To whom it may concern (especially Miss Reckonwithe):

                Although not an avid reader of the Undercurrent, I have often perused the paper and found many interesting and intelligent articles. I was most recently handed a copy of your paper and realized that the caliber of your paper is slipping. The writers of the Undercurrent must have been desperate when they decided to rummage through the garbage and arise with the "Advice to Freshman" article. Their shear desperation is further displayed by the article's position on the front page. When did the eternally sarcastic and politically humored paper turn to cheap smut to promote distribution?
                I realize that no freshman really wants to read about topics like "how to be a great student and study," but could no writer come up with at least a well-written and humorous advice column? If Amanda was aiming for sarcasm, she missed the mark and landed face first in refuse. If I were a fellow writer for this paper, I would feel the need to cover my face in shame, not even from the stupid, crude topic of the article, but the lack of writing creativity and talent.
                I hope that in the future when I read the Undercurrent I will not be faced with such a desperate attempt at journalism.

Seeking sarcasm not smut-

Amanda Johnston
Spanish/Pre-Med Senior

Amanda’s Reply:

Dear Amanda,

                Dear me, I almost don’t know where to begin. Let’s see, you thought my most recent column was “cheap smut”, “refuse”, “stupid”, “crude”, and unsarcastic, uncreative, unhumorous, and untalented. Well, that’s quite a list.
                I showed your letter to several of my girlfriends, and the consensus from them was that a) you really need a good shagging, and b) you might need surgery to remove the cob from your anus (your sphincter being too tight for manual removal), but I could not be so ungenerous. After all, I did use the words “pussy” and “peckertracks”, which are obviously too common for a Pre-Med Senior. You probably would have preferred “vulva” and “semen stains”.
                I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy my column, dear, but if you think it was obscene I can only feel sorry for any of your future patients who may come to you with questions about their sex organs. Really dear, you should use your pubococcygeus muscle for something besides retaining urine, like getting it stretched and stimulated by a nice, thick penis. Believe me, you’ll feel much better about human reproduction.

Sincerely,

Amanda Reckonwithe

Web Editors Note: The original article by C.E. Westphal can be found in our archives here.

                Your article on the tuition increases has many significant errors and omissions.  You quote Boren's statement about OU being "nationally ranked."  OU has no significant ranking except as a football school.  Last January  OU's scandalously low graduation rate of athletes came to the attention of USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-01-16-our-view_x.htm

                The big indicator of a school's ability to be described as "excellent" is the question of whether it is a member of the presigious Association of American Universities.  OU has never been invited to join this elite club, but SEVEN other Big 12 schools are members:

http://www.aau.edu/aau/members.html

                You lead readers to believe that celebrity speakers and political hot shots come to speak at OU because they are so impressed with Big Boss Boren.  The real reason is that he raids the OU treasury to pay them handsome honoraria.  They return the favor by making public statements heaping praise on him.  Why can't the Undercurrent, with all its pretentions to sophistication, see through this transparent game?
                You do not tell your readers the truth about the deplorable financial mess Boren is making of OU while  he dreams of a Cabinet appointment in a Lieberman administration.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are ignorant. 
                I'm going to enlighten you.  Either you inform your readers of this, or join the ranks of other cowardly media organizations around Oklahoma who have chosen to conceal this information.  If you care to see the documents, I'll show them to you. 

                First, look at the FY 04 budget, available at the library.  You will see that, for the main campus, the funds available from tuition and fees are $24.5 million GREATER than last year.  Yet, while trying to justify his frantic desire for a tuition hike last spring, Boren was telling us that he only needed an extra $19 million.  Boren is a consummate liar. Lying is second nature to him.
                Second, the legislative appropriation was only $12.7 million less than the year before.   In the end, Boren has an INCREASE of about $14 million available to him, for the main campus.

                Where is the extra money going?  He HAS to use it to pay for his extravaganzas which are financial drains.  I have seen the legal prospectus for those who are interested in buying bonds to pay for the new stadium. Boren and the boys can't lie in this. They have to tell the truth.
                The unpleasant truth is that, after the expansion of the "Gaylord" stadium, the athletic department's bonded indebtedness over the next 30 years is more that $152 million.  That means they need an operating annual SURPLUS of about $5 million.  They'll never make it. Boren is going to help them out with YOUR money.
                The document also discloses the financial performance of the athletic department in recent years.  Following losing football seasons, they had an average annual LOSS of about a million dollars.  The year 2001 was the best of all possible years, because miracle-boy Stoops won the championship the year earlier.  The surplus was only $1 million -- $4 million short of what they need annually for 30 years.

