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In This Issue

• Facebook News Feed Charts Relationship's Ups, Downs, Wrongs
• Dr. Doom Next CU GOP Speaker
• Old Dogs, New SAT Rubrics
• Columbia U. Celebrates Halloween
• Cooch Drinks Hootch, Scootches
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Meanness
• Interviewing Marauder
• Escalators: Now at Your Local CIA Black Site
• Celebrity Trading Cards
• Real Parties for Which You're Not Voting
• Sound Advice for Celebrity-Starved Democrats
• A New PAC a Day Keeps the Devil Away
• Tables Turn on Foley's Accuser
• Five Senate Races to Watch
• Santorum v. Santorum
• Ten Things Not to Call an Opponent’s Campaign Staffer
• Forbidden Love
• Socialism Creeping
• CU Football Confesses Famous Losing Streak “Never Actually Ended”
• AVG
• The Fed Caption Contest
• Superman!
• Would You Know My Name If I Saw You in Prison?
• THEY Watch

Rachel Katz

My fellow students, we live in unsafe times.

You might, in your weakness, think something like that would go without saying, but in this namby-pamby, left-wing environment of hyper-hip nerdlings whose student council's greatest concern is something about rocks in glass houses, it needs to be said again. So I'll say it again: my fellow students, we live in unsafe times.

Surely you think that here in your Deep Blue state, your own personal state of mind is free enough to eat those psychedelic fungi and travel only spiritually, but I hit the pavement-as only an "underground journalist" could-and now bring ill tidings to you. I don't expect you to believe me. Did the Trojans believe Cassandra? Did Clinton believe Osama bin Laden? Did Kevin Costner believe Waterworld? But when the day of truth comes, I will have the last laugh, and the only laughs you will hear will be those of your enemies.

My adventures took me away from the "safety" of Columbia's open gates to a suspicious construction project on the opposite end of Broadway. I snuck behind the warning signs and gasped at the sight. The West End, or "Café Havana," as it prefers to call itself in deference to Columbia's new moniker-the University of Havana-North-is preparing to strike against us in ways we never dreamed imaginable.

In place of my semi-overpriced (but all-American!) scotch and sodas were ten-dollar mojitos, whose muddled mint leaves were designed only to dull the pain of impending conquest. The grimy tables were shined and ready for a new generation's rum-fueled vomiting. But most insidious of all was the sound system. It rumbled to life as I stood taking it all in, incoherently murmuring plans to "bring sexy back." Sexy? I knew of no upperclassman who ever went to the West End in search of sexy. "Drunk?" "Underage?" "Overeager?" "Lazy?" Perhaps.  But sexy? The concept was as foreign to them as streets below 110th  were to me.

A quick snoop about the back rooms confirmed my suspicions: receipts from the Russian Tea Room, mysterious money transfers from the Hungarian Pastry Shop. The Eastern Bloc was financing the direst threat to our way of life since Tomo developed the sake bomb.

I ran for my life, passing the barricade erected by our friends the Minutemen to keep the clientele of Nacho's from spreading their cheap margaritas to more American institutions. It took me precious little time to see that for every one danger extinguished, two took its place. The Mill restaurant, empty of all patrons, stood forlornly on the corner, its open doors betraying a far deeper secret.

Where was the alcohol? The good times we'd come to expect from all of our democratic institutions were a cruel façade in that mysterious land. Why, they may even have turned the power on only when I sought a closer glimpse into their world. Was that a man moving a box to the back room or an engineer hard at work on refining their Taepodong missiles? How safe will you feel when their next test lobs a rocket over Carman? It's one thing when it's Barnard, sure, but when our sovereignty has been violated, you'll be whistling a different tune.

Disheartened, I walked a lonely path toward Columbia Cottage. To my horror, the kind, well-worn, comfortably inferior interior I'd come to know and love had been replaced! Upgraded! Students' repeated investment had paid off well-too well. Shaking, I sat in the corner and called for carafe after carafe of boxed wine until the climactic moment came. The waitress, her eyes smug with the assuredness of the sober, informed me that I'd had enough.

"I'll tell you when I've had enough!" I roared, leaping to my feet. In the back, the staff shouted a clipped instruction in Mandarin. While I consider myself no scholar of that tongue, I'm positive they were denying the Holocaust.

After a fierce tussle, I found myself sprawled out in the street, the subject of countless humiliating remarks from passers-by. How could I face the crowd at Roti Roll having discovered what I now know all too well about our dangerous global village?

What is to be done, you ask? After all, the invasion of the Afghan Kebab House #5 has only served to reinvigorate the disparate warlords of the other Kebab Houses, who are now skewering one another with a vindictive vengeance. Already, there are calls for us to pull out of Brooklyn, where, impossibly, our gentrification forces have pushed demand for Pabst Blue Ribbon to detectable levels.

I recommend quick, surgical strikes. We cannot afford simply to hope that the revolutionaries we plant within the business will rally forces to our cause-need I remind you of the Bay of Pre-Frosh debacle of the first few days of the West End's new administration that put such a blight on this incoming class? We must press our advantage and tolerate no dissent. We live in dangerous times, fellow students, and now we must take a stand. No longer will we tolerate imported beers "on tap" in our lands! No longer will we permit the "domino theory" to claim another front: if you eat Chinese food at Ollie's today, will you eat Vietnamese food at John Jay tomorrow? Stand up and fight your fears! Vote for me for SEAS Class of 2010 Treasurer!