Newt Gingrich is on a campaign in search of a presidency, but he’s having some trouble keeping his ambitious foot out of his mouth. Last year, his most foot-worthy faux pas was comparing a proposed Muslim community center in New York to Nazis putting a sign next to the Holocaust Museum. Meanwhile, his second ex-wife, Marianne, was giving him a bit of a boot in an Esquire magazine profile in which she reminisced about asking Newt, while they were married, how he could have given a speech on family values, while he was having an affair. She recalled his response was, “It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

This year, a clodhopper closer to the presidential throne of his dreams, Newt implanted his foot yet again. In the last 10 days, he said and repeated that our child labor laws are “truly stupid.” He suggested that children as young as, say, 9 years old, living in the poorest neighborhoods and attending failing schools where they are taught by failing teachers, should become janitors, working up to, say, 20 hours per week. According to Newt, the benefits of his proposal are that child labor “would be dramatically less expensive than unionized janitors,” whom he would fire, and the poor kids would be “empowered to succeed” as they “begin the process of rising.”

The benefits Newt did not enumerate include being able to use poor kids in poor schools in poor neighborhoods to thumb his nose at labor unions and perpetuating an underclass of menial laborers — a necessity for the continual growth of patriarchal capitalism for which Newt has a certain fondness. Newt’s proposal would also work out quite nicely for all the privileged children, who live in nice neighborhoods and attend successful schools where they are taught by effective teachers, and who are not encouraged to work as janitors, because their privileged parents’ social and professional networks will hand them spiffy jobs when they graduate from college — so they can hire the now all-grown-up and well-trained poor kids to be the janitors in their spiffy leather and chrome offices.

There are other astounding aspects of Newt’s vision for impoverished children: He even wants to do away with food stamps, although he fails to mention such specifics in his list of self-described “extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America and to give people a chance to rise very rapidly.” You can read his strategically vague proposals at www.newt.org. But for all his grand rethinking, I wonder that he failed to connect the dots between the poor parents who would lose their janitorial jobs and their poor kids who would take the jobs for “dramatically” lower wages. I also wonder that his only suggestion for the failing schools and failing teachers he mentioned was to cut janitorial expenses! Of course, it’s certainly possible that Newt just didn’t think about the words before he let them roll off his silver tongue. Compassion is not his strong suit. Besides, it is so darn hard to see privilege when you have it, and Newt has a history of letting his ambition trump his humanity.

This all reminds me of my disappointing date with Newt. Oh, not a romantic date. No, to paraphrase a classic Newt slur, I wasn’t young enough or pretty enough to show up on his arm. Rather, it was a date to meet him, ask him a clever question and capture a stellar sound bite or two. This is how it came about. …

In August 1995, Maury Stans called me. You might not know the name — and that proved to be his biggest disappointment. You see, Maury had grown old, old and sorrowful, frustrated and blind, which made writing yet another quest for vindication of his purported involvement in the Watergate scandal so damnably difficult. So difficult, in fact, that in his desperation to demand his innocence of any shenanigans as President Richard Nixon’s treasurer of the Committee to Re-elect the President, Maury had resorted to hiring a friend of a friend, an unknown leftwing feminist writer who would be me, to help him write his memoir. It was his second book, the one he hoped would definitively grant him the exoneration for which he had lusted lo the many years since the Watergate Hotel break-in splattered careers across the spit-shined political patina of the nation’s capitol. If only he could entice folks to read it. If only they would remember who he was.

With hope in his voice, Maury called me because Newt was coming to town. Maury wanted to provide his seasoned counsel to the younger man, and he thought it would do me good to meet the darling of the Republican Party. I suspected Maury also hoped to reignite his faded glory in the glow of the year’s political star. With a flick of his wrist, Newt had launched the 1994 Contract with America, toppled the Democrat’s House majority, catapulted himself into the Speaker of the House seat, and then hit the road to parlay his new book, Restoring the Dream, into future votes and aspirations.

Although his dance card was more than full, the Nixon Library was Newt’s next do-si-do and, while there, he would be privately receiving a select few, those who could be described as conservative white men with big bucks. Maury was also on the list because of his service to the party and the nation. He had been deputy postmaster general and Bureau of the Budget director for President Dwight D. Eisenhower and secretary of commerce for both Eisenhower and Nixon. And, despite Nixon’s abandoning Maury to the Watergate wolves, Maury could raise money like nobody else. In fact, he had raised the bulk of the funds to build the Nixon edifice.

Maury’s offer of an opportunity to chew the fat with Newt, to search for the human behind the elephant tie, was enticing, so I pounced on it, donned my most conservative suit, and tried to achieve a Republican coif — admittedly a lost cause. Then I schlepped through the heat and smog to Yorba Linda, California, in my not so conservative pickup with the prochoice bumper sticker, and parked among the Cadillacs that had been made mostly on foreign soil.

I approached the library half expecting screeching alarms to go off, jackbooted guards to pin me against the wall and search me for liberal contraband. But no: I wended my way innocuously through the hordes of Gingrich groupies, waiting for him to lay hands on their copies of his book. I skated through security with barely a nod from the ramrod guards, and joined Maury to help him shuffle into an intimate sitting room where a selection of the finest local Republican donors, ensconced on exquisite upholstery, eagerly awaited the Newt’s arrival.

Maury wrung his hands with the anxiety of a toppled man first scorned then ignored by the masses. A media honcho positioned his wife for the pending encounter, pulling her skirt hem down to her knees. Carl Karcher, the burger mogul who paid a $664,000 SEC fine to settle insider trading charges, handed out religious tracts with the fervor of a neophyte. I struggled to pick the winning question to pose to the guest of honor. And so we all continued to wait among whispers for the man who would remake the government in his own image.

