An “anonymous” tipster [Thanks, gf.] passed on a link to the Cornell American, which seems to be a free newspaper available on campus up there in gorge-us Ithaca. Apparently, it is a publication so desirable, you are limited to one copy per person, but I’m keeping you from the relevant background info so I’ll give you a sec to peep the following blockquote about the awesomeness which is The Cornell American:
Founded in January 1992, its mission is to “raise a traditional American perspective, so as to balance debate on campus and to further conservative ideals.” The opinions presented in the Cornell American are solely those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the advertisers or persons listed as staff.[link]
The alert mutineer who blew up our hotline asked this salient question:
Satire or “Ivy Twerps [being] Ivy Twerps” to quote Siddhartha?
She posed that query regarding a mock schedule of events for “Islam Awareness Week 2007!”, a piece so significant, it didn’t have a byline more specific than “staff”. How thoughtful! How helpful.
Here’s what I have to say to that— and by responding thusly, I have now officially turned in to my parents, but I think their take on such things is appropriate in this case, especially– if you have to hide something, doesn’t that tell you you’re doing something wrong? Eh, edi?
Highlights of the agenda after the jump.
This past week, The Muslim Educational and Cultural Association held its annual Islam Awareness Week 2007. As if Islam wasn’t made painfully aware to Americans already, we at The Cornell American decided to co-sponsor some events of our own. The following schedule of events this past week were both enlightening and entertaining…
Tuesday, 4/10
3:30 — Campus-wide militant riot. Meet at CJL. B.Y.O. AK-47.
5:00 — Flag-burning on Ho Plaza Denounce the imperialist agressors.
8:00 — Sunni-Shia Hockey Showdown at Lynah Rink Losers beheaded according to the will of Allah.
Wednesday, 4/11
4:30 — IED Construction Dos and Don’ts with the Chemistry Department (Baker 101 E) What has some bang? What fizzles? Don’t embarrass yourself—come to this instructional seminar!
7:30 — Make your own kidnapping video with the Film Department (Schwartz SB23) Ropes, victims, masks, and large blades provided.
10:00 — CUTV presents Jimmy Carter’s self-detonation for Palestinian rights Broadcast live from Haifa.
Thursday, 4/12…
8:30 — Burqa Beauty Pageant @ Schwartz Auditorium in Rockefeller Hall Grand Prize: Be stoned to death for being a shameless harlot. Runner-up gets a goat.
Friday, 4/13
Noon — Jihad on Day Hall Occupy Day Hall until the Campus Code of Conduct is changed to reflect sharia law…
* Camel Parking provided.
** Security at all events provided by CUPD and Hezbollah.
Well, kittens? Whatcha think? Offensive? Ignorant? Intolerant? Stupid? Not worth our time? SO worth our time? Less interesting than whether or not Abhi’s outfit was lame, at the BollyVedding of the century?
Oh, and are any of our readers current students who can give us mutineer-on-the-scene commentary?
LOL…wow those are so astoundingly stupid and crass.
gasp.
I expended a lot of fury against the conservative publication on my campus, but I don’t remember it being even close to as bad as this. Back then I think it was more fun for them to rail against feminists, and we’d already been over all those offensive stereotypes ad nauseum.
Oh yeah and in this case I think this is worth our time, because those Ivy League Twerps are the Future Leaders of America.
The fact that these people don’t have the balls to ID themselves makes me believe that its just ivy twerps being ivy twerps, to quote Siddhartha. Fascists aren’t such wimps. Not worth much discussion.
This read a lot like something the Cornell Review would do. (the paper of Ann Coulter) But It seems the Cornell American and the Cornell Review sort of switched roles. What sucked was the normal newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun was sidelined (no school support, so it was a subscription, where as the review was free) Of course, this was years ago.
The review ran a cartoon years ago, poking fun at Akwekwon (the native american living center), basically saying it was a casino. Things like, “wake up to slot machine alarm clocks” and other barbs of that sort. It’s nothing new, what was disturbing was an Indian-American (not American Indian) defending it. Cornell was a breeding ground for uncle tomery.
Ehhh – this is juvenile and silly and mildly amusing if one doesn’t take it seriously, and honestly there’s more worrisome obnoxiousness and bigotry out there. I’d let the Cornell student groups battle this one out, it’s not really worth anyone else’s time.
Hopefully this isn’t going unnoticed on Cornell’s campus. I know that anything like this wouldn’t fly at most schools.
bunch of stupid wimps. thats it.
Meh, I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Orange and Blue Observer there (also a conservative-opinion paper) pulled highly visible stunts to get attention (such as holding a gun raffle for “homosexuals and females to protect themselves”
…I’m guessing these guys are the same way, and thusly, I think the SM community shouldn’t bother with this one, god knows we have enough idiots spouting nonsense, and to give lowly papers like this coverage is useless.
Also, I’d like to raise the point that someone is going to pick this up and then say “Cornell’s student newspaper” said this, and thus raise a maelstrom. And nobody, NOBODY should confuse this with The Cornell Daily Sun, just like nobody should confuse the Orange & Blue Observer with the Daily Illini.
