Capitalize Our Name Correctly, Bitch
Rants

It's YouCSD, not YOUcsd.

With that out of the way, I'll now wade my way through the remainder of Tsao's meandering, perfunctory article. At the lowest level, I appreciate the small spats of compliments he offers, and am especially pleased that Tsao noted "it’s a very easy read and the layout is superb." (Perhaps the Guardian web master would like us to email him some helpful pointers.) Most of all, however, I value the exposure. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Hopefully many of you arriving here by way of the Guardian will become regular visitors.

The central failure of Tsao's opinion—and keep in mind that it is just that, an opinion—is that he Just Doesn't Get It. Yes, capitalized, like a title. A label. Mr. Tsao has so tightly wrapped himself in the soft, uterine blanket of tolerance that he's slipped into the same stupor as the rest of the voiceless, placated student body. Somehow, the Opinion Editor has decided that the only opinion we should all have is that opinions are overrated. Tolerance is one thing, defending an idiot man-child who enjoyed a concert because his friend sexually harassed several women (and thought he was high the whole time) is another.

Click that little link below that says "read more."

Now, let's proceed with a bit of deconstruction. Bear with me as I continue to jump carelessly between addressing the audience at large and addressing Mr. Tsao himself.

In America, the land of the free, people are encouraged to be as tolerant as possible, leading to movements supporting gay rights, minority rights and even animal rights, each of which is a worthy cause. Most college students—young and highly educated—have embraced those ideas of classical liberalism. (This is to be distinguished from modern liberalism in the Democratic party sense, though that certainly also applies unless you attend Bob Jones University.) Sadly, many, like the creators of YOUcsd.com, often forget that tolerance means tolerating people with different beliefs than you — whether they have a different perception of what it means to be American, married or even what good music is.

Thank you, Bryan, for defining tolerance for us. Remember, however, that movements like the ones you listed are born of intolerance. Minorities and gays rally because they are through with tolerating the misery heaped upon them by a society too lazy and too scared to accommodate them. Not all of us have forgotten how to fight for change. Being politically correct and learning to forget that you are fed up are two entirely separate things. Moreover, perhaps even most importantly, we should differentiate between being intolerant and being a smart ass. I tolerate the Society for Creative Anachronisms in that I don't lobby for their brutal annihilation, but I reserve the right to poke fun at them for running around Price Center hitting each other with fancy sticks. On a side note, did you actually start your article with "the land of the free?" Am I back in seventh grade?

According to the "About" section of its Web site, YOUcsd.com was created by a "loosely coordinated band of malcontents" in order to develop a greater sense of community through news blogging. The concept is praiseworthy, and the blog itself certainly lives up to its stated purpose of providing fresh and informative news; it’s a very easy read and the layout is superb. A student could do much worse than to read the blog for information; in recent posts, it has covered many of the same issues as this very newspaper. All in all, it’s an amazing achievement, especially for what appears to be a small, dedicated group of students.

After reading the phrase "loosely coordinated band of malcontents," it should be immediately clear that we aren't very interested in taking ourselves seriously. Keep that term "smart ass" in your head from here on out. Maintaining a false, dignified air of objectivity is boring for both the author and the audience, and we've decided to reject it outright. There is a reason so many people only pick up the Guardian for the crossword, and we are doing our best to avoid a similar fate. To provide people with something aside from a momentary distraction, you have to engage them. If there's something UCSD desperately needs, it is a more engaged student body, and we'd like to think that we're helping light the fire. Sometimes this requires stooping down to the lowest common denominator and getting your hands dirty. If it appears that we're stomping all over the notion of tolerance to grind away some of the apathy around here, that is unfortunate. I've passed behind the Old Student Center and seen palettes stacked high with thousands of unread copies of the Guardian destined for the landfill to know that people are looking for something different. Perhaps by now you're starting to understand the niche we're looking to occupy. Building a greater sense of community does not have to include unifying the entire campus.

Unfortunately, the blog, for all its spunk, fails to actually build community, because what the creators have not recognized is that there are, in fact, many people on campus who are not liberal, do not hate the administration and are not particularly interested in the Pixies (sacrilege, I know). And those students’ opinions should be respected, too, instead of ridiculed. Far be it from me to forget their First Amendment rights, but any group of students hoping to build a community probably should not stalk peoples’ Xangas, post sections of said Xanga, then anonymously make fun of him for enjoying last year’s Fall Fest — an event that actually serves to bring people together, much more than, say, a blog replete with hack jobs and posts degrading people who don’t completely agree with its authors.

