Think Small

It's weird how inspiration can come from the most random places. An inspirational link and a quick conversation with my brother and, quite suddenly, I'm ready to start writing on this thing once again.

It all started quite innocuously this morning: Get to the office, throw on a cup of coffee and check reddit for all the easy-to-digest liberal nerd rage I can bite off with my dulled political chops. Years of caring too much have turned me from a youthfully deaf, rabid Michael Moore wannabe into one of those more sage, jaded liberals who believes in the goodness of sharing and equality but is disheartened by the empty promise of politics in America.

I noticed one particular headline that suddenly cranked my fatigued morning brain into overdrive:

This is interesting: Julian Assange's old blog. (web.archive.org)

A blog written by an academic from 2006-2007 touching on some high-minded topics such as freedom of information, love, life and humor? Interspersed with random snippets of useful Ruby code? All on a very non-flashy, flat-style page? Totally fucking early 2000's nostalgia! Where do I sign up?

To me, Assange has never been the enigmatic, borderline Aspy with a serious case of US butthurt that many media outlets have attempted to mis-characterize. To me, he's a man who values the academic principle of openness more than the academic definition of journalism. And that pragmatic attitude garners a lot of respect from me.

Professors and pundits alike may argue all day about the proportions of journalism, recklessness, integrity, fairness and freedom that constitute the WikiLeaks initiative. At the end of the day, though, WikiLeaks itself (especially with this latest iteration of leaked cables) is not dismantling the institutions it highlights. At least, not on its own. They're dismantling the facade. They're exposing the way the world works in a very candid way, leaving the accountability in the hands of those who dare to lie, mislead or at the very least not educate the public at large.

I think that's cool, because history tends to favor openness and expression.

Anyways, back to that blog.

Breezing through the international pariah's random, somewhat intimate wisdom, I found myself awash in one big, awesome thought: He blogs for the same reason I have to blog. To put my ideas out there. To reflect and check myself in a public space. To share and clarify and sharpen my position instead of keeping it in my head. I feel like those higher goals are evident in Assange's blog as they are in this one.

Blogging for me has always been more than just an indulgent exercise in narcissism, though I'd be lying if I said that wasn't some significant part of it :-) It's a giant "you are here, and this is where you've been" map for life. I do re-read my shit on occasion. I bet you're not surprised.

Honestly, I know myself well enough to know that I have never been able to keep track of myself well in my head. I lose myself. I make myself crazy with the sort of deprecating, self-defeating nonsense that left me depressed and insular for the better part of this year. But when I unleash the stream of consciousness into a finite bitstream for public consumption, well, those self-defeating thoughts get pulverized like errant letters by a springy, loud, 80's style backspace button.

So thanks to Mr. Assange for helping me realize and see the importance of writing on my blog once again.

I also chatted a bit with my brother today and, together, we came to another conclusion: That each blog post doesn't have to be some big odyssey of a tome. It feels like everything I've written in the past year or so is some historical essay on the recent life I've been living up to that point. But that sort of defeats the purpose I was just talking about. What I ended up with this year was three or four giant characterizations of my life based on those pivotal moments when I was so emotional or worked-up that I just exploded with prose. But those aren't honest. They're moving, but they're not necessarily me on-the-whole.

The odyssey isn't each constituent post. The odyssey is the blog.

(oops, I ended up saying way more than I thought I would. oh well. I promise the next post will come soon, and be small. twss?)

The Great Literati Divide (or How to Kill a Student Newspaper)

Every Sunday evening, without fail, I would space out for an hour while the section editors and shakers of Rice's undergraduate newspaper argued about factual accuracy and page layout. My job as the Thresher's satirist was to give readers something to laugh at while they're taking a crap in Duncan Hall between classes, not to win a kiddie Pulitzer for the most hard-hitting investigation of campus inefficiencies. So, naturally, I often resented the fact that I was required to attend these meetings.

