By Newman
Their monopoly ends now.
Lacking any more underground newspapers to make fun of after issue 2 scared them all away, I'm afraid I may have to take aim at The Cardinal News. This is not counting that other underground paper entitled "Rantings" that recently celebrated its second issue. In case you missed it, and you probably did because it seems to have a circulation of about 5, they reported the breaking news of the homecoming fiasco, and called us all "mindless, conformist sheep." They made some interesting points on Time Out and said "bloody hell" once, but other than that said nothing else that's making me wait in suspense until their next one-side-of-one-page December issue.

Now back to the Cardinal News.
I know you're probably saying, "You guys put out one double-sided page. The Cardinal News has 8 big pages. So there." But then again The Underground doesn't have 30 people working for it. We lose money on each issue since they're free, and we do it on Microsoft Word. Plus we're at a major clipart disadvantage. So the Cardinal News should be vastly superior to us right? Well… not quite. We've found numerous spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes and glaring omissions in a couple sections, not to mention the errors of the "Music Period Timeline," which asserts that rock and roll ended in 1962, and totally ignores the whole disco era.

Time to edit the editors.
I'm a big fan of irony. That's why I absolutely love Opinion Editor Michael "Mike" Trinastic's article on page 2. Now I understand that it is Copy Editor Rob Kennedy's job to check all articles for errors, but that he can only do this for articles that he gets on time. Now Mike, while writing his article about how we should all take time to stop and think about we're doing, apparently didn't heed his own advice and waited until the absolute latest minute to get his article in. How do I know this? Because there are mistakes in both the headline and first sentence! His headline reads, "Speeding through life a all-too-common mistake." Last time I checked, you were supposed to use the word 'an' before a word that starts with a vowel, like 'all-too-common.' Also, he spelled 'immediately' wrong in the very first sentence. Perhaps Mike was simply illustrating his point that we should take time to think about what we are doing (or writing). Or perhaps he was up late watching "Beavis & Butthead" on MTV the night he was supposed to be writing his article. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Cannibals are people too.
As much as I dislike having to criticize a fellow humorist, I just have to make a couple comments on Luke Wagner's "Ten ways to distract a cannibal" article. Assuming that it was meant to be humorous that is... I don't know how much of a stretch that was for some people. I know that he added the little disclaimer, "Please do not be offended by any of these suggestions. I know that a lot of people may be offended by the Sammy Davis Jr. insult." Au contraire mon frere. I'm good friends with Sammy and he said he doesn't take it personally. What I'm offended by is the whole concept of distracting cannibals, because I, myself, am a cannibal. Yup, that's right. My two favorite movies are even Soilent Green and Silence of the Lambs. You probably haven't noticed though because I keep it well under wraps. Plus I have an eccentric taste. Ever wonder what ever happened to Vanilla Ice? I ate him. And where's Tracey Ullman? Yup, her too. And where's Dan Quayle gone off to since 1993? My stomach, that's where! With a side of yummy potatoe salad. So enough with the cannibal bashing, ok? That's all I'm asking. Can you do that for a brother?

This wouldn't be Tosa East without something on sports.
As for sports, everything seemed pretty good, except for one omission. Where's the boys volleyball story? These guys win state last year and this year not a single word about them? Ouch. Seems to me that it would have fit quite nicely where that 'Youth Coffee House' advertisement was. I did like Chappie's comment that "granted there are publications that circulate around our halls that are much more liberal in what they print, but none of them are school-sponsored." Tee-hee. I'd also like to give a shout-out to Mr. Sam Sebastian for being the top point earner for boys cross country and for being a Notre Dame fan. You da man.

What a load of bull.
About the only department I couldn't find fault in for this issue was circulation. In fact, I got my issue 3rd hour. Way to go Marlana. By the way, I thought the hidden animal was supposed to be a bull... so how come there's an elephant sitting in a strand of DNA on page 3? It's a conspiracy.

The ever-present disclaimer.
I'm not naming people in this issue just to pick on them for a few small errors and to be mean. We need issues like this one to criticize the Cardinal News and keep them on their toes. I know they're big boys and girls and they can take some constructive criticism. And besides, they do write the official school paper, so it's not like they can't fight back. A little competition is a good thing, it'll only serve to make both papers better.

Back to Issue 4.5