By Carl C. Sundberg
February 12, 2004

- This column was awarded a William Randolph Hearst Award for Editorial Writing, Journalism in 2004 -

Well, I tried. Really. I have spent the past week pining over a topic for this column, and while many things crossed my mind, one thing kept throwing itself into my consciousness.

Yes, it was Janet Jackson's boob.

I can't help but see it -- it's everywhere. Still. I can't turn on the television or check my e-mail or read the news without seeing Janet's look of horror and her now-censored mammary. According to Lycos, Janet and her boob is the most-searched-for event in the history of the Internet. Sorry, Ms. Jackson.

The thing is, no one is talking about the real disgusting events that took place on that shameful Sunday. No one mentions the fact that Janet and Justin's performance, aside from the accidental striptease, was one of brutality and misogynistic domination. No one talks about Nelly, not only reaching for his penis, but shaping it into a missile for all the world to see. No has even questioned the real boob, Kid Rock, and his idiotic performance, which in reality is more disturbing and wrong than anything the Jackson family could produce. And in the "hip" category, all of the artists who performed during half-time did a terrible job lip-synching now-defunct hits from their sorry collective pasts. Nothing was new there, nor was any of it even remotely interesting, aside from the half-second flash of flesh.

Shock is nothing new to network television, and it is certainly not new to musicians. Just ask Eminem or Marilyn Manson. America's television history is inundated with "shocking moments." We expect these things from our musicians. Someone has to step up and question American progress from time to time, and it's usually them.

CBS seems to have forgotten that one of its longest-running television programs, "The Ed Sullivan Show," hosted a plethora of "shocking" performances. On Sept. 9, 1956, Elvis Presley became "Elvis the Pelvis" after lewdly gyrating his hips for an audience of 56 million viewers. By his third performance, Elvis's dirty hips were cropped from the frame.

Another "shocking" performance from that same show came a few years later, when The Doors performed their hit "Light My Fire." The producers told singer Jim Morrison that he had to say something other than "get much higher" because of the apparent drug reference. He agreed to it before the show, but sang the song with the original words, live on television. According to keyboardist Ray Manzarek, Sullivan was so irate he didn't even shake their hands. He banned the group from ever appearing on the show again.

It's safe to say that the outrage of CBS and Michael Powell -- chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and son of Colin -- was not much different than that of Ed Sullivan. But in all honesty, was it really that shocking? With multiple ads running during the Super Bowl for flaccid penises and beer commercials with farting horses, is a split-second of teat really bringing us down the path of full-scale corruption?

I find it hilarious that an entertainer can go right up to the line of acceptability and FCC-regulated taste, but if you even wave your foot (or in this case, your boob) over that line, you are shunned.

One argument for the FCC is that the breast flopped out during a time when children were present. I asked my 4-year-old niece what she thought of it, and she replied, "She's pretty." There you have it. No corruption there.

Maybe we should look to our European brothers and sisters. Over there, the naked human form is not only accepted, it is praised for the beauty that it is. Had the Super Bowl been a French game show, I doubt anyone would have thought anything of it. But in the good ol' United States, breasts in public are horrific and should be kept locked away -- at least in the eyes of network media and the FCC.

Wars rage, violence is praised, yet still in our barbarian culture a breast is more shocking than seeing a fistfight in the dogpiles of a Super Bowl brawl, or civilians running for their lives while being fired upon by soldiers. Our Pavlovian conditioning over the years has trained us to tune out the violence, I guess.

What this says to me is that our country, despite being one of great accomplishments and beauty, is still in its adolescent phase, like a bunch of bullies on a national playground, beating people up and getting flustered and annoyed at the girls for trying to make us grow up. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald

By Carl C. Sundberg
May 06, 2004

It seems to me that large-scale media have abandoned objectivity in the form of half-truths. The function of the media have become nothing more than a megaphone for politicians and businesses.

Here's a fine example: On April 29, the president of the United States, alongside the vice president, faced the 9-11 Commission for more than three hours behind the closed doors of the Oval Office. After the meeting with the commission, the president walked into the Rose Garden and made the smiling announcement that he "answered every question that they asked," just like a good president would. No one involved in major media really questioned this except for fringe Internet sites and left-wing opponents of the Bush administration.

