It's not easy protesting against oil dependency and car culture. Such heroic souls risk being called "pervert" and "depraved," and being arrested. All did not go entirely smoothly on The World Mostly Guys Nearly Naked Bike Ride [ June 20, below ].

The story unfolds in a series of brief items in The Camera. An indignant letter in the June 21 Open Forum from a hapless newcomer to Boulderia out for a spin on the bikeways describes in shocking detail how she was "ambushed by a mass of overweight, hairy, naked people on bikes and Rollerblades" in a "vile display of nudity" right on the bike path where swarms of "innocent children" could see.

She'll get used to it. No true Boulderian would let a mass of overweight, hairy, naked people ruin a bike ride, and no Boulderian child would admit to being shocked at anything adults do, though they might silently vow they're never going to look like that. No way!

Last year¹, a couple planting veggies at the community gardens who witnessed the first naked peloton told the Camera they thought it was "great" and were undismayed that their 5- and 8-year-old daughters witnessed the ride. "Naked bodies are a part of life," the mother said. After all, she might have added, kids need to learn that not everyone is slim and buff.

Boulderia is a magical place, a place where kids are expected to act like adults and knuckle down and get the kind of test scores that will get them into the good colleges as they stoically migrate from hither to thither like restless gypsies in a quest for the most academically excellent elementary school.

Adults, on the other hand, spend a lot of time being permissive with their own inner children. Mothers Act Up. What we laughingly call "grown-ups" get drunk and race Big Wheels in the streets as innocent children study for state-mandated tests. Parents play dress-up and ride around on expensively nostalgic low-tech recreations of the coaster-brake dreadnoughts their own parents used for their paper routes. Or they get naked and paint slogans like "More Ass, Less Gas" (Why not "Wesson oil, not Motor Oil"?) and ride their bikes en masse or run naked² through the streets with jack o' lanterns on their heads at Halloween, Boulderia's biggest adult holiday. Eeeeee!

Of course, inner children can sometimes throw the occasional tantrum, and a couple of naked riders got arrested for being naughty. A guy in a G-string got busted for throwing his bike at an officer and running. Whether this qualifies as symbolic speech protesting "oil dependency and car culture" only the ACLU knows. A guy dressed only in Rollerblades got arrested for "criminal impersonation" for giving the wrong name to a cop, according to an account in the Camera.³

Impersonating what? An adult?

–Peter Aretin

________________________

¹In Boulderia, something that has happened two years in a row is a called a "tradition."

²Could these be people who, as actual children, misheard the Pledge of Allegiance and daily recited, "one naked individual, with Liberty and Justice for all"?

³This is one of those stories that raises more questions than it answers. While, yes, it's true it's unlawful to give a false name to a police officer, it's also true that American citizens are not required to produce a tangible ID card, except when driving a car, of course. So how did the naked guy get busted for giving the "wrong name" to a cop if he's not required to present an ID card? Finger prints? Rectal exam? Maybe this is a good time for a heart-to-heart about ...

Many are surprised to learn that Greater Boulderia actually falls under the respective constitutions of The United States of America and the State of Colorado. These constitutions are widely, and erroneously, believed to afford the citizen certain rights and to restrain the police from infringing upon said rights.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In Boulderia, the police can do whatever they please. These are your rights, both of them, familiarize yourself with them:

You have the right to complain bitterly about infringements of your rights. The police will take any complaint about their conduct quite seriously, seriously enough to investigate any such complaint in complete secrecy and to thoroughly exonerate themselves. If it's just a piddly little complaint, a citizen review board might investigate it, too, but you won't know because that, too, is secret. In extraordinarily serious cases, a wrist slap may be administered, but the details of that, too, are, you guessed it, secret.

