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In This Issue

• The Colombia Spectador... Online!
• President Bollinger Cancels Barnard
• Locals Don't Care About J.J. Food
• Allegations of Animal Intimidation Rock MEALAC Professors, Laboratories
• Six-Year Old Held in Terror Scare
• Saving the World, One iPod at a Time
• Letters to the Feditors
• A Slow Descent into Health
• Eat Shit and Die - or Learn to Love It
• Cholera Gives Me That Lovin' Feeling, Diarrhea
• An Open Letter to My Unborn Son
• Disorders to Earn You Psych Services' Lovin'
• On Dieting
• Bladder Stones and Other Terrors
• The Life and Times of Deranged Freak Babies
• Is It Abuse, or Is It Medical Care? See for Yourself!
• A Fed Tradition Continues Unfettered
• Johnny Cash Conquers the Martians
• Neverland Ranch v. Pleasure Island
• Marauding Interviewer
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 20.7

This past week, THEY attacked us at home. Literally.

I. Regardless of how bad your lottery number may be, the Housing department's other announcement last week (that they plan to begin random room inspections for "fire safety" in the near future) is really screwing you over much worse. Let me lay out for you, from experience at another university with a similar policy, exactly how this is going to work. An agent with a clipboard knocks on your door once or twice a semester. If you're lucky, you're home at the time; if they're lucky, you're not. They enter one way or the other, but if you're at home you can claim to be "indecent" and buy yourself about 30 seconds to "tidy up" while arousing minimal suspicion, or 60 seconds at the cost of a very thorough inspection afterwards. You are issued several citations for bullshit violations such as "potentially flammable materials within 18 inches of a radiator," "excessive clutter inhibiting safe egress in the event of an emergency," and "hazardous or excessive loading of a surge protector." You do not receive any citations for "possession of a banned appliance," because even though you possess several, you're smart enough to leave them in the closet when not in use. Yeah, it's inconvenient, but since the citations cost you $75 to $150 each, it's definitely worth hiding them (although it's not quite worth not having toast in the morning). The other offenses are so arbitrarily defined and handed down that you can't really avoid them no matter what you do. The net results: no fires are prevented; the system is abused to try to catch you smoking pot; you no longer have feelings of security or privacy in your dorm room; you are $200 a year poorer and Columbia is $1,000,000 richer (do the math). How does that sound to you? The Spec quoted one of the poor, misguided fools from UHC, our supposed representatives in this process, as saying that it would all be worth it not to be caught in a fire. Yeah, and having a cop's rubber-gloved fingers in your ass before you get on the subway beats being killed by Sarin gas. Simple arguments for simple people. Housing Inspectors = THEY!