The Pine Press
Happy summer, co-opers! I’ve said it before, but summertime in East Lansing is my favorite. The Festivals of the Sun and the Moon are coming up soon in Old Town, Lansing (the 25th and 26th), and even just walking around town is better now just because it’s summer. A Pinot Prose and the Yearbook will be coming out soon, and hopefully a few more amazing Pine Presses - I encourage you to submit something even if you’re not on the committee. Let me and the rest of the houses know what fun things you’re doing this summer and who knows maybe you’ll see us all there.
The Pine Press for Summer 2010 welcomes submissions from all co-opers, though we reserve the right to deny publication to any artices which are purposefully malicious or attacking an individual or group of people, at the discretion of the Vice President of Education. We also encourage quality articles that engage co-opers in any positive way.
Peace, love and pancakes Kate Walquist VPE
table of contents yo (4 & 5) rabies
(3) A Love Letter to the Membership
(7) greetings from the Board of Directors (8) my immortal chapters 5 and 6 (10) housing, inc.
(6) LOST (7) a $10 tale (9) board retreat (11) mikey get over it.
Dear my beautiful, luscious membership, I remember the first time I saw you, I mean.. really saw you. Our eyes connected from across the noisy auditorium in that class we had together that one year in the fall. You remember that class don?t you? How we played coyly around our emotions at first: you?d ask to borrow a pen, I?d lean a little closer to you to copy some fickle notes, and the late night hours we?d spend ?pretending? to study; but we were really just falling even harder for each other. It?s the way you walk, the slightly dirty odor you emit, the way you look at me with those deep endless pools you call eyes. I just can?t quit you, and membership, my sweet tempting membership.. I don?t want to. I go to bed dreaming of you and wake up every morning wondering when I?ll see you next. You are the culmination of every passionate kiss and tender embrace I?ve ever dared to dream of. My eternal love burns as hot as the center of a thousand fusing stars for you. Membership, you complete me, I love you. XOXO Tu presidente de amor, Emily Bradley Page 3
RABIES Last week a bunch of us at Ohaus watched the film “I Drink Your Blood” a 1970 horror film about LSD-addicted Satanist hippies who get rabies. While we are all pretty sure it was a bad attempt at being an LSD exploitation film, Ohaus has never seen such a beautifully terrifying depiction of the power of rabies. Ohaus feels it is our cooperative obligation to spread the word about rabies. The best way to do this is to sum up the film briefly. So there is this tribe of acidtripping Satanist hippies. This tribe includes their leader, a Native American who wear trendy 1970’s Native American garb. The wise one is an old Asian lady who wears a kimono and uses tarot cards and incense and shit like that. There is a jive-talking black guy, a mute Asian/not Asian girl (we aren’t sure,) a pregnant lady, a really horny lady, an Italian guy who gets murdered pretty quickly, and the normal blonde-haired babe-magnet who is just rolling around with Satanist Acid Hippies for LOLS. So this movie starts out with the babe magnet getting his girlfriend raped and beaten by his Satanist friends. No one in her town thinks to CALL THE POLICE when she comes back bleeding and traumatized. Instead the owner of the local Page 4
Meat Pie Store calls this guy who is building a bridge like an hour away because this guy is like the unofficial mayor or something like that. The bridge builder doesn’t really do anything but tells the Meat Pie Store owner to chill out. Anyway, Grandpa isn’t happy about this so he decides
to go talk to the satan acid hippies. The satan acid hippies are CRAZZZZY and they are killing rats and eating them and screaming and shooting guns. They just beat Grandpa up, force him to take acid, and chase around this little kid too. NO ONE CALLS THE POLICE YET, but it is okay
RABIES
(cont.)
because the little kid is like a fucking sassy Einstein kid. To get revenge he goes and shoots a rabid dog and collects the dog’s blood with these giant syringes he just happens to have. The next day he goes to the meat pie store and convinces the meat pie store owner lady that they should make extra meat pies today because they should feed the hippies. Because when acid satan hippies come rape, beat and drug the townies you should definitely give them your meat pies. So the little kid puts the rabid dog blood in the meat pies. Except for the babe-magnet, who is sick of meat pies, all of the hungry hungry hippies quickly devour the meat pies. LOL, best revenge ever right? WRONG. (At this point, I realize this summary is long, but because I AM SO CONCERNED ABOUT RABIES, I will keep writing.)
