Daily Show Rips Apart Men

I usually love the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  It’s funny and sharp and does a good job or taking apart the stupidity of politics.  But the recent bit they ran on men’s groups that insulted MRA’s and Warren Farrell was just plain mean and spiteful.  In short it was incredibly sexist and I cannot believe that Jon Stewart aired it.

When women come together it is empowerment.  When men come together I guess we all just masterbate and make fun of women or something.  I guess men trying to fill those emotional needs that centuries of socializing have repressed is just something to make jokes about because all of men are just pussies.

The video just pisses me off.  Take a look at it and see how it makes you feel.

2010
02/09
CATEGORY
Feminsim
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Why are only women in Haiti getting the aid?

This article of mine will be published on 2/5/2010 in the NDSU Spectrum.  NDSU students pick up a copy to get this goodness and much more!

By now everyone knows that Haiti has suffered a major tragedy in the form of the earthquake that hit the island nation a few weeks ago.  It’s old news and I am sure that everyone has donated all their spare change and cash to help those who are suffering there.

What I do find interesting and of note is how the UN is distributing that aid.  The aid is going to women only; if you are a guy hopefully you have a wife or a girlfriend or a mom or you are out of luck.

The reasoning behind this is that women know best and will be able to distribute the food more fairly, then the men who would apparently fight over it and squander it.

I thought we had moved past these kinds of sexual politics, but it seems instead of equalizing out, the pendulum is swinging the opposite direction it was forty years ago.

Could any international organization get away with stereotyping women as too stupid and ineffectual to get aid relief and to give the aid to the men because they know better how to distribute the supplies to the community?  Not in today’s world, but I guess sexism in the opposite direction is the goal of United Nations, our last best hope for peace.

I am very glad that the culture towards women is changing, and I realize that there is still work to be done.  But do we have to push our men under a bus in order to raise our awareness of how women are treated?

I am not saying that the women should not be allowed food or that they cannot distribute the food any less equitably then men.  I am saying it is unfair and misandric to say that men as a group are undesirable for giving aid to because they are somehow more evil and selfish than women.

And what about the men who don’t have wives, or sisters, or mothers, or female friends?  What do they eat and drink when the UN service member denies them food and water because they have a phallus?

The UN does great humanitarian and peace work in the world.  But if they continue to be misandric and bash men, they won’t be effective in their mission.

2010
02/03
CATEGORY
Feminsim
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NDSU Dining Centers should be open on the weekends

This article will be published in the NDSU Spectrum on 2/5/2010.  Pick up a copy if you are an NDSU student.

For the most part the dining centers are doing a great job.  The staff are friendly and helpful, the food warm and delicious, and the choices have been getting more and more diverse since my days as a freshman here at NDSU.

But one thing that I miss from freshman year is the ability to go to any of the three dining centers on the weekends.  If I was in the ECE labs doing homework or the library I could bop over to the Union Dining Center for supper instead of trudging across campus to the Residence Dining Center.

It makes a lot of sense to have all three of the dining centers open on the weekends instead of just having the Residence Dining Center open.

The first is we are paying a lot for our meal plans, and the cost increase of our meal plans has been outpacing inflation for years.  So we are paying more money for a third of the service we had a couple of years ago.

We also have a huge student population compared to my freshman year.  And until now with the construction we have not added any extra dining space for these students.

So Dining Services is raking in more money, a lot more money now that we have moved to continuous dining since even people who don’t eat three square meals a day but want a meal plan have to pay full price.  Where is all this money going and why is not used to make the Dining Centers more convenient for on campus students?

Take the ladies of Dinan and Burgum for example.  These halls have a mostly freshman population who must have meal plans, and they live on the ass end of campus from the RDC.  And yes they have shuttles that will take you to the dining centers, but it still makes living in these residence halls a pain on the weekends.

And has anybody noticed that even with the promises of Dining Services that continuous dining will alleviate congestion at the dining centers that on the weekends its sometimes standing room only at the RDC?  Even the UDC has congestion problems during the week when all three of the centers are open.

And one of the greatest benefits of the dining centers was the ability to have three menu options with the UDC having its vegetarian option.  We lose that on the weekends with having only the RDC open.

2010
02/03
CATEGORY
The Spectrum
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I am growing a moustache for Movember!

Until recently, I did not know about Movember, but that now I do, I am really excited about this event.  Movember is the new name for November, where us men grow out our fugly moustaches to garner awareness, support, and help fund research into the cancers that men face like prostate cancer.  So I am growing my moutache and hoping you will donate to this worthwhile cause.  The money donated will be processed by the Movember Foundation and will be split between the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund:
•    the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40.
•    research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.

To date, Movember has raised $47 million globally making it the world’s largest charity event for men. Significantly, awareness of men’s health issues has improved with Movember helping to spread important health messages directly to millions of Mo Bros & Sistas around the world.

