, the videos, computeres and cheesy puffs while they transited from birth to college age. The boys emerge into the world fully formed and unshaped by culture, like sharks.

Thanks.

[smoogatz]

161. Well, no--

The fact that they've abdicated their responsibility to try to raise reasonably civilized children doesn't absolve them at all. In fact, it makes life a little bit harder and less pleasant for everybody who has to deal with those kids down the line. Not to mention what it does to the kids; TV makes people stupid.

[progressivebydesign]

180. that's for damn sure! It's a huge issue...

we're losing our humanity, little by little.

[Greyhound]

154. and just who was the faculty adviser that let this outrage through? n/t

[rockymountaindem]

157. A lot of college newspapers, in my experience, don't have them anymore

That said, I don't know who in their right mind would publish anything like this anyway, faculty advisor or not.

[Greyhound]

171. Well many, many, college students are morons, although after reading some of

his other "works", I've changed my opinion of this walking waste of protoplasm. Too bad he has already been allowed to breed, hopefully his progeny can overcome his genetic influence.

It's too bad about the FA's not being used anymore, maybe some law student will make this case a class project.

[rockymountaindem]

175. It's a confluence of problems

Some people are just morons. Other people are morons and think that they're really smart. In this case, the moron thinks that spouting his idiocy will make him some kind of avant-garde satirist. I've seen a few people like that here at my school. If people react negatively, they just write off the criticism by saying they're misunderstood.

We had a similar problem here two years ago when one of our student newspapers published some material that was anti-Semitic in nature. The reasoning given by the paper (which has no advisor and is student run) is that they published the article as part of an inside joke between two of the kids on the paper, one of whom is Jewish and gets involved in ethnically-oriented inside jokes with his Pakistani pal (or something). The problem is that when people who have no idea what they're talking about start seeing words like "heeb" and "yid" in a newspaper op-ed, they're going to react poorly. The paper apologized to those they offended, but continually maintained they were just trying to be funny with each other. They totally didn't get it.

The administration put the paper on probation for a year.

[nashville_brook]

163. erstwhile opinion editor learns writing isn't his strong suit

may he rot in his college paper's dustbin.

[HuffleClaw]

168. the article was meant to be a satirical jab at the...

...sensationalistic nature of the modern news media..."

like 'a modest proposal'? sounds like a poorly executed and pisspoor attempt at satire.

[nashville_brook]

183. read the actual piece below...

[nashville_brook]

170. HOLY SHIT! Petroski's opinion on ABORTION! -- he's a misogynist... not a satirist

Abortion: A Father’s Take
By John Petroski
Opinion Editor


- MORE OF THIS WEEK'S OPINIONS

Abortion is something that men are not supposed to be able to talk about. We aren’t the ones pregnant, and we aren’t the ones who have to go through labor if we decide to have the child. Obviously, we have no say in whether or not a child is aborted, right?

Well, according to society and the law, yes, those are fairly accurate statements. But that doesn’t make them fair.

I have to wonder, who in their right minds decided that an abortion is a woman’s sole right? Who decided that only one parent should have all the power of life or death over an unborn child? Who decided that, when it comes to this grave decision, a father’s opinion means nothing?

This may be a wild guess, but I’d venture to say women. And I’ll make this wild presumption for one key reason: women have a completely unfair and unreasonable stranglehold on the fate of a father’s unborn child.

Well I’m here to point out that it’s not right.

It’s not right that we live in a society where a father can be willing to give up his social life to give his child a chance to live, but a mother can overrule his opinion and decide that her carefree nights of binge drinking take precedence to another human’s life.

It’s not right that we live in a society where, if a father wants the mother to abort his child, but she refuses and is seen as courageous, strong and noble, yet if a father protests the mother’s decision to abort his child, he is seen as heinous, unsupportive and cruel.

I know it’s not right, because I am that father.

I am that father who wanted his child to have its fair shot at life, and I am that father who was told, in effect, “Tough shit, you have a penis and therefore no say.”

I am that father who has gone to bat for his child and tried everything he could to convince the mother that aborting it would be a grave mistake.

I am that father who was chastised by society for not backing down to the mother’s selfish wishes, but instead standing up for a child who couldn’t stand up for itself.

And I am that father who had no recourse against the mother’s decision, and who has had to, and will have to, live with her decision all his days.

The reason I am that father is because our society has a procedure for abortion that is inexcusably unfair to both the father and unborn child. In our society, a woman does not even need to tell the father that she is pregnant, and she is able to just waltz into an abortion clinic and have his child murdered behind his back. And even if she does inform him that she’s pregnant, his relevance to the matter is rather moot, as she can make any decision she pleases without his consent. He’ll just have to live with it.