Okay, so the babe magnet goes and makes out with his girlfriend who is not at all upset that his friends raped and beat her, and the meat pie store owner and the bridge builder are like dating too. The black guy goes insane first and is running around with an axe swinging at things and at this point FINALLY the bridge builder/ mayor decides action is necessary and INSTEAD OF CALLING THE POLICE sends a couple of his construction men over to survey the situation. Of course construction guys are pigs and all they want to do is bang bitches, so when the rabid horny hippy shows up they’re like “OHHH YEAH” and take her back to the rest of the construction crew. THE ENTIRE CONSTRUCTION CREW HAS SEX WITH HER. EVEN THOUGH SHE IS FOAMING AT THE MOUTH. Whatever. So they all get rabies.
Okay, this isn’t actually really worth describing because the rest of the movie consists of everybody going rabid and running around and doing crazy things that only rabid people would do like cutting off limbs and growling. The only important thing is that the old Asian hippy sets herself on fire, because even when rabid, Asians have to make a political statement on communism. Also, the entire soundtrack to this movie consists of this Oo ooooooEEEEEEEEEEEooooo oooEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OEEEEEEE played at various speeds and volumes. Point is,
DRUGS.
DON’T DO
Shelley Hoover Ohaus
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LOST
WTF Happened?!?!! So it’s been more than a week since the series finale of LOST and honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. At first, I was trying to figure everything out, seeing if I missed anything, and then, once I accepted that they did indeed come to the conclusion that they did, I tried to come to terms with it, until I realized that they left about 500 loose ends/things they didn’t bother to explain at all! Here are a few I was particularly peeved about:
***Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the series finale yet, this will probably ruin everything.*** Why Couldn’t the Man in Black (MIB) just leave? What was keeping him on the island? Why could Jacob leave to see the candidates but not him? What IS the island anyway? What makes it special? And how did Jacob and MIB’s mother get there? Why was she chosen as the protector? Were the people on the island in purgatory? How does that work if you chose to go to the island, like the Dharma Initiative?
What were the rules of time travel and how did Eloise Hawking know so much about it? And what exactly happened when Juggerhead exploded at the end of season 5 and everything went white? Was it seriously all about a LIGHT? a light. Was everyone dead the whole time or not?! What was real and what wasn’t???
All in all, I think the writers of the show could have come up with a much better solution. I watched an interview with the two main writers/producers before the finale and they said that throughout all the seasons, they wrote a show which they would want to watch, that wasn’t dumbed down for the audience. But I think that’s exactly what they did with the conclusion of the show: they dumbed it down completely. Or maybe they lost control of the story, and didn’t have time to explain everything? Either way, I’m not very happy. Sara Qamar New Community
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Greetings from the Board of Directors! This past week, the Board spent some time discussing a pending refinance of one of our loans, specifically the loan for Avalon. Keith, the Finance Manager, gave us a run-down of what we can expect from banks and independent appraisers. We’re still in the process of shopping around, and it turns out some banks won’t finance cooperative businesses, which is making it a little more headachey. However, we’re moving forward and Keith is keeping the Board in the loop. The Board also discussed a proposed change to the Code of Operations designed to adjust the way Executive Officers are compensated. Currently, the EC receive a break on their assessment (that $315 part of your rent) every month, but there is no mechanism to deny them their payment if they don’t perform their duties. The proposed change would make the Board responsible for voting each month on the individual officer’s assessment breaks to provide an extra layer of oversight for the EC’s actions and responsibilities. There was much discussion about how this oversight would be properly done, and the Board voted to table the motion pending review from the Finance Committee. The Board will revisit the proposal this coming Monday, June 21. The Board also took a retreat over the past weekend to Levi Clark’s farm for a large group retreat. Although I wasn’t able to attend, I hear it was an excellently wonderful time! As always, members are welcome to attend Board meetings and voice their concerns and opinions during Member Time.
Yours, Chris Walsh New Community
So there she was, walking through some foreign land. She stops and turns to see
David Bowie climbing a tall oak tree while carrying a large, silver knife in his teeth. He appears to be climbing toward a silver nimbus. She watches as he mounts the cloud and then zips off into the distance, and then finally there’s a small glimmer in a far away part of the sky, almost like a star burning out, and David Bowie is gone. Never to be seen again. Moving onward in the strange and foreign land she found herself overcome with oozing sores all over her body. Panic set in. She walked down the road, itching and scratching every appendage with every phalange. One of the sores burst and poured out with aloe gel. The woman collected the soothing gel and covered the sores, healing her pain. She heard a sound to her left and turned her head. David Bowie had returned! He spread his arms and the clouds dispersed. “Baby, I like your style,” he sang. The pain of her aloe sores seemed to subside. He produced the knife from his glittering trousers and sliced a grapefruit in half, handing her a piece of the lush, ripe fruit. She laughed. “Let’s go on a picnic!” she said. A silver nimbus appeared, and the two whisked away out of sight.
Fin. Page 7
Yo Rafta Rafta (WW”DD”WDJLR): Haus of Gaga presents...
