When Even Minuscule Amounts of Power Go To Your Head...

I’m such an advocate for anti-bullying because I am certain the act of humiliating a young person breeds an adult who become a power-hungry position-seeker.

I want to share with you a very short story, so there’s no need to fear boredom. But, as about 50 percent of my stories go, there’s a moral or two involved.

First, I would like to publicly admit something I did wrong: At the homecoming dance, I pulled a stupid college prank. In fact, at the time I was just trying to be silly and entertain my date. But the prank went horribly wrong.

For those of you who attended, you noticed the vases filled with pebbles, water, flowers and lights. I don’t know why, but I thought it would be funny to turn off the light and place it elsewhere. And no, I didn’t steal it—because frankly I didn’t want it.

I know. When it comes to off-the-cuff pranks involving random things I encounter, I’m actually not that creative.

Now I’m not proud of what I did. I screwed with someone’s attempt at making a romantic water feature, and for that I deserve to (yes, here comes a Skewed Review) set up every feature at every dance and then clean up after the rowdy college students from now until I graduate.

At the rate I’m going, graduation should be around 2030, and that’s if I do well.

A very concerned party planner/college chick/student government type approached me after my little playtime. I’m not exactly sure if she’s a member of student government, but I recognized her.

She was very nice to me when she asked, “did you just take the light from that vase?”

I was caught. I returned to look for the light. Unfortunately for all parties involved, I had placed the light in place where nobody could really find it. Especially since the light traveled from the spot I initially placed it. I conveyed my apologies to party planner girl, told her I was just pulling a stupid prank, and then offered to pay for the light if it wasn’t found.

So my date and I went off on our way as I started secretly praying that the light wasn’t worth too much.

If this is where the story ended, I would give party planner girl five out of five days of rest and relaxation for handling a silly college man with dignity. She hadn’t really gone out of her way to embarrass me, and when it was clear the light was nowhere in the vicinity, she dropped the subject.

But, suddenly, as my date and I walked to the fountain, a campus security car drove right up the sidewalk to us.

Yes. Party planner had called the cops on me.

Now this particular Skewed Review could easily go in three directions. I could have chosen to focus on stupid college students (like myself) who get silly kicks out of doing stupid things. I could have also focused on our extremely efficient campus security. I mean, after all, their response time was less than five minutes.

But instead I want to focus on positions of power and how people use them.

Party planer girl is just one example of a person who takes her position so seriously that she’s willing to go to the extreme to flex her power biceps. It could have been very easy for her to ask me for my name and number so I could replace the now lost light. She could have even asked me to leave the dance. But instead, she used the full strength of her position to summon security to punish me for me heinous crime.

This brings me back to my very first statement.

I think people who have been demeaned or bullied in some fashion in their younger years may tend to seek careers where they, in turn, can become the punishers.

My wonderful father, a man who started as a beat cop in St. George and then worked his way up to a sergeant at the state level, always told me he could tell which officers were bullied as children; they were always the ones writing tickets instead of warnings and citing high school kids for curfew rather than just telling them to go home.

My fear is that we are treating people so badly that those who are the brunt of our actions are holding onto those feelings until adulthood. Then those once traumatized people become officers, teachers, government officials, and so on.

When these people, who now hold positions of power, come across someone like me (who most likely reminds them of some petty bully from their childhoods), then suddenly they summon the powers of Greyskull and rain He-man hellfire down upon us.

Do I blame party planner for treating me like I just murdered president Nadauld and then smuggled a pound of heroin in his corpse into Mexico? Of course not. She was protecting her hard work, I’m sure. Yes, I do believe she went overboard because she took my stupid prank very personally, but it really was me who set the whole thing into motion.

My new review for party planner is this: Five out of five days of rest and relaxation. Oh, and she also gets an army of manicurists, cosmetologists, hairdressers and massage therapists. Not because she needs them by any means (she was very cute, mind you), but because she deserves better than a life where she has to resort to extremes to punish people who she feels have done her wrong. She deserves to have a few things done right to her.

