Chlamydia Outbreak in Nation's Capital (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 3 March 2012)

After being introduced to the region by a visiting ambassador, a particularly virulent strain of chlamydia has spread like wildfire through Washington D.C., infecting citizens and public officials from all levels of government.

In just two short weeks, the disease has rampaged through the city like a whirlwind of genital tenderness and rectal discharge. Two members of the tobacco lobby and a senator from Georgia were among the first to be officially diagnosed after they reported a burning sensation while urinating, but the sexually-transmitted disease has ventured on to make the seat of our national government its bitch.

Every area of the city has been affected by the outbreak in some way. According to the last official report, not only have many citizens been infected, but 76% of the Senate, 3 Supreme Court justices, several members of the White House Staff, and 99.8% of the House of Representatives has been infected by the disease. It should be noted that Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner is still awaiting his test results.

Many infected officials are opting to stay home from work, citing penal discharge and testicular tenderness. This, coupled with a recent presidential announcement about the epidemic, has effectively shut down Washington D.C.

President Barack Obama recommended in his announcement that everyone remain calm and seek out antibiotics.  He emphasized that normalcy will return shortly and that chlamydia is a totally curable disease.

The President closed the announcement by advising officials and lobbyists to "keep it in their pants."

Steve Jobs: Innovator, Master of Dark Arts (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 3 March 2012)

Amid reports of a ghastly turtle-necked figure wandering through the forests of Southern California in the last couple of weeks, some local citizens expressed fear for a potential return of the Dark Lord to Silicon Valley.

A witness described the ghastly apparition "stalking through the forest like a dirty scavenger, neither dead nor alive, looking for carrion and leaving nothing but a deathly shadow in its wake." Another eyewitness account said the creature was "frighteningly innovative, hauntingly efficient and dreadfully well-dressed."

The Dark Lord died in early October of last year after unexpectedly succumbing to "The Tumor Which Lived." Always a controversial figure, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named inspired admiration, even in his most outspoken opponents. Famed engineer Albus Percival Wulfric Steve Wozniak was once quoted as saying that the Dark Lord "would push software farther than it had ever gone before." Wozniak could not be reached for comment.

After the Dark Lord's death, his geeky and hipster-ish minions mourned the loss of their visionary and scattered into hiding. A few prominent Apple-Eaters briefly attempted to claim his legacy, and some never accepted that their master had truly fallen in the first place. Those that didn't go into hiding were fought off by FTC agents and the ever-diligent, albeit clunky and narrow-minded, Ministry of Microsoft.

Recent disappearances and freak accidents, however, have led to a growing concern that the Dark Lord is not gone for good, and that his reign of brilliantly engineered terror has only been temporarily forestalled.

One such incident that contributed heavily to this fear was the inexplicable death of young woman Tonya Puzzle in Palo Alto, California. Puzzle was found dead in her apartment, sitting on her leather designer couch as if posed for a picture. An eerie smile remained stretched across her face, and she held an iPad, gripped tightly at her chest.

The Ministry of Microsoft continues to deny that any of these events provide substantive evidence of the Dark Lord's return.

Christensen Believes Career a Joke (Bounce Magazine Vol. 12 Issue 3 March 2012)

Actor Hayden Christensen, known for his roles in Star Wars Episode II and III as well as Jumper, is fairly certain that his entire acting career thus far has been nothing but an extensive and well-planned setup to a cruel practical joke.

Christensen, who began his career as the gay Canadian version of Malcolm in the Middle, rose from humble beginnings to make an excellent living as a moderately subpar film actor in Hollywood. Admittedly, Christensen has never really considered himself an actor.

"Acting has always been more of a hobby for me," he said matter-of-factly in a recent interview. "I'm not even very good."

Christensen says he went into shock the first time he realized he was paying his bills with acting. "It really doesn't make sense," he said when asked to explain this irrational phenomenon.

"Every time my agent would call me with another offer I wouldn't know what to say," Christensen said. "I kept checking online to see if there was some other Hayden Christensen that I was stealing roles from."

Failing to find any such person online, Christensen is now convinced that the last 19 years of his life have been a lie. "it's got to be a set-up," he confessed. Unable to grasp the reality of his life, Christensen firmly believes that he is just being featured on an abnormally long episode of Punk'd. "I keep expecting Ashton Kutcher to leap out of a dumpster and finally tell me that it's all been a huge joke."

"I'm ready for it to be over. I thought it was pretty funny for a while, but now it's just getting ridiculous and cruel," he said. "No one thinks it's funny anymore; you guys can come out now--seriously," he pleaded to no one in particular, eying a nearby hedge with suspicion.

Christensen only has a loose grasp on what is going on in his life, but there is one thing he knows for sure. "I feel horrible for what I did to Star Wars," he said, bitterly cursing Ashton Kutcher and MTV.

Civil Disobedience: How Far Does Free Speech Go? (Campus BluePrint March 2012)

Carrboro's Second Annual Anarchist Book Fair this past Nov. 12 produced a flurry of flyers, all proclaiming, "Welcome to the Experiment. Make no mistake: this occupation is illegal, as are most of the other occupations taking place around the US, as were many of the other acts of defiance that won the litle freedom and equality we appreciate today." A floor plan was printed on the back.