To the extent that I did listen, though, there was one resounding lament that I heard over the course of my tenure as Backpage editor: The Thresher's general decline in article quality. The news and copy sections have been embarrassed a number of times this past year thanks to awesome ineptitude demonstrated by the news writing staff. Check out the erratum in nearly every issue published in this year's volume. Last fall, the front page ran an article that reported one in five students was infected with H1N1 (when the number was closer to 2%). The downward trend hit rock bottom in February when Rice's administration was forced to write-in and correct glaring factual errors two weeks in a row.

Personally, I'm more upset about the decline in quality of another section: Op-Eds. The weekly editorial columns that the Thresher receives from the student body have all but flatlined in terms of caliber and general interest. Case in point: The Thresher's most prolific student author also happens to be the most out-of-touch when it comes to campus culture, writing in about how Houston is inferior to New York City and why final exams should be optional. This is the kind of thing I should have been writing about in my satire section and yet, somehow, columns like hers are still showing up on Page 3.

Pinpointing that "somehow" interests me severely. What happened to the Rice Thresher? Is Coffeehouse poisoning the staff with ayahuasca? No, because the Thresher doesn't receive free Coffeehouse coffee anymore. Thanks, Evan.

We are then left with a few reasonable explanations:

• There are no more good, dedicated writers at Rice University. They all graduated in '09.
• There are good writers at Rice University, but their work is purposefully sabotaged by the Thresher's editorial staff for some incomprehensible reason. Goddamn it Casey.
  
• There are good writers at Rice University, and they're just not writing for the Thresher.
  

Let's ignore that second point for a moment while we critically consider what has changed the landscape of Rice's undergraduate writing community over the past few years. Obviously, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Rice Standard (because Alice Townes is always on my mind, zing!). It's a student-run, university-independent magazine/blog that has really taken off in the past few year. Oh, and don't forget about Open, Rice's literary sex magazine. Open is like an episode of The Big Bang Theory with less blonds, more nudity and more frankness about nerds not getting laid. And then there's Catalyst (the research journal for kids).

Did I miss anyone? Probably. It seems like every niche at Rice has its own publication these days.

But if you take the time to read any of the publications mentioned above you'll realize that my first guess—that the good writers have gone the way of the dinosaurs—simply can't be true. The Standard (mostly) holds itself to an intellectual... standard that borders on cosmopolitan. There are a few exceptions to this rule but, on average, the essays posted on the Standard possess a quality and readability that easily exceeds that of the contemporary Thresher. While Open and Catalyst don't generate nearly as much content per year as the Standard, their existence still necessitate a certain amount of hard work and dedication from their respective editorial staffs, writers, and girls willing to show their butt-cracks to the campus. God bless you, youthful rebellion.

And so here we are, finally, at my thesis. Despite their respective intentions, publications like the Rice Standard are sucking the life out of Rice's student-run newspaper. Their crime is not a malicious crime but, instead, a crime perpetrated by sheer existence. They are draining the literary-oriented campus talent from its former, centralized location at the Thresher and directing it toward niche audiences with limited perspectives and smaller readerships.

The issue is simply a matter of limited resources. Rice's small campus has a fixed number of individuals willing to write for fun on a regular basis, and even fewer willing to read, edit and layout pages. These are busy kids. Future leaders, I'm told. And they're smart. They're going to write to maximize their exposure to interested readers, minimize the work involved in getting published and, perhaps most importantly, they're only going to write when they have the time to do so leisurely.

The Standard's WordPress format makes it easy for any member of Rice's literati to contribute a couple hundred words on a topic of their respective interest. They don't get paid, sure, but no one (except for it's own editorial staff) is writing for a living at the Thresher anyways. Standard writers also receive instant gratification and can easily and quickly engage their readers through a familiar commenting system. The Thresher's College Publisher-based website is laughably clunkier than the Standard; the rules governing when and how writers can comment on their articles on the Thresher's site are contrived and confusing.

