This Week in Canada: Mildly Interesting News from a Mildly Interesting Nation

From The Globe and Mail:
The death of a pedestrian on Tuesday has raised the question of how loud is too loud when it comes to listening to iPods and other personal music players.
Isaiah Otieno, a 23-year-old student, was killed when he was struck and dragged by a helicopter that crashed to the ground as he was walking to the mailbox.

Concern over safe use of headphones is growing.

My Response:

WHAT THE FUCK?! I seriously want to just punch Canada in the face right now. A helicopter falls out of the sky and hits a pedestrian and we’re not reading about reformations to Canadian safety regulations but rather the maximum safe volume for iPods?

Mr. Otieno didn’t hear the helicopter plummeting towards him, but that says more about him than the volume of his music. I’m able to crank my iPod to the max volume and still make out common sounds around me.

Maybe I’m a mutant.

I was in a car crash a few weeks ago while listening to the radio. Should I be suing the radio station? The DJ? The prostitute giving me road head?

5 Second Review: Cocaine

Just do some coke. Stop sitting there reading this article like a walrus. The sooner you put down the paper, the sooner you can go do a nice, frosty line with a buddy.

See the border of this article?* It’s the perfect width for cutting out, rolling up, and doing a line with! We’ve even included the little scissors to help illustrate that you can in fact cut out this article and do a line of coke with it.

Remember: Cocaine isn’t all fun and games! An integral part of the Cocaine experience is doing a line off a stripper’s ass.

Do you know any strippers?

If you do, email partytime@weeklyenema.com with their name, phone number and medical history. Better yet, do you have any coke for sale? Email legal@weeklyenema.com!

*Note, for included cutout, please download Issue #2 of The Weekly Enema!

City Proudly Unveils Underground Bus System

A new subterranean bus route was unveiled this Friday afternoon at a Lane Transit District press conference. The route was introduced as an extension to the EmX rapid transit experiment that was placed on Franklin Blvd early last year.

“People loved it when we put a bus where a light rail system should obviously go,” said LTD spokesman Andy Vorbara. “That’s why this year we are going underground to put a bus where a subway should be. The EmX was intended to be the first public transportion system in Eugene to have traffic light pre-emption,” Vorbara said. “Although that didn’t work out and it’s now impossible to turn left on most of Franklin Blvd, the construction of an overly-complicated and hideously expensive underground bus system just seems to be the next logical step.”

While the EmX rapid transit experiment has been very well received, Vorbara hopes to see even greater results from the upcoming addition. The system is scheduled to be fully operational by the year 2012 and is expected to alleviate some of the above-ground congestion in Eugene.

While he admits this system is really “more of a novelty than a solution,” Vorbara wants to make it clear that this wouldn’t be possible if the previous bus-on-tracks program wasn’t such a huge success.
The subterranean bus will cover a distance between the University campus and scenic downtown Glenwood. When criticized about having such a short route – just a half mile – Vorbara responded, “Eugene can only afford to waste a certain amount of money on a project like this and we are already stretched pretty thin as it is. Unfortunately, the budget only allows for the construction of a single lane, so either the bus engineer will need to drive backwards half the time or we’ll have to float the buses back up the Millrace on a barge.”

When asked what he thought about such a system in Eugene, confused University Junior Alex Kelsh responded, “What?”

“Eugene is ready for this” stated Vorbara when questioned about the necessity of an underground bus system. “I’m sick of hearing about how Eugene is just a big town. Those fat cats in Portland are going to see what a big city we really are when our fancy new bus-way system is finished.”

The Enema Was There…When Gutenberg Published the Bible

In a move shocking long-time Christians, Johannes Gutenberg has decided to publish a printed version of the Bible.

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” said Gutenberg. “We need to update this franchise and take it in a new direction,” he added while counting his huge stacks of money from corporate sponsors.

Various religious communities have been in an uproar since Gutenberg announced that he would be making sweeping editorial changes to what the media is calling ‘The Gutenberg Bible.’ The concern is that these modifications will be at the whim of his financial sponsors and not respect the historic text.

When asked about the proposed renaming of the ‘Reed’ Sea to the ‘Red’ Sea, The Vice President of Red Sea Lobster Hut said “In these times of uncertainty, we want our customers to know that we can offer the same delicious buffet Moses enjoyed when they visit with their families. All we’re offering is continuity in the world. And a $11.99 All-You-Can-Eat Shellfish Shabbat Special.”

Another proposed change would frame the famous wine-into-water wedding scene to present Jesus transforming water into wine.

When we asked Johannes Gutenberg about this change, he responded “Look, there isn’t anything stating that Jesus wasn’t a bit of a lush! I just don’t think that it’s fair to assume that he couldn’t have transformed the water into wine. We weren’t there! We don’t even know what Jesus actually looked like. Blond? Blue eyes? Have you seen the Palestinians of Bethlehem? Not one of them actually looks like that!”

Jesus Christ could not take our phone calls, but promised to return soon.

