Spleen-Venting
One of the stories on the front page of The Breeze today is titled Protesters beat missile to oppose war violence.
It tells the touching story of Wednesday afternoon, when the Young Democratic Socialists (winners, all, I'm sure) "set up a 10-foot 'missile of miliarism' and encouraged students to destroy it using a provided 'bat of peace.'"
One of the designers of the missile said that it was designed as "the symbolic embodiment of peace." Hmm...so why are you beating the shit out of it?
But wait; it gets better. Sophomore Peter Gelderloos: "The missile is a symbol of murder, and the whiffle bat of peace is used to stray that symbol." [emphasis mine]
"Whiffle bat of peace"? Are these "Young Democratic Socialists" smoking large quantities of crack?
These people are complete morons. Stop trying so hard to be like your parents and grow a brain. We are at war, and our enemies could care less that you're trying to protect them; you'd be just as likely to be the first against the wall as anyone else would if they had their way.
Ooh, that felt good. Just needed to get a bit of a rant out there, and I rather enjoyed it.
In other interesting Breeze developments...the Darts & Pats. Let's see what gems we have today:
- A "whatever-happened to 'All-Together-One?'" dart to the Marching Royal Dukes for not dressing up for the Homecoming parade. Apparently it wasn't televised enough for you.
From a person tired of supporting a group that is too elitist to respect their own students, staff, alumni and community by at least pretending to be a part of our campus.
Well, the MRDs are so used to getting pats, a dart is a little out of place. But seriously, blow it out your ass. Join the marching band; then you'll understand. We spend every Saturday that there's a home game at Bridgeforth Stadium watching a mediocre football team blow game after game, so STFU. And speaking of mediocre football teams... - A "your-priorities-are-out-of-line" dart to the JMU Atheletic Department for slashing scholarships and budgets of winning programs to foster the growth of a football team that can't even win a game in 1-AA.
Sent in by an alumnus who has learned the best investments are made in programs and people that have a history of producing winning results.
While the football has technically won a game this year, this is a spot-on dart. And now there are plans to expand the stadium to accomodate a crowd for a 1-A team? Please. Stop having delusions of grandeur and focus on education. And staying with the sports theme... - A "thank-you-for-doing-the-impossible" pat to the Arizona Diamondbacks for finally beating the Yankees in a World Series.
Sent in by an elated freshman whose favorite team happens to be whoever the Yanks are playing and is glad to see the better team finally win one.
I was pretty glad to read this dart...until I got to the last line. Much as it pains me to admit it, the Yankees have been the better team lately: better than the Braves in 1996 and 1999, better than everyone in 1998, and better (though by a lesser margin than many believe) than the Mets in 2000. They're not anymore, though.
Speaking of the Mets, I read a report today about the possibility of John Rocker coming to be Armando's successor. While I admit as readily as anyone that the irony would be great for Rocker to be forced to "ride the 7 train next to some queer with AIDS," it just won't happen. Or maybe, considering Steve Phillips' track record, it will. Even excluding Rocker's questionable (at best) personal beliefs, he's simply too volatile to survive in New York. Assuming New Yorkers could forgive him (an unlikely prospect), he'd get torn apart in the media after his first bad outing and probably lash out against the fans. Bad for Baseball, bad for the Mets. But I might not be watching baseball next year anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.
Obvious: Bud Selig is stupid.
November 08, 2001 - 09:37 AM
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One of the problems of this article is that it uses a fairly low quality newspaper, the Breeze, as a legitimate source.
Both of the quotes you present in your article are actually misquotes.
The first person said the missile was a symbol of war, and the quote you attribute to me is also incorrect; what I said was that the whiffle bat was used to “destroy” the symbol presented by the missile.
Some critics picked out what they thought were hypocrisies, that our anti-war protest was “violent” because we were hitting an inanimate object. Last time I checked, papier mache structures don’t have feelings. We made the missile, we destroyed it, that’s not violent. We were destroying a symbol of destruction, in part to dispel the notion that all pacifists do is hold hands and sing kumbaye. And in case you didn’t get it, the “whiffle bat of peace” was a bit tongue in cheek. The point was to get people to beat the crap out of a fake missile, showing their opposition to war.