Then the Secret Service fellows arrived, with their funny posture that made me squirm for them and those little earpieces that begged to be blown in. But still no Newt, and I could wait no longer: I raised one finger and was granted a potty break.

•      •      •

On the way out of the women’s room, as I adjusted the suit and turned a corner, I looked up into the pretty orbs of none other than the Newt himself.

He smiled faintly and said, “Hi,” wiping perspiration from his brow.

Newt looked hot and rushed and tired — and surprisingly vulnerable. In the flush of a Southern California August, his articulate arrogance had melted away, mumbling dark streaks down the front of his pale blue shirt. He looked as though, having returned from the political wars, that he would prefer nothing more than to climb into his latest wife’s lap and suckle his way to the presidency. If only he could, it seemed, he might regain his sense of security.

I paused to consider that such men, so dependent on women, lust for such power. Then I dumped the many erudite and pointed queries I had contemplated putting to Newt, the questions of great import that would have made him take pause and proffer a bit of pompous profundity. Instead, with the most feminist compassion I could muster, I said, “Hot day out there, eh?”

“Sure is,” he replied and scurried into the men’s room to do his thing.

Those were the only words we ever exchanged. Newt’s reception with the VIPs proved nothing more than a swift photo opportunity for major donors with checks in hand and spaces already cleared on their study walls. Maury’s moment in the Newt’s sun was only that: Newt neither sought his sage counsel nor gave him a second to offer it. Instead, Maury and his hopes were dismissed with a slap of brevity. And I deemed my compassion misspent.

It occurred to me then — as it occurs to me now — that one day Newt Gingrich will blindly shuffle behind his much younger wife into an intimate sitting room, where he will hopefully await an audience with the latest Republican Party star, who will take two seconds to pose with the man who would have been king, but couldn’t.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at The Progressive Post and  San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Note: This is an updated version of a column originally published in 1995.

Photos of Newt and Callista Gingrich from www.newt.org.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

On October 17, a group of Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM) students, faculty and staff sent an unusual letter to CSUSM President Karen Haynes and the Cal State system board of trustees. The letter requested that Haynes and the trustees break their unproductive silence and take action to ameliorate the hostile educational and work environment created by The Koala, a private, for-profit hate tabloid distributed at CSUSM since January 2011.

You can learn more about The Koala and its three editions (CSUSM, San Diego State, and University of California San Diego), owner George Lee Liddle III, and some of the student staff and advocates of the hate tabloid at www.CallOutTheKoala.com.

On October 20, Haynes distributed a blog post to the CSUSM community, seemingly in response to our letter and our Change.org petition. The petition reiterates our demands and delivers, with each petition signature, a copy of the letter into the president’s and trustees’ email inboxes.

One of our stalwart supporters wrote in response to Haynes’ post:

Wahoo! Just saw Karen Haynes posted a statement about “civility” and DID NOT NAME THE KOALA!!! Does she think this is enough? Cuz it aint!!! We will not back down! Occupy the koala! Stay strong! We will keep fighting the good fight!

Ditto.

Then there’s the little problem with the CSUSM resources to which Haynes’ blog post directs those students who’d like support from the university to feel safe on campus:

University Police: They can’t do anything, unless they can prove one of the Koalans has committed a crime.

The Dean of Students Office: Dean Blanshan can’t do anything, because the university believes that the white, male Koalans’ right to free speech deserves greater protection than the students of color, LGBTQ students and female students’ right to an educational environment free from hostility and harassment. Or, hmmm, maybe it’s that the university believes the privileged white, male Koalans are more likely to come up with the resources to file a lawsuit against the school than are the students of color, LGBTQ students and female students.

Student Health & Counseling Services: They can’t do anything, because they’re underfunded (maybe my allotted eight counseling sessions per semester went toward paying for CSUSM’s three new deans?) and appointments are backed up by months.

The ASI LGBTQ Pride Center: Interesting choice, given that they are victims of The Koala‘s hate!

The ASI Women’s Center: They’re also victims of The Koala‘s hate!

The Cross Cultural Center: And they, too, are victims of The Koala’s hate!

Office of the Associate Vice President for Diversity & Equity/Ombudsperson: Haven’t yet checked this one out. Shall we hold our collective breath?

CSUSM’s new Civility Campaign: Could President Haynes possibly believe that men who think rape is a joke and knocking out the teeth of a 10-year-old pedophilia victim is funny — because the idiots think they’ll grow back — are going to suddenly put on Civility t-shirts and make nice?

No, probably not. But apparently she does believe that platitudes and impotent resources restricted by tushy-covering legal counsel are an adequate response to the bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, obscenity and glorification of violence spread across the CSUSM campus via The Koala.

There is an interesting juxtaposition, though, of Haynes’ new post with her previous one, which describes what she believes makes a good CSUSM leader:

Walk the talk. The difference between positional authority and real power comes from honesty and building relationships. It is easy to talk about a set of values and institutional principles, but it is far more difficult to examine whether you adhere to them on a daily operational basis (emphasis mine).

Our leader is not walking the talk. Our leader has stumbled.

Thankfully, you can give her a helping hand by signing our petition.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at East County Magazine and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Note: Photo from the CSUSM website.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Warning: Adult content

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a designation first recognized in 1989. And it is still relevant. Despite the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act. Despite the growing understanding that battering one’s partner is a crime, not spousal privilege. Despite the vast number of people who think they don’t know anyone who has been harmed by an intimate partner.

Because they are wrong. National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM) is still relevant because at least one in four women in the United States — LBTQ or straight — will be assaulted some time in her life.

Name four women you know. One of them likely was, is being, or will be punched, kicked, strangled, burned, stabbed, raped — physically harmed by an intimate.

