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In This Issue

• Dino-Battle Site Un-Earthed on Philosophy Lawn
• Columbia Bioengineers Make Über-Children for a Brighter West Harlem
• How Thinking Hurts America
• Columbia Makes Valuable Contributions to World
• Letters to the Editor
• North Korea: Major Source of Diabetes
• Frontiers of Soul-Crushing Disappointment... and Science
• If I Don't Get Good Housing, People Are Going to Die
• CS Class For The English Lass
• Science Update
• Poetry 4 Physicists
• Porn Older Than Nana
• Fed Science Fair: Cigarettes Are Bad for Kids and Animals
• Wacky Fun Whitey!
• How Many Licks...
• How to: E-Z Bake Thermonuclear Warhead
• Variations of a Sheep
• Marauding Interviewer
• How Many Licks, Vol. II
• The Staff of 20.6
• THEY Watch

Ted Holden

"I think you should recognize that the apocalypse is just a Eurocentric social construct."

The intellectual grandstander is a constant problem facing an increasing number of college students. This person is found in any "there's no ‘right or wrong' answer" class, easily defined as one of those courses without problem sets. Giving voice to those assertions that most people toss to the cutting-room floor before speaking, grandstanders go on to successful careers as ambassadors to the United Nations for belligerents like Libya or as columnists for Slate.

Trough the careful analysis of historical documents, I have compiled the following documentary record of examples of contrarianism throughout time:

January 19, 2005, Columbia University, first day of classes: Colloquium on Female Circumcision
Professor: So how do you guys feel about female circumcision? Yes, you with the latt.
Grandstander: I don't feel like it's right to judge other cultures from our Western, outsider's perspective.
Student: So that makes female circumcision fine?
Grandstander: I'm not saying that, please don't put words in my mouth.
Student: You said that we shouldn't judge people who perform female circumcision.
Grandstander, chortling: Yes, but obviously you've performed some terrific logical gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion that I support the practice.
Student: So you're against it?
Grandstander: Imagine if Martians came to Earth and outlawed navel piercing because it's considered barbaric on Mars. Is that acceptable?
Student: So you approve of it?
Grandstander: Were you listening to a word I said?

October 23, 1961, University of Chicago: Topics in the Apocalypse
Professor: According to last time's reading, what will trigger the apocalypse?
Student: From the secular perspective, the Earth will be consumed by the Sun.
Grandstander: One can say, however, that this is equivalent to the lakes of fire of Christian thought.
Student: The scientific meaning is pretty plain, so it's a bit of a stretch to fit religion around it.
Grandstander: I'm not trying to "fit religion around it," I am an atheist and have been for some time. I'm simply saying that when the scientists claim that the Sun will engulf the Earth, they mean that those sinners amongst us will be cast into a lake of fire.
Student: That may be the Christian thinking, but that stands on its own. We are discussing a secular apocalypse.
Grandstander: Take for example those missiles in Cuba. To you, their launch would represent a secular apocalypse, but to the enlightened, what are they if not hellfire from the sky, engulfing hedonists in the flames of the world's end?
Student: Come on, that's ridiculous. You just described nuclear war as if God were personally launching the missiles.
Grandstander: Please, God is dead.

April 17, 1275, Fiefdom College: Senior Seminar in Heresy
Professor: We can define heresy as the denial of an obvious truth, yes?
Student: Yes.
Grandstander: No.
Professor: Heresy!
(Note: Fiefdom College, now one of Europe's leading research institutions, has since expressed its regrets for any Medieval burnings-at-the-stake of its grandstanders).

Paleolithic Era, c. 250,000 BC, Ug University: Introduction to Fire
Professor: What can you tell me about fire?
Grandstander: We know that fire is hot and that it comes from the sky.
Student: Yes, but can't we also create fire by rubbing sticks together?
Grandstander: Any fire that you create with sticks is simply a cheap imitation of the variety that plunges from the sky into the trees and bushes.
Student: But it looks the same, and it's just as hot.
Grandstander: Of course all fire is hot, but that's like saying your cave drawings are as good as mine just because we both draw  mammoths.
Student: What do you mean to say?
Grandstander: The point is twofold. First, my cave drawings are alive in a way that yours never will be. Second, a young child can be taught to make fire with sticks. Is it not ridiculous to say that there are no differences between what a child produces and what the clouds produce?
Student: What are those differences?
Grandstander: That is unrelated to my point, and I suggest that you listen more carefully. I'm simply noting clear and present differences between stick-fire and cloud-fire, irrespective of my inability to list them.

March 29, 2783, University of the Near-Earth Colony: Mars Since 2650
Professor: [beeping noise from telepathic communicator]
Student: [dissenting beep]
Grandstander: [nuanced, overly long beep]
Student: [pithy, mock-naive beep]
Grandstander: [sarcastically conciliatory beep]
Student: [angry beep]
Grandstander: [dismissive, grandstanding beep]
Student: [muffled expletive beep]