                Get the picture?

                Maybe your saying "but but but he can't do this !" 

                Bad news, Sooners.  He's already done it.

                An Open Records Act request yielded the disclosure that in August 2001, Boren and the Regents made a GIFT of nearly $18 million to bail out their friends in the athletic department.  Here's how the deal worked:  it went on record as a $12 million "loan," but it was INTEREST-FREE with a 20-year pay-out.  Normally the accumulated interest over a 20-year loan made at that time would be another $12 million.  Additionally, the lender OU forgave $5.6 million of the principal at the front end. 
                There's more. Another Open Records Act request yielded the FY 02 financial data on the new museum.  It had an operating loss of nearly $4 million that year.  FY 03 won't be any better.  Admissions revenue from school trips was down 65%.
                A big reason why the state is having such revenue woes is the constitutional amendment, passed in the early 90s, which prohibits the legislature from raising or enacting new taxes.  Boren's slavemaster Eddy Gaylord, for whom he named the stadium and the journalism building, orchestrated that amendment.  Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this unpleasant history? Afraid of offending Big Boss Boren?   According to the Tax Foundation, Oklahoma ranks 46th in tax burden.
                You talk about the OU "family."  That's rubbish.  Boren is not your daddy.  He doesn't open up the treasury for interest-free loans to you, does he?  OU is a hideously corrupt institution.  Now you know the truth.  Either you tell the truth to your readers, or you conceal it and join the corruption.  Make your record. I'm going to make sure that a huge audience outside of Oklahoma hears of your response.
                Don't believe me?  See my article about Boren and his trashy relationship to inept CIA boss George Tenet, at this address:

http://news.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/08/13/0454239

                Go here for my update.  If you think Boren is anything less than one of  the worst criminals in American history, you are very very naive:

http://journals.aol.com/mpwright9/michael

                If you aren't willing to expose these truths, then at least be honest and drop all pretentions to being a "progressive" and "alternative" newspaper.  Being an impotent propaganda organ for Boss Boren is objectively reactionary. 

-- Mike Wright

   OU Alumnus

PS: Apologies if I sent this to the wrong Ben Smith. The name appeared twice in the OU directory, and I had to guess which one was with the Undercurrent.

To:  C. E. Westphal, News Editor
From:  E. Z. Million, Class of '61
Re:  Boren

(1)  See my website:   www.ezmillion.net
(2)  Call me anytime, *******
(3)  Do you read the (weekly) Chronicle of Higher Education ??
        IF you did you would know that everything you wrote about
        Boren's influence on OU's reputation is false.
       (a)  Jess Hickman must have done an internship under Baghdad Bob.
       (b)  Seriously,  Boren lies about everything---he's a fake; a fraud.
              I have much documentation on his corruption.
              I've become an Expert on the use of the Open Records Act
              during these past 12 years.
       (c)   When Boren arrived at OU 9 years ago, his net worth was
               relatively modest ($200,000 aprox.);  Now, it's over $10,000,000.
               Don't be fooled--his main activity has been enriching himself.
 (4)  Boren has bankrupted the University by trying to make OU
        into "Oxford on the Prairie"  or  "Yale on the Plains".
         (a)  Didn't you notice that last week he had to sell 500+ acres
                on North Base to bail out his Weather Center boondoggle ?
         (b)  Did you know that 2 years ago, Boren loaned the Athletic Dept.
                the sum of $12,000,000 at  Zero Per Cent  interest ?
         (c)  The tuition increase was Totally about "Bailing out Boren".
                 I have two questions for you & your readers:
                    "How Much More in Two-Thousand Four ?"
                    "Can You Survive in Two-Thousand Five ?"
         (d)  You saw Boren Lie, Lie, Lie this past Spring about the
                 need for a Tuition ( and Fees) Increase  (15% max, he said).