That’s startling, isn’t it. That’s why this month is a welcome opportunity to focus on raising awareness of the ongoing severity of the problem and on educating people to help prevent domestic violence.

And how did The Koala welcome the month? Tabloid owner George Lee Liddle III, of San Diego, released the latest issue of The Koala at Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM), bearing the message that rape, violence, racism, homophobia, sodomy of minors and forced pornography are laughable entertainment.

Liddle and the students he manages at the three San Diego County public universities where The Koala is distributed call the tabloid satire, but their content makes clear that the publisher, writers and editors of The Koala don’t know satire from scripture. What they are doing is not funny; it fails as satire; it has no redeeming features. What they are doing is purveying violence, prejudice and hate. These predominantly white heterosexual men use these forms of violence to attract attention to The Koala and then giggle at the fear and outrage, the humiliation and damage that it causes. And they elicit these reactions from their victims with such content as the following (with The Koala‘s errors intact):

Top Five Phrases Never Heard at CSUSM 4. I’ve never been raped before

Women secretly want to be raped

Why do Mexicans classify themselves as people? THEY ARE A FUCKING SWARM OF BROWN SHIT.

Dear koala, Does drugging and raping my roommate make me gay?

Top Ten Advantages To Dating An Underage Girl: 4. They don’t know yet that ass to mouth isn’t acceptable; 6. If you knock her teeth out, they grow back

Top Five Signs Your Girlfriend is Dead: 2. She stopped struggling under the rope

… [W]hen you’re done appeasing our each and every obnoxious and whimsical demand, we’re still gonna fuck the old broad sweeping the stairs.

I couldn’t tell if the fishy smell was escaping fromt the fridge or if all these beautiful azian women had some of the stankiest pussys ever

To black guys: make your cocks smaller please.

To all the fat bitches out there: Suck a fart out of my ass, choke on it and die.

Dilcie, go to the top of the parking structure and jump…

And, in the recent CSUSM issue, Liddle published an image of a female student leader who was running for Homecoming King, Photoshopped into a pornographic scene, with the following headline and copy:

Please ask and do tell … and take pictures

Remember those fantasies of Homecoming you had back in high school? Imagining what it would be like to have a “lezzed-out” homecoming court. Wishing that the Jock who won the title of King were actually an exotic and stunning babe that could scissor the shit out of the queen?

In our rapidly changing times this dream has now become a reality. Thanks to the courageous and open-minded women who are running to be the Queen of King [student’s name redacted], we can all look forward to a Royal Fisting. The question remains, which princess will become the lucky Queen?

This is the product Liddle publishes and promotes on public university campuses, a product funded by commercial advertisers — and supported as a sanctioned student organization at University of California San Diego (UCSD).

And this is, statistics being what they are, what the 1,500 female students at CSUSM, the 3,675 at UCSD, and the 4,350 at SDSU who have been, are, or will be victims of domestic violence are subjected to each time The Koala is distributed.

Outrageous, eh? Are you outraged enough to do something about it?

Many of us at CSUSM are, and we are planning some actions that will protect First Amendment rights while attempting to protect students, faculty and staff from The Koala’s hate.

If you’d like to join us, visit www.CallOutTheKoala.com and subscribe to receive our updates or click the Call Out The Koala Facebook page Like button.

In the meantime, call The Koala advertisers and encourage them to stop funding hate. If you live in the same legislative district as UCSD, call your state legislators and ask them to help UCSD find a way to stop lending public support to a hate tabloid passing as a student organization.

Whatever you do…

Do something. In the face of hatred, apathy will be interpreted as acceptance — by the perpetrators, the public and, worse, the victims. Decent people must take action; if we don’t, hate persists.

—   Southern Poverty Law Center

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at East County Magazine and  San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

]]> http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/09/14/culture/be-humble/feed/ 3 http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/06/12/abortion/what-do-you-mean-by-that/ http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/06/12/abortion/what-do-you-mean-by-that/#comments Sun, 12 Jun 2011 11:30:23 +0000 kbgressitt http://www.kbgressitt.com/?p=8814  

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

“Hey, dude, that’s wack!”

I learned that handy little colloquialism during my first semester at Cal State San Marcos. “Wack,” according to the fellow who uttered it (a comely young man who was conscripted into a women’s studies class), is an adjective indicating that something is not right. After doing a little etymological digging, I found that “wack” is a variant of “whack,” which means “crazy” and is commonly used in conjunction with “job,” as in:

“That guy is a wha—.”

“What guy?”

“That guy over there by the thing. He’s a—.”

“Where’s there? What thing? What guy?”

“Over there, there! The guy by the thing over there! That guy!”

“You’re a whack job.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, that’s wack!”

Language is so interesting. And sometimes surprising.

Just last week, while following a ”Vote Pro-Life” bumper sticker along Fallbrook Street, I had a moment of surprisal. (Yes, it is a real word, but the OED considers it rare or obsolete, just like the hand-stitched white formal gloves languishing in the back of my sports bra drawer or the—. Never mind.)

Now, I had always thought “pro-life” meant just that, as in “for life,” “in support of life.” You know, “life-positive” — kind of like “sex-positive,” another term I learned in school, meaning human sexuality is something to be explored, expressed and celebrated. Apparently, we have to be taught that — c’est domage! Except in this particular context, maybe sex is a rather dicey reference. Do you suppose pro-lifers even have sex? Well, of course they do: Someone is producing those cute little kiddos who hold the mangled fetus posters outside health clinics. But if pro-lifers have sex, they inevitably have unintended pregnancies, and then what do they do?

Oh, yes, right. They do pretty much what other women do. They either have babies or abortions, as in one in five abortion patients self-identifies as born-again, evangelical, charismatic or fundamentalist Christian.