There is a terrible double standard applied to abortion in our society. A woman can choose to have a child that the father can’t afford, and then force him to pay child support for 18 years. If he fails to pay it, well, then naturally he is scum and should be ostracized by society. But, on the other hand, if the father wants to have the child and the mother aborts it instead, she is seen as some sort of champion for human rights, or as a poor little girl who got herself in trouble, regardless of whether or not the two parents could afford to raise it.

Essentially, the current situation allows a child to be brutally murdered for no good reason, save the mother’s whim, without the father’s consent. Instead, a father is relegated to the sidelines and stripped of any say in the fate of his own blood. I see that as a major problem.

I propose a solution, and a rather obvious one at that. I propose that we as a nation throw out the phrase “a woman’s right to choose,” and instead declare that “parents have a right to choose.” I propose that for a child to be aborted, either both parents must consent or a doctor must declare in writing that an abortion is necessary for the woman’s health. In short, I propose that the days where a father is powerless to stop the murder of his child be ended.

Some may say, “Well, what then will stop a woman from having a back-alley abortion?” The answer is obvious enough: the threat of incarceration for murder. If a woman was prevented from having a legal abortion because the father refused to consent to the procedure, it stands to reason that, nine months later the same father might wonder where exactly his child was, if none were born.

Now, I realize that at this point, some ladies who are reading this article may very well be blowing their tops. Some may be frothing with rage, irate at the prospect of a man telling them what to do with their bodies or their lives, or, perhaps, incensed at my supposed disregard to their “right to privacy” and such.

Well, I say that when it comes to abortion, they have no such rights. A woman’s right to privacy should not overrule a father’s right to see his child live. A woman’s claim that “it’s her body” ends when another’s grows within it. Once a child grows in your womb, ladies, it should no longer be a question of your right to privacy or your right to choose. At that point, it should very much be a question of the parents’ right to privacy and the parents’ right to choose.

I am not advocating an abolishment of abortion. I understand that there are times when, indeed, it does make cold hard sense. I understand that parents should be able to decide that they are not ready for a child at that time, or that they cannot afford to raise it. But I also understand that each child has two parents, and that both parents should have to consent to its abortion.

My reasoning for this is simple. In our society, for a person to be condemned to the death penalty, he or she must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Make no mistake about it, abortion, the purposeful stopping of a heart that once beat, is very much a death penalty. And the “crime” the child’s guilty of is, presumably, being an unbearable burden to both parents. If one parent does not agree that this is true, I’d say a reasonable doubt as to the child’s guilt exists, and the child is therefore innocent, and should be allowed to live.

Clearly, these ideas are not perfectly worked out. They will obviously need amendments and revision in pursuit of such perfection, and mistakes will be made. But in that pursuit, we should err on the side of life. We should err on the side of innocence. We should give the benefit of the doubt to the unborn child who has done nothing wrong and who has committed no error. We should side with the parent who is willing to commit to raising the child; not with the parent who is committed to shirking responsibility.

We should end the days when a child can be aborted because the mother laments the thought of spending her weekends at home, or because she’s afraid of telling her parents. We should end our policy of robbing a child of the chance at life its father is willing to give it. We should no longer side with the decadent, contemporary values of the selfish over the pure, traditional values of “life, liberty, and justice for all.”

[myrna minx]

172. Oh my, nashville_brook.

:puke: I just don't even know what to say.

[nashville_brook]

182. he's calling for the DEATH PENALTY for women who abort w/o boyfriend's consent

satire?

i don't think so.

[Change has come]

306. It seems to think there are times when "parents choice"

should be up to the father.

*snip*

There is a terrible double standard applied to abortion in our society. A woman can choose to have a child that the father can’t afford, and then force him to pay child support for 18 years...

It sounds like a Limbaaaaa disciple :puke:

[LeftishBrit]

320. As I read it, he's saying that the *abortion* is the death penalty for the 'child'; but...

he's also saying that the woman should be imprisoned for murder.

He is either an insane right-winger or a compulsive attention-seeker; or perhaps (if his story is true) a bitter man trying to punish everyone because his girlfriend left him. Or any or all of these.

[Marie26]

188. What brilliant satire.

This looks like a misogynistic rant, but it's really just a harmless satire about the news media, or Social Security numbers, or ... something... :eyes: Nice find. What a piece of work this guy is.

[nashville_brook]

189. see the rape piece below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=167130&mesg_id=169241

[Marie26]

192. "I’m sure I’ll sway you towards a darkened alley."

UGH! I just threw up a little in my mouth.

[nashville_brook]

197. blahahaha!

this guy is a complete nut-case. not enough mother love? maybe taunted for bed wetting? there's one at every college paper.

