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OVER THE EDGE
November 7 - 21, 2007

Cody Sucks, Part Il

Dearest darlingest editor,

Our student newspaper has suffered a plague of shrill polemi-
cists since its inception. With a masturbatory, self-indulgent name
like Over the Edge, I suppose the paper was bound to attract that
type. Cody Willett, the editor-in-chief of Over the Edge, wrote an
opinion piece in the 14 October 2007 ejaculating over Holocaust-
denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York City. Willett’s
usual incoherent screed was once again just an excuse for him
to vent his virulent anti-Americanism. My favourite part of the
piece was when Willett (unbeknownst to himself) agreed with
Ahmadinejad’s famous “9/11-was-an-inside-job-by-the-Jews”
conspiracy theory. Now who was it who said that journalism is
about “intelligently reading between the lines”?

Anyway, New York City has the largest population of Jews
outside of the State of Israel. With that demographic in mind,
Willett’s analogy between Ahmadinejad visiting New York and
Hitler blowing a raspberry at Buckingham Palace failed in the
most despicable way. A better analogy would be, say, Hitler rising
from the dead, standing in front of a city full of Jews, and murder-
ing those six million people all over again. Somehow the proper
analogy is just as humourless as Willett’s joke.

The part I took particular issue with was when Willett con-
demned the people of the State of Israel. Not the state. The people.
He sarcastically remarked “bless their snow-white souls.” This
judgement struck me as hypocritical, considering some of the
things people of the same race, ethnicity, and nationality as Willett
have done to Jews. In collective terms, Willett’s soul is certainly
in no condition to be casting such a sweeping condemnation. In
individual terms, let me just say that I have looked into- Willett’s
eyes and cringed at what I saw there. But who am I to judge the
state of his soul?

I remember students in my high school laughing and cheering
on 9/11. This memory makes me ashamed to be Canadian. This
same shame swept over me as I read Willett’s piece. I hate to
sound unpatriotic, but if I could exchange my fellow Canadian
Cody Willett’s life for that of just one American who was mur-
dered in the attack, I would do so without hesitation.

In response to his editorial, I drew a cartoon of Willett dressed
in a Nazi uniform committing an act of sodomy with Adolf Hitler
in front of the gates of the Auschwitz extermination camp. Hitler’s
Roman salute gives the impression of the dictator’s erect penis in-
side Willett’s rectum. Willett, his face beaming as he fondles his
own genitalia, says, “Harder mein Furher! Soon you will reach
my snow-White soul!” (Notice the strategic capitalization.) Writ-
ten above the gate to Auschwitz is the Nazi motto, “Work will set
you free.” In the bottom corner I wrote, “P. S. Fuck you Cody Wil-
let,” in case he missed the message. This cartoon summed up my
thoughts and feelings toward Willett and his editorial in a crude
but effective way.

You see, over a million Jews were murdered by the Germans
in Auschwitz. Among the victims in that camp was a boatload
of Jews who had been denied entrance to Canadian and British
ports. They were sent back to Germany because of anti-Semitic
immigration laws and ended up as smoke and ashes. The Holo-
caust is the reason why Jews fled the White countries of the world
to form their own state. They stopped trusting White people, and
who can blame them? (White boy extraordinaire Cody Willett,
apparently.)

My cartoon was meant to educate Willet as to this historical
reality, and in so doing perhaps dissuade him from supporting
Holocaust-deniers, denouncing the people of Israel, and hate-
mongering against people of other nations in general. I hoped my
cartoon would shock his ideology-racked mind into some kind of
awareness of the reality behind the propaganda he spews.

Giddy with anticipation, I e-mailed my cartoon to Over the
Edge, politely requesting that they print it under an appropriate
pseudonym. However, my work was rejected in a rather unprofes-
sional manner by Tyler Clarke, the production coordinator, who
referred to my singular artistic masterpiece as “shit.” This refusal
to print my piece put the Nazi motif of my cartoon into delightful
new context, but I decided that further action was necessary.

Naturally, I responded to Clarke first in a profanity-laced e-mail
and then by defecating into a Tupperware container and includ-
ing the package with this letter. You see, I want to make it clear
that giving them shit has been my intention all along. People like
Willett and Clarke love to dish it out, but they cannot take it. At
any rate, I hope Over the Edge can print political statements in the
form of fecal matter. It is not so different from their usual fare.

Fondest regards,
“Some Douchebag”

“Cody Sucks” Artist is
indeed a Douchebag!