I guess they go to the clinics that aren’t on the picket list that day. Maybe we should picket them, but in a warm and welcoming way. My sign could say, “We proudly serve pro-lifers.”

But where was I? Ah, yes, my moment of surprisal and the meaning of “pro-life.”

The question arose when I was stopped at a traffic light behind a Christian school van bearing the “Vote Pro-Life” bumper sticker. An older woman of ethnic descent, noticeably mobility impaired and apparently of low economic status (only the poor don’t have cars in Southern California, right?), began to jaywalk her hobbled way across the street with a heavy load of groceries in her arms — just as the light changed to green.

Lo and behold, the van driver revved the engine and nosed toward the woman, who, to my surprisal (that would be a misuse of an obsoletism — yep, that’s a real word but also rare), proved she could limp a whole lot faster than I would have thought possible had I not seen it.

I guess the person driving the Christian school van that bore the “Vote Pro-Life” bumper sticker cares only about the lives of babies, not those of old hobbled women. Or maybe the driver was actually a bit more anti-jaywalking than pro-life, and consequently felt compelled to frighten the bejesus out of the errant pedestrian. Or maybe the driver was only partially life-positive but staunchly sex-positive, and was a little over-eager to beat a path home to explore, express and celebrate that latter positivity. Or, dare we imagine, maybe it was the old gal’s ethnicity or gender or age or apparent economic status that gave the driver the heavy accelerator foot.

Certainly, it would be easy to attribute the driver’s action to simple impatience; easy, but rank with disrespect and disregard for the target of the impatient assault. And one of the things I learned well before returning to school is that even the most simple acts we lightly perform on others can be heavy with complex motivations.

Whatever the reason, that driver was wack!

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag,  The Progressive Post and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

On Wednesday, April 13, campuses across the California State University system (CSU) hosted demonstrations — dubbed Take Class Action Day — to protest budget cuts to the Cal State system. The rally was the first time, since landing at CSU San Marcos in January, that I sensed that protest high of my otherwise misspent youth. As I approached the gathering, shades of rhythmic rebellion synced with my beating heart as students, staff and faculty sang the praises of the inexorable right to higher education; of the state’s primal responsibility for equitable, affordable access; of rolling coins in a desperate attempt to pay steadily-increasing fees as the dastardly CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and legislators shirk that responsibility. The specter of additional budget cuts wafted over the crowd in cloudy tones of gray, and you could almost hear Reed and California’s elected Tea Partyniks muttering behind closed doors that if their almighty god had wanted working class kids to be educated he would have made sure they were born into well-to-do families.

Nonetheless, the event’s enthusiasm was catching. The fluid crowd maxed at about 500 as students dedicated their lunch hour to political discourse and then trotted back to class. Of course, the local paper downsized the group to 200, a classic institutional ploy to diminish the effects of dissent, reminding me of the Equal Rights Amendment ratification extension march in 1978. We had one hundred thousand women and about a dozen portable toilets in the nation’s capital (OK, maybe it was a baker’s dozen), sending waves of us wading into the Washington Monument reflecting pool for relief.

Of course, at my age, thinking about peeing inevitably results in the urge to pee, so I headed home, made my toilet and settled back at my computer, where, lo and behold, I found an email message from Emily Cutrer, CSU San Marcos provost and vice president for academic affairs, inviting the university community to meet the final candidates for several new dean positions.

Aside from the socially inept timing — inviting folks to an executive tea party as the workers are waxing poetic about the increasingly restricted access to quality brain food — the practical question of the cost of hiring four new deans in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis reared its persnickety head and I couldn’t stop myself: I responded to the message, ever so politely, asking how much this would cost the university (and me, a longtime taxpayer).

The university’s response extended into seven days of fancy avoidance footwork — engagement and retreat, feint and riposte — at which point I forsook fencing etiquette and dropped off a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) letter of request for the salary range for the dean positions, information that public records law and a very pleasant employee wrested from the administration’s withholding grasp on the eighth day.

And here’s the bottom line:

$300,000: The school contracted with an executive search firm (Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates) to recruit four new deans at approximately $75,000 per search.

$600,000: The positions are classified as Administrator IV, with a salary range of $89,844 to $258,168. The current average Admin IV salary at San Marcos is about $146,690. Based on precedent and the search fee, it’s a good bet that the administration is expecting the new deans to land in the $150,000 range, at least.

$222,000: 37 percent of each salary is contributed to a CSU pool from which all employees’ benefits are paid.

$1,122,000: This is the approximate grand total.

Sure, $1.12 million doesn’t seem too bad for four new executives, from a corporate perspective. But think about it from another perspective, say, that of a student or faculty member. (Just don’t think about it from the perspective of CSUSM President Karen Haynes, who, last autumn, decided that a major “college restructuring” would best be conducted in the middle of the state’s fiscal crisis and would require the rapid deployment of four new deans, a decision made behind yet more closed doors — and didn’t that annoy those members of her team who actually believe in the university’s stated commitment to a “shared governance” style of decision-making by administration and faculty!)

But let’s put Haynes’ bulldozer on idle and think about this:

CSU student fees have risen 242 percent since 2002, including a 10 percent increase scheduled for 2011/2012. If the state legislature fails to resolve the current budget crisis, that pending increase could grow.

In the last two years, more than 2,500 CSU faculty and staff positions have been cut, and CSU personnel are still licking their financial wounds from the two-day per month furlough — essentially a 10 percent pay cut — that ended last June. (Click here for a little furlough humor.)

More than 10,000 CSU courses have been cut over the last two years, compounding the critical problem students already had getting into required courses and extending even further the amount of time and money students must invest in acquiring their degrees.

