Oregon Voice Magazine

As I watched the Academy Awards post show, where common people get to ask the great directors and writers about their works I really got inspired by Diablo Cody. She is pretty punk rock for Hollywood and has some sweet bangs. A questioned was asked by a USC film student, how to become successful? Her answer was to spread your work everyone as many eyes that can see it, show it to them. She emphasized if you write a zine make everyone read it and I think we here at the Oregon Voice should seriously make it happen. We may be a little magazine, but I think we have a lot of heart in us. lets go team!
D-girl out.

Once again, we have born witness to one of the more heinous aspects of the human condition. A young man has taken away the lives of several college students with an action of utmost selfishness. There is nothing that can justify this kind of killing. Murder is barbaric even with motive, and it is all the more deplorable when the victims have committed no wrongs.

This tragedy brought several things to mind. Firstly, helplessness. There are wackos out there like this man, and guns readily available, and there is simply no way to police all of them. Things like this can happen, even as you are about to fall asleep from boredom in lecture.

Second, wonder. Wonder at the brink on which we find ourselves. As incidents like this increase in number, I think, how long until we become like the Middle East? How long until we must fear for our lives not only on campuses, but at markets, at shopping malls? The waves of extremism has long been lapping up against the shores of North America — how long until the tsunami comes? There was a bombing in Mexico City on Friday near their police headquarters; no group has yet claimed responsibility, but it is indicative of the kind of fanaticism that plagues places like Iraq today.

Third, distress. I cringed when I read this quote: “Run, he’s reloading the gun.” Run. Certainly, a fight-or-flight survival mechanism is innate within us, urging us to flee danger when we feel that our lives are in jeopardy. But where are the heroes? This gunman was a “skinny man” — why did nobody attempt to take him down, if not at the beginning, then while he was reloading? It is estimated that he fired 20 or more shots. There had to have been a pause.

I don’t know how I would react under such conditions. I might have hidden behind chairs and fled for the exit like everyone else. But I would like to think that I would try to stop a man like this. It is hard to be the hero, and sometimes foolish, but we have seen what heroism can accomplish. This is what those aboard flight United 93 taught us: a brave few can sacrifice themselves to save the many.

Look at the numbers: five have died so far from this shooting, and 16 others are wounded, many critically. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to somebody with a gun, but if somebody had, or if two or three people had, perhaps a few other families would have been spared the grief they are now experiencing.

We cannot prevent every manic depressive from invading our lives with their violence. But we can stand up to them, saving lives and depriving them of the ultimate cowardly exit of suicide. Death is too good for them. Let us have them face justice.

While my mind contemplates the possible thoughts that could ooze out of my finger tips and to your lovely eyes, I would like to make a blanket statement about dedication.

Firstly, I want to personally thank the people reading this that put a decent amount of pride into your work. It really makes life a whole lot easier and entertaining for everyone. Personally, it’s frustrating for me to work with such awesomely dedicated people like the OV staff and the DPS crew, and then go to a class that people pay to participate in and work with people who shit something on a spoon and present it to the general public. I would name names, but you know who you are. Don’t worry, we do too.
Honestly, what’s the point in writing, producing, and editing material that is so obviously poor quality? I suppose I fail to understand the flawed logic of doing just enough to scrape by. I mean, I understand that my life might be less laborious, less tedious, and more prone to boredom, but if the crap you publish is so shitty it’s alienating, then you cease to be an artist. You become a wannabe. Wannabes are scum. Scum are bad people. Bad people steal. Stealer’s lie. Lier’s kill. And killers go to Hell. Why would anyone want to go to Hell?
So, if you’re reading this and you recognize the fact that you just plain don’t give a fuck about something creative that you do, please. Just stop. Save us all from the shit on a spoon material that will somehow be fed to awesome people like me, and go ride a bike. You probably need the exercise.

I’ve always done fairly well with the philosophy of, “Ignore it; it’ll go away.” It works for that crazy Jesus guy when he comes to campus and calls me a whore for having a hole in my jeans. It works for unwanted attentions on the Indigo District dance floor. It works for the mysterious bruises that appear on my knees after said fun-filled nights at Indigo. But it’s not working for the Oregon Commentator, the illustrious campus “Conservative Journal of Opinion”.
After their attack on the Oregon Voice in their issue late last year for not having come out with an issue of our own yet (to which I’ll just point out, since we’re on the subject, that we’re a 32-page, quarterly magazine, which means we come out four times a year) I chose to pretend the whole slip-up on their part never happened. But now, we’ve got a whole page and a half in the new OC issue (pdf here) dedicated us, so here I am.

First of all, let me just say the comic was cute. I liked the peeved-looking bird in the middle particularly. Nice play on the cover we used last year for a story on the Cascades Raptor Center.
Oh, wait, that wasn’t a clever spin on something that happened recently, was it, OC? Yes, now I see, the date on the bottom of that comic says 2004. As in, before anybody on our active editorial staff even thought about coming to school here (we would have been juniors in high school then, and the comic’s portrayal of us as academically casual semi-slackers wasn’t that far off).

It’s ok, as a fellow slave to an independent student magazine, I know how difficult it is to come up with fresh, interesting material. Which is why I also understand how easy it is to slip into petty criticisms of other students and people who are trying to do constructive things, rather than to do something positive yourselves. Writing humorously can be difficult; writing humorously for the higher purpose of encouraging other people to think or to facilitate a change in behavior is damned near impossible sometimes.

Luckily for us here at Voice, there are fine people like Janae Schiller on staff to strike that difficult balance between silly and thought-provoking. She managed to poke a little fun at Uncle Phil (Knight – see our issue with the gay flag on front to read the whole essay) while pointing out the fact that his racially profiling shoes are unacceptable to a good segment of Nike’s targeted market. The Oregon Commentator, on the other hand, seems to choose the subjects they rant about from a giant beachball with the words “ASUO”, “liberals”, “how we’d rather be drunk”, “ASUO”, “popular culture”, “something else (limit once per issue)” inscribed on the sides, which they toss up into the air with hateful glee to see which topic their fingers will land on.

Well, OC, sorry you chose us for your token non-ASUO, non-liberal, booze-sodden rant. In the next one, let’s see a little punctuation and something resembling a point. Cheers!

Hey Voices.

Cori Here the unofficially appointed D-Girl of Staff. I like to develop ideas and brainstorm. I’m thinking this issue looks fab and for the next I was thinking about instead of Best of…we could do Most’s like Most Wanted Material Good and Most Appealing Feature of the Voice.

Pick up the new issuse, on new stands NOW!

D-Girl OUT!