• On Monday, the president of the IraqiGoverning Council, Izzadine Saleem was killed in a suicide carbombing in central Baghdad along with eight other Iraqis. Whilethis is seen as an inconvenience, the U.S. still plans to hand overcontrol of the embattled country to the Iraqi Governing Council asscheduled on June 30, even if none of them are alive to takeit.
• Around PSU, President Daniel Bernstineaccepted the resignations of two top-ranking administratorsyesterday, Dr. Mary Kay Tetreault, provost and vice president ofacademic affairs and Dr. Jay Kenton, vice president of finance andadministration. Their departure disproves what many 12th yearseniors at Portland State assumed: that PSU is a black hole thatyou can never leave. Although these two veeps probably never triedto transfer their credits out of the University Studies program -that alone takes about a decade to complete.
• Massachusetts trumped both California andOregon to become the first state to legalize gay and lesbianmarriage within the U.S. Under Massachusetts State Law, same-sexmarriage should stick, although a movement is already underway topass a state constitutional ban in 2006, in which another vote andstate referendum will be before the state legislature, which ifpassed would void all gay and lesbian marriages in Massachusetts.”We’re just reserving the right,” an anonymous Massachusettslegislator said, “to see if homophobia is back in fashion in thespring of 2006. And anyway, I thought ‘retro’ was cool again.”
• To dispel the myth that Oregon’s HigherEducation System has a predilection for harboring pedophiles, muchlike the Catholic Church, Oregon’s first invisible governor, TedKulongoski has appointed himself head of the system’s governingbody, replacing the recently resigned Neil Goldschmidt. “I don’tlike fourteen-year-old girls,” Kulongoski offered on hisself-appointment, “but I sure do love bowling. Yep. Bowling andsleeping.”
• A report from The New Yorker magazine claimsthat Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and staff created aspecial, super-secret organization between the Department ofDefense and the CIA, known only as Copper Green. This elitetaskforce was charged with “getting tougher” in the interrogationof Taliban soldiers and suspected al-Qaida members during theAfghanistan war and were later deployed to Iraq last fall asattacks against U.S. forces intensified. The jet-settingsuper-agents/sexual predators reportedly arrived in Baghdad usingaliases and dressed in civilian clothing, under the direction of”Grab whom you must. Do what you want.” The open-ended instructionsof the clandestine unit may have led to the now infamous abuses atthe Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib. A spokesperson for the CIA called thereport ludicrous adding, “There is no such thing as Copper Green.Um, anymore.”
• On Monday, John Kerry and Howard Dean spenttime in Portland rallying for the Democratic primary today. Whilethe two former presidential rivals’ simultaneous public appearancesno doubt attempted to show the unity of the Democratic Party, theirsteadfast refusal to sleepover at democratic underdog DennisKucinich’s new Eugene, Ore., bungalow showed that there is still arift in the party’s dynamics. “I’m running for president of theUnited States of America,” Kerry said. “Dennis is a nice guy andall, but I don’t have time to eat Cheetos and watch ‘Lord of theRings’ all night.”
shiv (shiv) n. [Romany chiv, blade; later Prison Slang]a knife, esp. one used as a weapon, or formed by the sharpening ofa spoon.
shank (shank) n. 1. a projection or wire loop on somebuttons that which they are sewn to fabric. 2. [Prison Slang] aknife, esp. one formed by the sharpening of a spoon.