* Camel Parking provided.
Haha! Get the joke? Islamazoids live in Arabia and ride on camels so the ‘camel parking’. So witty.
All of the above.
I blame comedy central for this. The channel features too many talented comics who can actually pull of this sort of islamo-centric humor and not come off as asses. Young impressionable morons at Cornell think they real funny and put out this shit. Hope they get it piled on them.
I disagree, Comedy Central has featured progressive, “non-traditional” comedians from the Axis of Evil
Mola, dude, really??
Huh? Is that a shout out to Don Imus?
Definitely.
Possibly.
There is a danger of giving a group of self-evidently intellectual lightweights more than their allotted 15 minutes of fame.
I think it’s a liberal conspiracy to pose as conservatives and make them look like stupid, juvenile, hate mongering bigots. Someone needs to do something about these darn liberals.
Problematic. Agree with desishiksa — these are the future leaders of America. Plus, some/many of them could go on to be in positions to hire/fire, arrest/detain, allow entry/deport, finance/reject… Shouldn’t pass without culpability. Yes, racism is multi-layered and tightly woven into the fabric of our world; yes, it’s difficult to address all levels, but when “common assumptions” like these (from Ivy Leaguers) pass without challenge, or get dismissed as comedic/simple twerpery, it leaves the door open for more aggressive, less comedic intimidation.
Hard to criticise the authors of the satire when there are news stories like these floating around. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1695718.ece
when embassies can be burned over cartoons, surely a few heads will roll over an article like this?Maybe that’s when they didnt want to be identified?
Looks like the newspaper is no stranger to offending, because they wrote this a while back.
Good satire of religion and extremism is good — straight up demonisation is the sign of a lower and crude mind. This is what gives it away the most I reckon:
If it was even funny you might concede them something for their wit, but this is the worst — a low and crude mind that tries to be funny and fails.
Like I said, there’s a good way to satirise Islamic extremism without demonising, but I guess the moral climate lets this slide. You can generalise about Muslims and to a lesser extent, any brown people and religions, in ways that would be called for being anti-semitic and racist if you applied the same system of thought to, say Jewish or Black people.
Ho Plaza is the area in front of the main student center.
Of course, The Daily Show and Colbert (each with over 1.1M nightly viewers) are among the largest ad revenue generators for Viacom.
Rubbish. You think it’s hard to criticise a bunch of humourless half-wits who demonise and resort to racist stereotypes and collective stigmatisation because of the actions of an extremist minority? Satirise the extremists, try and do it with at least some genuine wit and originality, instead of revealing a lower mind of crude and witless prejudice.
No desi angle in this. There is a Muslim angle, but they are middle-eastern Muslims.
Yeah, there is a big problem with the Cornell American article: it isn’t funny.
If you’re going to be offensive, you have to be funny. “Camel-parking”?! — It’s embarrasing that Cornell produces such unfunny “humour”.
“Runner-up gets a goat” is the best line, and it’s only funny because goats are inherently humourous.
The desi angle is that some desis are Muslim.
Plus, I already stated a desi had defended a similarly offensive article/cartoon in the Cornell Review years back.
And yet, desis are constantly confused with such muslims. I dream of the day when bigots get the communities they wish to hate straight.
No, seriously, Red Snapper is exactly right. Let’s not conflate “desi” with “Hindu” or anything else intolerant please.
I thought Cornell was for smart people.
Why are these people hanging around a liberal cesspool when they should be in Iraq fighting the Islamofacists?
Also, to many, India is in the Middle East and we’re all muslims.
Ugh.
It’s worth going after them because they’re learning over there at Cornell, and this is part of the education process. Don Imus didn’t get away with it; I fail to see why these fools shouldn’t at least feel stupid in public. Even with no attribution to a specific writer, a select few people on the staff did come up with this, and a sufficient outcry might make them rethink this kind of idiocy.
I’m not saying “bully the poor college kids,” I’m saying “rub their noses in it so they don’t make a mess on the rug again.”
Oops. Did I just make an analogy between the staff of the Cornell American and dogs that poop on the rug? Well, I’m sure it was just done in jest. No harm done!
Well, kittens? Whatcha think? Offensive? Ignorant? Intolerant? Stupid? Not worth our time? SO worth our time?
I vote “not worth our time.” The real problem here is that apparently even Ivy League students aren’t smart enough to try being funny without reverting to the usual tired racial stereotypes.
If anyone wants to talk to the immediately affected parties:
http://sao.cornell.edu/SO/search.php?igroup=201&year=organizations
The funny thing is that in other parts of the world, there are much worse things written about americans,christians and western culture.
Yet despite many people here being american, living in western country, and some even being christian, there is little outrage.
Clueless:
To that end, I offer the following paraphrasing of the sermon on the Mount, namely, “remove the plank from your own eye.” It’s a lot easier to occupy the moral high ground that way. And also, yes, people are prejudiced everywhere, and make racial, ethnic, and religious slurs constantly. We can help shape and guide things best from our own backyard first, it seems to me.
