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In This Issue

• The Monkey Election College
• The Goshen, CT County Fair
• Freak Babies: Gotta Catch 'Em All
• Interview with author Louis Silverstein
• Animals, Placentae and You
• Letters to the Feditor
• 114th Street Rat Rock Exploration
• Bodacious the Rebel Bull
• Fed Arts Review: Columbia Unbecoming
• Mary Had a Little Lamb... with Potatoes
• John Jay Pet Deathmatch
• A Letter to the Columbia Gospel Choir
• DARE: 8 Ways to Say No
• Ice Bitch Comic
• Guide to Naming Suburban Housing Developments
• THEY WATCH

Matt Holden

In many ways, the new system will resemble our current one.

Russ

The Ilardi Theory of Fecal Animalistic Democracy

The Electoral College was intended to serve as a layer of protection between the American people and the process of selecting a president. The theory was that the average man couldn't be counted on to intelligently choose a president. This past election demonstrated rather clearly that they were correct and that the bulk of the populace cannot, in fact, be trusted to determine our nation's future. But the Electoral College failed us nonetheless. In the years that followed the Electoral College's establishment, the representatives became more of a formality; in some states it's illegal for them to vote against the candidate they pledged to cast their vote in favor of. Thus, the College serves only as a convoluted, ceremonial method of dividing up our nation's vote.

For these reasons, I propose that the College be replaced by a more effective, more entertaining institution. I propose an Electoral Monkey College. The Electoral Monkey College would consist of representative monkeys from each state trained to throw feces at the candidate of their party's choosing. When the final vote counts are determined, the candidates would line up in an arena and the monkeys who won the right to throw feces by the state's popular vote would set about slinging monkey-turds. By the end of the night, whichever candidate is the most "full of shit" wins the election. Sure there's always the possibility that the monkeys will miss and hit an incorrect target, but that just adds an exciting element of randomness, much like in the original Electoral College.

Some might argue that the problem with America is not the Electoral College, per se, but democracy in general. George W. Bush's insistence that he received a "mandate" to rule over America got me thinking. For me, a mandate to rule conjures up images of Chinese emperors ruling by a mandate from heaven. Perhaps we should just start asking God to pick our leaders, or if he is unavailable, Satan. There may be some disagreement over the interpretations of God's will, but we really only need look towards Alan Keyes to help channel the Lord. "Christ would not vote for Barack Obama," stated Keyes plainly prior to his astoundingly impressive loss to Obama on November 2nd. See, look what you did, people of Illinois. You made baby Jesus cry.

I for one would not mourn the loss of the right to vote. I voted for the first time ever this election and the process made me begin to sympathize with the bulk of young citizens across the nation who failed to cast a ballot because "voting is just too hard." Maybe they had to go shopping for Abercrombie and Fitch clothing so their friends wouldn't hate them, or perhaps there was an especially good soft porno on Cinemax that night, but 2004 turned out not to be the year of the youth vote despite the insistence of youth-culture mavens, MTV and a host of musicians and hip hop artists who proclaimed that "voting is not just for pimply-faced loser homosexuals anymore."

Well, voting really is tough work. Be it election gnomes, Satan, King Bowser, Jesus-whatever source of evil you choose to believe in-some force clearly did not want me to cast a ballot that evening. When I went to vote in Alfred Lerner Hall, I was redirected several times to various tables about the voting area before I was told that I wasn't registered there and that I should call a number to find out if I was, in fact, registered at all. I did as I was told, and after waiting on hold for 20 minutes and dealing with endless menus and prompts in an automated telephone system, I was given two numbers that I was instructed to provide to the voting-guardians. Thinking I had finally collected the last piece of the triforce necessary to break the seal and vanquish Lord Gannon, by which I mean cast my ballot, I headed back to Lerner after a quick stop at M2M for a delicious burrito. Instead I was redirected to a building somewhere on Riverside, where I was informed by a woman at a table that only residents of the apartment building were to vote here. She redirected me to another table in the polling place which in turn redirected me back to the first table where the woman found my name on a list and apologized for making my already miserable life even more unbearable.

As I pulled the lever on the overgrown, mechanical cash-register I secretly doubted that it was doing anything more than making satisfying clicking noises. I had spent over an hour voting. I had a lot of homework to do. I knew that statistically my vote would make no difference in the outcome of the election. But I'm a masochist and enjoy wasting my time.

Clearly, whether it comes in the form of feces-tossing primates or dictates from God Himself, the time has come for a change in American politics. So get working on it, kids. I'll be in Canada.