On the other hand, the Standard's online-only format severely limits its ability to reach the entire campus. College newspapers-- at least, our college newspaper and most other small college newspapers-- don't necessarily follow the national trend of declining print newspaper readership caused by increased online readership. Picking up a free Thresher on Friday mornings is still a tradition well-ingrained in campus culture. There's even one particular professor who likes to talk to me during Friday ELEC lab about what he has read in the Thresher. The Standard, on the other hand, may reach students but not necessarily alumni and professors: It's just the nature of the beast.

And so, owing to convenience and prestige, the Standard has effectively stolen the campus' best writers away from the student body and directed their efforts toward reaching a smaller and more niche audience.

For that niche audience, though, convenience and prestige are a great thing. The Standard has a certain feel to it. Articles feel smarter. The site looks good. The pool of individuals who regularly comment on articles is small and personable. They laud intellectual discourse and shun stupidity. And while I have no doubt that the Standard is daily reading for some members of the campus administration, it is not scrutinized by the same pool of prospective students and their parents, alumni or faculty members who love to make a fuss when the Thresher does anything slightly subversive. Autonomy has made the Standard interesting.

The Standard, however, is not the face of Rice. The Thresher is the face of Rice. And when those same prospective students, alumni and faculty read yet another half-brained, last-minute opinion piece presented under the Thresher's masthead, they have to wonder what sort of students are running the student-run newspaper. Or what kind of students go to Rice.

It's in everyone's best interest for publications to present their best, most high-quality copy to the campus. But things have to change in order for that to happen. The literati have to branch out. The publications have to innovate and recognize that if any one of them is going to flourish, they have to sustainably manage their most valuable resource.

And lastly, I have my prescriptions. No giant rant pointing out the obvious would be complete without some ideas about where to go next.

For the Standard:

• Recognize that the Thresher is hurting as a result of your existence. This was, after all, one reason that the Standard was formed in the first place: As retaliation against what the founders perceived to be bias and lack of Rand-esque autonomy and free enterprise at the Thresher. Or because the founders were mad they couldn't inject their wacky, neoconservative opinions into the student newspaper. In any case, it's time to make nice.
  
• Encourage writers to increase their exposure by re-working their opinion articles toward the campus as a whole and submitting them to the Thresher. That's how activism works: Pounding every available outlet with your brand of the truth.
• Stay open to new ideas and collaboration with the Thresher. They have something you don't: Money. And they're probably willing to share it in the pursuit of readership.

For the Thresher:

• Realize where the good writers have gone, why they left and admit that you have suffered as a result.
• Work on writer incentives. Standardize (lolz) a workflow that makes it easier for writers to participate in the editorial process, provide commentary online and minimizes the amount of time they have to spend writing articles.
• In today's world, no one expects a print institution to provide the same sort of time-sensitive information that the Internet and social media provide. If an Op-Ed isn't time-sensitive but has potential, send it back for another week of revision. Work on articles for months at a time if you have to. The point is to recover some of that quality that has been lacking for the past year or two.
• Pay writers more money. If it's supposed to be an incentive, make it an incentive. Ten dollars per article is a joke to writers exhausted by their respective workloads.
• Stay open to new ideas and collaboration with the Standard. They have something you don't: Quality. And they're probably willing to share it in the pursuit of readership.

For the other campus publications:

• Just... I dunno. Write something for the Thresher and the Standard every now and then, even if it turns out to be a shallow promotion of your publication. Their editorial staff can always turn you down.

Now, what to do about armchair experts too selfish to write for any campus publication is another story entirely...

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.

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

Yellow Journalism

Yesterday I wrote up a little diatribe about how ridiculous the Rice Standard has become, then deleted it soon after; it's way past the scope of needing me to poke holes in its crisp magazine pages, I thought. Who needs me when there's a painfully blatant libertarian bias-- the publisher's note says something like the "Standard will not kowtow to any party line," followed by an advertisement for a Rice Libertarians luncheon and a neocon wankfest of a book on the pages following-- mixed with infighting and a general lack of direction.