And to the rest of you: Be kind to your fellow person. You never know who you’ll be molding into the next Mahatma Gandhi (or into the next Saddam Hussein, for that matter).

For the record, I’ve already ordered not just one replacement light, but also a whole box of them. Considering a container of six cost $7.92, I think I can afford the 75 percent interest.

We’d like to know what childhood issues have shaped who you are today. Are they positive, or negative? Follow The Skewed Review on Twitter @TheSkewedReview, and “like” it on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheSkewedReview. See you online!

The Art of Political Cartooning

The overall look of an editorial cartoon can sometimes seem silly and juvenile—whether it be because of the obvious biases, the sometimes scratchy handwriting, or the caricatured representations of public figures.

But the actual work that goes into creating that single story-telling panel can actually be daunting. There are so many factors that come into play when creating a cartoon that not only has to have a political message, but also be somewhat entertaining. I’d like to guide you through a step-by-step process, and perhaps you can come up with something to share with the readers of Dixie Sun.

1. Know your point of view

There are people who definitely prefer to be the peacekeepers, and there are those who tend to steer completely clear of conflict altogether. If you fall into this category, then perhaps creating an editorial cartoon isn’t for you.

The best politically focused cartoons come from artists and writers who have a definable position on a topic. Pretending to have an opinion can only get a person so far. It won’t take long before you’re out of ideas if you’re a fence-sitter. You need to be the kind of person who can get extremely excited about some things and terribly disappointed in others.

If you approach creating a cartoon with this mentality, then your readers should know where you stand on an issue based on the product you show them.

2. Keep up with the Kardashians

And the Clintons, and the Baldwins, and the Ahmadinejads. If you’re not focusing your cartoon on something current, then you’re most likely going to end up with a “Family Circus” knock-off.

Watch the news, read the papers, peruse the blogs—do whatever it takes to keep yourself current. By keeping current with the news, you’re actually setting yourself up to succeed at step No. 3.

3. Focus on everything ridiculous

Paying attention to the news is all fine and dandy, but you need to keep a special eagle eye out for moments you can make fun of. Why on earth do you think President George W. Bush was re-elected? It was because all the political cartoonists out there were striking gold on a daily basis.

President Obama has had a few gaffs as well. It wasn’t too long ago he made a toast to the Queen of England—in the middle of the British national anthem. To a political cartoonist, that’s the equivalent of handing a book of matches to a pyromaniac and then daring him to burn the city down.

4. Know how to make fun

It simply won’t do to re-tell the exact same story everyone else has been seeing on the news. As an editorial cartoonist, you need to take the common news and put your own spunky spin on it.

Let's use Obama as an example again. It was obviously just a simple mistake when he interrupted the British national anthem; he certainly didn’t do it on purpose. So you can run with that. Perhaps you can have a cartoon titled, “The rest of Obama’s British visit,” and then draw him making social faux pas in ridiculous situations.

You could draw him sneezing into the Queen’s tea, then draw him comparing Prime Minister David Cameron to Austin Powers, and finally show him meeting the Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a. Kate Middleton) while asking, “And who are you?”

5. You’ve got to doodle-doo

Now I’ve seen my fair share of political cartoons, so I can tell you right now that you don’t have to be a talented artist to pull one of these off. However, you do have to have some sort of flair for drawing imitations of public figures. And if you find your rendition of a certain political person isn’t quite recognizable, you can easily throw a name badge onto your drawing.

You’ll want to sketch it out in pencil first, just in case you make an error. Then you can decide to make your cartoon color or black and white. I started out with the simple black and white format, then I started coloring in my characters with sharpies. Now I use watercolor. The medium is completely up to you. I bet a political cartoon colored with crayons would be a hit.

6. Once is not enough

The very first political cartoon I ever drew was in junior high. Trust me when I tell you it was the equivalent of manure in its first stage. Because I was so unsuccessful at that first cartoon, I was hesitant to do it again. It wasn’t until college that I decided to take another shot at it.

