Free Speech Weathervane
You don’t need a weathervane to know which way the wind blows.
Bob Dylan
By Lo-Fi Nikita
Bard Banished From SOU
What are the priorities of a University in a town dedicated to profiting off the memory of a deceased, bisexual playwright? Not teaching Shakespeare, that’s for sure. Reliable sources tell the AFP that come academic year 2006-2007, there won’t even be one Shakespeare class on the entire campus, all year long. This can’t make it easy to get an English degree at SOU, because I don’t actually think you can get one unless you take at least one class that sweeps you up in the magic of iambic pentameter, showing you that speech can be poetic and perfectly natural at the same. Romeo & Juliet is a perennial classic in Braille and umpteen languages, and Julius Caesar contains more political science than you could squeeze out of Kissinger’s entire career. There’s only one “greatest poet in the English language,” and yet, while the Oregon Shakespeare Festival mints money out of his royalty-free oeuvre, and the City of Ashland throws treasure at its feet, SOU can’t find the money to keep the Bard on the schedule. To paraphrase Dylan, “This place ain’t got no culcha!”
Frida and Diego Overheard at Starbucks
What if Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo came to town? They might have a conversation like this:
Frida: Diego, I like this town. The gringos are so friendly.
Diego: I don’t like it.
Frida: Why not? Aren’t there enough beautiful girls for you to cheat on me with?
Diego: Oh no, there are plenty of those, maybe even more than other places, but they have stupid laws.
Frida: Really, like what?
Diego: They have laws against the size of a sign that a restaurant can have, and they have nosy inspectors who go around and take signs from the shopkeepers.
Frida: The sign on this Starbucks is really big. I bet they don’t take it away.
Diego: Of course, they are big capitalists, so they have big signs, and no one would take them away.
Frida: So what, are you a sign painter?
Diego: No, Frida, why are you teasing me? You know I’m the great muralista.
Frida: Yes, and when are you going to get to work? I notice a lot of blank walls around here that don’t have any murals. There’s that Coca Cola sign on the wall of the Peerless, but it’s so commercial. How about a mural of the massacres of the local natives, the destruction of the forests, and the suburbanization of agriculture? It would be beautiful, and awaken the conscience of the local people. They seem so depressed.
Diego: That’s what I’m trying to tell you! They won’t let me paint anything here. Like that big empty wall in the parking lot of that youth hangout over there, that Evo’s place. I heard the owner of the building wanted a mural, and I would be glad to do it, but the political bosses here won’t allow it.
Frida: It’s the same as in Mexico. Corruption everywhere.
Diego: Of course, mi amor, corruption. Are you going to finish eating that cookie?
Do Merchants Own The Sidewalks In Front of Their Stores?
Free speech supporter Will Lewis has made waves on the international fashion circuit with his fair-haired good looks, but they don’t want to see his face around the Ashland Food Coop. Scrappier than he looks, Will was apparently not backing the right side of some cause, because at least twice during the first couple of weeks in May, Will had the police called on him for standing on the sidewalk outside the ultraliberal food store and refusing to leave when so directed by store managers. The first time he was forced to leave by a cop with a flawed view of the first amendment. The second time the responding officer apparently realized that the people, not the Coop, own the sidewalk in front of the store, and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses already won the battle to leaflet on the streets back in the forties. Or so we thought. Will tells the AFP, however, that merchants all over town pull this trick and police back them up. So it’s no surprise that the Coop, ever in step with the community, is following suit. We’d hoped they’d set a better example. Question for Richard Katz: As members, when do we get to vote on these store policies?
Bob Dylan
By Lo-Fi Nikita
Bard Banished From SOU
What are the priorities of a University in a town dedicated to profiting off the memory of a deceased, bisexual playwright? Not teaching Shakespeare, that’s for sure. Reliable sources tell the AFP that come academic year 2006-2007, there won’t even be one Shakespeare class on the entire campus, all year long. This can’t make it easy to get an English degree at SOU, because I don’t actually think you can get one unless you take at least one class that sweeps you up in the magic of iambic pentameter, showing you that speech can be poetic and perfectly natural at the same. Romeo & Juliet is a perennial classic in Braille and umpteen languages, and Julius Caesar contains more political science than you could squeeze out of Kissinger’s entire career. There’s only one “greatest poet in the English language,” and yet, while the Oregon Shakespeare Festival mints money out of his royalty-free oeuvre, and the City of Ashland throws treasure at its feet, SOU can’t find the money to keep the Bard on the schedule. To paraphrase Dylan, “This place ain’t got no culcha!”
Frida and Diego Overheard at Starbucks
What if Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo came to town? They might have a conversation like this:
Frida: Diego, I like this town. The gringos are so friendly.
Diego: I don’t like it.
Frida: Why not? Aren’t there enough beautiful girls for you to cheat on me with?
Diego: Oh no, there are plenty of those, maybe even more than other places, but they have stupid laws.
Frida: Really, like what?
Diego: They have laws against the size of a sign that a restaurant can have, and they have nosy inspectors who go around and take signs from the shopkeepers.
Frida: The sign on this Starbucks is really big. I bet they don’t take it away.
Diego: Of course, they are big capitalists, so they have big signs, and no one would take them away.
Frida: So what, are you a sign painter?
Diego: No, Frida, why are you teasing me? You know I’m the great muralista.
Frida: Yes, and when are you going to get to work? I notice a lot of blank walls around here that don’t have any murals. There’s that Coca Cola sign on the wall of the Peerless, but it’s so commercial. How about a mural of the massacres of the local natives, the destruction of the forests, and the suburbanization of agriculture? It would be beautiful, and awaken the conscience of the local people. They seem so depressed.
Diego: That’s what I’m trying to tell you! They won’t let me paint anything here. Like that big empty wall in the parking lot of that youth hangout over there, that Evo’s place. I heard the owner of the building wanted a mural, and I would be glad to do it, but the political bosses here won’t allow it.
Frida: It’s the same as in Mexico. Corruption everywhere.
Diego: Of course, mi amor, corruption. Are you going to finish eating that cookie?
Do Merchants Own The Sidewalks In Front of Their Stores?
Free speech supporter Will Lewis has made waves on the international fashion circuit with his fair-haired good looks, but they don’t want to see his face around the Ashland Food Coop. Scrappier than he looks, Will was apparently not backing the right side of some cause, because at least twice during the first couple of weeks in May, Will had the police called on him for standing on the sidewalk outside the ultraliberal food store and refusing to leave when so directed by store managers. The first time he was forced to leave by a cop with a flawed view of the first amendment. The second time the responding officer apparently realized that the people, not the Coop, own the sidewalk in front of the store, and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses already won the battle to leaflet on the streets back in the forties. Or so we thought. Will tells the AFP, however, that merchants all over town pull this trick and police back them up. So it’s no surprise that the Coop, ever in step with the community, is following suit. We’d hoped they’d set a better example. Question for Richard Katz: As members, when do we get to vote on these store policies?