You have the right to hire an attorney. If you do not hire an attorney, you may be committed directly to the state mental hospital, and probably should be. Your attorney will help arrange an affordable justice plan that suits your means and personality. If you are a risk-taker, for only a few thousand, it may be possible for you to be actually declared innocent of the charges. But also for only a few thousand, you can choose to be guilty of something you didn't do to avoid the chance of being found guilty of something much more serious you didn't do. The legal term for this is, "the presumptiom of innocence," because the police find your continued insistence that you're innocent pretty damned presumptuous.

The choice is yours. It's the beauty of our system of justice. And oh yes, about that matter of not having to produce a tangible ID: One of our Counter-Intuitive Agency field agents recently explored this issue by being handcuffed on the Pearl Street Mall until he agreed to produce an ID card.

It works like this: The officer comes up with a "probable cause" that you have committed a crime. This doesn't need to be very plausible or probable, since it's merely a pretext to detain or arrest you and either compel you to produce an ID card or search your person for one. If that ID shows you've verbally given the officer the "wrong" name, presto! change-o! you can be charged with criminal impersonation and the initial bogus probable cause is no longer needed. If, like our agent, you have given your actual name, you can be let off with a warning not to do what you didn't do again. No fish for this expedition.

Did the Rollerblade guy have an ID stashed in his butt crack? We'll never know.

Mondo Boulder raised this legal issue with the Boulderian District Attorney's office, and they responded with a deafening silence, causing us no surprise whatsoever.
____________________________________

Peter Aretin is either an angry, semi-employed loser too untalented or too lazy to get a real job in journalism, or one of the many pseudonyms of Bob Ewegen, or a hapless dupe under whose name Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ ghostwrites the best damn footnotes of his duplicitous life.
 

JUNE 20, 2006

TODAY IN BOULDERIAN HISTORY:

On this day, 1837, the US Army began dispensing smallpox infected blankets to the Mandan Indians gathered at Fort Clark, North Dakota, according to various publications of CU's Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™. After an exhaustive search, no historical support whatsoever could be found for this claim, and this fraud became one of the primary reasons a special academic investigating committee recommended Wardo's firing.

The Boulderian installment of the World Naked Bike Ride took place last week. For a special, limited-time offer, loyal reader(s) of Mondo Boulder can see what they missed HERE. The event might be more accurately called The World Mostly Guys Nearly Naked Bike Ride.

The ride is very high-minded, like Lady Godiva's ride, and is intended to highlight the world's dependence on oil, suntan oil, perhaps. But quite the opposite of Lady Godiva's ride, The World Mostly Guys Nearly Naked Bike Ride would be meaningless if nobody gawked, since it is in a long Boulderian tradition of civic exhibitionism.

On prominent display is "No Blood For Oil," a popular local slogan. We have a band of NBFO activists who go hither and thither (clothed), to Golden, Colorado and Washington, DC, demanding that no blood be exchanged for oil, though as presumably rational persons, they must surely know that the only measurable effect of their exertions, carpooling or no, on what we happy few laughingly call the "real" world is the burning of more oil, for which, dang it, more blood will presumably have to be shed.

Surely, as the educated Boulderians they are, they must know there isn't a thing of value, and a lot of worthless things besides, for which blood hasn't been and isn't being shed even as we peddle our high-tech, composite bicycles made extensively of petroleum-based materials. This isn't some quirk of modern industrial society, either. In fact, the shedding of blood for natural resources has probably decreased in recent times from the mass carnages of the good ol' days. Blood was much cheaper per barrel way back when.

But it's undoubtedly theology and politics that have rendered up the most corpses. Those dueling religions, Marxism and Christianity, are surely the leading blood producers.

Oil must be way down the list.

Nor does it faze the NBFOers that while all those pre-Iraq War worldwide demonstrations, supposedly the most massive in history, had no effect whatsoever on the invasion of Iraq, and failed to delay it a picosecond, such massive hootenannies couldn't have taken place without using up a hell of a lot of oil, and consequently, blood.

Is there a business opportunity here? Will the next Crocs™ be the Mr Green Gas™ boutique filling station, selling only organic, blood-free oil non-invasively extracted from Arctic wildlife refuges?

