Where Andy Bernard reminisces aloud of his Here Comes Treble a cappella superstardom at Cornell, Natalie is the type who’s more likely to remember nights spent tirelessly studying for her upper-level Johnson School classes, which she took on top of her AEM courses just to show her classmates that the Ag School Biz program is not a joke.

For those that didn’t see the movie, here’s a little recap of the relevant points: George Clooney plays the main role of Ryan Bingam, a “career transition counselor” who goes to companies and fires people for the bosses who would rather not do it themeselves. Natalie is an upstart new hire at Clooney’s company, and she suggests a new way of firing people: via videoconference.

This would save the company a ton of cheddar on travel expenses, but presents the movie’s plot-propelling conflict: Clooney only feels at home when he’s up in the air on a plane and doesn’t want to part with the comforts and of his aviation routine. So it’s only natural that Natalie should have to accompany him around the nation and learn the virtues of firing people in the flesh before her new video-firing protocols can be established.

Natalie is, until the middle of the movie, a terribly unlikable character. She carries all of the know-it-all-ness and need-to-be-right-ness of Question Girl in CHEM 207, but she never needs to ask questions (especially not in front of the whole class) because she already knows she’s right. She has the drive (and audacity) to institute change at her workplace right when she starts. She knows that she belongs in upper management and everything else is a mere beeline to that end. Until her martini-fueled breakdown, she’s a complete robot. But then we learn that Natalie followed a boy to Omaha, where the company’s physical offices are. And then the boy leaves her — via text message! just like poor Kelly — and she’s suddenly a human, emotional creature.

Is it good to have a character like Natalie projected, in some form, into the psychic understanding of Cornell? She’s actually a perfect complement to Andy Bernard: female, capable, and business-savvy, she proves that Cornell grads do go real places in the workplace and not all go onto become regional sales managers. Sadly, Natalie’s going to be much, much less known that Andy Bernard because nobody sees Oscar films.

Still, she’s not the best we could ask for; the America’s pop culture mind needs a better Cornell figure to absorb than the real life ones we have right now. (I’m talking to you, Ann Coulter and Keith Olbermann.) Harvard has that symbolologist Richard Langdon who solves big murder mysteries in the nick of time. And Yale has plenty of real life people who are famous and do good stuff. Like Secret Society-affiliated presidents and stuff. When’s Cornell’s big break?

Andy mentions his Cornell (ever heard of it?) days:

Andy on his drinking habits at Cornell:

Anna Kendrick talks about Up in the Air:

An artist's rendering of the general flavor of this article.

If you have ever had your moments of doubt about the so-called liberal media, look no further than yesterday’s above-the-fold cover story in the esteemed Cornell Daily Sun. The article describes the pain, dismay, and utter, utter misfortune that 25 prospective students endured at the hands of the evil (Evil?) Office of Financial Aid. What happened was this: FinAid accidentally sent out a high-five e-mail to those 25 students, who had already been mercilessly rejected. According to the article, “Students who received the article said they were confused, disappointed, and outraged.”

Except it only quotes one of the Misfortunate Twenty-Five, whose bitter dejected/rejected ass obviously whines about what is really just a fairly excusable administrative error. Quoth the sore loser: “I can’t believe Cornell would be that irresponsible.” ∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆dpwFN C

Oh sorry, just fell asleep on my keyboard. Where were we? Oh, right. The story continues on Page 4, with the wonderful new headline: “Rejected Students Outraged Over Financial Aid Office’s E-mail Debacle.” Chocolate outrage, y’all. De-BAC-le. Outraged author Lucy Li goes on to describe a far more colossal fuck-up on the Left Coast:

Cornell is not the only school that had issues with e-mail regarding applications and admissions this year. The University of California, San Diego, mistakenly sent acceptance e-mails to all 46,377 students who applied for admission, including the 29,000 applicants who were rejected, according to NBC San Diego.

I trust NBC, even though they’re totally owned by General Electric, but I don’t trust any news outlet in San Diego after that eye-openingly revelatory documentary Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. In any case, the climactic editorialization of a sentence:

These 29,000 students’ brief moments of bliss [because U.C. San Diego is HEAVEN ON EARTH] were crushed [CRUSHED!] when UCSD emailed [sic: you've been using hyphens all along! between the "e" and the "mails." consistency fail.] out their rejection letters two hours later.

I’m glad we have these sorts of tragic news stories to keep us from thinking about, you know, real tragedies like Darfur and Rwanda and starving kids in AfriChina. Also, like how the Green Cafe didn’t have ANY milk to serve my friend when she went there at 5am this morning. Seriously, I’m not fucking kidding you. I feel for her. I feel CHOCOLATE OUTRAGE for her.

