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.

Southern colloquialisms are so darn charming — with those well-honed nasty edges! Growing up, my family had particular fun with them, as we were wont to play with most words, great fodder that they were for what we considered erudite scoffery (a perfectly good word, if only the Oxford English Dictionary would admit it!).

We could take a nattily nasty little idiom — That fellow’s been hit with the ugly stick — and turn it into a folksy yet classist slur — Far worse, my dear, he’s been hit with the uncouth stick. Of course, we failed to acknowledge that criticizing someone’s social station was as lacking in good manners, refinement and grace as the poor schmuck at the unhappy end of the stick.

However, after years of navel contemplative therapy, fond re-reading of Emily Post, and pragmatic acceptance of Miss Manners’ heartfelt but faulty contemporization of traditional social graces, I had rid myself of such unbecoming behavior. I deemed my time better spent on serious injustices than on sniping at folk who wouldn’t waste their time at the Maryland Hunt Cup, something I now avoid myself, given the inclination of the fans to wear jeans — jeans! — to the horse race on My Lady’s Manor. (My Lady would be horrified!)

Oh, dear. Having written that last bit, I realize that perhaps I’ve more work to do on my classist self.

Frankly, though, something much more disturbing has sent me sidling back to my Southern hierarchical roots, something that suggests that maybe some people are, well, some people are sort of— kind of— rather like— oh— better than others.

I know, I know, it’s an unseemly thought, but first let’s be clear on terms: I do not mean “better” in the biblical sense, as in the better folks will transcend life’s earthly bonds to soar into their heavenly and glorious reward, while those who are betterness impaired will descend into the stinking ignoble fires of hell’s perpetual torment.

Aw, jeez, stop right there. I mean, take a gander at what I just wrote. I don’t believe in all that Southern Baptistism, but it is acutely obvious that I’d like to propel some folks downward with a swift kick hindward. Ignoble fires, perpetual torment? Jumping Jehoshaphat!

So, what has given me the vapors? Is it the devolution of my social conscience? What’s got my dander up into a blizzard of judgment?

Welp, I devoted my spring break to a media content analysis — counting the incidence of indecent words and references to rape, racism, homophobia, violence and picking on sick kids — and, although the exercise appealed to my left cerebral hemisphere, it didn’t do much for my psyche. The experience elicited some rather powerful reactions just hankering to be heard.

In fact, if I were not a lady I’d use some very strong language, and, actually, I am not and, because I’m not, I’ll be clear and direct: People who spew hate in rancid tabloids, in deceitfully bigoted organizations, in unexpurgated online comments, in the prurient pages of glossy misogyny, in massively heinous hatemails — all you all suck.

And what did I learn during spring break— dare I put the thought to words?

Hmmm, indeed I dare: When it comes right down to it, chillun, people who choose to hate, people who hate anonymously, people who lie about hating, people who humorize hate to render it invisible, these people who hate are just not as good as the rest of us.

There. I wrote it. I own it. And I gladly acknowledge that particular prejudice. Because there are folks out there who have been hit with the hate stick — their poor mamas must be spinning in their graves! — and, although our Constitution might protect their vile vomitus, they deserve to be pilloried for it.

Perhaps this conclusion is a remnant of my Southern Baptist heritage; I am ever recovering. But you know what? I’m OK with that. I’ll just set a spell and think on it while I calm my fevered brow with a cool mint julep.

Love,
K-B

Notes: I no longer fancy the races; they are damnably uncivilized for the horse.

Stock image from Library of Congress, originally published in Puck, February 3, 1909.

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag, the Progressive Post 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

“They gotta learn some phone manners,” he said, angrily scrawling the address of his next fare. “They call me and then they’re talking to somebody else — in Spanish! — and I’m saying, ‘Hello, Fallbrook Taxi, Fallbrook Taxi, Fallbrook Taxi!’”

My taxi driver ended his rant with a snort and a “How ya doing?” his nicotine-stained fingertips drumming the steering wheel while he dredged a glob of phlegm from his depths.

Meanwhile, my fanny puckering at his comment, I reached for a response, any response other than telling him to pull over and let me out. Abandoning my ride would have satisfied my desire to escape his bigotry and deprive him of my $2.50 fare, but it also would have delayed my return to my desk, and, since delving into school full time, I schedule my days in 15-minute intervals. I couldn’t afford to lose an entire unit of homework time to the careless ramblings of a tobacco-addled bigot. So I went with a compromise.

“That behavior is not restricted to any particular ethnicity or race,” I said, staying firmly buckled into my seat. “My lily-white, U.S.-born family does that all the time.”

But I’d spoken too soon: There was more to his rant.

“And babies hanging off the boob,” he spat, “screaming in my ear.”

