Greying the Societal Zebra [Dumbest college paper article EVER?]

Kansas State Collegian ^ | 04/03/03 | Zach Hauser

[bourbon]

Column: Greying the Societal Zebra Everyday life losing clear distinctions, constantly gaining contradictions

Published on Thursday, April 3, 2003

Illustration by Adam Hayes/Collegian

Zach Hauser
Kansas State Collegian

If you commit a crime, there is a set punishment. When you read a book in English, you read from left to right. It is as straightforward and as black and white as the pages and ink with which it is printed. But that is where the buck stops, consistency vanishes and common sense becomes quite uncommon.

In a society where our foundation is built on black and white, where according to Sir Isaac Newton, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," it sometimes seems hypocritical to dabble into the exception.

It's beyond me how a "fat chance" and a "slim chance" are the same thing, but a "wise man" and "wise guy" are considered opposites. Walking fast isn't considered jogging slowly, and it's perfectly normal to drive down a parkway and park on a driveway.

We long to bask in the exception but live in a world dominated by black and white distinction. To preserve our sanity, we thus prescribe to a doctrine of "close enough" to justify our exceptions not as exceptions, but as just a shade off the rule, effectively graying the black and white zebra that we call society to the point where eventually there will be no zebras, simply brown horses.

But that's what we want, even though we love to contradict what we do and say. People need structure and consistency in their lives and those that don't have any are a mess. While those who revel in formulation and organization long for something more, something sporadic and spontaneous.

Always wanting what we have but needing what we don't have. This is the price of being human. Living in the contradiction and living for reliability is what we define as a life with exhilaration and excitement. But even what we define as desirable changes with the tides and wind and ultimately comes full circle back to where we each began.

What we define as opposites becomes more and more alike each day. Republicans now are "compassionate conservatives," which means they now only want to hold onto most of their money, so a little can be shared. And with pushes like "faith-based initiatives" and other sweeping legislation, one can only wonder which party is acting more conservative. Or moreover, which party is which anymore. Should we condense both parties and call them the Republi-crats or the Dem-icans?

We live in a world where new trends are simply old trends revived, where the buzzword "diversity" is just another way for everyone to be more like everyone else. Our advancement as a society is based wholly on how fast and small we can get our computers. People find it odd if your name doesn't conform to the societal norms of Adam, Mike or John. The homogenization of society is in full swing.

America supported Iraq with weapons in the 1980s in an eight-year war against Iran. America trained many of the so-called terrorists we are fighting against today. And everyone agrees that the "four out of five dentists think that this toothpaste rocks" ad is a little shady.

But that's the problem -- that everyone agrees. You can even agree to disagree.

[bourbon]

Could somebody explain to me what this column means exactly?

I'm certain that this is 1) the dumbest headline I have ever read and 2) one of the worst and most tortured analogies I have ever encountered.

This column reminds me that there is really no limit to liberal idiocy.

[Willie Green]

I guess he couldn't figure out if a zebra is a white horse with black stripes or a black horse with white stripes.

[wideawake]

I think this is a case of:

"Zach, dude, where's that column you promised me?"

"What?"

"Dude, don't tell me you f**ked me again on the column - I'm not running white space, dude!"

"Dude, I totally forgot. I got so stoned yesterday it completely slipped my mind."

"I don't care, dude. If I don't get a column in, like, fifteen minutes, you're off the paper. I'm serious, dude!"

"OK, OK. Chill out. I'm typing it right now . . . "

[TheBigB]

Man, it took a doobie the size of a marine rescue flare to pump this crap out.

[Gefreiter]

Another communications major pads his resume. I don't recall seeing anything in the UMass Collegian quite this asinine, but it's been awhile.

[bourbon]

I kindly present, for your viewing displeasure, a photo of the mentally-challenged author of this tripe.





Oh, and here's his email address, if anyone is interested.
zach_hauser@yahoo.com

[jae471]

Poetic prose strives to unite hope, freedom.

Rambling on aimlessly, the article rocks like a paper boat tossed into the high seas, churning with waves from lands abroad, following the course of history set forth by Napolean at Waterloo. We should look to this example of history to gain valuable insight into the future of the stock market, and its effect on global warming, as we begin our trek into the 22nd century. We must not let our minds be closed by the strife of humanitarian crises brought by foreign lands, but move forward to a new hope of peaceful prosperity for all of God's creatures. This article represents the pinnacle of human endeavors, striving and reaching to ascertain a transition beyond what most minds can ingest.

Writing this stuff is easy. And I can torture an analogy much better.

There is no limit to liberal idiocy.

[TomB]

America supported Iraq with weapons in the 1980s in an eight-year war against Iran.

Not that this article needs debunked, but I just came across this chart, and it is great:

Click the chart for the link.

[Brett66]

This is a variation of Al Gore's stump speech a few years ago when he said "everything that should be up is down and everything that should be down is up". Upon further analysis, this was a summation of klinton's presidency.

[AmericanVictory]

Ah, the angst of being a college sophomore and having to struggle with reading philosophy and learning to actually reason and articulate.

[bourbon]

I liked Al Gore's famous outcome-oriented and incorrect translation of "E pluribus unum." Perhaps to suit his multiculturalist agenda, he translated it "Out of one, many." What a doof!

[jim35]

Why, exactly, was this even posted? Should I post my sophomore theme? Ho hum.

[ken5050]

he ain't getting a Dell, f'sure...

[Havoc]

Problem is the latter half of the article doesn't follow from the former half. Evidently the sense he was trying to put together to excuse his approach was lost while trying to drive his agenda. There is black and white, right and wrong; but, many people spend a great deal of time trying to mix them into a shade of grey that distorts and perverts intent - like the abortion issue for example. Liberals whined and twisted till the rare case of saving a mother's life was used to establish the default case of anytime one so chooses. Muddy the water enough to confuse or make people lose site of the white and black and you've got yourself a liberal confusion waiting to make law from. What we need is to stop letting people muddy the water and build in exceptions only where exceptions are needed and not make exceptions the rule.

Problem for this author is that in so doing, much of his liberal agenda would evaporate. But then asking a liberal to think is like asking an elephant to count the feathers on it's wings.
It's not that they can't think, they are just so used to operating on emotion that thier brains have gone flabby and thinking hurts and confuses. Thus the confusing mess this article presents. Five will get ya ten he needed aspirin after writing this rag.

[Billthedrill]

Somebody is taking an old George Carlin routine as serious philosophy. I was waiting for the old "why do we drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?" question. That's probably what drove Rene Descartes to cut his ear off. Or was that the philosopher Van Gogh? I'm confused...pass the bong, please...

[Timesink]

I've said more than once that FR ought to have an entire separate category for pathetic college newspaper rants. We must get at least three or four of them a day.

This one is particularly horrid, though. I would have run a house ad on that page of the paper before printing this crap.

[bourbon]

Excellent work! Not many people can churn that stuff out so ably, at least without being stoned. :-)

BTW, if you or anyone else would like to read more of this junk, here's an archived list of Zach Hauser's (incredibly foolish) columns.

[TheBigB]

Dieter without the glasses. You can always tell a college Marxist by the black turtleneck and homage-to-Lenin goatee.

[JennysCool]

I don't believe the K in K-State stands for Knowledge.

[bourbon]

Why, exactly, was this even posted?

B/c it's 1) funny as hell and 2) emblematic of the twisted state of liberal college "journalism" and "education." I'm sorry if that doesn't meet your lofty standards for posting on FR.