<=============================> < > < ANTI-PRESS EZINE #29 > < > <=============================> "We're Positive About The Negative" A December E-dition (C) Copyright 2001 Anti-Press All Rights Reserved ============================================================= * Vagina Vexes Votemeister * Vagina. Va/gi/na. VAGINA! Vaaaaa-giiiii-naaaaa. Say it, syllabify it, shout it, and even stretch it: vagina is just a word, not an unspeakable obscenity. But don't tell that to the Mayor of Plattsburgh. In the past groups have been allowed to hang a city-sponsored banner over one of the main drags into town to promote special events. There's never been a problem with any of the messages -- until now, thanks to the dreaded "V" word. The Mayor has shot down a plans for a banner promoting the play, "The Vagina Monologues". The play is being co-produced by Plattsburgh University's theater and Woman's Studies departments. The work is intended to end the silence that allows the abuse and exploitation of women. The Mayor says he supports women's rights -- so he wants to silence the banner for the play. Apparently he supports anyone's rights up to the point where it might cost him votes and good standing in his party (the Republican party, of course). He does leave some wiggle room for the play's promoters, saying that people can put up banners on private property. Obviously he isn't a representative of all of the people -- but what politician is? This reminds us of a local activist whose antics used to make the news back in the early 1990s. We'll call him Mr. Act-Up, an appropriate name considering that he belonged to a group promoting AIDS awareness and gay rights. One time Mr. Act-Up was peeved with Ross Perot, the man behind the Reform Party. Perot had stated that if he was elected president, he wouldn't hire a homosexual to a major cabinet post. Upset with that slam against gay rights, Mr. Act-Up went to a county building where campaign volunteers for the Reform Party were going to hold a meeting. He planted a bunch of handmade signs around the building, on property owned by the county, with messages ragging on Perot. The signs were removed before the meeting. Obviously Mr. Act-Up should've done his protest via signage on private property. Another time Mr. Act-Up helped with a condom giveaway. This incident involved activists dressed up as life-size condoms. We assume this event took place at night when the bars were busy with college students. But what if it had took place during the day, right there on main street? My Gawd, kids could see dem dere rubbers! Jeezum Crow, that's worse than a sign for "The Vaginer Mono-logs"! Yup, Mr. Act-Up was quite the activist. He didn't pussyfoot around. He didn't let the status quo stop him from speaking out on such "unspeakable" topics as homosexuality, gay rights, and AIDS. So what ever happened to Mr. Act-Up? Simple. He's now the Mayor of Plattsburgh. * Channel One - 1; Students - 0 * The revolution is dead. Not murdered by the Establishment. The killer's name: student apathy. Recently a student at a Plattsburgh Catholic high school was trying to stir up some controversy in regards to Channel One, a TeeVee "news service" being carried at his school. "Clifton" (to use his pseudonym) saw Channel One for the scam it is: a clever way of getting students to sit through advertising while in school. After all, it's the dream of every advertiser to have a captive audience. Clifton was organizing his resistance into cells, groups of three, so that only one person in each group was aware of a member in another cell. (Yes, terrorists use cells to carry on their secret plans; so do "patriots" and "freedom fighters".) With such a structure he hoped more students would participate since it would be harder for the school administration at Pope George-Ringo Academy to detect and round up all the subversives. Besides postering school walls, Clifton also set up a Web-site to discuss the Channel One scam. What follows are excerpts from his manifesto. - - - The name channel one news is an oxymoron; the program is anything but an informative program aimed at discussing current events with students. The "news" network is owned by the primedia corporation. In exchange for a satellite which can only receive Channel One's signal, a television/vcr for every classroom, and X dollars, they are given the undivided attention of most students in the school. Ironically enough, we aren't allowed to do homework in homeroom because it isn't productive and a responsible student does it at home. I guess that losing 12 minutes of my life every school day when i watch that news program IS productive. The sole purpose of our organization is to free all students of our school from the bondage that is channel one. We will achieve this objective AT ALL COSTS... A note to the administration who may be reading this: We do not care if this is the only way that we can afford video equipment, we do not care if it helps pay the bills. We will not be sold to Primedia. We are not your slaves, your property, your whores. This is a Catholic school, and while I may not agree with or believe in the religion, your use of channel one is a direct contradiction to Catholicism; you are hypocrites. There have been times when the commercials aired involved movies with sexual or drug related jokes; by allowing these commercials to be shown to us you must support these advertisements. How can you justify this? You cannot. - - - OK, Clifton doesn't score points for proofreading but at least what he writes is heartfelt. Initially there was some support from his fellow students but then it died out; the others didn't give a shit anymore. Maybe they were distracted by school dances, athletic events, the bread and circuses used by school administrations to divert and control youthful anger. Or maybe Channel One used subliminal TeeVee-hypnosis to dissipate the revolution, making sure that the next generation of adult potatoes will stay flopped on their couches, half-asleep from their compliant consumption. * Politicos Bloviate Spider Goats * This could've been a kick-ass essay. But we screwed up. Somewhere in this maelstrom of material, the piles of information that clutter up the Precision Reality Center, hides a news article about politicians blowing hot air for the spider goats. OK, the article was first published in June but we like to think about a topic before we rip into it. And there was a lot of ripping to be done from what we remember. But we can't find that damn