My first cartoon of the year was OK, but it certainly was lacking. However, as the weeks have gone by, I’ve found the concepts come to me much easier, and my art is improving. Just be prepared to make a few mistakes.

So do you think you’ve got it in you to at least come up with one editorial cartoon? We’d love to see it! Share it on our Facebook page at Facebook.com/Dixie.sun.

The Annual Halloween Edition of The Scared Re-BOO!

Quiet. Don't make a sound. It might be right behind us. What was that noise? Don't turn around. It could be right there!

While this could definitely be the inner monologue of someone in a manic study group who's scouring the library for a missing USB drive, it's actually something I tell myself to get hyped up in scary situations.

Any Halloween buff will tell you: You're not getting your money's worth if you're not getting scared. This phrase may seem a bit confusing out of context, so let me offer you a few situations I ran into this year where I observed people getting the most (or least) out of getting scared.

Scary movie time: No jumping allowed!

The price of a movie ticket is $8 for one adult at our local theaters, and that's for your regular movie. If the film you're out to see is 3-D, then you've got an additional $2 to pay. Of course, we are lucky to be living in St. George. Ticket prices in bigger cities with better theaters usually costs about double those prices.

Regardless of ticket price, though, the fact is clear as a Proactiv model's "after" face that you (or your date) are spending money to see something scary. You're doing it on purpose.

My friend and I went to see a scary film a few weeks back. He paid. Suffice to think he'd want to get his money worth. Oddly enough, it seemed as though he was set on throwing his money away.

Now it's true that many so-called scary movies (if not most of them) are laughable. But that doesn't mean you can't get yourself in the mood and have a good time.

The film we saw was a little gem called "Apollo 18." It truly sucked. But sucking never stopped me from enjoying myself. I got as into the movie as I possibly could. I tried to wind myself up for startling situations, and I even found myself jumping a couple of times.

But something in the movie theater was pulling me down. To the right of me sat my friend who audibly sighed in annoyance every three or four minutes. Every time I jumped, he looked at me as if I were a naked homeless man trying to sell fresh salt-water taffy. His mood-strangling mood was literally taking all the fun out of seeing a bad movie.

He paid! If I had ponied up the bucks, I would want to make sure to get my money's worth. After all, this is two hours of our lives we are never going to get back. Shouldn't we make them enjoyable, or at least memorable?

You can make any good movie bad just by ruining it with your Debbie Downer mood. Consequentially, you can make any bad movie worse with the same attitude.

But, you can make any bad movie good just by picking out the best parts and making the worst parts even better. I mean, look at "Rocky Horror Picture Show!"

My friend did not get his money's worth because he refused to admit we were seeing a scary movie. Was it because he didn't want people to think he could get so easily startled? Was it because he was just grumpy from work? Was he a general sourpuss? Or was he just a captain sourpuss?

His money was lost, and all he got out of it was a set of dry back teeth from all the sighing.

Folks who don't realize a scary movie is scary because the audience has to suspend its disbelief for just a couple of hours get a rating of four out of five days locked in a closet full of whatever their phobias may be. People with acrophobia will be placed in a closet with a glass floor—suspended above the Grand Canyon. People with agoraphobia will be thrown in a field. Look those phobias up if you haven't heard of them.

Here's what will help you get your money's worth: Don't be afraid to let others see you jump in a movie theater. If you're a gal, it will get your man to hug you and protect you. If you're a guy, it may help your date see you've got a softer side. Or, it just might prove to everyone around you that you're so comfortable with yourself that you don't care who sees you get scared.

Welcome to the haunted house: Only idiots scream

Halloween is the perfect time to spend some hours and bucks on a good haunted house. Actually, Halloween is pretty much the only time you can do this. So when you think about it, getting scared at a haunted house is even more precious because most of them are only around about a month out of the year.

Captain Sourpuss and I went to Las Vegas to check out Circus Circus' Fright Dome. We read it was one of the best haunted attractions in America. I myself used to work at the No. 1 haunted attraction in America, so I'm all for sizing up the competition.

