I recently had my first piece for USC Trojan Family Magazine appear in their Summer 2009 issue. It’s another port in the stormy life of a freelance writer, and so far a very friendly one. I have another article coming up in the fall as well, so hurrah.

It is a little strange to be writing alumni profiles when I am one, but it’s certainly fun to chat with people as they reminisce about their experiences at USC. I’ve heard a number of wild stories – wild bears in a frat house, anyone? – that sadly couldn’t be included. They’re rumor and conjecture, anyway. But everyone remembers the university so fondly, and I think once I have the same distance of time and professional experience, I will feel the same. At this point, my education is too close and I spend too much time engaged with the university for it be a part of my past.

You can read the profile I wrote about Mitesh Gala ‘92, ‘93, and Ajay Shiv MA ’94 here.

While I wouldn’t normally make fun of anything as serious as USC Trojan Football, the US House of Representatives has made it inevitable. Consider, if you will, House Resolution 153, introduced on February 10, 2009, by the 111th Congress, commending the University of Southern California Trojan football team for its victory in the 2009 Rose Bowl.

Yes, while the world’s economies are twisting down the toilet down at the rate of one Iceland per month, the US House of Representatives is considering actually taking time to commend the USC football team and its marvelous, and devilishly handsome, coach Pete Carroll for its 2008 season and eventual BCS Bowl Game victory. “Why?” you might ask, and then realize nobody should bother asking, because it’s a stupid question.

Now, everyone knows that the House is basically a collection of wingnuts, gun-nuts, nut-nuts, nut-bags, fruit-bats, batmen, octogenarians, freaks, geeks, wastrels, strumpets, corrupt elves, relatives of Cthulhu and other mad-hatters, and them taking up random resolutions like this is no surprise, but the audacity of doing it now? Really? They have nothing better to be doing? Couldn’t they instead do nothing? That would be profoundly better.

Listen, people have enough good reasons for hating the University of Second Choice, and only some of them are even true. Please don’t give them another. Commending USC for featuring “5 players in the Under Armour Senior Bowl game held in Mobile, Alabama (linebackers Rey Maualuga, Brian Cushing, and Clay Matthews, and defensive linemen Fili Moala and Kyle Moore)” – by the way, a nice easy product placement there in the House Resolution – is not the best way to stop the Trojan-hatred worldwide.

UPDATE: It’s important to note that a) Congress hasn’t voted on HRES 153 yet and b) four Representatives from Big 10 States (USC put its Rose Bowl beat-down on the Big 10 champ Penn State) are co-sponsors of this bill. And amusingly enough, the opposition has already begun! Kucinich is going to be seeing a lot more than aliens from his back porch if he lets this one through…