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In This Issue

• Consent is Sexayy
• You Scan My License, Heights, and I'll Trade Your Margaritas for Drugs
• Club EC
• Barack Obama: Exclusive Interview!
• An Open Letter to the Chick Sleeping Next to Me
• A FED Guide to Celebrity Legal Problems
• Columbia's New Admissions Policy: Fuck All Y'all
• Drawn to Columbia. Quartered Too?
• Top 5 Do's For Next 9/11 (Excerpted from Cosmogirl)
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
• A Tale of Woe and Infinite Sadness
• The Typical Suburban Housewife
• Bollinger's Free Speech Fetish
• The Muppets Take America
• The Priorities of American Media
• The World Leaders Forum is So Gay
• Coming Soon To a Bookstore Near You!
• THEY WATCH
• Got Meth?
• The Staff of 23.1

Arinn Amer

On September 25, 2007, Columbia president Lee C. Bollinger made a shocking announcement. According to the email he sent the Columbia community, he intends to “continue the open dialogue between infamous political figures and the academic population by inviting several celebrity guests, famous for their objectionable belief systems, to engage in candid discussion. We [the Columbia community] will present them with thought-provoking and engaging questions, hoping to gain greater insight into their beliefs and maybe, just maybe, reevaluate our own as well.” Within 20 minutes of the email being sent out, all 600 seats were taken by faculty and students. “I didn’t think he could be more controversial, but apparently he can!” said one enthusiastic Barnard freshman.

In mid-October, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Snidely Whiplash will be speaking in Roone Arledge Auditorium in a panel Bollinger has titled, “Maligned or Malevolent?”

The three appeared uniformly eager about the event at a press conference held yesterday. “I had been searching for an opportunity to publicly discuss my beliefs and the reasons behind my 40-year career,” Mr. Coyote scrawled quickly on a placard, which he raised with dignity. “I hope I can show Columbia that I have been misrepresented.” Sadly, he could not continue after this statement, as he had to be rushed to an emergency room after an anvil appeared out of nowhere and fell onto his head. He is in pleated but stable condition, doctors have said he will only need another day or two to accordion back to his regular state.

At that same press conference, Snidely Whiplash was far more candid. Upon being asked how he felt to speak in an academic environment, he responded enthusiastically, “I am a nefarious evil-doer! No one can escape my malicious evil-doings!” and attempted to tie a journalist from the NY Daily Post to the watercooler. Despite the ruckus around the other two speakers, Fudd remained subdued. “As you can see, my compatwiots awe not used to the type of compowtment conducive to a successfuw shawing of ideas. Cleawly, I have been maligned. I did nothing that any US huntew would not have done. It just so happens my desiwed tawget was heavily anthwopomowphicized.”

The Columbia campus is divided about whether or not it wants these three speakers to come. PETA activist and Columbia student Amy Birnbaum said, “How can we allow a bird abuser and a heartless, albeit unsuccessful, humanized animal killer to speak? Their careers are based solely on cruelty to animals. How can we give them a forum to preach hatred?” In honor of the upcoming panel, Ms. Birnbaum has been holding silent vigils on Low Plaza every night, lighting candles for “all fallen two dimensional creatures,” yet after having been informed about Mr. Coyote’s position, seemed unmoved. “He deserved it! That’s karma if I’ve ever seen it.” Other Columbia members are more ambivalent. “They’re two dimensional. How can we be concerned about them being threats? I’m pretty sure Bollinger has lost it,” said adjunct math professor Shelly Mintegral. She then added, “I’m not being quoted, am I?”

Due to all the unrest surrounding these speakers, Bollinger issued another quote. “Obviously, in the words of Mr. Whiplash, the three speakers are ‘nefarious evil-doers’” whom I detest and obviously have no respect for at all. I think they are lower than scum, deserve their lack of sexual organs and probably have never known what it’s like to be loved. Sometimes I dream of killing them. They, however, deserve a forum in which they can share their opinions so we can shoot them down and call them stupid. That’s what being an academic in America is all about.”