"You ever play Catch?"  Brads talking again.  It's always yes or no questions with Brad, that or commands.  He doesn't talk much, he tells.  He's talking to Scott now.  I'm sitting on the floor, legs crossed, an oversized paperback I've been leafing through open on my lap.
	
"Like throwing a ball back and forth?  What do you mean?"  Scott, he's easily confused.  It's that catholic school upbringing, leaves most kids dazed by graduation, naïve and masochistic, a dangerous combination around Brad and me.
	
I chuckle.
	
Brad has this really crazy look in his eye, an acid look with the pupils all dilated out like they're thirsty for light.  Even worse, Brad's eyes are a really dark brown, matches his hair, and when his eyes get all freaky like that they can trip a guy out from ten feet away.  Brad says it's from his blood; he's got American Indian blood in him, so he claims.
	
Scott, he's been fiddling with this huge glass beaker he ripped off from the chemistry lab at the catholic school, and he's been turning it into a bong all afternoon.  He got all that plastic tubing out of the back of my hatchback, and he's using it to make the whole thing into a hookah.  Scott's one of those stoners who spends more time making pipes than kicking back and relaxing when he's high.
	
So anyway, Scott, he sets the beaker aside and takes a hit from Brad's wooden pipe with all the resin stains around the lip of the bowl.  He blows the smoke out and says, "Guess not.  How do you play?"
		
"You know demons are real, right?"  Brad he says, taking the pipe.  "You know they are all the time out looking for some poor bastard to sell off his soul, like in Crossroads and Faust and all those stories?"  Scott he nods, and I can see he's trying not to smile much.  Brad is a cool guy to hang out with, but he gets mad when anyone tries to disagree with him, so Scott and I always just let Brad ramble on about whatever he wants and we just listen to him.
	
Brad always has some story locked up in his head, something so outrageous that you don't know if it's true or not.  You can't tell when he's lying.  He can't tell when he's lying, he's told me so.  He forgets what really happened and all he remembers is what he says happened, which is why he passed that lie detector test when the gas station fired him.
	
So instead of saying anything now that Brad's started in on his story, Scott just nods and "mm-hmm's" a little.
	
"Well, they ain't the only things what can get a soul.  You can sell your soul to anyone, really, so long as they don't have one of their own.  People can trick your soul out of you even, and you be thinking you're giving them a cigarette or loaning them a cd and poof, they got your soul."  Brad takes a hit from the pipe and passes it to me.
	
I live with Brad.  He's all the time borrowing clothes off me because he's too damn lazy to do laundry and I have twice as many clothes as he does, plus we're both about the same height and weight.  I'm about five ten, one fifty, and he's five eight, one sixty.  He's got more muscle than me, better fighter, but he can't steal like I can.  I can waltz into a bookstore and come out with ten books, big ones; in the same amount of time it takes him to steal a candy bar and a bag of chips from his own job.
	
"So Catch is what this whole game is called, see, 'cause it's about catching another person's soul and keeping it for yourself."  Brad explains.  "It started like this, this guy, long time ago, sold off his soul for like a chick and some money to live on, you know?  But he can't feel anymore, 'cause your soul, it's like how you feel things, so he can't love the chick at all.  He did the whole thing too, he got down and pulled up one of them dukes of hell, Asmodeus or something, and carved a pentagram out in the nature trails and sacrificed a cat and said 'Yo, I'm wanting to sell my soul here,' and worked out this deal, see?  So he couldn't back out of it, that ritual, it's like a legal contract."  Brad's still holding onto the pipe, even though he's already taken the hit.  He'll keep on holding it until he's finished talking unless I do something about it, so I grab it out of his hands.
	
"Bastard," Brad mutters at me, but he gives me the lighter from his other hand, and I know he's not mad.
	
"You were camping again."  I reply.
	
"So what'd the guy do?"  Scott asks.  Scott is getting into the story.  He's forgotten about the hookah he was working on and he's all leaning forward off the couch and paying attention.
	
"Well, he realized that for him to enjoy anything, he needed a soul.  His was already gone, so he stole a soul from some guy at a party or something.  See, once you lose your soul, it's really easy to get another.  It's like you become a vacuum, and you just suck in a new soul from someone else.  But they got to like give you something of their own free will for in order that you can take it."
	