Chapters 5 - 6 of the infamous Harry Potter fanfiction Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
AN: STOP flaming! if u flam it menz ur a prep or a posr! Da only reson Dumbledeor swor is coz he had a hedache ok an on tup of dat he wuz mad at dem 4 having sexx! PS im nut updating umtil I get five good revoiws!
AN: shjt up prepz ok! PS I wnot update ubtil u give me goood revows!
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The next day I woke up in my coffin. I put on a black miniskirt that was all ripped around the end and a matching top with red skulls all over it and high heeled boots that were black. I put on two pairs of skull earrings, and two crosses in my ears. I spray-painted my hair with purple.
Dumbledore made and Draco and I follow him. He kept shouting at us angrily. “You ludacris fools!” he shouted. I started to cry tears of blood down my pallid face. Draco comforted me. When we went back to the castle Dumbledore took us to Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall who were both looking very angry. “They were having sexual intercourse in the Forbidden Forest!” he yelled in a furious voice. “Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?” asked Professor McGonagall. “How dare you?” demanded Professor Snape. And then Draco shrieked. “BECAUSE I LOVE HER!”
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In the Great Hall, I ate some Count Chocula cereal with blood instead of milk, and a glass of red blood. Suddenly someone bumped into me. All the blood spilled over my top. “Bastard!” I shouted angrily. I regretted saying it when I looked up cause I was looking into the pale white face of a gothic boy with spiky black hair with red streaks in it. He was wearing so much eyeliner that I was going down his face and he was wearing black lipstick. He didn’t have glasses anymore and now he was wearing red contact lenses just like Draco’s and there was no scar on his forhead anymore. He had a manly stubble on his chin. He had a sexy English accent. He looked exactly like Joel Madden. He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.
Everyone was quiet. Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall still looked mad but Professor Snape said. “Fine. Very well. You may go up to your rooms.”
“I’m so sorry.” he said in a shy voice.
Draco and I went upstairs while the teachers glared at us.
“My name’s Harry Potter, although most people call me Vampire these days.” he grumbled.
“Are you okay, Ebony?” Draco asked me gently. “Yeah I guess.” I lied. I went to the girl’s dorm and brushed my teeth and my hair and changed into a low-cut black floor-length dress with red lace all around it and black high heels. When I came out…. Draco was standing in front of the bathroom, and he started to sing ‘I just wanna live’ by Good Charlotte. I was so flattered, even though he wasn’t supposed to be there. We hugged and kissed. After that, we said goodnight and he reluctantly went back into his room.
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“That’s all right. What’s your name?” I questioned.
“Why?” I exclaimed. “Because I love the taste of human blood.” he giggled. “Well, I am a vampire.” I confessed. “Really?” he whimpered. “Yeah.” I roared. We sat down to talk for a while. Then Draco came up behind me and told me he had a surprise for me so I went away with him.
B OARD RETRE AT ! On Saturday, June 12th, 2010, 15 members of the Board of Directors and the EC (and Rebecca) traveled three hours to Fennville, MI for the yearly summer board retreat.
The retreat was held at Vice-President of Education-elect Levi Clark’s farm (well, the one he’s working at for the summer), and I think many would agree that the trip was worth it. After eating some home-grown strawberries, the group got started, going over some Board responsibilities and legal obligations, then moving on to some familiarization with the Code of Operations. Lunch came next, then more Code, some New Board Member
Orientation for the new members and a Visionary meeting for the old. Then it was time for ice cream, hand-made by Levi with cream that came right from the farm goat! It was delicious. There was a brief finance overview at the end, then most of the group took off to head back to East Lansing. A few of us stayed behind though, and spent the next few hours taking a tour of the farm and seeing the blueberry bushes that are nearly a hundred years old, and then we got to do chores, including milking a goat and feeding the pigs! There may have even been a goat’s milk fight. All in all, a great trip. Kate Walquist Raft Hill
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Editorial
You are a corporation. Whether that corporation is a responsible one is up to you, but you need to accept that that Mikey Davidson Raft Hill really means you are responsible for all of its faults and failings. So when the EC regularly performs in a fashion that is (constantly) remarked upon as being unsatisfactory, lazy, despondent, incompetent, or just plain idiotic, as a whole or each of its members separately, then please feel free to submit a request for your house to fine that EC member. Let’s just say they haven’t functioned in a productive manner for a month or something. Or they are shirking their duties in an inappropriate manner (and react as if you’re the asshole for pointing out obvious problems of the past or expected problems to arise from a situation currently taking shape) as reported by a house officer or board member, then that house is obligated to hold that EC member responsible for those actions that work against advancing the corporation (in any manner that hinders a member’s own ability to perform their own duties) as a whole. Please remember that they were elected to that position, possibly only with the help of a well-populated house and the polished defecation Page 10