story, even though we have two or three hardcopies of it somewhere in this semi-organized mess. We don't have Web access at home, only email, and so we can't print out another copy of the story from the Plattsburgh (news)Paper's site. Normally the city library would be open today: we could've gone in, sat at a public access computer, and got another copy of the article. But, hey, it's the holidays, so guess what place is closed for a couple of days? And guess who wants to get this e-dition out now? Irritated but determined, we just spent more than a hour digging through the heaps, trying to find the source material needed for this essay. We're pilers, not filers. The curse of being an information pack rat. We could pass up on something or throw it out and then kick ourselves later because we realize that we need that bit of info. Trouble is, our accumulation of bits has reached critical mass: we can't find half of what we've collected in this fugging dump. Maybe we can write without that article, relying on our memory. The story was a humdinger. Trust us, the politicians were really bloviating about the spider goats, the experiment to produce "bio-steel", a new material as relatively lightweight as spider silk but as strong as steel. You see some mad scientists have taken some genetic material from a spider, slipped it into the goat-breeding process, and hope that the resultant goats will produce mutated milk that will be the basis of bio-steel production. One pol declared the spider goats in Plattsburgh were as historic as the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. He was creating history that hasn't happened. Somehow he was comparing an actual revolutionary event with a possible future one. If the bio-steel experiment flops, then history ain't made, the comparison ain't valid. Then again, who will remember that pol's words years from now, besides us here at the Precision Reality Center? So far all the goats have done is breed and produce more goats. There has to be a certain number of goats producing milk before bio-steel can be made. And since the theoretical material hasn't been produced, a comparison can't be made with the Wright Brothers who did achieve something: the invention of the first practical airplane. And if you want to make comparisons, think of how airplanes have changed the world for good and bad. Flight has shrunken the world, making it easier to travel to other lands -- and drop bombs. How will bio-steel revolutionize weaponry? And maybe there will be unforeseen side-effects from spider goat experimentation. If you want to talk about historical events, why not the Black Death, the plague that ravaged Europe and Asia in the 14th century? Playing around with DNA -- who knows what might be created? Nature on its own creates enough nasty surprises with bacteria and viruses. It's all a genetic crap shoot. Instead of bio-steel, maybe the only thing that will come out of this is a plot for a Godzilla movie. Throw in some bovine growth hormone with spider genes and radiation and look out! -- it's the gigantic destroyer, Spigo -- part spider, part goat, all monster! Actually, since goats are known to eat almost anything, we hope one of those mutated babies escapes and ends up here at the Precision Reality Center. It can chew down on all this crap we've accumulated, consume it all, choke to death on it, and then we can start fresh with an empty slate. But since we're pragmatic, we'll do more than hope for that long shot. We're going to buy some garbage bags. * Wearing A Turban? Turn Around! * Think twice before you visit Plattsburgh, especially if your attire in any way is suggestive of what the locals perceive as terrorist togs. October 30, 2001. A day that will live in insanity. Two men from Montreal park their tractor-trailer on Main Street. The truck has New Jersey license plates; "U.S. Mail" is marked on its sides. The travelers are lost and ask for directions. OK, lots of people get lost in downtown Plattsburgh, thanks to its insufferable surfeit of one-way streets. But these men looked like they hail from the Mid-East. A b/w (news)Paper photo shows one of them wearing a long beard. Atop his head is a turban, described in the news article as blue in color. Beard. Turban. A local resident gets nervous. He calls the police when the men leave the truck unattended. The city cops respond. So do the Drug Task Force, the U.S. Border Patrol, and U.S. Postal Service. Can you say "en masse response", boys and girls? Too bad the FBI, CIA, and U.N.C.L.E. weren't available to join in. The truck is taken out to the old Air Force Base where it is cautiously opened and inspected on the flight line. Of course, such a precaution would've been useless if an atomic device was on board. The police thoroughly inspect the truck and are surprised to find... (hold your breath) ... mail, just mail, that was on its way to New York City until Plattsburgh rolled out its red carpet. Yup, comedy ensues when you combine provincialism with paranoia. This area is as white as a loaf of Wonder Bread (and sometimes demonstrates as much intelligence). But now and then people who look different do visit. One time I saw a quiet, unassuming woman wearing a sari, apparently a visitor from India. Her forehead was adorned with a red spot, a mark symbolizing her Hindu faith. It's a good thing she hasn't visited here after 9/11. One look at her non-denim clothing, her red-spotted forehead, and a local yokel would've started a terrorist-smallpox scare. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTICE: Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Articles submitted by others do not necessarily express or reflect the opinions or beliefs of Anti-Press. WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center. We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern New York State (NENYland), USA. (For your own good: STAY THE FUG AWAY! Or hide your turban under a ten-gallon cowboy hat, pardner.) EMAIL: Antipress1@aol.com. No payment for contributions. (We don't get paid, so why should you?) **Maximum Length: 500 words.** Plain text format. Anti-Press Ezine and its sporadically published issues are available at: http://www.disobey.com/text/ Copyright 1998-2001 Anti-Press Publication by Disobey. http://www.disobey.com/ TO SUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Subscribe APE TO UNSUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Unsubscribe APE ------------------------------------------------------------------------