"Makes sense, I guess."  Scott he says.  He's nodding his head up and down too, and his eyes are a little glazed over.  "So then what?"
	
"Well, this guy, he figures he's got a new soul, and he figures that since it was so easy to get a new one, maybe he can sell his current one and steal another.  So he summons up another demon, or maybe the same one, and makes another deal.  But his girlfriend, she's all weirded out and she leaves him and he loses all his money when he does the deal.  Demon's all laughing at him, cause selling his soul the second time done voided out the contract he did the first time, and them demons they'll fuck you over as soon as buy your soul if you give them the chance."  Brad's really gotten on a roll, and Scott's all wrapped up in the story, so I take another hit from the pipe instead of passing it.
	
"So he steals another soul, and those people he stole souls from, they start to steal souls for their own.  At least, that's how I figure it started."  Brad sighs.
	
"But how do you know about this?"  Scott asks.
	
"Cause this motherfucker is trying to steal my soul!"  Brad shouts, pointing at me.
	
"Yeah, right.  What the hell would I want your soul for?"  I ask, flipping him off.
	
"I know you were trying to steal my soul man, last time we tripped together.  I figured it all out and I know that's what you were up to."  Brad's still talking pretty loud, and then I see his eyes go from crazy to insane.  It's like a light just flickers, and when it comes back its somehow changed shade.  I begin to back up.
	
"Brad, man, I doubt that Dave here was trying to steal your soul."  Scott says, all serious now.  "He's not that kind of guy."
	
"Besides, I got my own soul.  What would I want with yours?"  I ask.  "I'm not a demon either."
	
"I'm moving out."  Brad says.  "I'm moving into my car and I'm going to live in the nature trails."  He rolls forward, sits up, and starts tossing his stuff into a huge canvas sack.
	
I shake my head and hand the pipe back to Scott.
	
The rest of the night, Scott works on the hookah and I watch Brad pack up his life.  Brad doesn't say another word to me until he's finished, and then it's only a quick "Be cool.  I just can't hang until I get my head clear," and he's gone, out into the night.
	
"Man, I'm out of smokes."  Scott he says after Brad's gone.  "Can I get one from you?"
	
"Sure."  I pull a Camel from my pocket, smooth it out, and pass it to Scott.  As he touches it, a hollow coldness sweeps over me.
	
"Thanks!"  He grins at me, and for just a second I see primal need radiating in his eyes.
	