According to Don Barrett, CSUSM associate professor and California Faculty Association chapter president, “The CSU has no problem spending money on consultants even when we’re cutting everything else. We’re currently in bargaining for a new contract with the faculty. The CSU is using a consultant for it, while they have people on staff designated for bargaining. … [A search] consultant receives half of the dean’s salary for each position, which amounts to about $300,000 for these searches. Three hundred thousand [could] go into sections to provide students more courses. At $6,500 per section, that’s almost 50 sections we could add.”

On top of that, summer courses have been shifted to “Extended Learning,” a handy euphemism for revenue producer. Unlike the flat fee per semester that is subsidized by state funds ($2,220 for Spring 2011), Extended Learning classes must be self-supporting. And at $275 per unit, with an approximate class size of 20 students, each section will produce about $16,500, compared to the section cost of $6,500, which looks pretty darn self-supporting.

Now, producing revenue is generally considered a good thing, but doing so on the backs of public university students who can least afford it results in a failure to honor the CSU instructional mission: Of the 11 students I asked about the summer session, eight of them said the courses are too expensive, that they can’t afford to take summer classes.

As Barrett said, “You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You’re cutting off the ability to have future workers who pay taxes, by excluding those people who have had to extend their education, rather than enter the workforce. … To have a[n economic] rebound, we have to have an educated workforce. It does no good to delay the creation of that workforce.”

And, shifting courses to Extended Learning is tantamount to sneaking in an unapproved student fee increase, which is damn dishonest.

This makes me wonder just where that $10,000 is actually going. … Hmmm, that would surely require another FOIA request, but I have to focus on making it through the last three weeks of the semester. Besides, I cannot be that polite again, not for a while.

But if you feel moved to do something, contact CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and your elected representatives and ask them to honor CSU’s mission by protecting the system from further cuts — and to maybe hold off on hiring new executives until the economy recovers. Just try to be more polite than I.

Love,
K-B

Chancellor’s office: 562-951-4000

Click here to search by your home address for your state legislators.

And boycott the Koch Industries companies that support Tea Party candidates.

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Last Thursday, I visited a professor in her temporary office. She was perched at an oddly placed desk amid unpacked boxes, all under a light patina of dust and the discomfort of passing disorder. She apologized when I arrived — an unnecessary courtesy, albeit a noted one, but I didn’t care. She was doing me the favor of providing guidance on an analysis of The Koala, a tabloid publication that started at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in 1982, spread to San Diego State University (SDSU) in 2004, and mutated into an edition at Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM) this January.

The common theme of all three editions of The Koala is the preponderance of content written for white, heterosexual, able-bodied male readers — and those who hover around them seeking their approval even if it means being victimized by them.

This white, heterosexual, able-bodied male voice possesses the privilege of attacking every other demographic with abandon — and with the specter of hate and violence, evinced in the many rape and pedophilia scenarios; degrading language reflecting ability, gender, race and sexual orientation; and sexual and scatological references to religious figures.

The intensity of the Koalans’ disaffection with everyone else is startling, and their expression of it ranges from adolescent tripe to profoundly disturbing hate language, despite the tabloid’s being marketed to advertisers as “satirical comedy.”

Interestingly, Koala owner George Lee Liddle III refers to people who criticize his tabloids as “haters,” his one minimally successful attempt at satire, however unintentional.

But The Koala is not considered funny, trenchant or satirical by most people who are not affiliated with it or by those business operators who have withdrawn their ads. And a review of the internal communication between Liddle and the CSUSM students reinforces its comedic failure. Many of their exchanges, to which I was privy for a few weeks, revealed anger, hatred and, on the students’ part, fear of repercussion, which suggested they had not fully embraced Liddle’s arrogance of purpose or his directive to ignore the haters.

Koalan and CSUSM student Aaron Jaffe wrote: I am all for putting out our papers with the standard content, but what I am not for is having a bunch of us being retarded and running around talking about stupid shit in the wrong places. If some of you guys cannot straighten yourselves out and just keep on the level with that aspect then I’ll have to take a bow and exit. I do not care about what we print but I do care when my name gets associated with someone being an idiot.

So why do they do it?

The professor and I sat there together, stumped by the elusive motivation for being involved with a company publishing such hateful fare, “standard content,” according to Jaffe.

For Liddle, greed might explain it all. But for the students, receiving the rather substantial gift of a college education, it is unclear why they would devote their time to The Koala. And much else about the company is unclear, because the students are trained to demand alcohol in exchange for interviews, which for many of them is illegal, given their ages.

But I reviewed what I’ve managed to learn about them since January.

– As previously reported, The Koala is no longer a student organization, not as they are commonly understood. Rather, it was redefined as a business in 2005 — a for-profit general partnership that, until February 25, was owned by two former UCSD students, Liddle and Sammy Elhag.

– On February 25, Elhag filed a Partnership Withdrawal form with San Diego County, thereby exiting as a partner and leaving the reins to Liddle.

The timing is significant because on February 14, the UCSD Koala released an issue with a piece by 26-year-old student editor Kris Gregorian. Gregorian attacked an associated student councilmember by name in an obscenely manipulated photograph that rumor suggests might lead to a lawsuit.

It would be nice to think that Elhag was fed up with the tabloid’s hateful content, but it is just as likely that he withdrew in an attempt to protect his assets from a suit.

– In a possibly related move, Gregorian has abandoned his previously stated aspiration to be a perpetual student: He has departed the university for reasons unknown but not unfathomable.

If it wasn’t pressure from the university, certainly few parents would choose to fund an education in hate. One look at what their kiddos are doing on their parents’ dimes might be enough to yank at least a few of the Koalans home for a permanent spring break.

Gregorian, however, might not have departed The Koala along with his education. Given that Liddle is acting as interim editor of the CSUSM edition, it’s certainly possible Gregorian could stay on as editor at UCSD.