—Peter Aretin

JUNE 7, 2006

TODAY IN RELATIVELY RECENT BOULDERIAN HISTORY:

DEMOLITION DERBY: Today in 2004, as 96-degree temps toppled the 1934 record, the 169-foot smokestack of Building 771 "the most dangerous building in America," at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Fireworks Factory, was demolished; and state Republican legislators' saw their hopes of keeping the redistricting plan they enacted in the last three days of the 2003 session come crashing down.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: In 2005, Secretary of State Donetta Davidson said the state would pay about $850,000 of the $1.4 million the county paid to replace its punch-card system; CU board of regents chairman Jerry Rutledge, responding to Colorado Commission on Higher Education executive director Rick O'Donnell's description of CU's tuition hikes as "exorbitant," said in a letter, "These increases are necessary because our students and their families expect a continued level of quality education, that our buildings and facilities are reasonably maintained and there is sufficient merit- and need-based financial aid to help those students who need it." A Pearl Street Bank was also robbed. Pattern?

There's a mini-flap going on in the glamorous, fast-paced world of Denver newspapers. I know this from the column, The Message, in a recent Westword.

[ NOTE: Back in 2002, Westword named Mondo Boulder "Best View of Boulder" in the Best of Denver issue. This has no relevance to anything whatsoever, but I didn't want to miss a chance to work it in. ]

Not being a Real Journalist, I usually just skim The Message on the slight chance of spotting a familiar name conveniently highlighted in boldface. This is rare, but recently there was Bob Ewegen, who once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away, was my "boss." I wasn't a Real Journalist then, either, but a smartmouth hippie writing a column for a college newspaper. Since then, Bob has become deputy editorial-page editor of the Denver Post and the internet has made college papers largely obsolete and is working on making Real Newspapers obsolete, too, and I am still a smartmouth hippie.

Two things Real Journalists love to do is to 1) give each other awards and 2) stew about their ethics. Apparently, some of them blog, too, and not always under their real name, and this has given journalists a chance to get into an extended swivet about 2), above. Ewegen admits posting to a political blog "under my own name -- that's demonstrable -- and probably otherwise."

This has caused some panty-wringing over the question whether it is wrong, wrong, wrong for a Real Journalist to post online under a *gasp* pseudonym. Opinions in The Message range from "As far as writing under a pseudonym, I think the need would certainly be diminished for those journalists who are ethical and who understand that honesty is critical to our mission of serving the public" (Gary Clark, the Post's managing editor) to "I don't know why, if your profession is as a reporter, as opposed to being a doctor or a waiter, you give up your right to anonymously post on a blog" (blogger Jason Blane).

Perhaps this is a good opportunity to remind our reader(s) that I (we) am (are) not, nor ever have been, (a) Real Journalist(s) (nor blogger(s), to get technical). I may have occasionally socialized with Real Journalists, I'm not admitting anything. Mondo Boulder works without authority or credibility, without, in fact, money, which our reader(s) are forbidden to send, and without advertisers. We offer no product, as such. We are armed only with the language itself; you are amused or not amused, persuaded or not persuaded, by the ineluctable power and elegance of our prose.

And each and every Mondo Boulder screed comes with an e-mail link. Contact one of Boulderia's newspaper-like products, and like as not you will get a haughty silence for your pains. They may or may not publish your communication (which, incidentally, becomes their property, thank you very much) without admitting in any way that you have devastatingly discovered their pants lying crumpled around their ankles. They may, without a by-your-leave, screw around with your hyphens or otherwise edit or rewrite your work and print it, giving no indication of their emendations.

E-mail Mondo Boulder, and a real, live, angry, semi-employed loser too untalented or too lazy to get a real job in journalism (thank you, Doonesbury) will personally acknowledge your precious missive, will heed your concerns, will share your pain, will explain with the patience of Job why you are full of it right up to the eyebrows, or, should you convince Mondo Boulder we have done you, the English language or Truth and Justice, wrong, (gods help us!) say, "Sorry" and refund the price of purchase in full.