So please join me in helping and supporting this great cause.  I am always arguing for men’s health and this seems like a great way to increase awareness in a positive way instead of the more cynical way I normally do about opining on the subject.  The link for my donation page can be found here: http://us.movember.com/mospace/495677.  Thanks for your support!

2009
11/20
CATEGORY
Random
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Spectrum Article 10/23/2009

Here is my last opinion article for the Spectrum:

I remember meeting Joe Chapman several times during my years at NDSU.  I met him at his old house when I was debating whether or not to attend NDSU and several times when I was a member of student organizations.

He always seemed to be interested in me and the other students and genuinely cared about our successes and difficulties.  He did some great things for NDSU and I will always remember the positive contributions he made to this university.

That said, I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend that he didn’t screw up when it came to handling his expenditures and discretionary fund money.

I also will not go and vilify the local media because they were the bearer of the bad news and did a good job of investigating just what was going on with the President’s house and Chapman’s discretionary spending.

Edifying Chapman by remembering only the good and ignoring everything bad or ominous serves no purpose except to set him up as a one-dimensional character and that does a disservice to both Chapman and NDSU.

FDR and Abraham Lincoln are some of my heroes but I don’t remember them as the mythic demigods that history books make them out to be.

I learn about and remember them as they were, warts and all, and the more I learn the more I respect what these men have done and accomplished and struggled through.

The same is true for me with Chapman.  His successes and failures and screw-ups make him more human, and more relatable than any myth of the amazing super president who was brought down by the evil and malicious media.

The media did a good job of objective reporting.  They tried to get Chapman’s side of the story, but he was unwilling to give an explanation when given the chance.

So they then went to NDSU’s Media Relations Director to get the other side of the story, and the NDSU Development Foundation as well.

In the end it was not the media that brought down Chapman, but truth and Chapman’s actions.

Whenever the media reports on the foibles of someone you don’t like, everyone is happy that the media covers those mistakes.  But if the media reports on the mistakes of a popular public figure everyone acts as if the media is this evil group bent on destroying peoples’ lives.

The media exists to keep people honest and that is what the local media has done in the case of Joseph Chapman, trying to keep him honest about what is going on.

In my mind its always better to know the truth than live a lie, and the local media has done a good job and a fair job of shining a light on what the President and the administration of NDSU has been doing over the last few years.

2009
10/23
CATEGORY
The Spectrum
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Anal Newspaper Checker a D-Bag

So I work for the NDSU Spectrum the student paper at North Dakota State University.  Recently we have been attacked by someone calling themselves Copy Editor in the comments section of the online version of the paper.

He is the self-styled savior of the paper because we are supposedly an incredibly poorly run paper that has so many grammatical and style errors that no one takes our newspaper seriously or even reads it anymore.

He goes from serious to flippant, saying that he was amazed we have advertisements considering the supposedly horrible quality and poor readership the paper has.

He likes to point out what he thinks are our copy mistakes, not bothering to mention what we did wrong and why it is wrong.  I personally could quote any person’s blog or online paper and make people believe as a result that the quality of the journalism is piss poor.

Yes we do have errors, but in a newspaper with about thirty articles per issue, and each article containing five hundred or more words, it is remarkable how few errors we let creep into all of that.  And we do this while still having real jobs and going to school full-time as students.

I personally am amazed at the job our writers, editors, copy editors, and editor in chief do a the Spectrum.  They put in countless hours more than they are required to and are paid for they get paid for each and every day to make the paper the best they possibly can.

Copy Editor is most likely an ex employee of the Spectrum who probably has adequacy issues, and is using his anonymity and the power it allows to fulfill his wet dreams.

2009
10/23
CATEGORY
The Spectrum
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Free Speech Literature Racks, NDSU’s First Step Towards a Free Speech Gazebo?

Restricting expression on college campuses to certain pre-approved areas is the new tool in administrator’s box of tricks in order to censor students, faculty and staff.  Texas Tech had their famous free speech gazebo which was the only place on campus where students could protest and hand out literature freely without facing punishment for actively using their first ammendment rights.  Other areas on campus needed written permission six days in advance in order to speak or distribute literature or protest, which could be denied if the university disapproved of the views being expressed, a form of prior restraint on speech.

NDSU doesn’t even offer its students a gazebo.  All of campus requires pre-approved written permission twenty-fours in advance from the administrators and campus police in order to have any kind of structure rally, protest, or demonstration on NDSU’s public campus.  If NDSU does not approve of the message, then you can be denied your right to free expression and free speech.

And now NDSU is segregating the availability of literature on campus as well.  Free Speech Literature Racks have sprung up on campus, being the only viable option for placing non-flyer literature on campus without it being destroyed and the student involved facing punishment.  One tiny rack in only some of the buildings on NDSU, while official publications like the student paper get at least one rack per building and some buildings have a half-dozen or more.