– In the meantime, Channel 10 News reported that The Koala has received $28,892.52 from UCSD since 2005, when Liddle and Elhag first filed a Fictitious Business Name Statement with the County, declaring The Koala to be a privately held, for-profit business. In addition, the company has been given on-campus office space.

While it’s possible the university system was previously unaware of the business’ existence and nonstudent ownership, it knows now, so wouldn’t it be appropriate for UCSD or the UC Regents to pursue return of the public funds from Liddle and Elhag. If the university doesn’t, the taxpayers — or their elected representatives — certainly should.

There is one more thing that has become evident since January, and it is that many people who have commented on The Koala — too many people — do not understand the constitutional right to freedom of speech. They think that to criticize The Koala or to ask advertisers to withdraw their support equates to violating Liddle’s right to publish the tabloid.

But they are wrong.

Yes, Liddle and the students can publish whatever they want — and suffer the consequences if they venture into libel or obscenity.

Of course, those of us who find their speech hateful also have the right to free speech. We have the right to freely criticize The Koala, and we have the right to ask businesses to withdraw their advertising from the tabloid — because the Koalans’ right to free speech does not bear with it a right to advertisers. That they must earn with the perceived value of their content.

My professor is much younger than I, but after perusing a recent Koala, we shared a little weariness with the damn annoying volume of injustice and hate and violence in the world: the anti-working class legislation in Wisconsin and Ohio, the racist strife in Arizona, the waste of students who choose The Koala’s hate over doing some good with their lives. And then we were silent.

I thought of the tattered and torn paper in my office. I can always count on Frederick Douglass for a reminder that our freedoms cannot be passively enjoyed — and for a good kick to keep up the battle.

“If there is no struggle,” Douglass wrote, “there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightening.”

I’m rather fond of thunder and lightening — and agitation against hate is invigorating.

Love,
K-B

Call The Koala advertisers to ask them to withdraw their support of the tabloid’s homophobic, misogynistic, pedophilic, racist and sexist content.

Cana Care Consultants: 760-429-7498

Cheba Hut, Scott Jennings, President and CEO: http://www.chebahut.com/feedback.php

Cheba Hut UCSD, Matt Trethewey, COO: 480-773-0644

The Dank Bank: 619-589-0117 or thedankbank619@yahoo.com

Elite Medical Collective: 619-255-9768

The General Store Coop: 858-450-3080 or trex@generalstorecoop.com

Goldfingers Gentlemen’s Club, Owner Aaron Goldberg: 858-530-0766

Insomniac Events, Pasquale Rotella, founder: 323-874-7020

PB Entertainment, Owners Mike Ettenberg and Jason Sampas: 858-598-7759

Porter’s Pub & Grill: 858-587-4828

Spirits of St. Germaine: 858-455-1414

Therapeutic Healing Cooperative: 619-717-8060 or 866-378-1726

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag, the Progressive Post and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Since traipsing back to college at Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM) in January, my desktop “To Do” list has begun to look like the spidery reaches of a graphic organizer, replete with interrelated concepts and sequencing.

Would you think such disparate concepts as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), household recyclables, misogynistic fantasy novels and garden snails share an affinity? Probably not. But my SPLC contact is buried in my stored files in the shed. The shed is next to the recycling bin and the recycling can in the kitchen needs to be emptied. I have a review copy of a sexist book, flung to my office floor in a moment of critical pique, and I figure it will be an easy sale for the Friends of the Library to one of Fallbrook’s many sexists.

So, I can scoop up the book, leave it on the kitchen counter to await my next trip to Main Street; snag the recyclables and trot them outside to the bin; stomp a few plant-ravishing snails along the way; pick up the file I need in the shed; and, because it takes a few minutes to complete the circuit back to my office, call my attorney along the way — I forgot that one, but I owe her a call. Then I’ll dump the sexist book at the library on the way to hitting the Café for a good laugh with the good old boys. Or maybe I’ll dump it in the recycling bin, rather than perpetuating its idiocy.

Either way, I could indeed use the laugh because I’m as burned out on the time-task-project management required to be a full-time student, work, and parent my kid, my mother and my husband, as I am burned out on idiocy. (Just kidding, Honey.)

For example, the idiocy perpetuated by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). That man needs a lesson in rape myths. The main sponsor of HR 3, Smith was hoping to use the bill to redefine rape as “forcible rape,” and thereby prohibit federal funding for abortions for all the low-income rape victims whom he believes do not deserve federally funded abortions. You know, the gals who are asking for it or didn’t fight back hard enough, the seductive Lolitas or drunks or druggies or the mentally disabled.

After reproductive rights activists pointed out Smith’s idiocy, “forcible” was removed from the bill’s language, but the idiocy continues: The bill would still prohibit people from using their own health savings accounts to pay for abortions and it would prohibit tax deductions for health insurance premiums for plans that provide abortion services.

What can you do? Call your representative and ask him or her to vote against HR 3, which will pass in the House anyway; then you’ll need to call your U.S. senators and ask them to vote against the Senate version of the bill, which will probably do the trick.

Then there’s the House of Representatives Republicans’ collective idiocy (all but seven of them), in the form of an approved amendment to the federal spending bill, the “Pence Amendment,” named for Rep. Mike Pence, (R-Ind.). The amendment would defund Planned Parenthood, a supposed deficit-reduction move. Were the anti-reproductive rights vendetta against Planned Parenthood successful (an unlikely outcome, given the Democratic majority in the Senate), it would ultimately cost the nation significantly more then we would save, because the organization also provides millions of low-income families birth control, cancer screening, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, services that would be lost were the amendment to make it through the Senate.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA.) did a fabulous job of pointing out the anti-abortion Republicans’ idiocy:

What can you do about this one? Again, call your U.S. senators and ask them to remove the Pence Amendment from the spending bill.