Can you get that from these Real Journalists? Fat chance. But if what you really want to know is whether Mondo Boulder is written by Bob Ewegen under a pseudonym, or even just how many of us might be Bob Ewegen writing under a pseudonym, just forget it!

—Peter Aretin

JUNE 6, 2006

Mondo Boulder received the e-mail below via the special HOTLINE which the city council uses to communicate with the Counter-Intuitive Agency.

>> <IVAN313@aol.com> 06/05 4:34 PM >>>
Boulder City Council
 
Dear Council Members,

Boulder, Colorado has long been a model of progressive and humane wildlife management.  In recent months, your policies have been diluted to allow private land owners to poison prairie dogs within city limits. I now understand that City Council is prepared to start killing prairie dogs on city-owned property.

You will be hearing a proposal for lethal control of prairie dogs on June 6. Up to  2,000 prairie dogs are in immediate danger. I respectfully urge you not to allow this animal eradication to proceed.

The proposed killing of wildlife is unacceptable.  I consider it irresponsible for any governmental agency to use killing as a method to solve a problem.  It is not only inhumane but it teaches a generation of young people that killing is a reasonable solution to their problems.  It is not.

The city needs to perform an assessment of all its open-space lands to determine whether prairie dogs can be relocated to other properties or outside of the city.   Animals should not be made to suffer as a result of poor city planning and management.  Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Marc Hoffman
313 Lower State Road
North Wales, PA 19454 USA
Phone: 215-646-0791
Fax: 215-628-303

Our response: [NOTE: No tax money was used for this service]

Counter-Intuitive Agency
Independent Republic of Greater Boulderia

Office of the Director

Dear Marc-

So glad to hear of your concerns over our prairie dog population, which at this point has swelled to fill nearly all of the public land available to them. Much of this land has become ecologically degraded by overpopulation and can no longer adequately support them. Periodic plague outbreaks have not adequately controlled their numbers in a way that allows the land to recover.

The City has spent over a million dollars in largely ineffectual efforts to non-lethally control the p.dog population. I'm sure a generous monetary contribution from you would be appreciated by the city, and could help fund further largely ineffectual efforts to non-lethally control them.

How many can you accept per month? I'm sure North Wales, PA, will find them a welcome addition. We'll even throw in Ward Churchill, an invasive, non-Native life form that competes with prairie dogs for public attention.

If you need further assistance in this matter, please write directly to me as Director of the Counter-Intiutive Agency. Our city council is busy with pressing matters of foreign policy, and is currently wrestling with whether to let the United States have military bases in Iraq after the immediate withdrawal of troops they recently mandated.

Regards,

Peter Aretin
Director, CIA

MAY 25, 2006  

The letters to the editor are frequently the most entertaining parts of our local newspaper-like products, and the May 25 letters section of the Camera Obscura has a couple of representative lulus.

The Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ academic soap opera¹ is like eating potato chips while watching "24"; you know it's not healthy, but you can't stop. The latest ploy from Wardo's fawning acolytes is to decry those mean, mean "footnote² police" for persecuting our boy. After all, footnotes are in little type and are down at the bottom of the page. Who reads those things, anyway?³

One Camera letter quotes extensively from John K. Wilson, an "expert on academic malpractice." If Wilson fits this impressive description so does David Horowitz. Wilson can be found here lobbing very loaded questions at Horowitz, whom I am forced to admit disarms them with seeming ease. Why do I hate liking this guy? Maybe he's irresistible for statements like, "In my view the place for a Marxist would be in the department of religion, certainly not political science, sociology, history or economics."

Wilson, a noted political correctness denier, repeats the plaint that there were "no Native American studies scholars⁴ on an obviously politicized committee," forgetting Wardo can't so much as fart in a nonpolitical way and assigns only his own books in his classes. Why drag in other Native American studies scholars at this late date?

