Three U.S. soldiers, talk in front of a hangar at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey Friday, Sept. 13, 2002. US pilots who patrol the no-fly zones over Iraq say Baghdad is continually changing tactics in a high-stakes campaign to bring down an American pilot and score a huge propaganda victory for Saddam Hussein. Incirlik air base in southern Turkey is used to patrol the northern no-fly zone. The base is about an hour's flight from northern Iraq and was a key staging point during the 1991 Gulf War.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
US soldier Spc. Sean N. Doughty, of Richmond, Virginia, stands in honor guard during the hand-over ceremony at US Eagle Base near Tuzla, Bosnia, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2002. The 28th Infantry Division (Mechanized), headquartered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania took over the authority of the US run northern Bosnian sector from the 25th Infantry Division (Light), headquartered at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. U.S troops have served in Bosnia as part of NATO led peacekeeping forces, since late 1995 and currently number about 3,100 soldiers. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, foreground, touches the marble gravestone of an unknown soldier, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002, at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Luxembourg were more than 3,000 US soldiers, killed during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes during the winter 1944-1945, are buried. Ashcroft is on a two-day visit to Luxembourg. Others in photo are unidentified. (AP Photo/Jean-Claude Ernst)
United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, right, and Luxembourg's Minister of Justice Luc Frieden, left, pause at a white marble cross marking the grave of an unknown U.S. Soldier on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002, at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Luxembourg-Hamm. More than 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944-1945, are buried here. (AP Photo/Jean-Claude Ernst)
So You Want to be an Activist
Are you bored? Looking for meaning to your existence? Are you an insignificant fish in the great ocean of life? Then do today what thousands of others have already done and enroll at Activist University!
Yes, at Activist University you will receive the training to become the uninformed, emotional antagonist you have always wanted to be, while elevating yourself above the humanity you will come to despise. Activist U trains its students in the fine art of fault-finding and victimization. Our AU grads crusade for pet causes that heighten the self-image and pay handsome financial dividends!
Located in Seattle, Washington, where brethren alumni recently took up the fight against the evil WTO, our campus is easy to find. Take the Ralph Nader Expressway from the center of town, then a hard left onto Greenpeace Way, and you're there! Students enjoy beautiful and environmentally friendly surroundings safe from the intrusions of the military-industrial complex.
Our animal friends are free to roam about the grounds (don't worry, the number of fatal attacks has dropped in recent years!). Dress warm! We burn no fossil fuels on campus.
You like science? The Al Gore College of Junk Science is for you! We offer intensive studies in Global Cooling/Warming; My Friend the Tree; and the Bad, Bad History of the Internal Combustion Engine. Does the classical scientific method bore you? Good, because we ignore it! At AU we teach you the fine art of back-filling data and outcome manipulation guaranteed to support your favorite agenda. You will learn to present your results in a hysterical manner sure to garner you oodles of research money and make you the hit of the talk-show circuit.
Students can hone their math skills at the Paul Ehrlich Center for Math and Statistics. You will study how worst-case scenarios become dire predictions and why any risk (risk related to human activity, that is) is unacceptable. Dr. Ehrlich himself lectures on his 15-50 method of forecasting (make events occur 15 to 50 years into the future--soon enough to scare people, yet distant enough to forget when they don't come to pass).
You will learn to attach fictional causes to statistically insignificant changes -- a rise in E. coli deaths, for example -- while you declare the latest national emergency.
An aspiring news reporter? Our Geraldo Rivera School of Journalism is for you. We've kicked out dinosaurs Edward R. Murrow and David Brinkley, with their antiquated notions of careful, sober analysis, and replaced them with the free-wheeling, agenda-setting style you have come to expect. Learn to shape public opinion by the stories you carry -- and those you ignore -- by peppering your write-ups with irrelevant characterizations, and by playing tough with subjects you dislike while being a conduit to those more agreeable to your way of thinking. AU graduates can be found in news organizations across the country quashing critical thinking and educating the unwashed masses in their own world view.
Many AU grads go on to law school, attending our Peter Angelos Campus nearby. Mr. Angelos, who purchased the Baltimore Orioles with attorney fees from asbestos litigation, donated the land after he received another windfall from the tobacco industry settlements. We cleared some redwoods, tossed out the homeless living there and erected a beautiful marble building in his honor. In its hallowed halls, dedicated researchers are hard at work concocting new injustices, while students prepare for life-long battles against the most horrible aspects of human society, like manger scenes.
Caught the acting bug? Come visit the Meryl Streep Center for the Performing Arts near Martin Sheen Square! Our program will carefully insulate you from the workings of the real world, and fill you with the highest sense of self-importance. Your aura will grow! Your minions will hang on to every your word as you pursue the most recent Cause-of-the-Month. Polish those thespian skills, for your next Oscar nomination will give you more credibility than a nuclear physicist!
We offer other curriculums as well. Seminary students can dabble in New Age mysticism. Business students? Unfortunately, we have no business courses of any kind. We used to offer Economics 101, but its principles flew in the face of everything else we were trying to teach.
Our students love the AU grading philosophy. We don't give any! That's right! As an activist you will never be expected to actually accomplish anything, so why would we burden you with artificial measures of achievement? Simply feeling compassion about the subject is good enough for us!
And what about extracurricular activities? We have plenty!
Do you like football? Congratulations, you just made the team! Want to play quarterback? Sure, you can do that, too! Everyone will have equal time doing anything they like! We never discriminate. We may not win many games, but we sure feel good about ourselves once the season is over.
AU also offers a full range of placement, medical, and counseling services. Feeling happy, self-assured, motivated? Don't worry! A session or two with our fine counselors will have you back as a brooding malcontent in no time!
And do you know what the best thing is about Activist University? Tuition is absolutely free! Our institution is totally tax supported. We wouldn't have it any other way!
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