One final example, the idiocy of The Koala, a tabloid publishing company that makes a business of smearing hate language and sophomoric dribble through the hallowed halls of academia. Well, at least through the campuses of San Diego County’s three public universities.

Consider CSUSM Koalan Blake MacKenzie. He works at Chuck E. Cheese’s and apparently figures it’s OK to publish the “Top Five Things Retarded Kids Do At Chuck E. Cheese’s,” including “Shit in the skycrawl” and “Wait in line to play the paper towel dispenser.”

MacKenzie and his cohorts (Jeff Allen, Garret Crispi, Sammy Elhag, Aaron Jaffe, George Lee Liddle III, Blake MacKenzie, Scott Middough, Petja Piilola, Shane K. Walsh Jeff Weaver and Matt Weaver, the Koalans identified to date despite their effort to remain anonymous) are now targeting Christians with the “Top Five Differences If Jesus Had Been A Chick,” including that “Eating out your girlfriend on her period would be your communion.” Their mothers will be none too pleased to read the “Top Five Advantages of Marrying A Single Mother,” #1 of which is “Fighting over beating children [is] a perfect excuse for beating new wife.”

In their second issue recently distributed at CSUSM, Koala owners George Lee Liddle III and Sammy Elhag descended from promoting pedophilia to promoting incestuous pedophilia with their feature “Top Five Benefits of Going to Prom With Your Sister,” which declares “She gives GREAT head!” and “Who’s gonna care if she’s a minor?”

After students, staff and community members pointed out the Koala’s idiocy, Liddle and Elhag’s first issue advertisers withdrew their ads; issue two went from 12 planned pages down to eight; the sole advertiser in the second issue of the CSUSM edition is a San Diego strip club; and the idiocy continues.

What can you do now? Call the owner of Goldfingers Gentlemen’s Club, Aaron Goldberg of Finger One Inc (see contact information below), and encourage him to stop supporting a tabloid that promotes pedophilia, incest, rape, homophobia and racism.

Then, because advertising revenue from the UCSD and SDSU editions of the Koala are likely supporting the start-up edition at CSUSM, call Liddle and Elhag’s other advertisers to encourage them to withdraw support (see contact information below).

On a more ironic than idiotic note, is Koalan Jeff Weaver, who didn’t like what one newspaper reader called the Koalans: He complained that “Generalizing all koala members as a klan is offensive.”

Interesting, because when critics declared the Koala’s content offensive, the Koalans laughed and said, “If you don’t like it, don’t read it; lighten up; it’s comedy.” Yet Jeff Weaver is offended by a single word, a word that categorized him and his fellow Koalans as members of a secret fraternal organization that asserts white supremacy. In other words, a group of predominantly white men who attempt to anonymously damage every other demographic in an effort to feel superior.

Hmmm. Seems fitting, and rather democratic, that such disparate folks as a white heterosexual male and the Koalans’ targets — homosexuals, women, African Americans, Asians, Latinos, Muslims and people with cancer and disabilities — share an affinity: They all can be offended by hateful words.

It’s rather pleasing that one Koalan will admit it.

Love,
K-B

Call advertisers to ask them to withdraw their support of the Koala’s hate language. Call today. Read them some excerpts. Call often!

Goldfingers Gentlemen’s Club, Owner Aaron Goldberg: 858-530-0766

The Dank Bank: 619-589-0117 or thedankbank619@yahoo.com

The General Store Coop: 858-450-3080 or trex@generalstorecoop.com

PB Entertainment, Owners Mike Ettenberg and Jason Sampas: 858-598-7759

Porter’s Pub & Grill: 858-587-4828

Spirits of St. Germaine: 858-455-1414

Therapeutic Healing Cooperative: 619-717-8060 or 866-378-1726

Note: The concept map image is from “The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them” by Joseph D. Novak and Alberto J. Cañas.

Crossposted at San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

UPATE: Two more Koalans’ identities confirmed (see below). I suspect their mamas will not be proud.

We were sitting at the old soda fountain counter at the newish cafe in downtown Fallbrook, which is actually a small town, but everything is relative, I suppose. We were there, my daughter and I, because the café is where we go to escape other things — too much noise or not enough, the ennui of college homework, boorish thugs, the like.

We were also there because it’s entertaining, hanging out with the fellows who gather to shoot the shit with the owner, Michael.

Michael is from Brooklyn. And Italian. One of my favorite combinations.

The other fellows are all sorts of things, mostly seasoned things. Hence, the schmoozing is rich with masculine experience, varying sources of wisdom and lack thereof, all of which makes for a hearty dose of bawdy humor.

They let us join them because we laugh in the right places and we challenge them without being boorish thugs, and because I’m “pretty nice for a feminist,” or so I’m told.

So, we were sitting there with the guys, and we started talking about trust and mistrust, fear and hate, and their origins.

Doc said trust comes from fear. We drew a diagram, with trust building strategies in the middle.

Michael let out a Brooklyn snort of disagreement. “Nah. That’s not East Coast. On the East Coast, we trust everyone — until someone screws you.”

Then I got a call back from the FBI. Because I’m from the East Coast. Because I trusted boorish thugs to behave within the law.

And now it’s probably time for a recap:

The boorish thugs are the folks who publish The Koala (or the “Koala Klan,” as a North County Times reader so aptly dubbed them). The supposed student tabloid is actually a for-profit business that, according to San Diego County records, is owned by George Lee Liddle III and Sammy Elhag.

Starting back about 2001, Liddle was the student editor-in-chief of The Koala at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). At that time, The Koala appears to have been a student-run tabloid: just juvenile prattle attempting to pass for shock humor, but instead, tripping into bigotry and hate.