Clueless
So because some people elsewhere write stupid things about America, people should shut up about the demonisation of Muslims and others that occurs in America or the UK or wherever? That’s the upshot of what your argument is, which you repeat like a mantra whenever a post on any subject similar to this comes up. It’s a classic tu quoque fallacy made even more egregious by the fact that you indirectly accuse Sepia Mutiny and its readers of what, being complicit with the inverse of this demonisation by people abroad when they speak of America? The SM people do not support the demonisation or rhetoric of anti-Americans anywhere, so why do you bring it up?
The funny thing is that in other parts of the world, there are much worse things written about americans,christians and western culture.
So… we should stoop to their level, then?
“The desi angle is that some desis are Muslim.”
While that is true, it is the references to Jimmy Carter, Palestine, camels, stoning and beheading that made me feel they were satirizing the Middle East.
However, I will drop the issue.
I have a somewhat different take on this from most other people on this board. Very few people on this board have (I think) been in such close proximity to poverty as I; have smelt the stink of flop-sweat or seen the raw anger of young men who just cannot get a break – despite all their honesty and their willingness to work – on account of the poverty that they have been born into. A vast number of the wife-beatings, embassy-burnings, stone-throwings that have graduated into bomb-throwings, etc., are, in overwhelmingly many cases, the acts of angry young men. I do not defend any of these; I just wish to point out two things:
a) Very few of us who are so quick to satirise know that the despair can feel like a kick in the stomach; and
b) There is, fundamentally, nothing particularly Islamic about the embassy-burnings, stone-throwings, etc.
In support of (b): despite all that I have said, angry, poverty-stricken young men will not easily take to the streets to engage in organised acts of violence. A certain radicalisation — usually stemming from issues completely unrelated to poverty — is needed for “organised acts of violence” to take place. In a certain portion of the Middle East, the Israel-Palestine conflict provides that radicalisation. If embassy-burnings, etc., etc., were a peculiarly Islamic thing, we should have been seeing a lot of those in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, or in the U.A.E. But we don’t.
What makes me want to weep when I see satire of the Mohammed comic-strip or the Cornell American provenance is that they are, ultimately, an expression of the nasty, self-satisfied laughter of the comfortably off towards their considerably less-fortunate brethren. It is so very, very uncompassionate.
As an example, this reminded me of an old Soviet joke.
Dissident: The Soviet Union is a Repressive dictatorship that only pays lip service to workers’ rights; in fact it enslaves workers who have no say or power in the workplace and as such at the mercy of the Soviet bureaucracy
Commissar: What about the lynchings in the South in the U.S?
Gee! Thanks!
What I am more shocked and angered about is that some of this idiots will get a job on wall street after there “degree from IVY league” (although the degree is in American History but no matter) and will “manage” MY 401k money. MY money !!! And some financial institutions charge a percentage of retirement savings as fee for running the retirement plan. This is a LOOT of my money by effing morons and I cant do anything about it.
This is why comedy works primarily when it’s directed at a deserving target. As someone pointed out earlier, it would be much more effective if the comedy was directed at those who are extremists, because they really don’t have any moral ground on which to stand.
And you secretly love them, because you hate America. Don’t think I don’t see through it.
Terrorist attacks are political, why then continue to carp about religion? Unless there’s something to divert attention from.. It seems so elementary!
All of the above! 🙂
That is to say, it’s Offensive, Ignorant, Intolerant, Stupid, Not worth your time, AND less interesting than whether or not Abhi’s outfit was lame! (I didn’t think it was that bad? At least it matched the outfit of the new Mrs. Bachchan?)
I can’t help but wonder, if this article was written about the Jewish community…would it go under the radar for even half a day?
rc: you can choose to put your 401k $$ in an index fund with minimal fees (trust me, no wall street bigshot spends his time managing an index fund). all the fees for the variety of funds offerred in a 401k will be laid out in the prospectus. the market is your friend.
To Clueless @ #34: Could you stop being so blitheringly disingenuous, please ? The reason why so many Mutineers get outraged about the demonisation of minorities in America, by Americans, is because: a) Mutineers believe in the adage that charity begins at home; and b) they are knowledgable about American history, of which you seem ignorant (that, or you have succeeded in taking disingenousness to radical extremes). Concerning (b): there was a time, not too long ago, when certain minorities in the U.S. faced more than mere demonisation. Would you like to try how it feels being dragged to death tied to a pickup truck, or having your testicles being stuffed down your throat ? These things have occurred, and systematically so, sufficiently recently in American history that many sensitive Americans feel that viigilance is necessary, lest demonisation lead, yet again, to worse things. I suspect you know all this. But if not, could you get this through your thick skull, Clueless ?
Not even half a second. Many of the old Cornell Review staff were Jewish themselves, when the Review became more of a politically conservative publication (rather than social), I’m sure many of them jumped ship to the Cornell American. But even otherwise, it wouldn’t be tolerated to say the least.
now, if you were talking about social security, you may have a point.