I reached for the door handle, hesitated and remembered my primary goal for the day: to use every waking moment to study for midterms, not to save the world or myself from idiots. That would have to wait.

But that word he used, “boob,” that stuck in my craw. His delivery had transformed it from a bit of comic slang to a sexist, racist slur. He was talking about female body parts, intimate parts to which he would never be granted access — surely not by me or the Latinas he targeted with his ire. His only way to lay any claim to said breasts was to belittle them and thus lend import to his job as a taxi driver in the bucolic burg of Fallbrook. What a boob!

I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “Hey there, guy. I nursed my daughter in public — for more than two years! And, by the way, she’s Latina.”

He fell silent, drumming the wheel, waiting for my exit so he could light up again in the non-smoking cab.

I welcomed his silence, stared out the window and thought of all the places I’d dragged my child “hanging off the boob”: the restaurants and demonstrations, the public hearings and backyard barbecues, the campaign trails and grocery stores. Oh, a few folks freaked, but the vast majority of people endorsed us with a smile or a nod.

But I wondered: Had our skin been a little darker, would we have been reviled instead, banned for being brown and female and, thus, boob-feeding, not breast-feeding?

And I wondered if I would have been as annoyed with the driver if my daughter were not Latina.

Or if I were not a woman.

Or if the taxi driver had not been male and white.

Or if it were not March, National Women’s History Month.

Or if the world were not still so riddled with hateful anti-woman, anti-other-than-heterosexual-white attitudes and policies and laws and institutions.

He pulled up to my house, looked at the same-sex marriage sign on my gate and said, “So, you support the right to marry, do you?” and followed that with another productive hack of phlegm.

“Yes,” I said, “I do,” and exited the taxi, wondering where his loogie landed.

Sometimes it’s a real challenge to travel through a world where white male taxi drivers think a white female fare is all ears for his sexist, racist sputum.

Where the men of The Koala tabloid think calling a woman “fat whore” and “uppity skank” can pass as satire.

Where U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t recognize the profanity in calling a homosexual a “fag.”

Where the cultish Christians of Westboro church* enjoy disrupting funerals with signs that read “God Hates Fags,” “God Hates Jews” and “Thank God for Dead Solders.”

It’s enough to make a gal mad. In fact, when I first told my kiddo I had selected women’s studies as my college major, she rolled her eyes and warned me, “You’re just going to get more angry that you already are.”

And she’s right. But you know what? I wish I were even more angry than that. I wish more people were even more angry, angry enough to get out of the taxi and hoof it home. Because in the United States, idiots can freely say whatever horrendous things they can think — until they slander or libel someone — and, in the meantime, our most effective recourse is to aim for their wallets.

So I won’t be using Fallbrook Taxi until their drivers are trained to keep their prejudicial thoughts to themselves while they’re driving on my dime.

I will continue to call The Koala’s advertisers to ask them to stop supporting homophobic, misogynistic, pedophilic, racist and sexist content (see numbers below).

And I’ll certainly never put a sawbuck in Westboro’s collection plate.

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.

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: Although I’m not a fan of website hacking, it is divinely interesting to note that a couple notorious hackers, Anonymous and The Jester, have gone after the Westboro Baptist Church websites, some of which have been down since February 24 and remain down as of publication of this column:

www.americaisdoomed.com

www.godhatesfags.com

www.westborobaptistchurch.com

www.yourpastorisawhore.com

Interview with Anonymous representative and Westboro Baptist Church representative, Shirley Phelps-Roper:

Crossposted at the OB 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

Back in November, I wrote about returning to school, a woman of cumulative years in the throes of selecting a college major — along with thousands of teenagers.

It has now been two weeks since the spring semester started at Cal State University San Marcos, and, well, wow. Simply, wow. Dinner-table conversation has certainly been invigorated with the daily diary entries of a mad coed in her prime.

I am immersed in a university community unlike anything I experienced in what my new peers would consider the olden days. I’m awash in the contemporary jargon of academia that requires more memory capacity than I can muster; in students who looked askance when I first took a seat among them instead of heading to the front of the class; in professors who pronounce their charges “stupid clay” whom they must mold and professors who are as eager to teach as to learn from their students; in youthful fingers furiously texting under desks, while I rub my arthritic basal joints; in snippets of the fearful braggadocio of lingering adolescence.

My enculturation thus begun, I have already learned all sorts of great stuff — a trove of revelations.

I’ve learned that, despite having avoided deconstructing anything since my days of building and demolishing forts with the kids on my block, deconstruction is now an honored academic device; one, it turns out, I am bound to employ in order to make the grade.