Sammy Elhag is a bit more difficult than Liddle to pin down. There is a Sammy Elhag who lives in San Diego. There’s also a Sammy Elhag who co-owns some Internet properties.

Whoever he is, in 2005 Sammy Elhag and George Lee Liddle III filed a fictitious name statement for The Koala with the County. Do you suppose they hoped that hate would be profitable?

Liddle and Elhag now have three editions of The Koala, the original at UCSD, where it is a university sanctioned student organization and receives Associate Student (AS) funding; one at San Diego State University (SDSU), also a sanctioned student organization, but not currently receiving AS funds according to that university; and the newest, at Cal State San Marcos (CSUSM). According to CSUSM staff, the Koalans at CSUSM withdrew their application to become a recognized student organization and since then have steadfastly attempted to remain anonymous to the campus community, with some but not complete success (see staff roster below).

There is also one lonely fellow who says his name is Jeff Weaver. He posts narcissistic videos on behalf of a Cal State Long Beach Koala (which appears otherwise nonexistent), and is listed on the CSUSM edition’s staff roster.

An effort to launch at UC Irvine, may have withered on the vine, with it’s last posted issue dated January 2006.

Recent efforts to expose the identities of Koalans have made them very unhappy. Those who hide under hoods, literal or figurative, don’t function so boldly in the light of day.

And the latest from the Koalans? Well, having an incomplete understanding of the First Amendment, they reacted quite strongly to criticism of their tabloid’s content and their anonymity, and as primitive natures might, they went on the attack, one front of which is best described in their own words, with full names added where known. Warning: profanity ahead.

SDSU

this dumb bitch [who would be me] seems to be the ONLY person “outraged” over you guys

http://obrag.org/?p=32362

that same cunt has posted the same article in three different places WOW

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kit-Bacon … 1228966521

this is her fb page as well, shes fucking retarded she uses her full name as a handle on every website. If she ever gives you guys real problems it wont be hard to hack her email and turn up some dirt on her

She seems to think you guys should feel ‘shameful’ for your content. I say, get some koala shirts and wear ‘em loud and proud. Worst case scenario you’ll get laid. If any more ‘paparazzi-esque’ attempts are made by her to get photos of you I say take advantage of you, she’s treating you like rock stars so go with it.

SDSU

this is her cell phone number 1 760.522.1064

this is her email kbgressitt@gmail.com

step 1 is to sign her up for all sorts of shit so her phone doesnt stop ringning (preferably for lesbian dating sites)

step 2 is me finding someone that knows what to do in order to get her password

ill let you know if i come up with anything

MattW

How would we ever get her password

Aaron Jaffe

Lets just go ahead and delete all the shit about hacking. Take that stuff to PMs or phone messages/calls.

George Liddle

I’ve got a better idea. Don’t worry so much about this chick. She’s a fucking nobody. Focus on getting straight with your advertisers and then you’ll be in the clear. As long as you’re solid with your advertisers, let the haters hate. We can choose to have some fun with this lady or not, but signing her up for spam is lame. If you’re going to go after someone, at least do something interesting.

Now, back at the café, we folks don’t always see eye-to-eye. Sometimes we really infuriate each other. On occasion, one of us might actually storm out, for instance the morning after President Obama was elected. One poor man left his coffee and scone sitting on the soda fountain counter. But he returned the next day and jumped right back into the repartee. He trusted us not to attack him. And we all still love each other, despite our many differences. It’s the feminist way: Embracing diversity, striving for equality; they are darn fun, much more fun than fear and hate.

But what do you do with a group of men who haven’t learned to challenge others without being boorish thugs, who cannot overcome their fear?

My brother thought a visit from a special ops team in the dark of night might give them adequately extreme wedgies to keep them on the straight and narrow for the rest of their lives. Ah, that visceral fight response.

My husband, the Marine, just called his law enforcement buddies. “Networking, Honey. Networking is everything.” Spoken like a leader who wears his Blackberry on his belt.

My kiddo just shook her head and laughed. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

Apropos of a writer, I figured I would stick with words. Although the Koalans deny it, language is powerful enough to cause love or hate, to create community or harm it, to reveal truths or deceive in the guise of comedy.

And because I’m a feminist and I know those who embrace thuggery most often do so out of fear, I feel some sympathy for the Koalans. They broadcast their fearful hate of women, of homosexuals and ethnicities, of nonwhite races and people with disabilities. Perhaps Doc will explain to them some of his trust-building strategies.

However, because I’m also a pragmatist, I’ll accept whatever assistance law enforcement might give me. Because conspiring to hack into my systems and usurp my online identity, and scamming my family’s credit card are not comedy; they’re a bounty of bad behavior. And that’s not relative; it is absolute.

As I’ve written before, what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet. And one day the Koalans will be looking for jobs in competitive marketplaces where respect for diversity and clean criminal records will be deciding factors.

Or they can try making a living off George and Sammy.

Love,
K-B
(*With an appreciative nod to John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces)

The Koala Owners: George Lee Liddle III and Sammy Elhag

The Koala at San Marcos Staff: Jeff Allen, Garret Crispi, Shane K. Walsh, Jeff Weaver and…

Crossposted at:

OB Rag

Progressive Post

San Diego Gay and Lesbian News

Might cause shrinkage

I don’t want to have sex with you; I just want to masturbate.

The Marine’s response to hate speech on campus

That’s not what I fought for. Throw their little asses out and let in some students who want to learn.

Gems from last Wednesday’s Fallbrook’s Writers Read

… the labyrinth of my charms
… adjectives from a melancholy thesaurus

– thanks and kudos to Beth Newcomer