Since his testimony was not recorded because he was not sworn in, and since nobody was able to hear anything that went on, how does anyone know if there were any questions asked at all? What were some of these questions? Nobody knows except the 9-11 Commission, Bush and Cheney. For all we know, they could have been playing Nintendo GameCube that entire time. The world will never know.

We do know the 9-11 Commission was appointed to investigate the attacks of Sept. 11. And part of an investigation is to ask tough questions. I watched the public hearings. There were no tough questions and no shining answers. Just practiced press-release phrases and boring details about how bureaucracy works. And afterward, there were no vibrant in-depth looks or analysis of the events by American media -- except once again, fringe Internet sites. I've been searching for good information using strong sources for this column for a week, and I've come up with nothing, except from, that's right, fringe Internet sites and whacko conspiracists. The mainstream media are buttoned up like a straight jacket.

But since I am a twig on the massive media tree, these are some questions that I feel are important, that I would ask Bush: Why weren't fighter planes scrambled immediately upon seeing flights moving off course all heading in the same direction? Why were you in Florida reading books to children when the nation was being attacked? How did the Pentagon get hit? What the hell does Iraq have to do with Sept. 11? What the hell is wrong with you?

OK, so maybe I shouldn't be on the 9-11 Commission.

But the people who are on this commission shouldn't be on there, either. According to the official Web site, http://www.9-11commission.gov, this committee is an "independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush." What? Seriously? Yes. The 9-11 Commission was created by our president. In my mind, this is the equivalent to Charles Manson getting to pick his jury. The media were all over that one -- if you are referring to fringe Internet sites, that is.

So, what about this committee? Has any news program given an in-depth look at anyone on this board? I've yet to see it. I'll bet most of you out there couldn't tell me the names of anyone on this thing.

I'll tell you two names that concern me the most: Thomas Kean and Philip Zelikow. Here's why: Kean, chairman of the 9-11 Commission, is a former New Jersey governor and, according to Fortune magazine, has business ties to the bin Laden family. Hmm, that's interesting. Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9-11 Commission, is a former aide to the national security adviser under the first Bush administration. After leaving the White House, he wrote a book with Condoleezza Rice called, "Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft." A month after Sept. 11, Bush Jr. appointed Zelikow to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Nice.

It seems to me that these two people pose a conflict of interest. It seems to me that this 9-11 Commission is nothing more than a charade, a Wizard of Oz-type distraction, to keep us from seeing the man behind the curtain. By having an "official" committee doing this investigation, it quells the skeptics. "Well, we did an investigation, son," the Bush administration will say. And the media will nod and wag their tails like the lapdogs they are.

In an honest world, this commission would not be made up of key political figures with connections to those who are being investigated. It would be comprised of an amalgamation of various thinkers from multiple backgrounds, disciplines, and perhaps, even multiple nations. Oh, and Bush would not get to pick them. And if you really wanted to make things interesting, you would have relatives of the Sept. 11 victims on the committee.

Will the non-fringe media ever come to this conclusion? I doubt it. Their job is to report exactly what they are told. Keep up the good work guys. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald

By Carl C. Sundberg
February 26, 2004

At some point, while cutting high school classes, drinking illegal beers and realizing we didn't fit in, we were assigned a letter. We didn't even get to decide. No one could really cluster us, no one could condense who we were. But we were breaking the old rules, the tired patterns. So they crossed us off the list with a big fat X.

Generation X.

Plain, sad and simple. The first time I heard that phrase, I laughed. I knew someone would have that T-shirt soon. But as soon as I learned of this new human category, Generation X was out of style, a new generation was on its way, and now I had a choice of which generation to associate with. I hoped it would have a better name. Nope. The authors weren't trying so hard anymore; they just moved up the alphabet.

Generation Y, or maybe we should call it Generation Why, took X's place and became the new target market. And what was worse (or better), I didn't belong to this group any more than I did to the other. That's when it dawned on me. It really doesn't matter anymore. Why should we even care about this labeling? We didn't get to vote on the name. We didn't choose this. It was a marketing strategy, designed to sell us crap we don't need. Why should we participate? It's so trivial.

One moment while I fill your head with facts before moving on: Generation X is the 45 million people born between 1965 and 1976. Generation Y dwarfs the country, making up 72 million people born between 1977 and 1994.

OK. I will continue.