The state of free speech at NDSU continues to decline people.  Do something about it! Protest, demonstrate, rally, let the administrators know that you will not sit back and let them silence you, one speech code, one student handbook rule at a time.

2009
09/20
CATEGORY
Free Speech
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Megan Fox and Her Man-Bashing Movie

Sleep deprivation is not conducive to blogging and writing in general.  I’ve been working on an English paper, a sci-fi novel, and now this blog post since 11:30 last night, so its crazy that I have been sitting and typing for fourteen hours straight, but I’m not inclined to go to bed now and I ain’t got anything better to do right now.  So here goes:

Megan Fox of Transformers fame has a new movie coming out.  It’s called Jennifers Body, and its about two girls.  One’s the hot prom queen type, and the other is the nerdy type.  You know the highschool stereotypes in movies.  However Megan’s character is supposedly pure evil, puts cigarettes out on her tongue and kills boys for fun.  Not that she does not kill people, she goes and kills boys because they’re just boys.

And that’s  big telling of the way the media and our culture views the male gender.  Its funny and cool to brutally murder and kill men on the big screen.  The only reason one of the boy’s in the movie is valued is that she is the bookish girl’s brother and therefore he’s a special boy, and therefore unlike other boys deserves the special treatment and consideration that he isn’t just a boy and it isn’t cool to kill him.

Pretty crappy, and another indictment to the man hater that is Megan Fox, who doesn’t like men and thinks that girls that have dated men are icky and therefore can’t date her even though she says she identifies as bisexual.  Yup, man-hating is deeply ingrained and cooll now in today;s culture.  Sick and sad.

2009
07/30
CATEGORY
Feminsim
Politics
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NDSU Bias Reporting System, Again

After looking at the NDSU bias reporting system 2007-2008 schoolyear report, which can be found here, I had more questions than answers about just exactly what the bias reporting systm is supposed to be for and do here for us NDSU students.  The report was not very high quality and didn’t do much to explain what goes on at the bias reporting agency.  It just listed the crimes and identity group of the ‘victim’s and ‘perpetrators’ and vaguely mentioned that 26 out of the 31 complaints were acted upon.  It didn’t mention what the punishments were for the specific crimes, how the discipline was handled, or any other necessary facts to get a clear picture of what these people are doing with their anoymous reporting system.

Many of the categories of bias listed on the report, like flyers or exclusion looked to me like an excuse to chill and punish speech the adminstrators didn’t like, but was still perfectly legal and protected speech here on campus.  The exclusion category just struck me as ridiculous and incredibly vague, since it seems to allow a student you don’t like reporting you for exlcusion for simple things like not wanting that person at your birthday party or other similar innocuous ‘crimes.’

I sent two emails to the NDSU Bias people, asking them simple questions like, what kinds of punishments have the students faced for their ‘bias,’ and what forms of due process are there for those charged with something due to the bias report.  I also asked how the Bias Reporting agency was protecting our free speech rights.  Neither of the two emails were responded to.  Since they don’t want to talk about what they are doing behind the scenes in between the big lines left by the admittedly poorly written up report, one has to assume that they know that they are probably stepping on our free speech rights. Disciplinary hearign for ‘harassment’ or ‘bias’ are notoriously illiberal and unfair proceedings where the student charged has to do the work to prove his innocence.  I seriously doubt the students brought to a hearing for their bias were given a fair hearing or any semblance of due process.

And we probably won’t be able to find out if the system is fair.  The anyonimity that protects the reporter is probably used against the one charged against, because any transparency in this system is argued to hurt the people reporting.  That of course is just a bad rationalization but it is used all the time today and is starting to enter the courtroom with shield laws that protect the identity of those bringing criminal charges against someone. All in all, this bias reporting system strikes me as a horrible idea.  No one really knows what is going on, since the little bit of transparency we do see is very vague and cannot tell us what is really going on with this system.

NDSU should take a good look at its Bias Reporting system and do what Cal Poly did with theirs, realize that it is illiberal and violates the free speech rights of its students faculty and staff.  Then they shoudl get rid of it.  FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights on Campus has reported on Cal Poly and other public university bias reporting systems and how unfair and detrimental they are.  You should go over to their site and take a look for more information.

2009
07/21
CATEGORY
Free Speech
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Comments

I realize that my job is to post regularly in order to have posts in order to comment on, but its just weird that I have 4400 views with only 60 or so comments on my post.  So here are the comment rules in case people think that I am not receptive to comments.  There are no hoops to jump through for the comments section.  Post your comment no matter how harsh you feel for or against my words and it will remain there.  I am very receptive to comments and would like more comments to that which I write, and when comments start coming to what otehr comment.  This facilitates discussion on this blog and enriches the experiences of everyone who visits this site.

So please comment on my posts and make this weblog even better!

Thanks,
Nathan Hansen

2009
07/16
CATEGORY
Free Speech
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