I have to wonder if Wilson or the letter writer were involved in a legal battle, would they use an attorney whose case relied on citing himself under different pseudonyms, irrelevant cases, and decisions that he made up?

–Peter Aretin

______________________________________

¹Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ is a registered trademark of Modest Geniuses, Ltd., and may not be vilified, abused, outspoken or gainsaid, nor worshipped with an uncritical, doglike devotion except by express permission of Modest Geniuses, Ltd.

²These thingies.

³Apparently not the editors or readers of little left-wing presses or most of the ethnic studies tribe.

⁴There were a couple, but they bailed after nitpickers complained they'd already expressed opinions about Wardo's innocence.

Another letter in today's Camera repeats the old canard that planning decisions in Boulderia have had "devastating" results. This view got a boost recently from an astounding Independence Institute study that found that if people living in a desirable location do things to increase the attractiveness of the place, property values go up! Free market types presumably approve of home repairs and improvements that enhance market value to an individual residence, but if citizens act in concert to make lifestyle improvements to their city, this is unfair competition with poor little subdivision developers by the "government."

The letter writer takes up this theme: "Here's my study: I was born and lived in Boulder from 1953 until the early '80s, when I needed a nicer and larger home. Unable to afford the inflated home prices at that time, I moved to Montana."

This letter writer conveniently forgets that the inflated home prices in Boulderia meant that he got a lot more for his old house than it would have been worth in Montana, thereby allowing him to buy a much "nicer and larger home" than Montanians of comparable income could afford.

Wasn't that unfair? Shouldn't he have donated the difference to charity?

Besides, why didn't he move to Colorado Springs, whose unrestrained development, cheaper home prices, and "mountain views, hiking trails and wildlife" are touted by the Independence Institute study as comparable to Boulderia?

Come to think of it, why hasn't the Independence Institute's own president, Jon Caldara, moved from his longtime home in Boulderia to Edenic C-Springs?

–Bozo

MAY 18, 2006

TODAY IN RELATIVELY RECENT BOULDERIAN HISTORY:

"I'm not relieved, because I didn't expect them to find anything. I'm not happy because I didn't want to go through this process. Vindication is probably the best word," Suspended University of Colorado football coach Gary Barnett was quoted this day in a 2004 Camera Obscura story after a panel investigating the University of Colorado's recruiting practices reported that some players had provided sex, drugs and alcohol to football recruits.

Also in 2004, Both the Boulder City Council and Boulder County Commissioners passed resolutions opposing a Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. "Not only yes, but 'hell yes' in this case," Commissioner Paul Danish said of the unanimous vote.

This day last year, Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ said that a 50-page response he filed with a research-misconduct committee "overwhelmingly rebutted" allegations of academic fraud. "These were frivolous charges from the get-go," he told the Camera.

Mondo Boulder has made a lot of jokes about "The Extra-Special Glacially Slow Investigating Committee" that's been weighing academic misconduct charges against Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™. Now that we've read the real committee's report, all 125 pages of it, fairness requires the statement that it's neither the stall or the whitewash one would expect if crafted by the CU administration itself. In fact, the report is both thorough and well-written, a must-read, a summer blockbuster for all Wardo fans. Conveniently appearing right after graduation, the report PDF will make entertaining poolside reading on wifi enabled laptops.

True, though the report concerns the conduct of the most notorious and financially successful ethnic impersonator since Al Jolson, it contains not a word about Wardo's counterfeit ethnicity. But that was outside the committee's charge. The CU administration can continue wearing that particular fragrant albatross around its own scrawny neck.

Mondo Boldo won't get into the details of the report; the papers have already printed the juicy bits and the lumpen punditry both right and left is even now starting to expel the additional millions of utterly predictable words they will generate on the subject of Wardo. The most surprising part of the report is probably just how few cards Wardo was holding at the showdown. After all those pugnacious statements to the press about crushing all charges with "slam dunk" defenses, in the report Wardo turns up with no aces in his hand.

