A.S. Takes Stance Against Reading
“Funding is a dish best served … ON ICE!” quips A.S. President Utsav Gupta to VP Finance Peter Benesch, neither of whom will look this awesome ever again. - photo by Hannah Weil
Kristin Muench
Craft tables, toilet seats and recycling bins were noticeably emptier this week following a funding freeze imposed on 33 campus media organizations by the UCSD Associated Students Council. Inspired by “that bit of unpleasantness back in February,” as one student described it, A.S. President Utsav Gupta has ordered an immediate hold on all unapportioned media funds. The freeze, which A.S. called “temporary” three weeks ago, provides student representatives with an opportunity to restructure the media funding policy. This stated purpose, however, is secondary to a larger objective — namely, the abolishment of the written word on the UCSD campus.
Readers should note that this newspaper should be incinerated after reading, or preferably, before.
“We’re literally going to be the first university in history to function without words,” said Cyrus Wisenbourn, who asked to remain anonymous. “Soon, everyone will realize how shockingly unnecessary written communication is. We are ushering in Education 2.0.”
A.S. Vice President Leif Jorgensen explained, “Allowing students to focus on other modes of communication — speech and guttural mumbling, for example — will make them more receptive to instructions given via loudspeaker prior to the World Takeover in 2011.”
“Whoops, did I say that?” Jorgensen added. “I meant the student center expansion next year. Yeah. We really want our student constituents to be … supportive … of this initiative.”
Jorgensen further claimed to represent popular opinion when he criticized media organizations for being a “masturbatory waste of both ink and paper on malapropism-laden articles that only five people will read.”
Other A.S. senators agreed that the first step toward removing campus literacy is to excise those organizations that “exacerbate the presence of words on this campus,” but they have been fiercely opposed by media orgs seeking to protect their free speech.
“Protecting the first amendment means protecting every viewpoint, no matter how offensive or unseemly,” said Rick Margolis, a graduate student in the Anthropology department. “I mean, remember when the Fashion Quarterly published an article implying that orange was the new burgundy? I was so upset that I vomited for three days straight, but you didn’t see me getting up in arms about it.”
Media writers, used to expressing themselves through print instead of through laborious face-to-face interactions with other human beings, have found the funding freeze particularly crippling.
Some media orgs have resisted the funding shortfall by becoming online-content only. “It means we have to generate a lot less content, so what we put out — or rather, tweet — is higher quality,” said student journalist Vrajesh Pratik in 84 characters, who gallantly missed an exam and two classes last Thursday in order to conduct a peaceful protest from his bed until 2 p.m. in the afternoon.
Members of the MQ, desperate for recognition, have been seen hastily scribbling top tens on the backs of used napkins salvaged from Price Center dumpsters. Eyewitness reports claim that one pale, unshaven satirist was seen waving one such token and gasping, “Please … please, won’t you laugh at my editorial?” before collapsing onto a table of shrieking sorority girls.
He was asked to put on pants, and was promptly escorted from the premises.
Until the funding freeze is resolved, media organizations must supply publishing costs with money either found under old sofa cushions or begged from UCLA. Such a path would empty most newspapers’ coffers by 2012.
When asked about the issue, Gupta responded, “That’s ludicrous. I am not perpetuating a war on all letters! Just the Latin alphabet.