Sorry, But Your Walk Out is Fucking Stupid

If life has taught me anything, it's that a large gathering of people with a singular opinion is inevitably bound to produce something really fucking stupid. Because when an opinion is stated by an individual, it can be discussed and modified over time to suit nuance and to remain logical. But when it is joined by hundreds of other mouths, volume trumps levelheadedness and everything goes to shit.

App State Student Power, an organization with an ostensibly sincere goal, has proposed a walk out this afternoon at 2pm. This comes in retaliation of the Chancellor's email about parking and the adverse effects it will have on students and faculty/staff alike. This is nifty keen. That email was, and still is, a crock of shit and an insult to an institution that purports to value education over, you know, footballllllllll. I even stirred the pot a little myself.

But.

BUT.

The football game is at 7:30pm. Not 2pm when this "walk out" will occur. Don't get me wrong, the idea of gathering a whole host of students and faculty and shouting about how much this whole shebang sucks and acts as an unworthy and bloated distraction from actually important shit is, decidedly, appealing to my proclivities. But the game is at 7:30. PM.

The problem isn't (just) that this little rag-tag team of protesters and angry-people will be missing their mark by five and a half hours. Nor is it (just) that they will be missing an opportunity to make a larger impact (the game will be on ESPNU). The problem (mostly) is that a walk out at 2pm implies that people will be walking out of their classes. Otherwise, what else would they be walking OUT of? This is where the "fucking stupid" element of the whole ordeal comes in to play.

If your goal is to protest athletics' dominion over education in the modern university setting (namely, ours), don't you think leaving class to go shout about football seems a little counterintuitive?

Granted, not everyone will be in class at 2pm when this walk out occurs and you'll get a lot of people just wandering in out of curiosity and a whole lot of people probably wandering in to shout back at you. But, look, I understand what you're TRYING to do. I understand the whole civil disobedience, making a statement rah-rah-rah of it all. But it's just not going to hit its mark in the way you think it is.

Mainly, because the public values flair over fact. The flair is that a bunch of students walked out of class at 2 in the afternoon to shout in a field. The flair is that students and faculty directly violated their supposed love of education by neglecting it in favor of a fun day in the sun. The flair is that football still happened in spite of all this and a movement that could have made an impact fizzled out 5 hours before the actual game.

What matters isn't what actually happened, but how people hear it happened. And people will not hear good things. My advice to you? Push your protest to 6:30. Yell outside the gates. Wave pencils and pocket protectors and your spectacles at drunk passerby. They'll hate it, but goddamit you'll seem real fucking dedicated to education. Gather a big group of students and distribute them throughout the stands. Make a scene by getting them all to stand up at the same time and walk out of the stadium. Cameras will notice, stories will be written, all because the media loves a good controversy.

But don't walk out of fucking class. Please? I am not one of the knuckle-draggers commenting on the Walk Out Facebook page who thinks that "hur dur App State football is part of our proud heritage" (Appalachian State was founded as a teaching college, fyi). I understand that this whole thing you're protesting is wrong and that you are right. But what's the point of being right if you say it badly?

Stay in school, don't watch football and for god's sake think before you join a mob.

Lincoln Chafee: America's Saddest Sap

As you may recall, several months ago I implored you not to take part in the political theater and to vote based on the facts rather than charisma (Looking at you "every major news source currently fawning over Hill-Dawg's performance last night").  I still hold to that proposition and would recommend that you take a step back and actually do some research on the four candidates (and Christmas ham with a wig that was Jim Webb) that we saw on stage last night.

This being said, can we please talk about how ridiculously unprepared, awkward and hilariously out of place Lincoln Chafee was last night? There are deer in headlights and then there is Chafee.

Chafee, for those that may not know (read: literally everyone), is a former U.S. Senator from Rhode Island and the former Governor of Rhode Island. How he won either of these candidacies is still under investigation, though I imagine it has a lot to do with running for governor in a state whose population matches that of... half of Houston. Pretty much shoe-horned into his governorship because his daddy had held the seat 40 years prior, Chafee was seen as a fairly run-of-the-mill dude. Never much for charisma, there is very little to be found combing the internet about his time in the chair.

But that's fine. If all we were going for was bombastic politics and quotability, we'd be better suited just giving Donald Trump the keys to the White House and diving into the Atlantic. The main problem with Chafee is not his complete lack of likability, charm or wit: It's the fact that he has no idea what he believes or thinks.