I’ve learned that I am exhibiting an adjustment reaction to post-feminist spread: I fear my ovaries will be gradually crushed by young women who claim their rights but are discomfited by the second-wave feminism that won them, while my aging hips gradually exceed the breadth of those annoying study-top chair-desks.

I’ve learned that school is a hell of a lot more fun than it was when I thought I had to go to college. In those days of yore, professors were just extensions of parents hounding us to brush our teeth before bed. I wasn’t about to do anything any old fart told me to do, when I could traipse off to march for the Equal Rights Amendment or for social justice or for better French fries in the dining hall.

Excerpt, Koala at San Marcos, Winter 2011

And I’ve learned that some students wield their freedom of speech as a weapon, while disdaining the rights of others to speak freely. In contrast to the campus activists of my past, who exercised their right to free speech in order to publicly oppose racism, sexism and homophobia, a vocal minority at Cal State San Marcos (CSUSM), the staff of The Koala, exercise their free speech in order to publish racism, sexism and homophobia — along with rape and abuse scenarios and pedophilia — sheathed in the guise of  humor, or so they describe it.

Their retreat behind humor is reminiscent of my long-ago breakfast with racist Tom Metzger, founder of White Aryan Resistance (WAR), who proclaimed his WAR tabloid’s caricatures of lynched African Americans as humor.

Oh — and here’s a “wow!” — I’ve learned the Koalans do not like to be criticized. In fact, it makes them so uncomfortable that they attempt to intimidate their critics into silence — with obscenities, intended slurs, threats and deception. (They also remove their faces from Facebook pages and hope their parents don’t find out what it is they are actually doing at college.)

The Koala crew launched a wee bit of an online attack in response to my last column on the publication (profanity alert: avert your eyes oh faint of heart). They posted such descriptions of me as an “old wrinkely [sic] homosexual” who doesn’t belong at CSUSM and should depart posthaste, “a dumass,” “a complete retard” and “completly [sic] fucking retarded.” They implied I should be “scared [they] might do something to” my photo, “[l]ike… photoshop it and post it up in an upcoming issue? Too late…”

The folks who posted these comments used pseudonyms, other students’ names without their permission (surely a no-no!), and the paradoxical nickname “Balls,” which lent no credence to the commentary, given that Balls hadn’t the gonads to use his or her real name.

Speaking of which, while the university staff response has ranged from gracious and helpful to passionate and determined to scurrying into the rapid deployment of avoidance tactics, the administration’s response for the news media was unfortunate legal pabulum: “The Koala is not currently a registered student organization at CSUSM and expressed views are solely those of The Koala and its members. While The Koala falls under the first amendment’s freedom of speech, its content does not reflect the core values of CSUSM such as inclusiveness, diversity and respect.” Neither does Mary Had a Little Lamb, and I hope that’s not the best they can do.

Wouldn’t it be dandy if they were to broadcast a message to the university community that said something substantive? It would be even dandier if the administration would muster the chutzpah to, if not condemn the publication for what it is — hate speech, albeit legal — at least address the palpable fear the publication’s content elicits in some students, a fear likely prolonged by the administration’s prolonged silence.

Much more clear and direct than the administration’s response, were the reactions of the publication’s first issue advertisers, who were apparently hoodwinked by the publishers: They have both withdrawn their ads, and one of them wrote, “Cougar Book Rentals will not be advertising in the Koala newspaper in the future, due to the offensive nature of the content. We neither condone nor appreciate the content, nor did we have access to it in advance.”

Ah, the joys of a free market — and free speech — including the snippy little comments that came my way indicating that the loss of some advertisers has tweaked the Koalans a bit, revealing a possible vulnerability and their ignorance of the actual meaning of free speech. They wrote that by encouraging folks to contact the publication’s advertisers, I violated the Koalans’ free speech and “dictate[d] the thoughts of others.”

Alas, they are wrong: Were I able, I would “dictate” some common sense into the Koalans’ predominantly young white male thoughts, but I can’t — and their older editor-in-chief just might be a lost cause, given the years he’s devoted to the various Koalas.

What I will do is continue to pursue their advertisers, because I learned long before arriving at CSUSM that passive avoidance of overt hate is often the death knell of freedom. In this case, the rights of the students targeted by The Koala’s content are at risk: Their right to free speech and to a public education free from discrimination, harassment and retaliation are at risk of being lost to fear and bullying.

Thankfully, I’m too old to succumb to that idiocy. Besides, I’m having too much fun.

Love,
K-B

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

UPDATE: The Koala CSUSM editor-in-chief is not a CSUSM student. See more of the faces of The Koala below.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

The Koala, a tabloid launched last week by some California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) students, has achieved its publishers’ apparent goal: to inflame the university community with hate speech.