[Kixel]

173. Some things are beyond satire

You can't mock the pain of rape, there is no humor in that situation. You can laugh at some aspects of things that are touchy; like the ignorance of racists (I am thinking of the Chapelle show when he played a blind dude raving about blacks-he took off his hood and the irony was actually funny). You can not, however, mock a lynching victim. That's just stupid and cruel. It's also shows poor writing skills and ignorance to the world around him. I hope he learns a lot from this experience-he obviously needs it.

[nashville_brook]

174. HERE IT IS!! >>>>>"RAPE ONLY HURTS IF YOU LET IT"

John Petroski
Opinion Editor

Most people today would claim that rape is a terrible crime almost akin to murder, but I strongly disagree. Far from a vile act, rape is a magical experience that benefits society as a whole. I realize many of you will disagree with this thesis, but lend me your ears and I’m sure I’ll sway you towards a darkened alley.

If it weren’t for rape, Western Civilization might not exist as we know it today. When the Romans were faced with a disproportionate ratio of women to men in the early kingdom, they had to do something, lest their fledgling society die for lack of sons. To solve their little dilemma, they did what any reasonable man would do: they threw a festival for their Sabine neighbors, and then stole and raped their women. It’s quite logical; in fact I don’t understand why the settlers at Plymouth didn’t do the same to the local Indians—it certainly
would have saved on shipping costs.

Obviously, in the case of the Rape of the Sabines, rape was a tremendous help to society. The Sabine women, for their part, didn’t seem to mind so much, as they threw themselves between their brutish old Sabine husbands and their charming new Roman ones to prevent bloodshed when the Sabine men came to reclaim their wives. Yet even when society was totally against a rape, the raunchy act has benefited society too. Where would the Romans be, after all, if it weren’t for the Rape of Lucretia infuriating the people to the point of overthrowing their last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus? If it weren’t for that event, the world might never have had the Roman Republic for a pristine example of a flawless government.

Rape’s glorious advantages are not, however,exclusively found from 2,000-year-old examples. In actuality, rape’s advantages can very much be seen today. Take ugly women, for example. If it weren’t for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn’t drunk? In a society as plastic-conscious as our own, are we really to believe that some man would ever sleep with a girl resembling a wildebeest if he didn’t have a few schnapps in him? Of course he wouldn’t—at least no self-respecting man would—but there in lies the beauty of rape. No self-respecting man would rape in the first place, so ugly women are guaranteed a romp with not only a sober man, but a bad boy too; and we all know how much ladies like the bad boy.

Ugly women are not, however, the only people who benefit from rape—prisoners enjoy
its many perks too. What, after all, could possibly be more boring than spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day? The answer, of course, is spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day and never getting some hot action.
With rape, prisoners never have to worry about that. Instead, they merely need worry about treating their rapists with enough love and respect to earn a quick reach-around.

But if there is one bread and butter reason for why rape should not only be accepted, but even endorsed, it is because our news editors are in dire need of interesting stories for our front page. Bookstore stories? Fossils? One dollar coins? Please. Now, some saucy circle-jerk rape action? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

[nashville_brook]

179. he's BEMOANING the COVERAGE of rape as NEWSWORTHY!!

[Irreverend IX]

305. Looks like he's kinda doing the opposite...

The point he makes at the end is that the paper hasn't had any interesting news to cover, so he'd like it if they had something lurid to write about. Hell of a crass and offensive way to present his idea, though. I think a lot of young writers and artists think the only way to get noticed is to be more freakish and shocking than everyone else. I wonder if he did a cost-benefit analysis in his head and decided that this article would help him more than hurt him because of the controversy it sparked.

[nashville_brook]

181. go to The Recorder website and download this week's PDF of the paper...

count the number of OPINION PIECES in the paper. then count the number Petroski wrote.

i don't think any college paper need THAT MUCH opinion. i wrote opinion for my college paper and to pitch more than one piece an issue was considered, uh, vulgar.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder

[Lydia Leftcoast]

195. This reminds me of

a professor who was fired for sexually harrassing students. His defense was that some of his students were virgins for "an unnaturally long time" and he was doing them the favor of "relieving them of that burden."

Uh... :eyes:

[nashville_brook]

198. college is such a HOTBED of intellectualism

[NuttyFluffers]

310. dumbfounding levels of bad taste...

i really hate falling into cliche', and particularly this overused one on DU, but it's completely applicable here:

wow, just wow.
:wow:

this person has to be a RW of sorts. i cannot fathom another group as unaware about the structures of humor. it's not even dark humor, but outright assault and abuse (not to mention a pedantic, masturbatory display of trivia). i'm stunned, is this what i have to look forward to when Fox News runs its "Daily Show" rip-off?