Maybe they actually DO publish the Standard with the full understanding that...

• ...only seven people on campus agree with maybe half of what's contained in any given issue, and three of those are just because they're friends with the authors.
  
• ...four people in metro Housto actually have the vocabulary to make it three sentences into an article written by Arturo Munoz.
• ...quoting Dave Eggers makes you indietrash from 2002.
• ...blogs belong online, not in print.
• ...Ron Paul will get not a single electoral vote.
  

But even if they did understand all that stuff and made strides towards fixing those few glaring problems, my main quibble with the Standard would still stand, which is:

THE RICE STANDARD IS UNNECESSARY.

It's like having an alternative press rag in a town of 5,000 people, except that said publication only writes about issues on the national level, and does so in prose style. Oh, and they only write about topics spanning about a square inch of the acre-wide political spectrum.

But okay. So why did I decide to come back today and write another diatribe? I got this e-mail not twenty minutes ago...

Dear Rice Standard Readers and Contributors,

As some of you may have noticed, Alice was omitted from the masthead of our latest issue. After almost a year of dedicated service as Editor-in-Chief of the Rice Standard, Alice is no longer a member of the Rice Standard family and organization. Alice asked to be removed from the editorial staff on Friday night after copy-editing. Her departure was not amicable, and while an invitation remains open for her return to the magazine, she has made no attempt at reconciliation. However, despite Friday’s events, our staff remained committed to printing and distributing our fifth full-length issue. It hit the colleges’ newsstands yesterday.

This message is to reassure all of you that the staff of the Rice Standard remains committed to producing a high quality magazine; a magazine that displays the creative and intellectual talent of all of you, and every other member of the Rice community. We, as an organization, have responded to the void created by Alice’s withdrawal, and are ready push forward and try to improve our already exceptional publication.

Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Matt Schumann, one of our Executive Editors and a noted contributor, will be filling the position of Editor-in-Chief. Matt has been a strong supporter of the magazine since its inception and I have his full assurance that he will carry on our standard of editorial excellence.

On a more personal note, the loss of Alice came as a surprise to all of us. Without her our magazine would not be where it is today. Nevertheless, the strength of our organization does not reside in one person alone. It is the support of all of you that makes this magazine possible.

The future is always unexpected and is always full of unlimited possibilities. I know that together we can produce the best campus magazine that Rice University has ever seen.

Sincerely,

John Stallcup
Publisher, The Rice Standard

But I guess if I'm going to publish that letter, you should probably have Alice side of things, too. So here's the LiveJournal snippet where she discusses her departure. From said link...

there's many larger problems than what happened last night including but not limited to a lot of accusations and criticisms of my personality and style, and of course some male chauvinism. there were considerable efforts made over the last month to characterize me as the socially inept, psychotic despot. and they've succeeded, and i'm gone.

Despite the fact that Alice would like to see me flattened under a steamroller a la Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit...



... it's utterly ridiculous that she should be removed from the masthead of the pages she founded and paid for. It's not an act of fixing the magazine. It's an act of social revenge for some petty thing I'll probably never know about, like Alice serving the wrong kind of brown sauce with the foie gras at dinner last Saturday or whatever her friends get mad about. That's why these people aren't really journalists.

Unprofessional behavior.

Taking her out of the picture probably isn't going to fix much, either. Everyone's going to continue to write articles like they're being graded by Ralph Waldo Emerson. That gold-mongering, Ron Paul-loving libertarian lean isn't going away, either. They'll still be cracking the same whip over the same group of young, idealistic and morally devoid writers.

It's all so silly that, you know, I could only expect it to come from one publication. Thank God I have the Internet to absorb my pseudo-journalistic bitch rants.