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In This Issue

• The Spec's Front Page (PDF)
• Matthew Fox Strips Naked, Insults Graduates
• Krishna vs. Christianity
• Last Book of Potter Pilfered, Rowling "Shocked"
• Secret Society No Longer Secret to Sniffer-Outers of Secrecy
• New York's Preschools Seek Swingset Leaders
• Bitches Got the Right to Shut the Fuck Up
• Before They Were Great Quotations
• An Inconvenient Truth Is Unsafe at Any Speed
• Spectator Copy Editor Shares Typical Evening
• Dancing Tops Crappy American Exports to UK
• Columbia Spectator: Op-Eds (PDF)
• Spec Staff Editorial: What the Fuck, Man
• Spec Sexportations: Delivering Our Children
• Spec PERSPECTIVES: Importance of History
• Spec: Corrections
• Spec: Letters to the Editor
• Prezbo v. Hamiltron
• THEY Watch

Sex has been a part of society since its very beginnings. The act of making children is crucial to the continuation of the human species, and it is as much a part of life here at college as it is with our parents at home. When a mommy and daddy make the decision to sit close together, it is usually as a result of much love and commitment, and as we grow and mature here at Columbia, the time may come when we college students feel it is also the time to sit very close together and make the same choice ourselves.

    However, life in an urban environment presents some problems for the baby-making process. Although by no means endangered, stork populations in metropolitan areas have declined over the years. “There used to be quite a healthy population of storks in the Central Park Reservoir,” explains Professor of Environmental Science Harley Short, one of the sources approached for this column. “The metropolitan environment is not friendly, however, and as the city has expanded, New York has become much more inhospitable to the species.”

    The implications of this could be worrying to Columbia students. Added to this is the lack of chimneys and doorsteps in Columbia’s housing system. “Although many of the dorms do have chimneys that are no longer in use,” says Housing and Dining officer Grant Pineiro when quizzed about this matter, “it is not a general policy to provide that amenity to all students.” The hallway setup and many-floored nature of most student residences also makes individual doorstep delivery challenging.

    Could a baby potentially be delivered via your Lerner Hall address? The size of the mailbox suggests no, although Lerner’s package system may provide a more viable option. “Packages are kept in storage for a maximum of fourteen days,” said mailroom hand Hank Blaustein when I asked him, “and after that we generally throw them in the dumpster out back.”

    Of course, the ability of the stork to get into buildings is open to much debate. Last Christmas when my suitemate saw Santa in our Wallach living room, she assured me that he required no special access routes to get in. “He probably squeezed through the radiator pipes if you ask me,” she saif when I asked her for her opinion for this stork column, “although sometimes, just like the bogeyman, he can randomly appear under your bed.”

    Is it possible to offer the stork incentives, analogous to milk and cookies, in order to ease the access process? “We serve fish twice a week,” said John Jay employee Donna Streep, a source that was approached in dealing with a possible dietary incentive, “and it’s best served battered with lots of tartar sauce.”

    Easy access for storks to Columbia dorms is therefore conceivable, but the population decline in the metropolitan area is still worrying. The time may come when I and others will make the decision to sit very close together to a significant other and ask for the stork to come. Maybe it’s approaching sooner, maybe it’s approaching later, but when I do decide to have sex I’m going to need some reassurance. It is the responsibility of the administration to provide for its students in this regard, so that Columbians can continue in that great cycle they call life.