that was their letter of intent, and pay a fraction of the rent, being a member of the EC, that you do. This is very important, as it grants you a certain social allowance as a cooper. While the regular theme of equality and politeness would be nice, this certainly gives the EC no reason to make it easy or socially acceptable to treat them like shit, but I call upon all my fellow coopers to work in manner as to ensure that the EC maintains a professional (as they are now being compensated for their work as coopers, certainly they are professional coopers) attitude about their stay here at the coops. Feel no remorse or shame when you ignore their advice. Treat them as creatures unworthy of your attention, make them work for your respect. Put them into a position so that they feel the need to prove to the entire membership that they belong in this privileged position and that they never forget which one of them is the employee. (They are, btw.) Even if you didn’t vote for any of the current EC, that does NOT make them NOT your EC. However, it does mean that they are now your bitch. They may treat you with disdain, you may return their icy gaze with the same amount of disdain. (Actually, I strongly encourage the membership to amp it up a bit: If they treat you with disdain,
then you are thereby authorized to treat them with absolute contempt. Burn the bridges, and salt the fields!) So what you need to remember is that if they aren’t working for the benefit of your house, or you for that matter, then you are obligated to skull fuck them until they cling to their three hundred dollar rent reimbursement as if it were their only reason to live. This message is primarily intended for the new members, since it seems that most people enter the SHC with certain sense of transience. They operate under the assumption that they’ll just move onto an apartment next year, or graduate (and move out) when their year contract is over. This is not always the case, but this weak train of logic subjugates them to a weak position in the coops. Not understanding that they own the house, they remain sheepish and ready to bow to group pressures for quite a while, until finally their frustrations engulf them in a drunken, leaf-rakin’ fury. What I suggest to anyone who feels this way is that they just assume the worst for now, and all of those disappointments will drop away like leaves in the fall. The harsh winter will only be harder to endure if one fights the encroaching frost. Please cooperate, be righteous in your indignation!
Editorial
You are a corporation. Yes, you too. When you paid that $385 upon signing your contract, that was not a security Kate Walquist Raft Hill deposit, that was a part of the company that you bought. The five elected members of the Executive Committee are not the only people who own this corporation. You own it too. And yes, perhaps you ran for Vice President of Education two years in a row and lost both years, and yes maybe sometimes it is a popularity contest, but none of that means that this is any less your corporation than it was before. So maybe before you write a scathing and malicious article talking about “the EC” you should really think about which EC it is that you’re addressing and which EC any given co-oper will think that you’re addressing. Are you addressing the current EC? Let’s think about this - if you are, please consider how much you actually know about this EC. They’ve been in office only a month and a half now, and how much of what they are doing do you know about? Do you read their board reports every week? You may be office labor but you are barely in the office. You’ve had one committee meeting so far for the committee that you’re
on. And so how accurate can this editorial be if you’re talking about the current EC? If you think that it is accurate, you are a dick. So let’s say you’re not. Let’s say you’re talking about a certain EC that was in office two years ago now. Perhaps you have a problem with a certain former Vice President of Education that you bad-mouth all the time. Or, to be more accurate, two Vice Presidents of Education that you bad-mouth all the time, and a former President you also occasionally make comments about. Why, then, did it take this long for you to finally express your opinions? For all that you encourage others to take action, why is it that you yourself simply sat around complaining for a year and a half before writing this article, which then makes it look like it is directed at the current EC? You said yourself after writing that it would have been better published a year and a half ago. Perhaps you may not care too much about your bad timing, but there is no doubt it was a dick move. And hurtful too. Regardless, encouraging the membership to “skull fuck [the EC]” is inappropriate, malicious and really fucking low. Telling the them to “feel no remorse or shame when you ignore [the EC’s] advice”? What the fuck is that?
We are employees, yes, and while we are paid very little money for the amount of hours we are required to put in, it is absolutely in your right to expect us to work for you, the membership, and to not slack off. However, that does mean that we should be treated like dirt or “treat [us] with absolute contempt.” Actually, if you would like us to do a better job, there’s something a lot easier that you can do. Participate. Give us your input. Come to all your house meetings and committee meetings. Talk to your Board Representative about what is going on in the system. Come to all the events we put on. If you don’t like them, think of your own and make it a co-op shindig. There’s a lot of shit to get done in the system, and the EC and office staff can’t do it by ourselves. Nor do I think you want us to do it by ourselves. The Membership Committee is working to change the application, but if no one on the committee participates, Leah will end up doing it herself, which not only is a bitch move, but then people will complain about it. Mikey is right about one thing many people do enter the SHC with a certain sense of transience. Please don’t be that person. Remember, we sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. Let’s plant some trees for future co-opers. Page 11