In a group or a party, I have never heard anyone who belongs to these categorized lives ever mention Generation X or Y as a description. We are not subscribers. It is the entities, businesses, corporations and media that use these titles. They sit at tables, passing our "name" around, sniffing it, tugging at it, looking for clues. Wondering how they can put it to use. This empty phrase.

All the while we shrink back, deeper into ourselves, so that they cannot reach us. Growing more complex through resistance to the pesticide-like mannerisms of their attack. We are immune. We are ironic. We are lazy. We are genius.

We are a sleeping dragon and we are next in line.

We are not a brand extension.

We live between the borders, in cracks -- shadows perhaps -- clinging to both sides of how we've been defined. Moving in any direction poses a threat, setting off an alarm that announces our presence to the marketers, to the politicians, to the media. We are now a target. A board for darts. Definition darts. For people with beady eyes and weak hearts to take their turn at the board: "Got the bull's-eye! I'm gonna call 'em Weekend Warriors! Sell 'em some hiking boots, catered to their sense of style!"

So we remain in between things, away from the flying darts of definition, clinging to nothing rather than something. Because it seems by making any decision we are almost immediately marginalized by that decision, then defined and sold to the highest bidder.

Our favorite pastime turned into a perfume. Our favorite song is blaring from a car ad. Our slang is selling beer. Our poetry was mutated into a slogan. Our dreams became a Web site. Our friends, they're statues looking into the distance with neat pants on. Our jokes turned into a sitcom. Our passion dammed into a pool.

Now we remain silent, slowly waiting for the opportunity to do something worthwhile. Something that won't be taken and sold to the masses. Turned into another cliché like the rest of everything that meant anything to us at some point.

And all the while those in charge are demanding our support, our constant approval of what they have told us, sold us, passed off as necessity and treating the sacred as a pie chart to be divided amongst the shareholders.

We don't protest, we don't riot, we don't make a fuss. We calmly accept this temporary mold and wait for the right time to stretch out and soar, without the fear of marginalization, stereotyping or being capitalized on. It's not that we don't care what is going on. It's that there's not much any of us can really do about it anyway. The strongest thing we can say is nothing. Our power lies in our secrets.

In the meantime, we play games, disobey and frolic in what we know is worn out and tired because soon enough we will have our say. We will speak in volumes, in poetry, in code, in tongues, separate from those that turned us cold and rigid.

There's hope but no desire to act just yet, as we edge our way into the future, complete with the debts, mistakes and missed attempts of the generation that made us this way.

We inherit the broom of some brilliant party that just missed us, and we're standing around waiting to clean up the mess. Suhweet.

Maybe by the time Generation Z comes around, things will be different, maybe better for them. If nothing else, maybe they could at least pick their own names. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald

By Carl Sundberg
April 08, 2004

This April marks the 10-year anniversary of one of the most famous suicides in contemporary American history -- the shot heard around the world, if you will. It also marks the 10-year anniversary of something far more tragic but virtually unknown to most Americans.

Ten years ago today, Americans were at a loss for words as they mourned the death of rock star Kurt Cobain.

The media had their eyes on Seattle. While the camera crews and smug reporters were migrating Northwest to the dreary Emerald City for the story of the year, one of the most horrific and violent crimes against humanity was taking place overseas in a small African country called Rwanda.

Millions of people across the United States were in tears and blaring "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from their stereos, while in Africa screams were blaring from the mouths of innocent men, women and children as they were rapidly decimated with machetes.

It began on April 6, 1994, when Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was killed after his plane was shot down near Kigali Airport. Hutu extremists were believed to be behind the attack.

Later that night, the Hutus began one of the most efficient genocides the world has ever known; deciding that the Tutsi people, the minority in Rwanda, must be wiped out. While the official count of the dead reached 800,000, many Rwandans say it was far greater. Some say that it was in the millions.

Two days later, back in the United States, Kurt Cobain's body was found in his Seattle home by an electrician. He had perished from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. In his suicide letter, Cobain writes, "The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending to be having 100% fun."

In Rwanda, thousands of people were being herded into churches and massacred.

On April 10, Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, held hands with horrified fans during a candlelight vigil in Seattle while reading excerpts from her husband's suicide note. Love choked back tears as she and the fans called Cobain an "asshole."

Love responded to Cobain's words by saying, "No Kurt, the worst crime I can think of is for you to just continue being a rock star when you fucking hate it."