[nashville_brook]

176. if you like Petroski on RAPE, you'll love him on AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

February, also known as “Black History Month” ever since 1976, is the time of year when we Americans get together and talk about how important it is to finally achieve racial equality in our nation. It is also the month when some people do all they can to ensure that racial equality will forever remain a dream.What is amusing is that many of the people
who scream for equality are the very ones who support policies that make a mockery of the term.

Before I step on my soapbox, however, it may be prudent for me to clear a few things up. I am a white male who does not agree with affirmative action, reparations for black citizens
or even banning the “n-word.” Nonetheless, despite what some people would like you to think, being white and having such beliefs does not make me a racist.

Indeed, I’d argue that the true racists are those who argue for affirmative actionor for limiting freedom of speech, for they are the ones who continue to insist that a man continue
to be judged based on the color of his skin, rather than the content of his character.

That muffled sound you hear is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rolling over in his grave, beset with horror at the way his followers have failed to understand his words, but many people won’t see it that way. These are the types that fail to see the great hypocrisy in affirmative action. They fail to see this injustice, because they fail to understand what “equality” truly means.Equality means hiring the best candidate for a job. Equality does not mean hiring the best candidate to fill a quota based on superficialities.

Equality means filling universities with the brightest minds and hardest workers, not the scarcest races or genders. Equality means living in a society where all men are judged, ranked, graded, hired, fired, sought after and ignored based solely on their merit. Equality does not mean that certain persons are given certain privileges and advantages simply because of what they look like.

In short, equality means that you have to make it on your own and that you will be judged by the same exact standards as your neighbor.

For if we allow blacks and other racial minorities an advantage in getting into colleges or being hired for a job, what are we really back to doing? Judging people based on the color of their skin and nothing more. Just because it happens to work in the favor of minorities for a change doesn’t make the practice any less racist than a non-merit-based judgment that hinders them.

Naturally, that’s not a very popular way of looking at things. It’s much easier to play the victim and ask for certain advantages to “even up the score.” But make no mistake about it—black and other minority leaders that support affirmative action take that stance not because they seek equality, not because they seek to “even up the score,” but because they seek an edge. They wish for their particular groups in society to get a boost while insisting that other groups must do without one.

It is sad that affirmative action exists and enjoys such popular support, as it is an affront to all those who truly believe in equality, and it is, in the long run, a detriment to all society. When we start hiring less-qualified people for jobs simply because of their skin color or last name, we aren’t helping our nation at all—unless, of course, our goal is to create a gilded class, void of all true substance.That is not what America stands for and that should not be our goal. This is a land where all men are created equal, not kept so by artificial means. This is a country that values competition, tenacity and drive; not handicaps, callowness and complacency. This is a nation that values merit, not birthright.

As such, we should, as a nation, refuse to judge a man by what color he was born, and instead make our judgments based on what for our nation he has borne forth.

We should, as a nation, throw away the discriminatory and racist practice of affirmative action.

We should, as a nation, remember our creed: “Liberty, Justice and Equality for All.”

[Catherine Vincent]

200. This guy is definitely a repuke.

Big time.

[RPM]

187. here's hoping he soon can feel the benefits of Rape

and just for good measure he may learn a thing or two about being HIV positive afterwards.

[William Bloode]

194. Wow!

This comment is truely mysoginistic "magical experience" that has been a blessing to "ugly women."
:puke:

That being said, yes rape was a normal survival mechanism in "wild" humans. Really has no place in todays modern world though.

[Catherine Vincent]

196. If Petroski was a satirist, then why is he labeled an opinion editor?

[onenote]

223. Exactly. Take a look at his opinion on abortion. He's a complete ass

And if you check out his other columns, such as his one about abortion, you get a pretty good sense of what this jerk's mindset is...

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=132

[Bluebear]

199. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel, it's vulgar. (Ivins) nt

[Name removed]

201. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bluebear]

203. BRILLIANT satire? Your standards aren't very high imho. nt

[lukasahero]

206. Are you still here?

Damn, I thought you'd have been gone long ago.

[Madspirit]

208. It's the 12 year old

With the girl gang who beats up his women who don't like to be raped.
I thought you were history. ...hangin' at the mall or something.
Lee

[Madspirit]

209. Surprised

I am surprised they allow straight-up misogynists and rape promoters on this site.
Don't we stand for anything?
Lee

[rzr77]

226. I am certainly not a misogynist and I promoted rape nowhere,

that is your own persecutorial delusion.

My post is perfectly within the rules of this website, and if deleted, it would be a sad day indeed for liberalism.

Furthermore, your efforts to have me banned simply validate my point above, that radical feminists are not liberal, but authoritarian thought controllers who only tolerate those who are deemed acceptable to their hyper-narrow worldview.

