Freakin disguisting! This isn't funny and it promotes a terrible message! I'm glad to hear about the protests though, that's about all that's "magical" about the situation.

Only if the incident involves a 6'5" buff man in motorcycle leathers impaling John Petroski with a large, veiny cock against Petroski's consent is rape indeed a beautiful thing.

It's interesting to see them apologize and wait for it to blow over rather than taking responsibility in a permanent fashion. I'm still in college so I can see the problem with a student run paper or organization expected to police itself. It's too easy to look at the big world and see how the so-called adults get away with so much bullshit and then insist we don't have to hold ourselves to a higher standard if they don't (also one of the reasons I no longer work at my college paper).

Anyway, unless ads get yanked in protest, this wouldn't make a dent on the average college journalist ego except to puff it up by being noticed.

Hmmm...so if rape is the only way an ugly woman can get some, can we also say that rape is the only way an ugly man can ever have intercourse?

...

...okay, maybe it's because I'm a guy, but I found it kinda funny.

Only because I could not believe the ignorance of someone who would write the article in seriousness (and I knew it was serious based on the tone of your own article, Jessica). I dunno; I have this thing where I point and laugh at willfully ignorant people.

Yeah... I laughed. It depends on the person and the audience. Satire (even bad satire) can serve to bring awful things to light. A sense of humor is important in dealing with a fucked-up world. If South Park has taught me anything, it's that the Holocaust and AIDs can be funny, and don't get me started on Sarah Silverman. Even if you consider this a failed and tasteless attempt at satire, I think it's fair to grant people some slack for trying, so long as it can be agreed they weren't trying to be serious. Otherwise you'll inadvertently stifle good satire.

This guy is an embarassment to journalism. And to men. And to his college.

I read his pro-life article- apparently he slept with some woman that had the audacity to have an abortion without his express permission!

Men do so have a choice. They have the choice to abstain from sex, have safe(r) sex, and accept the consequences... could you imagine trying to co-parent with this creep?

About the 'magical rape' article being a satire- PISS OFF! Satires are supposed to be funny.

Good satire won't be stifled. That's part of the nature of good satire. And this ain't it. Even an amateur can read this and tell it's not really satire. It's not even really borderline satire.

This kid needs to either get better at satire or stick to shoddy feature stories.

I could almost see this as satire. It falls almost into the Swiftian range, baking up babies, etc.

But with looking aback at is earlier work...this guy clearly has troubles and they are coming out in his work on the paper. Wow, he seems really angry, and eager to be offensive. And in the campus environment, where I have seen an increased threat to women, it is utterly irresponsible to write up and print this tripe.

You know what amazes me? In the same issue of the school newspaper, Petroski writes an incredibly racist piece against affirmative action (using the classicly screwed up argument that "real equality" means ignoring social injustice and leaving everyone to fend for themselves).

While I don't believe the paper should censor him, it only hurts their reputation to have such a small-minded lad dominating their newspaper with ignorant and hateful messages. Couldn't they find anyone better to write for them? Perhaps someone with something original and meaningful to contribute to the conversation?

I don't expect everyone in the world to agree with my politics, and some of the most interesting conversations I've had in my life have been with open-minded people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. But they were intelligent, and they had REAL arguments for why they felt the way they did, and they didn't just spread ignorance and hate. Those are the kind of discussions we need in our political sphere right now.

I remember hearing these types of Petroski-esque "arguments" and encountering so-called satirical hate pieces when I was in high school. You know, before people had fully developed their ability to educate themselves and use their critical thinking. Unfortunately, some people just never move beyond that realm of base-level thinking. Congrats Petroski, you smug bastard!

Just a minor note, Jessica: I noticed the current link to the paper goes to "currentissue.pdf" and it looks like they update their paper on Wednesdays, so when the new archive link comes up, you might want to make sure to change it to the right issue.

While I don't believe the paper should censor him, it only hurts their reputation to have such a small-minded lad dominating their newspaper with ignorant and hateful messages. Couldn't they find anyone better to write for them?