Heavenly Horoscopes Vol II

Why hello there, Astral Traveler. I see that you have survived the past two weeks under Gralgathor’s influences. He really is sweet once nuzzle one of his 6-tummies. Now, the alphabet-letters in my alphabet soup have proven a guide to the twisting river of fate that we are embarking on this week. Just remember, Astral Traveler, this will be no ordinary 6 hour tour.
Read more

University Announces Merger with Local Prison To Solve Housing Crisis

Yesterday the University of Oregon announced a plan to merge with the Lane County Correctional Facility, elegantly solving a housing problem that was threatening to bust the seam on its already over-sized pants.
The joint facility will house 507 incoming freshmen, taking the burden off the overstressed dormitory system. Each room already has its own toilet along with on-site dining, recreational and medical facilities.
“We tossed around some other ideas – renting an apartment complex or using some space in the old hospital near campus – but using the jail just felt right,” President Frohnmayer, aka The FrohnBone, commented early Monday morning.
Most University of Oregon students seem cautiously optimistic about the new living space.
“I’m cautiously optimistic about it,” said Alex Kelsh, the only student we interviewed for this article.

Students will be able to earn credit toward their degrees through participation in major-related seminars. Auto Theft (Engineering), Meth Production (Chemistry), and The Social Dynamics of Pimping (Business) will be offered during the first term. Additionally, students will be able to defer the costs of tuition and housing by participating in highway cleanup crews.

“This seems like a natural step,” Sheriff Burg Russer commented. “Have you seen these kids? We’re just giving them a head start. They’re gonna end up here anyway. The average inmate costs nearly $20,000 a year to keep in jail; the average student generates $12,000 of revenue. If we replace all of the prisoners with students, we will save the county over $12 million a year. It really is the perfect
arrangement between the University and my department.”

“Sudoku Only” Version of the Daily Emerald Enjoys Huge Popularity

There’s a new paper on campus, and it is already more popular than all the other publications put together.

After conducting numerous focus groups on how students use their paper, publishers of The Oregon Daily Emerald decided to cut some content that was not connecting with the student body.

“We found that students think the opinion pieces are trite, the sports unimportant and the news stale and boring,” said a source close to the Emerald. “We have also known for a long time that no one reads the classifieds or looks at the ads.”

In a move that both cut production costs by over 95% and reflects what students are really using the paper for, the Emerald now consists entirely of two sudoku puzzles on a business card-sized piece of paper.

“We had to cut a lot, it’s true, but our mission has always been to do whatever it takes to keep getting printed, and I think we’ve stayed loyal to that,” said our source.

Rumors are flying that a companion publication featuring just the crossword puzzle will be released beginning fall term of next year.

Get Ready

The next issue comes out on September 29th!

5 Second Review: Other Campus Publications

Greetings, Mr. and Mrs. America. Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Weekly Enema. Of course, you’re reading it online, which is a bit like taking a photograph of the Mona Lisa and trying to convince your friends its art.*

Shame on you.
Read more

Kegs vs Cans

Collegiate administrations across the country have either completely banned or heavily regulated the use of beer kegs on campus and inside college-recognized houses on private property. This has been under the guise of reducing binge drinking, officially defined as five or more drinks in one night for men or four for women. The idea is that large quantities of easily accessible alcohol will lead to higher and more dangerous levels of drinking. Although it has been proven that one can pour faster from cans than from a keg [Edit: Link seems to be down. Anyone know of another source?], ultimately the fact that the amount of alcohol in kegs is higher will lead to a higher level of consumption in order to kick the keg.

I Agree with the college administrations on these points. The traditional student response is to play the [valid] environmental card - that it takes a huge amount of energy to create aluminum from raw ore (easily the most energy of any commonly recycled material) and that by using one-time use cans instead of reusable kegs we are using up many times the amount of energy than is necessary to deliver alcohol to our bodies. However, a more important question is present: Is the job of our college administration really to tell us how much alcohol to drink? If we’re 21 years old, aren’t we old enough to decide for ourselves how much alcohol we can consume? Certainly there are a number of serious alcoholics who need help, but isn’t it my decision if I want to have 2 beers or 20?

There are people with weight problems who abuse food, and anyone who has been to an eating disorder talk can tell you that food is a drug the same way caffeine, alcohol and cocaine are. Should we do away with buffets in our college dining halls because some people can’t control the way they eat? Should I be put on academic probation if I eat so much in one sitting that I have to throw up? Doesn’t the same reasoning apply to drinking alcohol?

The president of my fraternity once told a member of the administration that if he wanted to drink so much that he passed out on his basement floor in a puddle of his own vomit and urine, that was his Constitutional right. Whether or not you can sympathize with that, isn’t it the job of the college to turn us into people who can make decisions for ourselves? Maybe we have to make some mistakes, eat too much food or drink too much beer until we find out just how much is right for us. Maybe once we’ve figured out whom we are, instead of having the administrationt tell us, we can go out prepared for the real world.

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