Some things just aren't meant for print

Note: I pumped this out over the course of two hours a few days ago with the intention of submitting it to the student newspaper I've come to love so much. However, after facing the grim reality that it's too pompous and the very subject matter makes it unpublishable, I decided to slap it up on my blog instead. Enjoi!

As 2008 sheds the diaper of January and heads into the hormone-driven, lovey-dovey adolescence of February, you're probably noticing a shift in the student dynamic all around campus. Things seem more tense. Undergrads are pounding their fists and sharing some ill-toned sentiments at dinnertime. Graduate students trudge on per the usual, but that trudge has seems slightly affected by worldly happenings. Your Facebook account has probably become awash with invitations to support political candidates. That's right, kids: The election season is ramping up, and the very Thresher you're holding right now is bound to become a battleground of political nitpicking in the months to come. You may even become part of the madness.

But let me save you the trouble.

There's a certain clockwork mechanism to writing about politics and politicians during an election year. First you pick a topic, you write about it with varied degrees of fervor and one-sidedness, consider the opposing viewpoint for about two or three lines, and then dash it into freedom fries before your eloquent and thought-provoking send-off. Then you wait a week for some angry alumni or tenured professor to dash you to shreds using words so incredibly long, you'll wonder if they only teach them at the Ivies. Such is the process at every print institution in this nation, from the Podunk Press to the New York Times. And after you notice the doldrum process repeated article after article, election after election, you start to wonder as I have-- what's the point?

There is no point, besides maybe trolling the campus for attention. Take a look around you. We live in a world of instant information access, not a world of cheesy "I Like Ike" parade floats creeping through downtown with loudspeakers blaring campaign slogans. The age of the "elect this guy" political column came to an end after Al Gore plugged in the Internets so many ages ago. And likewise, the archaic concept of thoughtful political discussion has given way to armchair experts flinging quotes from their favorite blogs in order to sound smart. Today, people turn to blogs, web sites, iPhones, and even their make-believe online friends to decide which lever to pull on November Fourth. The decision is not made by the best-versed columnist or politico anymore, and perhaps that's a good thing.

This attitude towards political opinion applies most definitely at Rice. Consider the audience, for example. Professors and academic staff have been voting for the same party for the past fifty years. Likewise, students are pretty set when it comes to the issues that matter (i.e. drinking age, the right to carry firearms at school, whatever Ron Paul says) and had their minds made up months ago concerning which candidate to support. You can thank the Internet and national media outlets for starting campaign coverage back in 2005 and forcing opinions on us before we knew, say, anyone's actual stance on the issues. And don't forget that smart people, whether they're actually smart or just told they're smart by their friends, are usually some of the most thick-headed people you'll ever try to persuade. Good luck doing that in six hundred words.

So what's an op/ed page-- nay, the entire campus-- supposed to do with itself if one-sided, Crossfire-like bickering has become moot? There is such a thing as healthy political discussion, of course. It requires a mindset akin to a typical Rice student after a couple of drinks-- just enough to get them talking but not quite enough to get them shouting obscenities at their loved ones.

I believe this campus should spend less time worrying about which tuckus is going to fill the Oval Office throne come 2009 and more time reflecting upon what this country actually needs: Open minds, friendly spirits, and the return of the rational-thinking voter. Or we could all reflect on this campus' many needs: Communication between the administration and the student body before major construction projects are undertaken, a sense of identity that can hold tight in the wake of the Second Century speedboat, and, of course, a Waffle House.

How do high school seniors argue?

Surprise, high school friends! I took a little trip in my time machine back to a time when my liberal douching could set fire to the unaware passerby and my cache of argumentative ammunition was well-stocked. Check out these Xanga posts from back in 2004:

When President Bush decided to hop in his jet and stump down in Panama City, you can bet I had something to say about it. The cartoon in the link below is a sort of jab at all my friends who decided to attend the rally.
http://www.xanga.com/a_good_example/119693789/item.html

Of course, there was the occasional breakthrough of logic in my head. I still get those every once in a while but I've learned to suppress the logic in favor of smoking a cigarette. Oh, and me harping on heartstrings is just something you need to read anyway.
http://www.xanga.com/a_good_example/105596143/item.html

A discussion of whether I even matter. Definitely a good example of high schoolers at their best.
http://www.xanga.com/a_good_example/103900176/item.html

But it wouldn't be fair if this post was exclusively masturbatory. Check me being a true liberal douche, calling Michael Moore a "well-researched activist." Someone gag me with a mayonnaise-covered hot dog before Michael Moore eats it.
http://www.xanga.com/a_good_example/99299687/item.html

If there's one thing I still have, it's my ability to piss people off. I guess that hasn't changed at all. What I'd be more interested to find would be if my friend's political views-- especially the ones who argue tooth-and-nail in those above links-- still hold as strong to their views today. I know I don't.

High schoolers argue with an inflated sense of the world and their effect upon it. When you're limited to a school of 1200 students and teachers that get a kick out of seeing kids argue, you get the encouragement and audience necessary to feel like you're affecting something. These days, I feel like the true geniuses are the ones that see the futility in political discussions.

No one changes their minds anymore. No one is open minded. So you have to take clever, more intricate routes to changing minds.

That's where Kyle 2008 steps in to bitchslap his former self circa 2004 while, at the same time, appreciating all the fervor that put me here in the first place.

I went into the city

Into the City

HAVE A COMPETITION!

I'm suffering from writer's dump.