Last night's biggest gaffe came when debate moderator and eyewear model, Anderson Cooper, asked Chafee about his decision to repeal Glass-Steagall, the very famous and well-lauded act that regulated big banks. Chafee, obviously taken aback and somehow not expecting this, shot back with something about his dad being dead and the fact that he was new to congress. When pressed further, he whined that Cooper was being "a little rough." 

Um...

Look, is a decision Chafee made over a decade ago entirely relevant to his current candidacy for president, ESPECIALLY considering Most Popular Girl in School Clinton's history with flipping on the issues? Well, kinda. But still, is it really the most important thing that could be addressed on stage? Not at all. However. HOW. EVER. Responding to a question about a major lawmaking decision (that, arguably, cleared a path for the largest banking and housing crisis our country has ever seen) with "Hey, I was new!" is the worst possible fucking way you could answer said question.

This just supports the idea that Chafee has very little confidence in himself as a politician and, certainly, as a leader. His entire political career has been one giant revolving door of political parties, going from Republican to Independent and, finally, to Democrat during his tenure as governor. When asked about this last night, Chafee experienced his proudest moment as he gleefully exclaimed that he had not changed on the issues. But this isn't surprising for a man who clearly didn't feel much on the issues in the first place.

Chafee's campaign is a sham. His biggest and most name-brand supporter (via his website) is Senator Robert Byrd, a man who died five years ago. He is LITERALLY polling at 0%. No one wants this man to be president, probably not even Chafee at this point.

No, the sad truth of the matter is this: Chafee, Jim Webb and Martin "Monotone" O'Malley are all dead ringers so that no one notices Clinton is running unopposed. Bernie was supposed to be one of these sideline shows but he gained startling support and momentum from the Internet and a quickly growing fed-up-with-bullshit population. But the Democrats, probably since she lost the nomination back in '08 to Obama, have been grooming Hillary to be the perfect Presidential machine, playing up her storied political history and womanhood. Chafee is just a step in the ladder of bozos Hillary is using to finally get into the White House.

Alas, Chafee, we will probably see you drop out of the race here within the next month (we suggest within the next 24 hours). Your most interesting quality is that you once did cocaine "several times" in college. But even Bush beat you to that punchline. I guess it's just time to hang up your goofy ties, hand in your sweat-laced microphone and make way for someone who has an actual dog in this fight.

(#FeelTheBern)

Why The Fuck Are We Still Saying "Redskins?"

Happy Columbus Day! Today, we take time to remember our whitewashed version of the "discovery of America" and celebrate a man who systematically enslaved and slaughtered the indigenous peoples of a land he, ostensibly, thought was fucking Asia.

Much too late, we are beginning to realize that "oh yeah, that guy sucks" and are slowly (very, very slowly) transferring attention and praise away from this murderous psychopath and back towards the people who, you know, lived here for tens of thousands of years before we showed up. But as much as we'd LIKE to give them the recognition they deserve, we're far more content "honoring" them through racial stereotypes and epithets. Namely, through using the term "redskins."

Indeed, we are still using this fucking term, despite the fact that it is 2015 and that the word literally means "Native American scalp." This is the equivalent of naming a team "Beheaded American Journalists" and shrugging when people ask what the hell is wrong with us.

And that's exactly what Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder is doing. Although he is taking it a step farther and outright defending his offensive bullshit as "heritage." (Where have I heard that argument before....I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.) In a letter penned in 2013, Snyder defended the name, citing that "we cannot ignore our 81-year history." Eighty one whole years! How could any opposing group ever top a number as high as that?

Snyder and his fans (read: racist mob) go on to bemoan their hurt feelings and how offended they feel to be called racists. Because god knows it's the accused racists that deserve the benefit of the doubt. Snyder's position is, quite obviously, stupid and despite his citation that "most Native Americans" don't find the name offensive (a study conducted in 2004, by the way), it still desperately needs to be struck from our national lexicon.

California has done just that. Yesterday, in an overwhelming majority decision, the California State Assembly passed a law banning the use of the term "redskins" as a mascot name. Cool! Awesome! We are progressing, right?

Tulare Union Principal Michelle Nunley says she brought the letter when she went to Sacramento with some students to lobby against the bill. 

“People feel very passionate about it, and the fact that we’re all Redskins,” says Nunley. “We don’t want to lose that opportunity to remain Redskins here at Tulare Union.”

Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, because the world spins on axis made entirely of fecal matter dribbling from the mouths of a million racist morons, someone in a position of authority and power has a fucking problem with this entirely reasonable and long-due decision. Tulare High School cites heritage as well as the high cost of renovation as their reason to sticking to their feather headdress-adorned guns. Native Americans cite thousands of years and the complete decimation of their population due to disease, war and displacement as their reason. Who's to say who has more of a leg to stand on?

Look, it's great that California is dragging its population, kicking and screaming, into a world where we don't go around using racially offensive terms. But it is very little, very late. For starters, this is the only state in the union to do so as of yet. (It is still legal in 49 states to dance around in fake Native American attire and call yourself a redskin.) Furthermore, and far more offensive, we still treat Native Americans like absolute shit. 28.2% of Native Americans live under the poverty line, many of which are living in overcrowded housing with insufficient access to healthcare (Native American lifespans trail the average by about 5 years) and jobs.

The native people of this land are still feeling the shockwaves of the absolutely horrifying shit our country's forefathers inflicted on them for hundreds of years, yet we're worried that a few thousand drunk sports fans that can't bear the thought of having to throw out all their racist memorabilia and learn to chant a different name at football games might have their feelings hurt? Not to mention, we're still celebrating murderous psychopaths via holidays and currency.

There is a startlingly wide gap in our national mindset concerning the native populations that causes this issue to pass by us daily without so much as a glance in its direction. The fact that a national sports team (in our nation's capital no less) can preserve its highly offensive name with very little consequence thus far shows just how unwilling we are to address this problem. This is due to a mixture of misconception and conscious apathy.

In short, stop being an ignorant asshole and change the goddamn name already.

Who Will Think Of The Men?

Who will think of the men? The poor, downtrodden man who hath lost his reason to live. Who will think of the manly man. The guy's guy. The DUDE. Who will consider his world, slowly slipping through his heavily calloused fingertips and falling into the dirt where it is being used to fertilize the pansy-laced garden of our modern progressive age? Who will help these masculine men? Cast out by society and made to watch as their delicate, wood-smoked world is dismantled piece by piece to fashion an IKEA bassinet and brunch.

Woe is the man who can no longer be a man. Castrated, silenced and broken, the man must now sit by the sidelines of a football game where the players can no longer call each other racially offensive terms. Since when did teammates stop getting to be teammates?

Pity the man who has watched idly by as words like "faggot" and "pussy" have been struck from his lexicon, replaced with words like "person" and "frightened person." Their dictionaries, stripped of gusto and machismo, now languish in a world that forces men to read them. Where have the days of brevity gone?

Bros, Romans, countryMEN, our world of male dominated pronouns has come crashing down around our ears, forcing us to moderately adjust our speech patterns to deal with it. It is a bitter, cruel world that would allow such a shift. The world as we know it is coming to an end and all we can do is stare silently into the abyss for tears might wash the dirt from our working man's cheeks.

And chivalry! Oh, chivalry. Alas, we knew you. To where shall we turn for our social cues regarding those of the fairer sex? How shall we proceed in coital endeavors? Who will open the door? All these questions and more are now sawdust in the wind, lost to a world where manners and social decorum are no longer gauged by gender.

Masculinity, we lay you to rest in a hole free from frills, dug with our own hands and filled with about two inches of shitty beer. We lower you into the ground to the tune of AC/DC's "Back in Black" and say our goodbyes with straight faces and taut jawlines. Finally, we send you out with a 21-gun salute, aimed at a sky filled with fluffy clouds and smiling baby suns, products of our recently feminized world.

Men, how we shall miss you. Boots replaced by Toms. Shirts replaced by blouses. Deteriorating vision replaced by glasses. I just don't understand this new world. Why can't it accept our mindset? Why can't things stay the way they were? Why can't men just be men?

Some Advice for the Rotten Appal

It's been over a year since the Rotten Appal's fatal blunder heard 'round the campus and a lot has changed since then. Gay marriage was legalized (and, subsequently, inspired stupidity), Donald Trump became a viable presidential nominee (a separate, unrelated stupidity), and the Rotten Appal managed to settle into a routine that worked. They got into the groove and, honestly, started producing some not-so-shabby work. Which is why this is more painful than it should be.