Dear OTE,

I write this letter in response to the ‘cartoon’ on page nine of your October 24th issue, titled Cody Sucks. Frankly, I
was shocked. But before I discuss the reason for my shock, I’d like to add a little context. The ‘cartoon’ was in response
to an article in your October 10th issue by your Editor-in-Chief, Cody Willett, titled The Rumbling Echo: Ahmadinejad
Does New Yawk. In response to this article the aforementioned ‘cartoon’ appears to be accurate, Mr. Willett does in.
fact suck. In this tongue-in-cheek op-ed piece, Willet attempts sarcasm and appears to be more anti-Bush than an Ah-
madinejad-apologist. But the reason “Cody Sucks’ is because of his misguided rants towards America and the way he
props up the Iranian regime. Mr. Willett declares that the Iranian regime was not involved in the 9/11 tragedy but The
9/11 Commission Report clearly outlines Iranian support for Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. Perhaps if Mr. Willett had done
any research at all, his article would not so clearly show how much he sucks.

This letter, however, is in response to the ‘cartoon’, which was in response to Mr. Willet’s article. The ‘cartoon’
contains a photo-shopped image of Mr. Willet being sodomized by Adolf Hitler “before the gates of Auschwitz’. This
image comes from the comments from Mr. Willet’s article. But they do not make sense in terms of the arguments of
the article. Let’s forget for a second that this cartoon is both anti-Semitic and homophobic, there’s a larger problem:
IT’S NOT FUNNY. Come on OTE, I expect better. This ‘cartoon’ is not funny, clever, or ironic; it’s distasteful and an
inaccurate response to Mr. Willet’s article. This ‘cartoon’ is a waste of paper and since I fund this newspaper I demand
better for my five dollars a semester. This cartoon should not have been printed not because of the hatred it spews but
because of the weakness of the commentary. By printing this cartoon, it appears that OTE was attempting to manufac-
ture controversy, OTE where is your journalistic integrity? And to the ‘cartoonist’ of Cody Sucks, you missed the point
of Mr. Willett’s article; you are a coward for not signing your ‘cartoon’; oh and if you like inflammatory commentary:

Eat Shit.
Sincerely, —
Aaron Widdis
UNBC Student

Re: Top 6 Regretful Degree
Programs at UNBC

It’s been said on the streets millions of times, ‘what do
you do with a degree program anyway? Teach?’ Well, I’ve
typically responded saying that I’d be a journalist/colum-
nist at a newspaper or did the behind the scenes work at
a news station somewhere. Though it has always been a
trend that whenever someone asks me what my major in,
I respond by saying ‘English’ and they react as if I had
contracted a disease.

I find it, personally, unfortunate that my own paper de-
cided to more or less play the ‘these degrees suck’ card in
the previous issue. While, at first, I reacted by thinking that
this is an outrage, I can also admit that there was quite a lot
of truth to the list as well. The list also reflects a frustration
I’m sure many of us will face when we graduate as well
— simply being the lack of non-minimum wage jobs unless
you decide to go to Vancouver to carry bags of cement until
you break your spine in two.

If you’re majoring in one of the listed majors, it’s not
exactly time to put down your pen and track down the near-
est suicide pill. So take that gun out of your mouth and
keep reading because it’s my observation is that most of the
other degrees are quite similar — the only two exceptions I
can think of are law or medical masters degrees.

I can think back to hearing about someone wanting to
advance his life — bearing in mind I don’t actually know
this person personally. Once he completed his degree of
computer science, he wound up in the exact same crummy
job as before. There was an additional story I heard in the
CBC at one point where a big time business person im-
migrated from Iran (I believe) to Canada because Canada

was screaming for skilled workers. He left most of his life
behind to start a new life only to find that the promised
jobs simply didn’t exist. He ended up becoming a manager
in some seafood business, but in the end, it simply wasn’t
worth it. Once he saved up enough money, he basically
went back to Iran to tell everyone else to not believe Can-
adian immigration when they say they need workers.

Both of these incidences, not to mention probably hun-
dreds of other cases to be found if you ask around, high-
light a simple problem in Canada that barely anyone likes
to talk about. This problem is that Canada simply doesn’t
know what to do with skilled workers. The country does
a great job at attracting them, but once they are here or
actually become skilled, they frequently leave the country
because there simply isn’t any work to be had that justi-
fies their expertise. That’s right, I’m saying that the ‘skilled
workers shortage in Canada’ is a lie. In Canada, it’s more
like, ‘skills, skills everywhere, but not a one that compan-
ies will hire’.

So go ahead and laugh or think Psych majors are simply
wasting their time — chances are, the person making that
accusation won’t do much better with their degree either.
So why in the world am I ‘wasting my time’ getting this
‘useless’ degree? To get a huge leg-up on the thousands of
dropouts trying to get the same job via resume if the econ-
omy collapses with the US.

Jeremy Johnson
Contributor