A number of people have contacted me personally
already about my e-mail on the UNDERCURRENT and
my disappointment over the front page's mocking
OU progressive protest efforts as irrelevant.
I've received responses which were pretty much
supportive to responses which agreed with me
somewhat but disliked the intense dismay I'd
expressed over the current situation -- but
what most of them wanted was to know my
suggestions on what we should do about this.

sigh.  All right.  For those who have asked my
advice, for those who have agreed but regretted
my intensity, and even for those who wondered
why I would even give a damn about the
UNDERCURRENT anymore :

.....1) I've had people privately agreeing with
my concern but no one speaking up publically.
We need to avoid elephant-ignored-in-the-living-
room syndrome here.
.....2) With everyone with whom I've spoken,
there are rumors and different recollections,
but I have yet to find anyone who knows and
reveals exactly what is going on with the
UNDERCURRENT these days.  The SSEC office looks
like it's been turned into someone's dorm room
for an UNDERCURRENT editor, with little evidence
of the SSEC left in the office we'd offered to
share with the paper, but I've no idea whose
personal effects are in there.  There is a
similar mystery due to the plethora of
pseudonyms used in each issue.  This leads in
to another issue:
.....3) There seems to be a lack of trust of
the editorial staff at this point.  I've spoken
with several progressives who write well,
and not one of them feels comfortable with
submitting anything to the UNDERCURRENT in
part because of the confusing mystery and the
pseudonyms -- and after reading the recent
front page, no one seems certain that his or
her sincere submissions won't become further
fodder for the anonymous "Max Factor".  I hear
complaints that their submissions have been
ignored due to political games from editor
favoritism, and though I do not know the degree
to which such complaints may be true or false,
I know they are repeated by a lot of people.
All of this can be addressed only with an end
to the mystery and the pseudonymous anonymity
-- but most importantly, this can best be
addressed with evidence of the good faith and
trustworthiness of the editors of this paper.
"Max Factor"'s front page article was not
good evidence of this, unfortunately.

I guess what we need is talk and respect.
I have all but given up on hope of that,
especially after reading that front page
article, but the responses I've received have
convinced me that it may still not be too
late for talk and that the front page
article may be an abberant lapse in respect.
I leave the proving of this in the hands of
the editors of the UNDERCURRENT.  Is it too
late?

For years, I'd enjoyed reading the UNDERCURRENT.
I have been attending OU since the UNDERCURRENT
began.  I remember such marvelous works as the
twin articles, "Jesus Awareness Week Offends
Non-Christians" and "Jesus Awareness Week
Offends Christians", articles which were still
being talked about two years later.  I recall
the rumor that the FOUNTAINHEAD was named in
part because a fountainhead is a near-opposite
of an undercurrent.  The UNDERCURRENT was so
open-minded a newspaper that it even printed
a series of articles by a politically-incorrect
conservative.

Meanwhile, the FOUNTAINHEAD has intensified
its agenda of mockery, anti-progressive spiels,
and snide attempts at humor, exploiting the
events of 11 September to make the campus even
nastier for progressives, minorities, and
any and all voices of dissent.

In such a time as this, it really bothers me
to witness this sort of thing going on with the
newspaper which had been the voice and venue of
the campus progressives.

I hope this helps.

[please forward, including to the OUrEarth and SWSS
listservs, both of which I can't reach right now
for some reason]

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