To the Editors:
I am writing to publicly thank Helen Gorgas-Goulding and
Portland Student Life for protecting my interests by
removing the Casco Bay Weekly from distribution on campus.
After reading the ridiculous cartoons that spawned all the
outrage, I found to my dismay and horror that I had actually
started thinking. I began thinking on a small scale about
how idiotic the cartoon (and perhaps also the cartoonist)
is; on a larger scale I began thinking about the long,
tragic story of how women are commonly portrayed in the
media.
But this is a university; we aren’t here to think. We are,
after all, only college students with fragile intellects and
psyches and are in need of protection by campus heroes such
as Ms. Gorgas-Goulding. Most of the people I have spoken to
agree that we are here to get job training, not to think.
So having questionable publications on campus that may cause
offense or (gasp) get students to think can only distract us
future cogs in the capitalist machine from our
credentializing exercises.
Therefore, I would suggest that Ms. Gorgas-Goulding and
Portland Student Life continue their crusade and purge all
possible offensive or thought-provoking distractions from
campus. First, the art department has to go, since it is
possible that some wayward artist could create another
questionable or offensive piece of art. The bookstore should
be next; I am reasonably sure that something in the
bookstore could be offensive or thought-provoking to some
poor, innocent student on campus. For that matter, the
library is full of books and periodicals that have offended
people throughout history.
The Free Press would also have to go, since there is nothing
to prevent them from publishing something that could offend
someone. For that matter, I imagine what I have written here
could offend some helpless student on campus, so perhaps you
better not print this.
Jim Lindenschmidt
Senior, philosophy major