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, more than 10,000 Tutsis were gathered at a town hall where police, soldiers, militiamen and villagers surrounded them with guns, grenades and machetes. Only a few Tutsis escaped. The rest were slaughtered.

For the next few months back in America, the media were in a Nirvana feeding frenzy. Cobain's face was placed on magazine covers nationwide, journalists everywhere were writing essays about him and MTV became Cobain central, playing nothing but Nirvana videos on constant 24-hour loops.

In Rwanda, maggots and buzzards fed on blood-drenched and headless corpses that were piled up in churches and streets.

By July 1994, Cobain had become a household name, a cultural icon, a hero. Things had started getting back to normal for America. What was once a horrible tragedy is now our history, a frozen moment in time. Americans had grieved enough. We were ready to move on.

One hundred days after April 6, Rwanda had also started to get back to relative normalcy -- if you were not a Tutsi, that is. The Rwandan genocide had come to a halt. Journalist Philip Gourevitch writes the following in his book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda": "The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of the Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

However, unlike Cobain, they did not choose to die. Unlike Cobain, none of the Rwandan dead became media-honored heroes. None of them are household names. None of them are icons. Their pictures never graced any magazine covers. They were sacrificed for nothing. For nothing.

Just like the Clinton administration did, the American media have all but ignored the Rwandan genocide. Nowadays, the few who even know about this event shake their heads in disbelief. What were we thinking? The most powerful empire on Earth sat idle as millions of people were slaughtered like cattle. At this point, though, it's stupid to play the blame game. What's done is done.

But 10 years later, the buzz about Cobain is back. And Rwanda is still in the background, hidden away from American eyes. Let us not forget those 800,000 innocent victims.

I dedicate this meager column to those families who perished in that genocide. Tonight, I will burn a candle for you all. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald

By Carl Sundberg
April 22, 2004

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I might be a criminal. If I am, the crime is not severe in my mind. It is nothing like what other beasts have done in our history. I have not killed anyone, set fire to anything, molested a child or mugged a broke old woman. But in the eyes of the government, I may just be an outlaw.

You see, at the time of this writing, my taxes have not been filed. At the time of this publication, my taxes will remain unfiled. Most likely, one year from now, my taxes for this year will not be filed.

It's not a protest or anything. However, consider what the current administration is doing:

1) Giving corporations huge tax breaks while the average break for the rest of us is worth a six-pack and a hot dog.

2) Stirring up the hive in Iraq in the name of some misguided attempt at "liberation."

3) Any of the other horrid things that are being exposed now by people like Richard Clarke, Ron Suskind, Bob Woodward or Paul O'Neill.

Given all the aforementioned, I could easily say I do not support this kind of behavior. I could easily say I will not pay my taxes until those crooks in the White House are either ousted or slowroasted over the media coals for the rest of their slimy careers. I could say that.

I could also say that I didn't file my taxes out of confusion. Those tax forms are like coded Sanskrit to me, and I have no idea what I should be looking for or at when I'm doing this ugly American ritual. I have filed my taxes for five or six years now, and every single year it is a weekend journey into the true heart of bedlam.

The first couple of years I filed, I got them done for me, but it turned out Uncle Sam owed me money, so I didn't even need to worry. But every year thereafter, I have done them myself. Every year thereafter, I received a letter back from my government bitching at me for every minute mistake I made on all my forms. And last year, somehow, despite the fact that I followed an Internet tax program to the tee, I still got a letter back from the government. This time I owed them. Which was strange because I made about as much money as a street corner bum with a sign. But confusion was not why I didn't file my taxes this year.

In all honesty, I didn't file my taxes because I was busy. I had things to do. It simply slipped my mind. No harm, no foul. Now that I've gotten this all on paper -- this torrid confession -- I've probably opened myself up to public scrutiny. But I've decided to hold off on the whole tax thing until I am at least a functional member of society (i.e. I' m out of college and I have a paying job). At that time, anything I owe my government will be paid in full.

But the question still remains: Am I criminal? I have asked several people over the course of a week this question and every person seems to have a different answer to my conundrum.

Some people say yes I am a criminal, some say I'm not, some pray for my damned soul and some tell me I should flee this evil empire while I still have the chance. I don't know who to believe anymore. So I turn to the only man I can look to for true guidance and support in my dark hour.

Willie Nelson.