[ThomCat]

239. Some of the people here who seem to know you

are people I trust absolutely. So you must have one hell of a history here at DU.

And from your posts here today, you clearly have issues. You do seem to be a misogynist. You may want to look into that.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

242. Look, the "radical feminists" and I don't agree on a lot of things, but we do agree that...

you're a misogynist.

Every single post here has been about how oppressed you are as a man. Yeah-fucking-right.

[Marie26]

210. Why aren't you banned yet?

Seriously.

[Madspirit]

211. Lastly

You're my first "alert". If they just start allowing people who actually promote rape, (and this is not his first thread to defend rape), well, I will have to reconsider my stay.
Lee

[Marie26]

214. I'm starting to wonder

if the continued presence of posters like these is the Admin's own "statement". A pie in the face, if you will, against those annoying feminists.

[Madspirit]

216. I like to feel safe

This man/boy has actually promoted rape on more than one thread. He has been aggressive and also promoted violence against women, straight-out.

I would like to feel I'm in a safe place when I visit DU. This kind of talk does NOT make me feel safe.
Lee

[Marie26]

222. Me either.

But I'm serious about this conspiracy theory. Why is it that someone who comes to knock a Democrat is tombstoned immediately as a troll, yet someone who comes advocating violence against women is allowed to stick around? What does that say about DU's priorities? If there's one thing I've learned, it's that "liberal" does not equal pro-women, pro-tolerance or pro-equality. Sometimes I feel like DU tolerates female posters, but doesn't really welcome them. Skinner himself apparently said that he didn't want to see any threads about women's issues in GD, so that really makes me wonder. I basically feel like DU is a fairly hostile place for women, which is maybe just a reflection of the society at large. But ultimately, the Administrators & moderators have the power to delete & tombstone. They set the tone, and when misogynistic, racist or bigoted trolls are allowed to spew rants unabated, it does send a message. I'm starting to think that maybe the DU Administrators don't really like "feminists" much either - and allowing misogynistic crap to be posted on DU is a powerful, if passive/aggressive, way of expressing that opinion.

[Change has come]

307. He's gone now

Probably creating another profile as we speak. Getting banned seems to be sport for these ass wipes.

[TorchTheWitch]

219. You have no idea

How much this same thought is shared by scores of others here. What the fuck is happening to this place?

:(

[nashville_brook]

220. yep.

[Bluebear]

229. :nodding:

[ThomCat]

267. I think the same thing.

I often think that the admins would love to see all of us who are "squeeky wheels" just go away. So there's no incentive to care when we speak up about bigots and bigotry.

[blonndee]

243. This is the second time this poster has done just this.

I can't believe they allow this trash to stay.

[Marie26]

245. Hypothetical question:

If Mr. Petroski, the author of that article, were to post his opinions about rape here on DU, would he be allowed to stay? Based on the evidence so far, I think he would, and that's just disgusting.

[Bluebear]

250. Of course he would. And we would be told to "lighten up"

Do you doubt it?

[Marie26]

251. Nope. nt

[blonndee]

252. I imagine he would, so long as he didn't make a direct attack on a member.

If we've lowered ourselves to the point that THAT'S the only type of message that will be deleted and the only type of message that COULD POSSIBLY SOMEDAY end up with the poster being shown the door, that is sad indeed. I wish I knew what the FUCK was going on here. :banghead:

[TorchTheWitch]

278. Even direct attacks can stay!

About 24 hours ago I alerted several times on a poster in another thread (unrelated to female issues) who wontonly personally attacked other posters who were more than polite to her and completely undeserving of any venom spewed at them whatsoever. In one of the posts she called a poster a motherfucker. Did that post get deleted after I alerted on it? NO. Neither did any of the other similar attack posts I alerted on in that thread get deleted. At first I thought the mods must be backed up or something and just hadn't gotten around to cleaning the crap up yet... until I noticed that the ONE post I alerted on in that thread that was not a personal attack but broke a different DU rule had been deleted. So, no, the mods weren't backed up or otherwise busy, they just let all those personal attack posts stay.

Incidently, none of the attack posts were directed at me since I never posted anything at all in that thread. I've been seeing so much evil crap here lately that's CLEARLY a violation of the rules that is never deleted, so I assumed that people had just gotten really lax in alerting anymore. Now I don't think that's the problem at all.

I'm with you... WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE???

:grr: :banghead:

[Bunny]

290. I think the Block Function was an attempt by Admin to help us police

ourselves. I think they wanted to reduce the burden on the mods. Since that new feature failed miserably, I think everyone has been given free reign to be as obnoxious as possible. I've noticed an extreme increase in personal attacks being allowed to stand since that function was tried and eliminated.