Elmer "E. Z." Million, ********************,  Norman

                Both Mr. Wright and Mr. Million raise very interesting points that we’d like to respond to, however we feel that it is necessary to first shine some light on whom they are and the positions they hold in the Norman community. Both are OU alumni, and both have felt the need to express their opinions very adamantly about the situation at our school in recent years.
                Mr. Million is a local businessman, who often touts himself as an OU alumnus. He is a former member of the Pride and also made an unsuccessful run for Lt. Governor in 2002, campaigning on issues like the OU-Texas game controversy.
                Mr. Wright is probably the most ardent opponent of whatever President Boren does at any given time, so writing anything pro-Boren or at least non-antagonistic toward our President will get you a thorough literary or verbal tongue-lashing from him.

With that out of the way, our response to both letters:

                When it comes to your stance on OU’s academics we find it strange that one would consider the educational success or failure of our former basketball team pertinent. So what if the country knows that our basketball team sucks at school? Has anyone paid attention to the fact that we attract so many Rhodes Scholars and Honors students? If you want to study meteorology, petroleum law, petroleum engineering, or ballet you come to OU. OU has the largest number of National Merit students of all public universities in America and if you ask any one of them, you’ll learn that OU pampers them with financial assistance.  I think that says a lot more about the quality of our school.
                Did President Boren personally teach our brightest students, or create some brain serum to increase their IQ? Of course not, but it’s certainly not his fault that the basketball team can’t graduate. Mr. Wright’s statistics are selective at best. For instance, if a basketball player transfers to another school from OU it counts against our graduation rate.   
                Furthermore, the Association of American Universities (www.aau.edu) focuses on issues pertaining to research-intensive universities. Too bad we’re not on their list of schools.
                If President Boren thinks that raising tuition is the best way to get a cabinet position on the Lieberman administration, he’s slipping. President Boren’s status as a former Senator is enough to get him such a job, and if he really thinks Lieberman is going to win the 2004 election he’s a betting man of a dangerous nature. President Boren does not choose or pay the speakers who come to OU. The CAC Speakers Bureau chooses and pays them a speaking fee out of its own budget. Boren does not raid the OU treasury because there is no such thing as an OU treasury.
                The Undercurrent is not ecstatic about the fact that when people think of OU nationally they think of football. We hate that you only see a commercial for our University during football games. We’re not thrilled that the biggest moneymaker here is athletics, but that’s no different than many other major universities. Stanford has the one of the best athletics department nationally while also providing one of the highest quality educations in the country. The Undercurrent cannot deny the fact that football gets many students to pay attention to OU and that makes us money along with our high standards in education.   
                As for Mr. Wright’s threat to “tell everyone” we’re not a progressive paper, we won’t be waiting up late at night holding a shotgun, afraid that the Progressive Police will break down our doors. Anyone whose read our paper has seen that The Undercurrent has been the lone voice on campus opposing not only the War in Iraq (and war in general), but also the policies of the Bush Administration, corporate crimes (see: “Telecommunications” Issue) the foolish hang-ups of people in our society (see: The “Sex” and “Drug” Issues), and countless other issues that no one else at OU champions. We do not speak for all liberals, progressives, freethinkers, or intellectuals, but then again we don’t claim to. And neither should anyone. We’re a voice for some, and we’re proud of that. As for Mr. Westphal: he never claimed to be a liberal so he doesn’t care who you tell.
                When it comes to the football team, which earns a surplus of not quite $5 million a year, we have little doubt they will be able to pay back that loan. In regards to the 0% interest, what institution would make a loan of such an exuberant size to another part of itself and charge interest?  That’s bad business. If the money for this loan did come out of tuition then, there is a serious problem and students have a right to know and protest it.  
                The Undercurrent’s official stance on the tuition raise is that it is preferable to the other options that the Board of Regents was presented with. We reported the facts of the situation as they were presented to us, gave President Boren his window of opportunity to make a statement. If peoples’ opinions differ - that’s fine. If they have conflicting facts, then argue them with us and prove us wrong. So far that hasn’t been done convincingly.
                It is quite possible that Mr. Wright and Mr. Million are on to something here. But it will take more than accusation filled rants sprinkled sparsely with questionably interpreted facts that have varying degrees of relevance to the topic at hand to gain our support.
                In closing, there is still much work to be done before we rest on our laurels when it comes to these issues. We are trying to establish as many facts as possible in this situation and welcome information and expert opinions from any source. To that end, we have secured such an expert, to respond to both Mr. Wright and Mr. Million. The details of which we’ll leave until our next issue! Keep reading!

The Undercurrent Staff