See, I go through these magically prolific periods of writing-- usually during breaks from school, etc-- where I spit out like five moderate-length pieces of prose that make me moderately proud. Then I dry up like a librarian's poo-nanner and the words, opinions, and topics no longer come to me so easily. And finally I arrive here, back on the old CN, hammering away and trying to painfully rebuild whatever construct my mind requires to get back into the writin' mood.

I think I've actually written about this same topic recently. Oh well, fuck it, I'm trying to repeat history anyways and get back in the groove.

But now I have deadlines. While I'm wasting my time masturbating to Election '08 coverage and avoiding life outside my apartment, I told the Thresher opinions editor that I'd have another 750er out by next Tuesday. I don't want to write about the election (yet) unless it's overall commentary on, say, my own personal obsession. But that's self-involved and I'm trying to avoid that.

Did you know that was the best argument the the people back in Panama City could come up with regarding my Squall Line thing? That it was just a giant ego-boosting pill for some emo'd up, libertarian-hating college student? Gosh, you'd think these people would know me better than that.

Ha!

I should make my article topic into some sort of contest. Like, KYLE'S TOPIC-A-THON. And if I pick the topic you suggest, I'll write you into my article! YEAH! Just like that contest I entered back when I was five to get drawn into an episode of Bobby's World!

Here's a few examples of things I would write about.

• Election
• Things that affect me or you at Rice
• Things that should affect me or you at Rice but don't (sort of already did that one)
• How the Rice Standard had a year to prove its worth, and failed
• How the Rice Thresher needs to incorporate a few elements from the Standard to clinch that last 2% of the campus that seems unhappy
• Why I hate libertarians
• Why you should hate libertarians
• Why I hate Ron Paul. Nevermind, too dangerous.
• Why militant internet support for a candidate just makes them look crazy IRL
• ELECTION
• Who are these stupid looking people in my PHIL and RELI classes? They're too small to be athletes, but they sit at the back of the class and yell the stupidest shit. And they look at me with judgmental eyes and it makes me just want to Indian Chief them with a pillow while they sleep.

You know, things like that.

I feel like this contest is too self-involved, too. So I'll say this: I'll kindly take your suggestion and in return, you'll have my humble gratitude. I guess I can write you in, too.

Saturday Free for All Op-Ed - Panama City News Herald - 1/5/2008

I got a call this morning from my mommy that my Letter of the Editor made it into the Saturday Free-For-All section of the Panama City News Herald. I haven't seen it yet, but below is the text I penned in one angry night.

The article pretty much explains itself. If you want to read (or even participate!) in the Squall Line and call me a pompous ass (clever!), you can find it at:

http://newsherald.com/squall/

Sitting down to a the News Herald-- the local paper that taught me about the media's role in local and state politics-- has been a breakfast time tradition for me since middle school. With my pancakes stacked high, I work my way through the front page, the national news, and eventually hit the lovable and progressive letters to the editor that Bay County has to offer. And whether I agree with the opinions or not, it has always been a pleasure to know that this town has some highly educated, politically active free thinkers. Yet since I left the Redneck Riviera to study in that oil refinery-lovin', gun-totin', culturally devoid but otherwise lovable city they call Houston, I've come back home at the holidays to find a scenic obstruction in my otherwise clockwork perusing of the paper.

The Squall Line.

I think that most rational people, including those who operate the News Herald, would recognize that the Squall Line is about the most morally and intellectually unproductive way that a print media institution could possibly utilize its page real estate. And that's directed towards a paper that sometimes features local politicians.

See, I spend a lot of time on the Internet. It's a place of uninformed, ridiculous opinions slung like mud back and forth between people hiding behind the anonymity that the Web has to offer. Hey, and half of the time that's why it's entertaining. The Squall Line is an extension of this unproductive mudslinging. It allows the community a public forum to say ridiculous things like "global warming is dumb," and "I sure hate this politician," and "go GATORS!" When granted anonymity, relatively intelligent people will act pretty silly.

If the Squall Line was indeed a joke it might be a funny one. But the News Herald advertises for the Squall Line as if it's an alternative to writing an informed letter to the editor, asking its readers to "sound off!" So rather than research their opinions, back them up with facts abounding and sign their names proudly at the bottom, today's News Herald readership can conduct some seriously brainless arguing using a local number or, even worse, that Internet thing I was talking about earlier.

I come from a school of thought-- an archaic one, perhaps-- that demands a certain amount of accountability from its press institutions. When was the last time any Pulitzer-worthy newspaper was caught printing uninformed one-liners from people too lazy to make a sustained argument to back up their opinions? Don't mistake the Squall Line for "local flair," either. Local flair is something that I've been proud of since I was old enough to recognize it. Local flair is on the Saturday Free-For-All page. Local flair is printed daily, with substance, in the Forty-One Cent Forum and has been (albeit under different names according to the postage rate) since before I could read at all.

In all its grand irony, the Squall Line on page two replaced a feature that was very near and dear to me. Remember reading about what happened on this day in history? I do. I used to soak up the daily history lesson featured on page two of the News Herald. Now that history lesson has been cut down to a few lines sandwiched between the funny pages and the daily Sudoku puzzle. Perhaps that, my local friends, is the best metaphor for the day and age we live in-- the ridiculous one-liners are on page two while the truly educating material is buried next to "Pearls Before Swine" and "Garfield."

Then again, I think Garfield has taught me more than the Squall Line.

Kyle Barnhart
Rice University
Houston, Texas