Perhaps we're being taught a lesson or something? :shrug:

[blonndee]

292. That has crossed my mind as well.

Whatever it is, it sucks, and it's turning this place into FR-lite in terms of behavior, civility, and content.

[ThomCat]

261. I think you're right.

And it is disgusting. x(

As long as there is no obvious slur, nobody uses one of the "bad words," it seems like any trash can stay.

[rzr77]

248. nobody defended rape and you know it. this is about speech control. nt

[myrna minx]

212. LOL! Brilliant satire? Did you even read the "opinion" piece?

:rofl: If you think that's "brilliant", um, I embarrassed for you. Thanks for giving this thought controlling, radical feminist a chuckle. I'll bid you adieu, because I have to go burn my bra.

[piedmont]

213. I am AMAZED that you are still with us.

[Catherine Vincent]

215. The guy didn't write this as satire. See my post above.

It was an opinion.

[WernhamHogg]

217. Oh yeah

It's about time the "powerless" white, hetrosexual, young males started standing up against those "powerful silencers": victims of rape.

:sarcasm:

[uppityperson]

225. Not brilliant satire but mean spirited rape jokes.

What is your problem?

[uppityperson]

227. You seem to have a problem with feminists.

congregating as an oppressive controlling force on campuses. Calling anyone who objects to rape jokes ("but it was only a joke" whine) hyper obsessive, thought controllers is a big bunch of crap.

[bicentennial_baby]

228. Hey, y'know what?

fuck you....you deserve a serious cockpunch for that post.

[Midlodemocrat]

232. Yup. So brilliant in fact that NO ONE else got it.

the point of satire is that at some point, SOMEONE will get that it is satire. Read the Onion?

And, frankly, my 10yo could write better than that asshat.

Now, you should probably go away.

[Midlodemocrat]

234. Oh, and by the way, if you want to debate feminists here,

you might want to use spellcheck. Most of us are pretty intelligent and justifiable isn't spelled the way you spelled it. 'kay?

[Katherine Brengle]

238. Muahahahaha lol.

[Midlodemocrat]

246. But you DO agree with me, right KB?

:hug:

How are you tonight?

[Katherine Brengle]

271. Of course I do!

I am well - just a quiet Friday night...

:D

[Katherine Brengle]

235. Can this asshole PLEASE be TOMBSTONED???

:eyes:

[Sapphire Blue]

300. ***** HALLELUJAH!!! DEAD & BURIED!!!! *****

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=200866

[blonndee]

302. WOO HOO!!

I'm doing my happy dance now! Two in a week. That's a pretty good start. :applause:

[ThomCat]

236. Are you Nuts?

I'm a guy. I've volunteered with feminist organizations. I've studied feminist theory. I'm a feminist. And it's obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Feminists are responsible for rape prevention programs. They ARE the women's rights movement. They are the one's who organize and fight the battle to keep abortion safe and legal. What have you done? You're supporting their results but damning what you imagine to be their methods.

You know, if you spent some time talking to feminists and getting some understanding of feminism you might loose those crazy misconceptions.
x(

[rzr77]

241. Rad fems don't own women's rights and don't speak for all women.

First of all, I support feminism, equality, women's rights, etc. By most people's standards, I am a feminist male, perhaps more "Paglia" than "Dworkin", but a feminist none-the-less.

Forgive me, but I and others of either gender have the right to disagree with what is but only one flavor of many flavors of feminism.

[blonndee]

244. You mean Paglia, the repig version of a feminist?

No wonder you approve.

[rzr77]

249. Hahah. Paglia is bi-sexual and a democrat who leans libertarian. nt

[blonndee]

253. Wiki much? HA HA HA.

You don't know SHIT about Paglia and didn't read past the first few lines on Wiki, apparently. She's a misogynist, so I see why you like her.

[rzr77]

257. I know more than enough to know she is a free thinker, unlike rad fems. nt

[blonndee]

258. HA HA HA. What the fuck would you know about what being a "free thinker"

entails? Nothing, that's what.

[ThomCat]

259. HA!

You have that backwards. Feminists have been groundbreaking free thinkers. Rehashing patriarchy in a fake-feminism style is not free thinking.

[girl gone mad]

297. Yeah..

A woman who thinks a crack whore is an ideal example of an 'empowered woman' is some kind of free thinker, alright.

[ThomCat]

255. Ah, I get it now.

YOu're a republican/libertarian who likes to imagine that you're a feminist because you know what's best for women. Got it.

[rzr77]

260. says you. more manipulation. but i guess you know my thoughts. nt

[ThomCat]

262. No, just the your words.

Though it's not hard to infer from your words.

