Combat Zone

Guest speaker Eastwood to address panel of empty chairs

It has been made official: actor Clint Eastwood has accepted an invitation from President Ronald Thomas to address a panel of chairs right here at Puget Sound. Eastwood, 82, accepted the invitation after receiving numerous complaints from chairs all over the country concerning his speech at the Republican National Convention in Florida three weeks ago. The outraged chairs claimed that Eastwood treated the chair representative at the RNC unfairly, accusing Eastwood of slander, mud-slinging and consistent interruption of the chair when asked a question.
Chairs around the country were shocked when Eastwood, after asking the chair its opinion on President Obama’s target date for bringing home the troops from Afghanistan, immediately cut off the chair’s response with a vindictive, “I’m not gonna shut up, it’s my turn.” This response seemed preemptive as the chair, a modest bar-stool from a Michigan IKEA warehouse, was never given a chance to fully answer.
“We feel it was a great honor to finally have some representation at something as grandiose as the RNC,” said one foldable lawn chair from REI, a spokeschair for newly-founded Seriously Enraged at American Tomfoolery, or SEAT.
“Our chance to be heard was snubbed,” it continued, “so we want a second chance. No longer shall the chairs of America be subjected to being yelled at by an old man, like some common cell phone!”
Eastwood, who has always had a somewhat unstable relationship with the furniture community, refused to comment about the accusations. His publicist, however, did inform us that “Mr. Eastwood was not comfortable with an extra presence onstage, let alone a surprise furniture-rights activist.”
The university has had plenty of well-known speakers over the years, yet this one will differ in that humans will be forbidden from attending. The one exception is President Thomas, whose personality was found to be similar enough to a chair’s to not cause a disturbance. Yet the chair caucus leaders (or chairmen) have still insisted that he stand in the back of the room instead of sitting in a chair.
Students around campus have been very supportive of the chairs’ requests, and most seem to be okay with the minor audience discrimination. After all, said junior Ema Eirehed, “Chairs are people too.” The few conservatives in the community take a different perspective on the matter.
“Yeah, I didn’t actually watch the speech,” one senior said, “but I’m sure that chair had it coming. Chairs are known for back-sass. Hadn’t the chair seen Taxi Driver? You don’t piss off Clint-Fucking-Eastwood!… Or was that DeNiro?” Further comment could not be obtained as the student ran off to purge minorities from voter rolls and trans-vaginally ultrasound pregant women.