Where a prudent person might have been tempted to affect a little contrition, to try some mitigation, to do a little damage control, Wardo expected to prevail simply by pleading the motives of his critics and with more of the same over-the-top bluff & bluster that have worked so well for him at left-wing camp meetings and faculty lounge spats. Well, at least he's consistent.

But even a clock that's stopped is right twice a day, and if you listen carefully you can detect a genuine grievance in Wardo's recent complaints to the press: If he hadn't quite by chance succeeded in being controversial beyond his wildest dreams, Wardo could have gone on unmolested to a distinguished retirement, citing himself under various pseudonyms, citing himself as ghostwriter for other actual persons, citing works that flatly contradict him, and taking other people's underutilized prose under his wing in order to work his own special magic with history. But Mom, everybody does it!

Who'd have complained? Not the editors of those little left wing presses, not his fellow ethnic studies professors and victims of white oppression, and certainly not the CU administrators who hired Wardo. Had it not been for the unexpected political firestorm, these selfsame administrators would not have been ultimately forced to refer to the investigating committee some of the same academic criticism of Wardo's work from outside CU they'd already brushed off. There's plenty of embarrassment to go around.

But as a celebrity specimen of what the committee charmingly calls a "public intellectual" (that's academese for "circus freak") Wardo doesn't need CU. The investigative report can only help pull in the crowds at those debates in which he plays Goliath to David Horowitz's David. It can only help his draw when preaching to the congregation. After that, there's always professional wrestling.

In the face of a devastating report, The Embattled Professor™ continues to hurl invective and threaten lawsuits. He's like an academic King Kong swatting at buzzing swarms of pesky critics: big, noisy, but ultimately pathetic.

–Peter Aretin

---------------------------------------

Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ is a registered trademark of Modest Geniuses, Ltd., and may not be vilified, abused, outspoken or gainsaid, nor worshipped with an uncritical, doglike devotion except by express permission of Modest Geniuses, Ltd.

MAY 2, 2006

Gettin' skinny: This year, there was no big dump to celebrate May Day at Lake Pandora, which closed on Easter Sunday. At least the recent cold nights firmed up the snowpack, making for pretty good corn instead of a big, bottomless isothermal snowcone. And despite a delicate skiff of new on the surface, no sticking! So who could complain? Some people take a kinky pleasure in skiing those skinny ribbons of white, even though some runs still show broad swaths of skiable snow.

I just signed a contract.

The provisions are simple: I give the other party $329 and the other party agrees to nothing at all. I can't get my money back under any circumstances, I can't transfer my right to nothing to anyone else, and the other party can cancel the contract whenever they wish.

You'd have to be crazy to sign a contract like that.

OK., it's not exactly for nothing. The other party agrees to let me ride their ski lifts whenever they choose to run them, unless they decide not to let me ride them; they make no promises whatsoever. Well, there is that 10% discount in the cafeteria as long as it doesn't exceed $3.50 at any one time.

But the part of the fine print in my season pass agreement that really qualifies me as certifiably insane is the part where I agree that the other party can insouciantly crush me under a snowcat or remove my head with an unfortunately placed cable, and they don't even have to say they're sorry, let alone pay for my funeral. Yes, I must agree to the ultimate sacrifice, even if the other party is actually negligent.

In order to use the particular piece of my public lands over which the other party has been given custody, I must agree to ASSUME ALL RISKS (not just the "inherent risks" of skiing), and that the other party can be as negligent as they want and I just have to suck it up in case of death or injury. Presumably, I have also implicitly agreed to hold the cafeteria blameless for any fatal attack of intestinal gas or outbreak of cholera.

This is the Mother of All Sweetheart Deals! It's not just a little tax break that our perennially fawning legislators have handed the rich, but a carte blanche with the lives and safety of their constituents and their children.

Let's hope our elected representatives don't get some notion to give the transportation, pharmaceutical, health care and fast food industries a similar pass on responsibility.

