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In This Issue

• The Issue of Suicide
• Potential Hobo Camp or Wussy Veldt?
• Choose Your Own Fed-venture
• Letters To and From The Editor
• Thumb-Addled Troglodytes
• Ed-in-Chief Joins Staff Diaspora
• Jesus is a Crappy Dermatologist
• Action Jacksons
• News Briefs
• On Action and the Philosophy of Inaction
• Wacky Fun Whitey Meets a Bum
• Fed Bash a Spanking Success
• Point / Counterpoint: Actions and Words
• Horoscopes Will Keep You Regular
• Revenge for Your Shitty Housing Lottery Number
• Columbia Needs Real Affirmative Action
• News Quiz
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 16.9

Once again, it's that time of year for our beloved housing lottery. We look forward to this yearly ritual as much as we look forward to walking to campus from Riverside Drive on a brisk January morning (well, those of us lucky enough to get housing on Riverside Drive do, anyway). Where you live is a crucial part of your college career, just as important as what you study and who you leave the West End with at closing time. The satisfaction of signing an occupancy agreement, confirming that you will indeed have a parking space-sized room to live in (possibly to be shared with someone else), is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But, let's be honest. More than a few of you have had dreams about mounting a can of glue and a rainbow-colored afro wig above the entry to the housing office, so that the first lucky person to open shop for the day feels the way you do when you realize you'll be living in Wien again next year. And I know that when you wake up from those dreams, you feel a little weird inside, like maybe something's wrong with you. But that's all part of growing up.

For the 2001-2002 school year, the administration has made more moves to foster underclass unity by housing members of the classes of '04 and '05 within close proximity of each other. They graciously bestowed Furnald to freshman and sophomores, forcing seniors to head elsewhere, like our newly renovated River Hall (feel the excitement!!!) What they failed to make known, however, is the fact that the juniors not exiled to Wien will be concentrated on 115th street, some in Schapiro, a lucky few in Woodbridge, and the remainder under a bridge in Riverside Park. However, I hear that if we put our stuff in summer storage, they'll give us free boxes to start building our dream homes.

While the outlook may be bleak, there is something we can do besides complain. We can take action! Action, my friends! Your misery, your pain, your one hundred and ten square foot room in Wien -- are the fault of Deans Quigley and Colombo! Obviously, these guys got together and packed a fairly huge bowl. When it was cashed, they decided that freshmen and sophomores needed to live closer to each other, because that would facilitate more fornication amongst underclassmen, who clearly need to get laid more often than upperclassmen do. So they created the LLC (affectionately known as the Living and Loving Center), and gave Furnald to the young 'uns. To make these deans pay for their wrongdoings, as well as their obvious neglect of the fact that all undergraduates have an equal need to get laid, we must employ the usual Columbia guerrilla tactics (remember 1968?), We must overtake their offices and hold them hostage until they give Furnald back to seniors. No Times crossword puzzle, no stock checking and absolutely no Hamilton Deli delivery until Wien is firebombed and rebuilt, until the elevator works in McBain at all times, until we receive the kind of humane housing that we deserve for our $30,000 a year!

After the office occupations, the next step is to go to the top. We all know that George Rupp is stepping down from his position as President of the University. We also know that there is a serious housing shortage. Broadway Residence Hall was built in hall-style living for economic efficiency, despite the fact that students prefer to live in suites. Well, wouldn't it be slightly more economical to turn Rupp's house into undergraduate housing? I'm sure you could fit a lot of undergraduates into the president's place, and you could throw some epic parties too. It's already got a kitchen and a great common area, all they need to do is put a little security swipe station in front of the main entrance. Wouldn't the administration be happier to have twenty students paying rent for a building we already own, instead of one president paying none? This is a for-profit institution, isn't it? (We could probably put our next president in Furnald, since everybody seems to get to live there except me).

Remember: the power is in our hands! In order to really change our lives, we need to make things happen now. Take that guy in your CC class, for instance, who kept bragging about his great lottery number. A few Valium in his morning coffee and that kid will never make his appointment time. Now who's living on the 20th floor of EC in a 150 square foot single? To make up for it, bring him your notes from CC. It's OK if they're not from the lecture he missed, it's really just the thought that counts.

So the truth is, we are not powerless. We do not have to live in boxes for the next two semesters, even ones with air slats in the door. We do not have to perform fellatio on anyone in the housing office to avoid living on a subway grate. We have weapons. We will fight back. And we will show those sellouts in the LLC that it's better to fight for what you really deserve than to write a bullshit essay so that you can get a single without even trying.