=====================================================

Advertising & Morality

	In January our student newspaper received $200 to run an ad from the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.  This advertisement contained the web address of this organization, and the web site itself is devoted to disseminating information and providing resources for those individuals who wish to challenge the idea that the holocaust occurred in the way we were taught in school.  As would be expected, this created a stir of controversy on campus.
	It kicked off a chain of events that resulted in a faculty recommendation to the Bulletin requesting that no more advertisements from this organization or any other organization making this claim be published in the future.  As could be anticipated, the issue of censorship immediately arose, and an open forum was held where this very topic was debated.
	Is a faculty recommendation an attempt to establish prior restraint upon the student newspaper regarding the papers content?  Dr. Toadvine, assistant professor of philosophy and one of those who supported this recommendation, explained that the issue itself was not a freedom of speech issue, but a moral one.  
	Dr. Toadvine’s basic premise in his speech, that the Bulletin has no moral obligation to promote someone else’s ideas, and that publishing the ad is not a neutral act because it was what the organization in question wanted to happen.  He explained this further by stating that the act of distribution of the message, which in this case was the advertisement in question, that the Bulletin becomes complicit with the message itself.
	I have compiled a listing of the assumptions that can be made regarding the Bulletin staff based upon this premise and the February 21 issue of the Bulletin itself.
	They like food.  (Commercial St. Diner ad. and Yan Yan Chinese Restaurant ad.)  They like alcohol and think I should too.  (Liquor Locker ad. and Robinson’s Retail Liquor ad.)  They enjoy litigation.  (Hogan & Keil ad.)  They want someone to cut my hair.  (Dream Cutters ad.)  They believe the holocaust happened.  (Diary of Anne Frank ad.)  They support paying taxes.  (Pool & Company, Chartered ad. and H&R Block ad.)  They want me to wear a condom.  (Play It Safe ad.)  They want me to leave the country.  (SpringBreakDirect.com ad. and one with just a phone number.)  They want me to know if I’m pregnant or not, and if I am, they don’t want me to have an abortion.  (Birthright ad.)  They don’t want me to drink alcohol, or if I do, not to drink that much.  (DART Project ad.)  They support and produce pornography.  (Whispers Video ad.)
	By using Dr. Toadvine’s basic premise, that the messenger and/or media which carries a message in the form of an advertisement is responsible for the messages content, I’ve managed to make several absolutely fallacious assumptions.  I don’t really believe that the Bulletin staff produces pornography or that they even care if I’m pregnant.  Do they want me to drink alcohol or not?  Yet, if I am to understand Dr. Toadvine’s argument, and his entire basis for supporting the recommendation, it is because he has done this very thing regarding the CODOH advert.
	First, let me establish a few things.  I have not been to a holocaust museum, nor have I been to the site of any concentration camp.  I understand that Nazi’s are bad, primarily because Indiana Jones kept getting into scuffles with them and I was taught they killed a lot of Jews when I was in junior high.  Interestingly enough, I was attending a Christian school at the time, and I was never taught that homosexuals were killed as well, something I didn’t find out until after high school.
	Now that we find the campus suddenly twisted over this issue in an indirect sense.  I seriously doubt that anyone at the forum actually believes that the holocaust never occurred, even though most of the people that attended have probably been no closer to any object, place, or person directly involved with the holocaust.  This is not what is being debated; it is not the issue at hand.
	Despite my personal opinion that anyone wishing to debate the non-involvement of Hitler in genocidal activities would be engaged in an argument composed of rhetoric versus concrete historical facts, and that such a debate would be so rapidly deconstructed in the face of such facts that they would pose no threat to intellectual solidarity on this issue, other people don’t seem to share this view.  Instead, Dr. Lovett, who spoke immediately prior to Dr. Toadvine, then continued to speak whenever the opportunity seemed to arise, stated that the Bulletin had an obligation to print a disclaimer either above or below the advertisement.
	A typical disclaimer usually states something like “This is a paid advertisement and in no way reflects the views of the editorial staff of whatnot and non-such,” or the soon-to-be popular “This advertisement paid for by the Mr. Smith Goes To Washington Committee.”  Yet why is this necessary?  Do I really believe that everything printed in a newspaper is actually a command?  It is my belief that advertising has acquired an implicit disclaimer in our society.  We know that ads are attempting to sway our opinion, and we expect them to appear in a venue wherein they can reach a large number of individuals.
	According to the dictionary, an advertisement is “a public notice or announcement, esp. one advertising goods or services in newspapers, on posters, or in broadcasts.”  We live with advertising eternally present.  The media itself is fueled by advertising, and is more often than not the very content of the media.  Media acts as a conduit for information, and information fuels personal and societal change.
	Advertising acts to generate income necessary to allow those working in the media to provide society with information.  Advertising itself has often acted as a censor by pulling funding from media that the advertisers no longer wish to support, for whatever reason.  This is quite normal in television fiction, where shows routinely go off the air due to lack of popular appeal and loss of advertising revenue.
	What we’re dealing with here is a reversal of that system.
	News media is, by its very sphere of coverage, both timely and useful.  It is not fiction, and it has a direct bearing on all people in its coverage area.  As such, it should never lack for funds from advertisers.  These advertisers are not members of the news media; they are buying into an audience that is already established so that their message can be heard.  The newspaper thus functions as the source for information and as an outlet for personal and organizational views.  To deny access to one group in particular, as is the recommended course of action by the faculty, further deepens the already prevalent fundamentalist stance of the group in question.
	By denying them voice, they, as a group, develop a more compelling case because they are able to claim that they are being discriminated against in the media.  This also increases their paranoia, and reduces their options in regards to how they relate to society.  This also increases their hostility, and their appeal to those individuals who are anti-social.
	These individuals are already on the fringe of society.  It is apparent.  When we let them speak, they expose their own idiocy for all to see.  Why should we attempt to silence those who we know are wrong, thus validating their own arguments?  Instead, let them pay the same rates as everybody else, and give them the access to the media they desire.  As long as it remains their right, it’s ours as well