A ticket to the Fright Dome is about $40. Add to that the gas it costs to get to Las Vegas and back and you have a pretty pricey trip on your hands just to get scared.

I guess it's just naïve of me to assume anyone who would pay more than half a Benjamin to get scared would attempt to milk every scream for its dollar worth. I was wrong.

If you haven't guessed already, it was the same friend I went with to the movies who accompanied our troupe of Halloweenies to Vegas. Needless to say, he was a buzz kill.

At first I was on the same page as he was. I found the place to be too loud and too crowded to be scary. The first maze we went through was nothing more than a guided tour by some bad actors through a maze of half-assed "Halloween" (the movie, not the holiday) decorations.

It would have been easy to fall into the "this isn't scary and it's a waste of time" mentality. So I took a step back and decided to get my money's worth.

The next maze we went through was different. I held our group back from the tour guide. We got lost. We got terrified. Well, when I say "we," I mean my mother and me. My friend refused to get scared.

What's worse is when I tried to explain my whole reasoning behind acting like a little girl, my friend refused to believe me. I pride myself on being a very Halloween oriented person. I love getting scared, and as the years go by, I find fewer and fewer things actually scare me.

So I have to make myself get scared. Such was the case at the Fright Dome.

It's amazing how quickly things turned around when I started shrieking like a Justin Bieber fan who thought the latest Chipmunks movie was just a sequel to "Never Say Never." Suddenly the actors started paying attention to me. Where they were ignoring me before, I found they were going out of their ways to focus on me. I sure fell like the belle of the monster ball.

It was on me to make the whole trip worth it. I could have easily left complaining about the dollars dropped on that excursion, and how much money and time we wasted. Instead I left feeling like the cash was well spent.

My buddy, however, came out with as sour a puss as ever.

If you're going to spend mucho bucks on a Halloween haunt, then you need to make the effort to be scared. If you stand back and pretty much dare the actors to scare you, and then don't react, then you're going to make the actors ignore you. I mean, who wants to waste time on somebody who can't be scared? You'll leave feeling disappointed every time.

So to those of you who are too cool for ghoul and refuse to get scared at haunted houses, I'm rating you one full year of a nightmare-filled coma. How you get there is of your own accord.

A free scare: Machismo takes precedence.

Getting your money's worth doesn't have to apply to only things you pay for. In fact, some of the most fun and scary times can be had for little or no money at all.

A few friends and I went on spooky tour of the St. George area a couple of weeks ago. You can find the video of this tour on dixiesunlink.com.

My goal for this little horror trip was to get scared of nothing. I had planned for all of us to take one car and get in the mood on the drive. Things hardly ever go as planned, though.

Two of my buddies opted to take a different vehicle. So the whole "group getting in the mood" tactic fell off my truck of terror. Those two buddies were most likely not telling scary stories during the car trip like my passengers and I were doing.

I can just hear their conversation now.

"Dude, that chick was so hot."

"Yeah. But not as hot as that other chick."

"Dude."

Needless to say, when we got to our first destination, I was in the mood to be scared. The two who chose the secondary vehicle were in the mood to giggle and laugh. I don't think it helped that there were two females in our group. I think this elevated the testosterone levels in the males. In other words, the whole "I'm too cool to be scared" mentality was taking over.

I don't think our group fully got scared until we came across a field of pissed off horses. I think that's when we all fully realized what hoofing it meant.

But even when we were faced with the real-life possibility of being trampled by a bunch of ponies that were far from "My Little," the two men's men still acted unswayed by the angry horses. Did the two guys run in Girl Scout fear like the rest of us did? Nay.

If you're going to intentionally seek out a scary place with the ultimate goal of finding something spooky, then guess what? You'll need to put a little work in yourself. You can't get scared if you're discussing shooting or girls or the combination of the two.

To my buddies, whom I adore, I have a little review. I think each of you needs to spend every night of next week in each haunted place we visited—alone. Either that or you can spend each night of the week with Captain Sourpuss. You decide.