Appealing to (and placating) all the varying groups on campus would make us as boring and unreadable as the Guardian itself. As a group of highly progressive and idealistic critics, we've obviously aligned ourselves with the side that doesn't seek to eliminate gay marriage or legalize assault rifles. Striving to foster an all-encompassing community imbued with the downright manic tolerance that Mr. Tsao favors is a foolish battle, and I will leave it to the Guardian to continue rolling that rock uphill.

What’s really needed on this campus is some genuine dialogue, or, failing that, some courteous respect. Any group hoping to bridge gaps in the community should solicit opposing viewpoints; with its new policy of accepting submissions, YOUcsd.com may be on the right track, if it actually publishes entries that disagree with the prevailing ideology of the blog.

"Courteous respect" sounds an awful lot like "keeping quiet and accepting the status quo," and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. As for "genuine dialogue," the SDUncensored forums excited me when I first heard of the idea because I too craved communication amongst students. The practical implementation of the forums, however, has been disappointing at best. In fact, the creation of YouCSD was partially motivated by the disappointment I felt when trying to wade my way through nothing but discussions of Asian porn, cars, easy women, cheating tactics and the fucking of hookers. A well managed blog, I realized, could provide the mediation necessary to foster discussion that revolves around truly important topics facing this campus. YouCSD, toward the goal of dialog, is currently developing a comment system so that our readers may chime in. It is safe to say that this system will strive to improve upon the miserable comment system in place at the Guardian's web site. I have never seen public input so lacking in value as I have there. Well argued viewpoints that oppose our own will gladly be published. Poorly argued ones will, predictably, be mocked.

Something that’s easy to forget in our Bill O’Reilly/Michael Moore political reality is that not all Republicans are rich douche bags who want to cut taxes and fight wars and that not all Democrats are flip-flopping posers who want to raise taxes and kill business. (And if you think that one of the O’Reilly-Moore pair is a genius and the other is a hack, I regret to inform you that the only difference is that you agree with one and not the other.) In fact, many people are neither Republican nor Democrat, and are actually turned off by the macho posturing of both the Bush camp and the Bush haters. What’s sadly ironic, though, is that those are the people that macho posturing is designed to convince.

Didn't it feel good to say "douche bag?" You should try it more often. It's like wearing boxers instead of briefs—delightfully freeing. One of the problems behind our so-called "Bill O’Reilly/Michael Moore political reality" is that the people who stand in the middle are often too ignorant (or careless) to avoid lumping regular liberals or conservatives in with the pundits at the extremes. We hope our visitors don't make the same mistake. Aleph Solo, a YouCSD contributor, had been working on an article highlighting the missteps of the College Democrats here at UCSD, but that entry has been temporarily shelved lest it seem motivated solely by today's Guardian. We'll highlight problems on both sides where we see them, but it should be no surprise that we take more issue with the chuckle heads to the right.

Even more tragic is that many probably agree with some of the things YOUcsd.com espouses without feeling the same vitriol. One can easily vote for Kerry, support gay marriage and condemn the City of San Diego for being under investigation by an “epic collection of government agencies” without resorting to personal attacks. What’s more, taking potshots at students who disagree with these ideals probably makes it harder to get Kerry elected or have more accountable governments, just as taking swings at our new chancellor because she’s a Republican or because she got a raise probably hampers whatever campus goals students hope to achieve. Believe me, if she screws up, there will be plenty of opportunities to chew her out. But students should give her a chance first, just as they should try to judge others by the content of their character rather than the composition of their playlist or the name they put on their ballot in November.

Here we see more misunderstanding from someone caught up in the stuffy objectivity only a college newspaper can provide. Personal attacks provide the drama that today's ADD culture craves, and we're dead set on capturing the attention that the Guardian fumbles week after week. YouCSD may polarize the campus population, but I would prefer a rowdy, argumentative school over the zombie farm we're currently faced with. UCSD has long wished to be more like Cal—a tumultuous, energetic melting pot full of students who make the choice to give a shit. We've got the campus for such a melting pot, and, false modesty aside, YouCSD aims to bring that cauldron to a boil. Hell, we'd settle for a gentle simmer. We don't want a community of Everyone is Right and Unique and Special, we want a community of Let's Overthrow Some Shit. I'll be happy when the National Guard is called in to restore order on campus come November 2nd.

...

Apologies for the ridiculous length of this missive. Apologies, also, for any typos or grammatical mistakes I may have made. I blame the vodka. Additionally, I should state that I harbor no ill will against Bryan Tsao. His article was unnecessarily kind; we had expected much worse. Thank you, Bryan, for the free advertising.

Nom de Guerre, Sep 30 2004, 06:22 AM

« Cogan Calls it Quits: Resignations Plague A.S. Council | It's Audience Participation Time! »