“Apparent” because, while The Koala has certainly engendered impassioned responses, the predominantly white males behind the publication have refused to discuss what it is they have wrought — or to identify themselves. At a recent recruitment meeting, they would not give their names and avoided being photographed; they moved the meeting to a private dorm room to exclude critics and news media; and they demanded 30-packs of beer from journalists who requested interviews, which, given their likely ages, smacks of soliciting criminal acts — and challenges their legitimacy as a newspaper, as they describe The Koala.

It is The Koala’s content (downloadable at csusmkoala.com) that most effectively challenges the newspaper claim. Just about every demographic — except straight, white males — is addressed with violent, prurient and/or grotesque language: gays and lesbians, women, rape and pedophilia victims, pediatric cancer and burn patients, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Muslims. The Koala is a miasma of isms.

The Koala recommends used bikini wax as “lip balm for lesbos,” suggests leaving c-section incisions “open for easier future abortions,” and reports that one advantage of dating a 10-year-old girl is “If you knock her teeth out, they grow back.” It includes statements that glorify and encourage pedophilia, rape of a teaching assistant, domestic violence, date rape and physically assaulting campus police.

Anecdotally, the “reasonable person” test of The Koala’s content suggests that many CSUSM students and staff indeed find much of the content obscene — obscene and hateful. But obscenity remains in the eye of the beholder, and in the United States we can speak freely whether our speech is hateful, loving or indifferent.

More interesting are the test results of The Koala’s two advertisers, cougarbookrentals.com and Miramar Wellness Center — “interesting” because it takes funding to publish any speech.

The textbook-rental service is, according to bookrenter.com Vice President of Marketing Michael Geller (at 650-288-3500), an independent bookstore using bookrenter.com’s open platform, an “entrepreneur” who can “choose to market it any way they want.”

Nonetheless, when read content from The Koala, Geller’s response was, “Oh! Oh god! Okay, that’s enough!” An articulate man — and pragmatic — he disavowed any responsibility for cougarbookrental’s ad and declared that bookrenter.com “would never, ever, ever” advertise in The Koala. He also said, “I’m going to contact the owner of [csusmbookrentals.com] and first make sure he or she is aware of what this is all about.” Then the company will “evaluate whether or not we should attempt to restrict our store partners’ advertising.” Whether or not? Hmmm.

The Miramar Wellness Center (at 858-689-9098), a marijuana dispensary, had a slightly more definitive response. An employee who did not identify herself said the Wellness Center had received “a lot of upset calls, a whole lot” and that the manager would not take any more, but she added, “I heard [the ad] was a mistake and they are trying to get it removed.”

That’s promising, but, in the meantime, what to do about the privileged young men who publish hate with anonymity?

Read The Koala so you can make informed comments about it (available at csusmkoala.com). Although the thing is no joy, condemning something you haven’t read is shallow commentary. And ignorance is not bliss.

Contact The Koala’s advertisers to reinforce the message that their ad dollars are supporting content that encourages pedophilia, racism, misogyny, rape and domestic violence. If a second issue comes out, contact any new advertisers. Eventually The Koala publishers will run out of businesses they can dupe into supporting them, if they haven’t already. Any advertisers left deserve to be boycotted.

State your opinion of The Koala freely and frequently. The right to free speech goes both ways: They have the right to speak and you have the right to criticize what they say — maybe even the responsibility. Hate that goes unchallenged goes on and on and on.

Call or email CSUSM President Karen Haynes’ office (760-750-4040 or pres@csusm.edu) to ask what the administration can do about the content that promotes rape and pedophilia; how they can protect students under age 18 from The Koala’s obscene content; and what they can do about students who appear to be below the drinking age soliciting alcohol on campus.

Identify, if you can, the fellows involved with The Koala, in the photos below. They are accountable for the speech they publish. No one — white, male student or anyone else — has the privilege of anonymous hate masquerading as “lighthearted humor.” If they can say it, they can own it for all the world to see.

Then, find some peace in this thought: What goes on the Internet stays on the Internet, and one day in the next few years The Koala’s publishers will be looking for jobs in competitive marketplaces where respect for diversity, social maturity and the ability to self-edit will be deciding factors for employment. These young men have already round-filed their job applications by exercising a most wonderful right irresponsibly.

Free speech is a messy, exquisite, ugly, glorious and precious free-for-all; comeuppance is delicious.

Love,
K-B

The Koala staff: George Liddle, editor-in-chief of The Koala at CSUSM and a former editor-in-chief of The Koala at UCSD (circa 2002 — probably not a CSUSM student, eh?); and CSUSM students identified to date Aaron Jaffe, Scott Middough, Blake MacKenzie, a Jeff W. and…

Anyone know the other two fellows?

Read more about this topic: The Cowardice of Hate.

Crossposted at the OB Rag and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.