Have a happy Halloween

If you want to have a successful spooky 31st, then you need to stop expecting everyone else to do all the scare work. You need to meet halfway, like so many meandering politicians, and get yourself worked up, too.

Otherwise, you'll be left feeling like you didn't get your money's worth. Have I said that yet?

What's your favorite Halloween activity? How do you get in the mood? Are you hell-bent on having a good time? Or are you like Captain Sourpuss—hell bent on proving to everyone that you will never have fun? Let us know. Find Dixie Sun and The Skewed Review on Facebook. "Like" us, and follow The Skewed Review on Twitter @SkewedReview. 

Cheaters Never Prosper.

True Rebel!

I Root For Red When I Swap Spit

Big Dee, Raging Red, school spirit and game attendance—ugh. I've had enough.

Now, believe it or not, our last issue of Dixie Sun got me a little down. After all, I've never been the epitome of the school spirit type. I guess I could say, "My blood runs red," but that's only because it's a scientific fact. Show me a person whose blood isn't red, and I'll give you whatever cash I'm carrying at the moment.

By the way, don't carry cash, people. You're just asking to get mugged. I know I never do.
When I found out what the percentage of students was who showed up to each game, I got depressed. I mean, I'm not about to start showing up myself, but you get the idea.

Since I'm not a big football guy, then there has to be something else I can entertain myself with on campus, right? There seems to be that one school activity that constantly brings me back to school when I'm not required to: Homecoming.

Football is a hackneyed topic during the season. I've never actually been to a Dixie State College football game on account that I like to bet on my sports. I would never bet against my home team. You see my dilemma. So instead, I just don't go.

So rather than ranting about football, I'll focus on something a little more fun for me: becoming a True Rebel.

For those of you with less school involvement than even me, let me give you a little background.
Becoming a True Rebel dates back to the days when the famed fountain was built. On Homecoming night, students would wait until the stroke of midnight, remove their shoes, and then make out in the fountain until they were soaking wet.

I myself am the offspring of two devoted DSC graduates. My grandpa used to head up the English department, and I think I'm slowly becoming the protégé of one of DSC's favorite sons: Ernie Doose.
He was a member of the original Raging Red back when it was called Program Bureau, and you didn't have to audition to get in. But I digress.

But when I first started going to school (back in 2001), I took a date to the dance and we hung around and waited for midnight. Once the bell tolled, she and I, and two other couples, got into the fountain and started sharing tongues with each other. She was just a friend. I don't want to confuse anyone here.
I think the campus security guard who cited us all was just waiting for someone to try and have a little fun.

That's right. We got in trouble for trying to carry on a dying tradition.
Whoever that security guard was, I'm giving him a review of 10 out of 10 midnights in the fountain—on the jet stream pump.

I took a little time off to go back to work and eventually returned to pursue my love of writing. And yes, that does mean I've got a good 10 years on most of you.

Imagine my surprise when I found out the tradition had not only been resurrected, but the campus was also promoting it!

I'm very glad the powers that be have stopped being such wieners and have at least tried to preserve some amount of tradition. For the small effort, I'm awarding them each (whomever they may be) a sleeping bag. That way board members can sleep on the steps of the Administration building while they wait for it to open.

That's a DSC historical reference. Look it up.

It has always weighed heavily on my heart that the politically correct world has forced our school, which is so rich in history and tradition, to eliminate our once proud mascot. We were, after all, the Rebels once upon a time. What makes a person want to lash out against opposing teams more than a rebel? But he's dead and gone now.

I think that was the day my school spirit died.

But on one night (or is it two now?), It just makes me want to cry like John Boehner when I see hormonal young adults filing into the fountain to make out with their girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends, strangers, cousins or whomever.

The True Rebel tradition gets a very positive review. I give it five out of five soaking wet underwear. In some situations, that would be a horrible review indeed. But in this case, it's not.

Share your True Rebel story with us! Find "The Skewed Review" and Dixie Sun on Facebook, and follow Matty on Twitter @SkewedReview.