• Join The Fed
• Advertise with The Fed

• About Us
• Contact

In This Issue

• Jesus Spams
• Lifelong Lepers Supported
• A Porn Star Is Born
• Letters to the Editor
• My God Is Pissed
• An Interview with Daniel Radcliffe
• You Know, I Just Don’t Care About Floor Spirit
• Start Your Own Religion, in Four Easy Steps
• Flogging the Bishop
• Ask Professor Pete
• News Briefs
• Horoscopes: Like listening to a very senile Ben Franklin
• Drive-By Circumcision
• Columbia Student Is Next Plato, Columbia Student Claims
• Sin Big, Sin Real Big
• Top Ten Things That Make the Baby Jesus Cry
• CU’s Admissions vs. St. Peter’s
• Now Playing in Selected Cities
• God By Way of Drugs
• Jesus Saves A Buck
• Available at all Gentleman’s Daugerrotype Parlors
• CC Student Sees Shit While Shrooming
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 17.5

When I started taking classes at Columbia, I have to admit I was thrilled. It had been years since anyone was willing to let me near things; ever since the Book of Numbers, lepers were required to live outside the camp or city. I could not express my joy when I saw in a recent press release that Columbia's new program has denied the allegation that leprosy is (as the "Good Book" puts it) the outward and visible sign of the innermost spiritual corruption; evidenced in a gradual spread and internal disfigurement of that which corrupts, degrades, and defiles man's inner nature, and renders him unfit to enter the presence of a pure and holy God. Beyond that, the program gave me a free sweatshirt and swipe access to the Leprosy Lounge in Lewisohn.

The Lifelong Lepers Program at Columbia University was launched in 1999 by Continuing Deformation and the Brookdale Institute on Ulcers and Gangrene Development, with the aim of establishing at Columbia University a community of mildly contagious learners (individuals missing 65 chromosomes or more) committed to the principles of lifelong leprosy. Since then, the Program has grown to 200 partialticipants.

My experience at 116th Street has been amazing. I thought that breaking into the big city would be tough, but the administration of the LLP greeted me with its one good open arm. Not once was I asked to present my credentials or prove that I had had any prior schooling. Also, the other students have treated me with the utmost respect. There are certain uncomfortable situations that I have grown accustomed to, but you can never be sure how those around you will react. Not once, but twice, people on campus have stopped me to let me know that I left a little piece of myself "over there on the brick." One sweetheart actually brought my hat over to me before realizing that it was just a patch of my hair. Bless her little heart. I was surprised that only once someone passed by me on Low Steps shouting, 'Unclean! unclean!'. To be perfectly frank, I reminisced of times when I was more of a woman, when people were told to keep away from me, and I was forbidden to speak to anyone or receive a salutation. Since where I'm from, this involves an embrace and a single butterfly kiss.

My professors and lectures have been astounding. I haven't much spoken to the college students in my classes, but I have met an amazing amount of other lepers who have come from various different backgrounds and stages of the disease. There is one man in my Politics of the Third World class whose face has swollen into the shape of a fried football, rendering speech nearly impossible. But has that stopped him from raising some very thought provoking questions about Pakistan? Indeed it has not. All the lepers I have met at Columbia have been so receptive to my ideas and have been unbelievably supportive. I've learned to love sitting in a pack with them in classes, removed from the other students. To be honest, I would feel claustrophobic any other way - having grown accustomed to living in a tent on the outskirts of the city. Actually, it's also good for practical reasons.

One time, I had a slight cold and was arbitrarily disputing my Lit professor's argument about King Lear because it disregarded the difficult hardships of my life. At that moment, I noticed that everyone was leaning away from me as I spoke. I chose to ignore it and pursue my adamant diversion from the text. However, when I sneezed for the third time in my soliloquy of misunderstanding, something shot forward out from my face and landed in the row directly behind the cute blond girl who sits up front. Apparently, the previous sneezing had caused one of my lesions to hang off the edge of my nose. This one last sneeze finally dislodged it, and it flew through the air like a projectile of my argument. I think everyone was too nice to notice, though. The professor nodded his head in slow assent of my argument, and everyone else seemed to think I had made a profound thought, as no one spoke for at least three minutes.

Well, I guess I don't really have anything negative to say about CU right now. My experience has been on the whole positive. Just like Our Lord could, Columbia has cured me of my leprosy, at least in regards to my lit class. I only hope that more lepers like me were admitted to audit classes at Columbia University. Since we can't procreate, we must proselytize. With this restriction in mind, we're taking it to the streets starting on Sunday. Given the requisite age and disfigurement, you too can be a Life Long Leper. Perhaps you have already joined our ranks. Put a small bell around your neck and give it a shot: once your nose has turned black, you'll never go back.