In a recent article, the Rotten Appal attempted to tackle the issue of catcalling and sexual assault via satire. The article, titled "Catcallers Make Good Points About Hot Bitches", was not well received. Criticized for its clumsy approach to the issue, many felt that the joke careened too far into bad taste and negated its original intention. In other words, it's time for this week's special article:

"Fucking A, Guys; You Were Doing So Well"

This was not handled well. By anyone. Let's get that out of the way first because it's worth pointing out lest we get lost in the "he said, she said" of internet fighting. I don't know where the outrage originated and, quite frankly, it doesn't really matter. The issue lies less with what the article said than how the protestations were responded to. Herein lies my particular gripes: When presented with criticism, the Rotten Appal staff (not a singular entity, I am aware) responded with anger and defensiveness. This baffles me.

As a humor organization, you expect a certain level of daily ire, usually in the form of the offended most recently insulted in an article. These offendees are, typically, oversensitive bedwetters that can't handle someone making fun of the football team or the Greek system. In these cases, it is usually best to respond by saying.....well, nothing. They aren't worth your time. This case, however, is very different. In this case, you have ended up offending the wrong audience, shooting yourself in the proverbial (and, indeed, collective) foot.

What draws the anger of the public is often predictable. Were I to write a blog post about the healing powers of cyanide, I could rest assured that people would take issue. But sometimes, something, be it the writing, visuals or content, just does not click with people and the audience turns on you. As an individual, you can avoid these; as an organization you cannot. As an organization dedicated to creating content for an audience, you have a particular duty to a respectful dialogue. Insulting your readers is not the route to take. I found it particularly disturbing to see Rotten Appal writers responding to their audience with dismissiveness and indifference on their official Facebook page. This belies a level of professionalism I had thought the Rotten Appal was beginning to aspire to.

Look, I get it. You were trying to be funny and start a dialogue about rape culture. That's a mighty fine goal and I am proud that you are trying to use satire to tackle controversial issues. But the joke just didn't work. I know it may have worked in theory, but every writer should know that sometimes something just does not hit the mark. This is typically the part where you suck it up, apologize and try to be better in the future. It's fucking humiliating, I know. It seems like you're giving up, but try to see it as an opportunity to grow and demonstrate that you are, indeed, an organization and not just a club full of dudes writing fart jokes. Because you've evolved past that and people have noticed. We really have. Don't squander that on pride.

Appalachian State's Big Pile of Bullshit

The transition from an academic institution to a machine for football has been steadily happening since we, you know, did that thing. Despite how weird it is that we still collectively masturbate over beating a team once (who, last year, annihilated us in the most ill-chosen revenge match ever), we've gained a foothold, however loose, in the world of televised sports and have been making moves towards becoming an eventual powerhouse. Which would be all fine and dandy if it didn't come at the expense of the students.

Now, the dichotomy between student athlete and student non-athlete is a tale as old as universities and there is, admittedly, some wrong information out there that is often used to demonize the former. For example, for years people have bemoaned the football team for taking all of our unused meal plan money, sparking outrage at the end of every year. A couple of years ago, on this very blog, I debunked that myth.

But just because the football team isn't taking your lunch money doesn't mean that it isn't still calling you a nerd and running away with your girlfriend. In this case, your girlfriend is a shoddy metaphor for parking. In a recent email sent out by the Chancellor herself (read: her secretary), she enthusiastically described how little the university gives a shit about your over-priced parking pass on October 22 and November 5th, both Thursdays and both, ostensibly, class days.

The email goes on to lay out which lots may be used and which may not....for faculty and staff, that is. As for students, well....

Haha fuck you nerds.

That's right. Not only is the university relegating faculty and staff to limited parking (from which they must be moved by 3pm!!), they are also pretty much banning students from parking anywhere near campus, with the exception of Rivers Street until 4pm, under the guise of their "green initiative." This in and of itself stinks to high heaven and is the topic of today's Big Pile of Bullshit.

For a university that just hosted the fourth annual Appalachian Energy Summit, whose attendees included Robert Kennedy Jr., Appalachian certainly has a strange concept of energy conservation and sustainability. If banning students from parking on campus is part of a green initiative, presumably with the notion that this will reduce carbon emissions for the day, would it not be also pertinent to just, you know, ban everyone from driving that day? Why not cancel the game, close up the lots and tell everyone to sit inside for the day with the lights off? Surely this would be more in line with your "green initiative." But, of course, this does not fit Appalachian's hilariously bad narrative. The university wants to have its cake and eat it too. Maintaining the illusion that they are an institution dedicated to making the world a better place, unfortunately, is starting to butt heads with the goal of making big bucks and planting themselves on the front page of Sports Illustrated again. 