I can't speak for their paper, but I was an editor for three years at my college's paper, and in my experience, it was always really hard to get students to write ANY articles. One of our regular submitters was really conservative, and he liked to write about sports, so he either wrote horrible political articles or sports articles. People would complain because we published so many of his opinions (we did cut a lot though), but honestly, sometimes some of his stuff was published just to fill up space. The students at my college were way more willing to write in Letters to the Editor with their opposing opinions than they were to actually write an article stating their opinion.

I am in NO WAY defending the actions of this editor. If I saw an article like this on my desktop for editing, I would have strongly recommended it to be cut. It's not worth publishing, "satire" or not. I am merely commenting on the student apathy on my campus (and in their paper, I saw they were advertising for more student writers, so I'm speculating that they have a similar problem).

As others have pointed out, it's only satire if it's funny. Though I admit I have NO sense of humour when it comes to rape.

I also agree that satire can be a great educational tool.

But when a "satirical" article is written glorifying rape, by a man, in a society where rape really isn't taken seriously at all? Excuse me while I vomit

Wait, can somebody explain this to me? Feminist bloggers publicly chastised for saying something misinterpreted as anti-Catholic on their own damned time, and this guy gets...what? A reluctant 'Sorry, but like, you just don't get the joke!'

*Sigh* I think people are confused about what is and isn't satire these days. Satire only works if one is clearly mocking the imagined author. It doesn't work if one is simply abusing the people that imagined author would also be abusing, only in a more outrageous fashion.

At any rate, I say we make like the bad guys and throw spam at him ;)

It seems to be the fashionable thing these days to say outrageously offensive stuff and get away with it by calling it "satire." I'm kind of surprised Michael Richards didn't try that.

Presumably the editor of this paper would also think that the blackface "gangsta" parties are okay because they're "satirical," too.

Disgusting.

Cheers,

TH

Now that this guy's reputation as a grade-A asshole has been exposed I rescind my comment.

Thanks, sunspots, for the excellent definition of satire. I knew that this piece wasn't truly satirical, but I couldn't put into words exactly why not, other than that it just wasn't funny enough, which is a pretty subjective measure.

the fact that in his apologies he basically says "the protests only prove my point" make me not only throw up in my mouth a little, but also: just really sad because this privileged little punk will NEVER understand how ignorant and obnoxious he is.
and to say "ugly" girls (and i just know this guy has a really narrow view of who isn't ugly) only "get" to experience "intercourse" through RAPE should be punishable by death.
or at least for no one, ugly or otherwise, to have sex with this dude again for the rest of his ugly life.

"It’s not right that we live in a society where a father can be willing to give up his social life to give his child a chance to live, but a mother can overrule his opinion and decide that her carefree nights of binge drinking take precedence to another human’s life."

Yeah. Because not wanting to give up binge drinking is the reason most women "waltz" into an abortion clinic. The man is unforgivable, both for being a shitty satirist, and because of his previous journalistic misogyny. Grrr.

The only "funny" thing is the unfortunate placement of a picture of a horse next to the article.

on a happier note...

the paper gave Petroski the boot.

Without question, The Recorder was right to remove Petroski from his position as opinion editor. At the very least, it is an editor's responsibility to recognize vacuous and deliberately offensive material and prevent it from going to press. By producing this garbage himself, Petroski displayed not only his insensitivity and warped sense of humor, but also a profound inability to properly function as editor. There is no doubt that the paper will be better served with a more conscientious individual regulating the content of its opinion pages in the future.

"It’s not right that we live in a society where a father can be willing to give up his social life to give his child a chance to live, but a mother can overrule his opinion and decide that her carefree nights of binge drinking take precedence to another human’s life."

What a disgusting generalization. How about men that drop their girlfriends like a hot potato as soon as they find out she's pregnant? Are they immune from his childish uninformed tantrums? Apparently in his twisted mind, the woman is the bad guy.

Who decided that, when it comes to this grave decision, a father’s opinion means nothing?

This may be a wild guess, but I’d venture to say women.

Um, yeah.

All those women on the Supreme Court in 1973 gave us abortion rights. Wow, a political genius, satirist, AND historian. He's a triple threat, this one!

/sarcasm

Huh. The second sentence was also supposed to be in italics. Weird.

Anyway, Captain Brilliance is the one who wrote "This may be a wild guess, but I’d venture to say women."