[blonndee]

263. I think he's a femaphobic.

What do you think? (Just read a little discussion about the ending "-phobia" or "-phobic" versus "-ism" or "ist").

[ThomCat]

264. I agree.

He clearly has some irrational ideas and hatred of feminists.

[rzr77]

265. once again, rad fems don't represent all or even most females. nt

[blonndee]

266. But you do? How in the world would you know a damned thing

about 1) what "radical feminist" even MEANS and 2) how many females may or may not feel represented by them?

You are so obviously talking out of your ass and don't know ANYthing, except that you're afraid of women.

[ThomCat]

268. No, but they represent the core of feminsm

and the bulk of feminist ideas, scholarship, and progress. All women have benefited from "radical" feminists.

[Katherine Brengle]

274. Paging Dr. Laura!

:eyes:

[ThomCat]

254. If you're willing to stereotype "radical" feminists

they way you already have then you are not a feminist. You're stereotyping and demeaning women for daring to have views you don't like. You're belittling them for daring to have developed scholarship and social theory that challenges you.

If you give in to stereotypes of shrill dominating women so readily, then what in hell makes you a feminist?

And what could you possibly consider "support" for feminism after taking the possitions you've already taken?

[blonndee]

275. Since you're such a feminist and a "liberal": Molly Ivins on Camille Paglia

You do know who Molly Ivins is, don't you? Since you're so liberal?

From _Mother Jones_, September/October 1991, pp 8-10
(Italics are indicated like _this_.)

Impolitic, by Molly Ivins.

I Am the Cosmos

<snip>

You think perhaps this is a cheap shot, that I have searched her work
and caught Ms. Paglia in a rare moment of sweeping generalization,
easy to make fun of? _Au contraire_, as we always say in Amarillo; the
sweeping generalization is her signature. In fact, her work consists
of damn little else. She is the queen of the categorical statement.

Never one to dodge a simple dichotomy when she can set one up, Ms.
Paglia holds that the entire error of western civilization stems from
denying that nature is a kind of nasty, funky, violent, wet dream, and
that Judeo-Christianity has been one long effort to ignore this. She
pegs poor old Rousseau, that fathead, as the initiator of the silly
notion that nature is benign and glorious and that only civilization
corrupts.

<snip>

Bram Dijkstra, author of a much-praised book, _Idols of Perversity_,
which is a sort of mirror image of _Sexual Personae_, said that Paglia
"literally drags the whole nineteenth-century ideological structure
back into the late-eighteenth century, really completely unchanged.
What's so amazing is that she takes all that nineteenth-century stuff,
Darwinism and social Darwinism, and she re-asserts it and reaffirms it
in this incredibly dualistic fashion. In any situation, she
establishes the lowest common denominator of a point. She says,
`This is the feminist point of view,' and overturns it by standing it
on its head. She doesn't go outside what she critiques; she simply
puts out the opposite of it....She writes aphorisms
and then throws them out, one after the other, so rapid-fire the
reader is exhausted."

<snip>

There is one area in which I think Paglia and I would agree that
politically correct feminism has produced a noticeable inequity.
Nowadays, when a woman behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable
fashion, we say, "Poor dear, it's probably PMS." Whereas, if a man
behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "What an
asshole." Let me leap to correct this unfairness by saying of Paglia,
Sheesh, what an asshole.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~erich/misc/ivins_on_paglia

[Chomskyite]

237. I am curious

Would you be able to name a single case in which a radical feminist or a cabal of them were able to force a single male student or staff member to DO ANYTHING?

I await your response.

[Katherine Brengle]

240. I'm not gonna hold my breath for this one... lol

[ThomCat]

256. This will either be a very long wait, or a hell of a lot of fun.

:7

[rzr77]

270. This thread right here is perfect example. Once again rad fems shut down debate.

Y'all swarm in at the same time, use intimidation, manipulation, name calling, tantrums/cries for banning/censoring what was a perfectly valid post/thought for this website (which was deleted btw, any free thinking liberals who want to read the original post can pm me).

I'll tell you what this is - nothing more than bullying of a person with a SLIGHTLY different opinion to radical feminism.. as I am indeed a feminist, support most of the major aspects of feminism...

Blah. :thumbsdown:

[ThomCat]

273. So your definition of a "Radical Feminist"

is anyone who calls you on your shit?

:rofl:

[blonndee]

276. So what kind of "feminist" are you, then?

The woman-hating, woman-fearing kind, or what?

Or the kind who relies on people like Rush and O'Leilly to define what "radical feminism" is? You really have no idea.

[Katherine Brengle]

279. Funny, last time I checked, most "feminists" found nothing amusing about rape.

I don't think you really understand what "feminism" is, and that's why this conversation (twice now) is becoming so heated.