As you may or may not know, Willie Nelson, one of our last living American outlaws, was dropkicked by our government in 1990 for not filing his taxes for six years. His golf course, recording studio, ranch and pretty much everything Nelson owned -- everything except his legendary Martin guitar, which he still plays to this day -- was seized by the Internal Revenue Service. Nelson owed nearly $17 million in back taxes.

To get out of his financial quagmire, he recorded and released an album called "Who'll Buy My Memories?: The IRS Tapes" and made some Taco Bell commercials. By 1993, Nelson was freed from his tax chains.

Of course, I'm not quite on the scale of Willie Nelson, but my predicament is similar. And as far as I know, Willie Nelson never went to jail for this, so in my mind, he was not a criminal. In my simple monkey logic, what separates criminals from the rest of us are bars. And if Willie Nelson wasn't behind them, he wasn't a criminal, therefore, neither am I.

If I am wrong, the IRS knows where I live. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald

By Carl Sundberg
January 15, 2004

With the presidential election looming, it's safe to assume that we will have someone running our country into the ground again. Whether it's George W. Bush or some other smirking fool remains to be seen.

Bush doesn't seem too fazed by all the bashing and cursing of the American people or the Democratic Party. He is either gearing up for his trip to Mars or too busy planning an overhaul of the election process again.

After all, someone has to start sorting out which multi-national corporation is going to back a third party that will split the Democratic vote. But given the current state of the Democratic candidates, that third-party plan might not even need to take shape.

With the Democratic candidates looking less like presidential hopefuls and more like angry monkeys throwing feces at each other, it's really not a stretch to say that King George will reign for another four years. If the Democrats were smart--and it's slowly starting to show that they are not--they would do the right thing: use the lesson learned in the farce and infotainment extravaganza that was last year's California recall and bring in celebrity politicians, or more accurately, "celebiticians."

Sure, it might have sounded strange just last year to think this, but if you think back, celebrities have filled political positions many times in our recent past. Sonny Bono, Jesse "the Body" Ventura and Ronald Reagan were all in the limelight before they ever saw their name gleaming on a ballot. And really, if Arnold Schwarzenegger can be a governor, this whole political thing can't be that difficult.

Setting up a proper environment, one that will enable the celebitician to thrive, is the only thing that needs to be done. There are rules to this process, after all.

First, the political hopeful can't be a porn star, a midget or a watermelon-smashing comedian. This was the hidden lesson learned from the California election.

Second, the celebrity must be famous today, not someone the world has forgotten. For instance, Burt Reynolds, Tony Danza or anyone from the cast of "Saved by the Bell" won't work. You need someone who is either in a current blockbuster summer action movie or frequents grocery store magazine covers. For example, Ben Affleck might work because every man, woman and child in America knows who he is. But he's not right for public office. He's got far too much to worry about with keeping J.Lo out of bad movies (so far he's 0 for 2).

Third, the celebitician must have the suave persona that Americans cherish; someone that can lie to us with authority and vigor.

And finally, if nothing else was learned from the California recall, one lesson remains: politics are a joke. Anyone who says otherwise is most likely a politician.

With these rules in mind, and with great consideration, the only person that seems to clearly stand out for the position of Democratic presidential hopeful is none other than Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show." He fits all the criteria of celebitician: He is in our short-sighted collective unconscious, he's been on magazine covers and he's not a porn star. The man's wit knows no end, which tames the final criteria of being a politician: being able to make us laugh.

Surely, the argument is beginning to form in your head. You may be asking yourself, "What other credentials does this man have?" The answer is simple: none. He has no presidential credentials. But did Schwarzenegger? No. All he needed was to spout off lines from his movies, and he won with a landslide.

If Jon Stewart told a few jokes each time he stood behind a podium, that would be all he would need. Make a few empty promises and finish with a punch line. In a debate, Stewart would knock Bush around like a shoe in a dryer. The crowd would roar and rush to the ballot booths. George W. Bush wouldn't stand a chance.

After Stewart is elected, his Cabinet might consist of such names as Bill Maher starring as vice president, Martin Sheen as secretary of state, Robert DeNiro as attorney general, Nicole Kidman as secretary of education and The Rock as secretary of defense.

This is not to say that the new Democratic rule would be a success in terms of the economy, medical benefits or education, but this country has seen worse. At least with an all-star cast running the country, politics might be interesting enough for the average American to wake up and care. 

Originally published in the Oregon Daily Emerald