–Peter Aretin

APRIL 24, 2006

LAST YEAR IN BOULDERIA:

Today is St Mark's Eve. Nobody's certain why Hippolytus said Mark, sometimes known as John Mark, had stumpy fingers. Scholars think he might have meant that St Mark's fingers were just naturally stumpy, that Hippolytus might have really meant his toes and not his fingers, or he might have meant something else altogether. St Mark might have cut off his thumb to get out of the Jewish priesthood, or something else altogether. He might be a martyr.

St John Mark is the patron of Venice, lawyers and glaziers. He is invoked against sudden and unexpected death and by coaches whenever their team goes into overtime tied with their rival from across town. That's also why various folk customs involve sitting up on St Mark's Eve trying to spot the apparitions of those who will die during the coming year.

Last year Brandon Lee Preitauer celebrated St Mark's Eve by breaking a window to get into Bethany Baptist Church, 5495 Baseline Road, and defecating on a piano. He told police he was lost.

otherway event, n. the sort of event that, when any sane person spies it in the distance, he or she (or whatever) heads the other way, and which being somewhere other than at instills a feeling of wellbeing. ...

—The Unrestrained Dictionary of the Boulderian Language

Right-wing irritant David Horowitz and Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ are going on a road trip together for a mutual self-promotion tour of college campuses. The two will engage in a series of "debates" featuring each's utterly predictable canned rhetoric. Samples: "There is no consensus, there is no homogeneity, there is no truth," (Churchill), "The issue here isn't whether every student is brainwashed, it's whether it is appropriate." (Horowitz).

Call them "master-bates."

Not since Nixon henchman G. Gordon Liddy and acid guru Timothy Leary toured college campuses in the mid-80's "debating" each other has there been a stranger dog-and-pony show.

Horowitz, continuing his attempts to capitalize on Wardo's notoriety, is plugging a new book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. The title flatters both Wardo in particular and university professors in general and feeds Horowitz's own self-aggrandizing self-image as an academic Paul Revere. And Wardo, perhaps the most financially successful ethnic impersonator since Al Jolson, may feel his notoriety needs a boost as America grows increasingly bored with Ward. That notoriety has meant money in the bank for Wardo.

Each has told the press the debates were the other's idea.

A date for the pair's appearance at CU has not been announced. CU College Republicans Chair Ian VanBuskirk told the Colorado Daily, “I think it'll be a packed house. When he (Horowitz) was here last year, he drew a pretty big crowd, and Ward always draws a pretty big crowd.”

Well, that's half true. Newspaper accounts put the crowd at Wardo's dramatic, on-again, off-again talk at CU at 2,500, about the number of students who showed up at Farrand Field to smoke pot on 4/20. Wardo's talk was off after various Little Churchills reported death threats, back on again after they said, well, maybe not actually death threats, on second thought. A Horowitz talk around the same time drew 100. The kickoff debate of the current tour at George Washington University was viwed by a throng estimated at 200.

Mondo Boulder waits with debated breath the announcement of the CU date.

It will be the Otherway Event of the Year.

–Peter Aretin

_____________________________________________

Embattled Professor Ward Churchill™ is a registered trademark of Modest Geniuses, Ltd., and may not be vilified, abused, outspoken or gainsaid, nor worshipped with an uncritical, doglike devotion except by express permission of Modest Geniuses, Ltd.

APRIL 21, 2006

LAST YEAR IN BOULDERIA:

"I no longer trust the judgment of, or support, the people organizing the Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland, Colorado," wrote Trygve Bauge, in a letter to local media and area residents. Bauge, who cryogenically prepared and stored "Grandpa" on dry ice in a Nederland Tuff Shed after his death at age 89, lives in Norway today after being deported in 1994 for immigration violations. (from the Camera)

This seems to have had absolutely no effect on the festival, which went on this year as usual. We must stop this influx of illegals from Norway!