By 8:30 that evening, about 70 book fair attendees had broken into an abandoned warehouse, the old Yates Motor Company building, on West Franklin Street and had begun to cover the windows with banners. But to spectators, it remained unclear--was this a militant occupation or a carefully planned civil protest?

After only a few brief attempts at communication, the police decided to take action the next day. In the afternoon of Nov. 13, about 20 heavily armed police officers arrived at the Yates Motor Company building. Brandishing assault rifles, they forced everyone on the scene--including two reporters--to the ground. Seven protesters were arrested while others were only detained for 20 to 30 minutes.

Since then the town of Chapel Hill has wrestled with the police response to the Nov. 13 occupation, with many community members protesting what they saw to be unwarranted aggression.

When a similar occupation sparked in Carrboro on Feb. 4, however, Chapel Hill got a chance to reevaluate how it could have responded the attempted Yates occupation.

These protesters called themselves the “Carrboro Commune,” but their flyers read “Welcome, once again, to an experiment,” reinforcing their connection with the Yates Motor Company incident. This time, protesters occupied CVS-owned property in downtown Carrboro to demonstrate against the pharmacy chain that is planned for that location.

“This physical space should belong to the community,” Occupy Chapel Hill member Maria Rowan said. Rowan made it clear that Occupy Chapel Hill was not affiliated with the Carrboro Commune, but that she had taken it upon herself to be a spokesperson on the street for the Commune.

The two building take-overs were meant to convey essentially the same message, but the two protests themselves ended rather differently. Shortly after the occupation began, Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton entered the building and refused to leave until the Carrboro Commune had left. The building was vacated three hours later.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Laurin Easthom said that Carrboro police definitely took the opportunity to learn from Chapel Hill’s mistakes. “I wish we’d have handled it that way,” she said. Chapel Hill police are still in the midst of reevaluating their policies, but Easthom said she hopes they take Carrboro’s example into account. 

According to the police reports surrounding the Yates incident, Chapel Hill's martial response stemmed from unease over the involvement of anarchists in the occupation and the distinct tactics being used. The protesters wore masks, covered the windows with banners and posted look-outs on the roof. These features led the police to associate the protest with more violent occupations and protests like those in Oakland earlier in the month.

But Cathy Packer, a media law professor in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, emphasized the protesters’ motives in her criticism of the police response. 

“We do not need to pull our assault weapons out on earnest young people who are looking for political change,” Packer said.

News sources at the time said that the Yates Motor protesters aimed to create a community center, and their flyers were filled with plans for free childcare, a library and even an art studio. Chapel Hill Town Council member Lee Storrow, however, said that there was even more to it than that. 

“The protesters chose to break into the Yates building to make a political [statement] about what the landlord has done to the community and to think creatively about communities and how we can use spaces differently,” he said. “I think we didn’t acknowledge that when the police reacted.”

Easthom also said she was concerned that Chapel Hill’s trust in their leadership has been shaken by the way the issue has been handled. A public outcry for an investigation after the incident in November only led to an internal review conducted by Town Manager Roger Stancil, which Easthom said was unsatisfactory. 

Stancil requested that all town staff refrain from speaking to the press during the internal review. 

“This approach supports a transparent process and the desires of the Council and the community for a full and open exchange of information on this issue," Stancil said in a statement.

Another issue that the council has gone back and forth on since November is the need for an independent investigation into the legitimacy of the police response. The idea has been shelved for now due to cost and potential ineffectiveness, but the Consumer Policing Advisory Committee, which is currently responsible for reviewing the incident, can bring it to the council again if it wishes. 

“I had wanted an independent investigation the whole time, but I can’t get one right now,” Easthom said.

Stancil has said in interviews he still thinks the police response to the Yates Motor Company occupation was justified at the time, but the Chapel Hill Town Council has acknowledged at least some wrong-doing.  In January the council issued an apology to the two reporters who were briefly detained during the police raid: Katelyn Ferral of the News & Observer and freelance reporter Josh Davis.

According to media law Professor Cathy Packer, however, the reporters could also have been charged with trespassing. “Reporters and other citizens always have the same First Amendment rights,” she said.

That isn’t the only recent example of Chapel Hill side-stepping the law for a cause either. In a recent memo to the town council, Stancil observed that town officials had decided not to enforce protest and camping limits and regulations when dealing with Occupy Chapel Hill’s three-month stay in Peace and Justice Plaza.  

Storrow said he still believes the protesters at the Yates Motor Company building should have been removed from the premises, but he thinks things should have been done differently.

"I think we need to think about the standard that we hold our community to," Storrow said. "We need to hold people who engage in civil disobedience to make a political point to different standards."

Storrow said  the debate is starting to take time and energy away from other important issues as well. 

“I think that was an important discussion to have, but I do think that at some point we as a community need to think about lessons learned and then find ways to move on,” he said.

Easthom said she understands a lot of people are tired of the issue, but she thinks it’s essential that problems, once identified in a community, are dealt with. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to take problems and sweep them under the rug,” Easthom said.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/84011985/March-2012