Appalachian has elected dishonesty and word games in lieu of being upfront with its students. Furthermore (and possibly worse), they have given professors a very clear message that they care about them just about as much as a few parking lots can handle, literally suggesting to them that (and I am not making this up) "...some may wish to avoid the risk of traffic congestion by leaving campus early."

Go on, get out of here. We're done listening to all your fancy school shit. We got some FOOTBALLLLLLL!! Are you fucking serious Appalachian? You're literally telling your faculty and staff to get the fuck out (albeit covertly) and make room for paying customers. This is the academic equivalent of "the customer is always right." 

Look, I understand that this is only two days out of the year, but it's indicative of a worrisome shift in importance and reveals an underlying narrative being concocted by the university to justify its own actions. Overt screwing over of its, arguably, most important asset (aka students) would be preferable to being screwed with a smile and a wink. Touting your actions as "green" is akin to turning the NBC logo green for a month out of the year and saying you helped. 

Is it really worth getting worked up over not being able to park close to campus for two days out of the year? Maybe not for me; I have an apartment parking pass so none of this really affects me in the slightest. But there are people who rely on parking as a means of getting to campus, often too far out for the bus to pick them up and certainly too far to bike. Shortsighted behavior by a university with big plans doesn't give me much hope that their ongoing game of footsies with ESPN is going to pan out and it certainly doesn't give me much hope for their relationship with the students paying thousands upon thousands to attend this school. Fear not, however, as there is a silver lining to all of this. If you are a paying member of the Yosef Club, the university has several nice lots reserved for you.

Happy Football Season, motherfuckers. 

Presidential Dinner Theater

Welcome, welcome! Please have a seat. I said TAKE A FUCKING SEAT.

Sorry, Trumping out there. Anyways, where shall we begin? Ah yes, let's start by turning off our cell phones, pagers and really any form of technology for the next year and a half. It's time for the Presidential Dinner Theater!

Every four years, our nation sits down, burns the popcorn and then bitches about this same fucking movie for an extended period of time we call the "election cycle." We see the same cast of buffoons (namely Santorum and Perry) say the same stupid shit and for some reason, we have the same gripes, as if this method has worked in the past. You get major news outlets publishing long-winded articles filled with all sorts of problems faced by one party or another. It's the same fucking drudgery every four years.

Bullshit. Bullshit never changes.

I'm not saying they aren't proper gripes. I mean by all means calling out Donald Trump and Jeb Bush for being misogynistic assholes is certainly proper; but is it worthwhile? The answer, as you may have guessed, is resoundingly: no. Because, quite frankly, the candidates, nor their affiliated parties, don't give a rat's ass what you or your cute little newspaper/Facebook status/blog think.

And, to make matters worse, the major news outlets (Fox News, CNN, etc.) also don't care what you think. If anything, they care even less. Because this is all one big fucking game and we're sitting at the losers' table in perpetuity. We are casting our ballot for entertainment politics night after night as we rage into our computers about how stupid Candidate 1 is or how out of touch Party 2 is. These people know what they're saying is bullshit, but they don't care because we eat it up. Whether we like what we taste is irrelevant so long as we chew and swallow it down.

Being politically aware is important, no doubt. If you want to sit down and spend days crunching the numbers and facts behind each and every presidential candidate (you'll be there awhile) then, by all means, go for it. This is a good way to handle the next year and a half. But if you're among the rest of us who just sit around and shout at the screen because someone said something that made you mad, you're never going to get up. You're going to sit at that screen forever, your angry spittle greasing an already well-lubed machine that lives off of your willingness to pay attention.

Stop listening to it. Stop watching it. Stop fucking caring about it. The controversy, I mean. Stop clicking on articles that start with "You'll never believe what so-and-so said!" Just fucking stop. Please, for the love of all this is holy, end the seemingly endless cycle of "mad as hell" pageantry. Every time you post something bitching about a candidate, all you are doing is giving them and whatever second-rate news outlet that published it free publicity.

The election cycle is supposed to be a chance for Americans to review candidates and find out if they're worthy of the office of the Presidency. It's supposed to be objective and it's supposed to be professional. It's not. I'm not sure if it ever was, to be entirely honest. But that doesn't stop us from complaining that it isn't. Even me.

If you care about democracy and America and all that howdy-doody shit, you'll step away from the show and form opinions based on facts instead. About both sides of the aisle. About sides that don't yet have an aisle. You'll go for a walk and think about what it means to be a leader. You'll come home and you'll do actual research and make decisions based on facts and figures.

For now, you can find the emergency exit doors to your left and right. Please use them.