We had a problem with your post for two reasons. One, you chose to sympathize with someone who clearly holds deep and damaging opinions about women and rape, even *if* those opinions were supposedly framed as "satire." Two, this is not the first time you have come to the defense of rapists/rapist apologists. Therefore, based on past precedent, your comments were viewed in that light.

Until you take the time to understand that every woman in this country, and indeed most if not all of the world, we walk in fear of rape every day of our lives - and until you take the time to understand how that effects our ability to live a fulfilling and free life - and until you take the time to break outside of your box, you will never understand why we take issue with you and your comments here.

[bicentennial_baby]

280. bwahahaha!

"any free thinking liberals who want to read the original post can pm me"

Dude, no actual free-thinking liberal would EVER want to read the drivel you posted here...And frankly, the very short and sweet party we'll have when you are finally given the granite tic-tac will be heavenly...You have no place here, that much I know.

[ThomCat]

284. I'll bring the appetizers!

:)

[Midlodemocrat]

294. Actually, no. What happened here is people with an IQ over 75

called you on your moronic viewpoint. Game. Set. Match.

[salin]

316. Hope you enjoyed your stay

don't think you will be sorely missed.

[SoCalDem]

218. Is there no editorial supervision there? "Joking" about rape at a college is never a good thing.

Rape and or "coerced sex" is rampant on college campuses, and surely the paper's staff had to know that.

My guess is that if one asked 10 young coeds if they or someone close tothem had had that experience, the answers would be "yess" more often than not.

Sounds to me that that young "writer" may have a gulity conscience that HE's trying to assuage.

:puke:

[AX10]

247. That's why you never tell anyone your secrets.

There is no excuse for this kind of shit being printed!

[coffeenap]

272. Here ya go, friends--the college's contact list:

http://www.ccsu.edu/contacts.html

Give 'em hell. I did.

[Renew Deal]

282. That's got to be the craziest shit I have ever read.

:wow:

[krispos42]

283. In related news, punch to the face can be beneficial

I mean, how else will ugly people know the joy of a passionate French kiss? The delicate fluttering of tongues and the warmth of soft lips touching can ONLY be replicated by a mass of bone and muscle moving at high speed into lightly-padded facial bones!


Can you feel the love???

[DarkTirade]

289. All I can say to that is

what...
the...
f%^*...

I mean yeah, I'm all for the right to free speech. But I'm also all for someone finding this guy and kicking his ass :evilgrin:.
Seriously though, this was in the student newspaper?!?! Freedom of speech means you're allowed to say, write ect. what you want. But that doesn't mean that someone has to publish it.
And if this was satire, it was in EXTREMELY bad taste. Rape is not something to joke about.

[entanglement]

291. Utterly shameful. These reichwing college rags print their filth unopposed.

It's the old routine. "Conservative", "Politically Incorrect" campus paper prints outrageous comments. There is a furor. The RW morons claim they didn't mean to insult anyone. College administrators pretend to be concerned, condemn the newspaper, call useless meetings but stop short of actually *doing* anything. (Like equal funding for a liberal paper with opposing views). Miscellaneous RW a**holes chime in that everyone should stop being so "PC". There is no effective way for sensible people to combat the hate and lies and the so the BS continues.

[Casablanca]

293. "If it weren't for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn't drunk?

The truth being more like, how would the frat boy author get any if he didn't try to get drunk and rape someone?

[blonndee]

296. Slam!! Spot on. nt

[Pastiche423]

298. And now this sick, mf'ing cowardly little boy

is secluded off campus.

Some student made up flyers w/his picture on them to protest. I would love to see one.

But most of all, I would like one hour w/him alone to show him in photos the "magial experience" that happened to me.

[Swamp Rat]

303. I wonder if John Petroski has raped before?

His public commentary and behavior makes me wonder if he is a serial rapist or something worse. At minimum, the local police should put him in a few line-ups with other criminals.

[barb162]

304. I heard this was his idea of satire. Well, maybe he should have written

about the benefits of having men raped

[Eric J in MN]

317. He did write about the benefit of men being raped.

"Ugly women are not, however, the only people who benifit from rape--prisoners enjoy as many perks too. What, after all, could be possibly be more boring than spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day? Then answer, of course, is spending years of your life confined to some tiny cell 23 hours a day and never getting some hot action. With rape, prisoners never have to worry about that. Instead, they merely need worry about treating their rapist with enough love and respect to earn a quick reach-around."

[dsc]

313. This is what editors are for

People write foolish and hateful things all the time. Why in God's name would any editor actually publish such nonsense? I don't care how sarcastic someone thinks this was, it was pure idiocy to publish this crap.