While we’re at it (read: actually reading the Sun), there’s a purposefully hilarious story on Page 5. Headline is “Bowling Green State University Bans Art Depicting Oral Sex.” YES. I’m copying it here so it will live in PERPETUITY.

“Sami Drops a Deuce,” “John Put His Head in the Oven” and “The Man Who Hasn’t Seen His Genitals in Years” are just some of the titles of sculptures Bowling Green State University senior administrators deemed “appropriate.” However, roughly two weeks ago, those administrators removed a sculpture from an exhibit on the university’s Firelands Campus titled “The Middle School Science Teacher Makes a Decision He’ll Live to Regret,” sparking a heated controversy surrounding issues of art censorship, freedom of expression and child pornography.

According a news release from BGSU, the sculpture “graphically depicts a female middle school student, on her knees, performing oral sex on a standing male middle school science teacher.”

On March 17, David Sapp, an art professor at BGSU Firelands and director of the Little Gallery, was asked by Firelands Interim Dean James Smith to take down the sculpture because there were complaints that Smith worried would result in “problems with the press” or “legal” issues of the sculpture being labeled as “child pornography,” according to a memorandum Sapp sent to all faculty and staff at BGSU Firelands.

After Sapp refused to remove the sculpture, BGSU Interim Provost Mark Gromko directed Smith to remove the artwork.

According to Sapp, the sculpture was “near the window of the gallery, but could not be seen unless you walked into the gallery.” However, BGSU administrators were concerned that children attending the McBride Auditorium, located adjacent to the gallery, “may have been directly affected by the specific criminal act depicted.”

“As an institution of higher education, Bowling Green State University strongly supports the right of free speech and artistic expression. However, we also have a responsibility and obligation to not expose the children and families we invite to our campus to inappropriate material,” the news release said.

Despite the administration’s concern, Sapp said the McBride Auditorium is not exclusively a children’s theater and he had asked the director to keep the door locked and the gallery closed during children’s theater productions.

Sapp said the art exhibits at the Little Gallery are meant to “promote thought, discussion and a meaningful visual experience in a responsible way,” and he urged his colleagues to be aware of the “visceral force” and “tone” of the administrators at BGSU.

“The dean has established a very dangerous precedent for censorship in the Little Gallery and within every part of the college,” Sapp said in the memorandum. “The dean has severely undermined the very nature of the learning environment at Firelands College.”

After administrators censored the sculpture, Sapp closed the entire exhibit of 13 sculptures and is considering resigning from his position as director.

Other sculptures in the exhibit titled “A Bakers Dozen” depicted events or situations connected with the artist’s life, such as his wife combing his daughter’s hair, personal friends who committed suicide or social issues such as obesity.

“Each one is telling a little story, and this was just a series of little stories about people I know, things I’ve read, my family; they’re basically domestic stories in many ways,” said James Parlin, the exhibition’s artist and chair of the art department at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania.

Parlin said it wasn’t necessary for BGSU administrators to remove the sculpture and he supported Sapp’s decision to close the exhibit entirely. The aluminum sculpture in question is about “moral decision making,” Parlin said.

“The intent was to show someone making a bad decision, and I showed the man staring forward at his future of disgrace. In other words, it’s about a bad choice and the consequences of that bad choice,” Parlin said. “I was blindsided by this whole thing; I never expected anything like this in a million years. I didn’t plan this, for god’s sake.”

Parlin said he was not notified before the sculpture was removed, and he said it would have been easy to restrict access to children while still allowing adults to view the artwork. According to Parlin, American society benefits from freedom of expression and institutions of higher education such as BGSU should be environments that “honor that principle.”

“I like to be able to read what I want, listen to what I want, see what I want, and I don’t like other people making that decision for me,” Parlin said. “I think it’s an enormous mistake when we let other people decide that for any of us. Now protecting children is a different issue; I protect my own children.”

The controversy surrounding the sculpture is surprising because so few people have actually seen the artwork, Parlin said.

“This whole controversy is about a piece that virtually no one has seen. It’s not about the piece of sculpture; it can’t be because no one has seen it,” he said.

Nathan Trask, a junior majoring in liberal arts at the BGSU Firelands campus, said he saw the exhibit in its entirety and participated in protests following the administration’s decision to censor the sculpture. Trask said the exhibit wasn’t “overly impressive.”

“It was really more the social ramifications that were involved, the girl giving oral sex to a teacher and a few people committing suicide,” Trask said.

According to Trask, public institutions shouldn’t have the ability to censor art and the ramifications of BGSU censoring artwork reach far beyond Parlin’s sculpture.

“Institutions are supposed to further emotional and social and all sorts of learning, and to tamper with this side of learning, you cannot get the overall learning experience that you’re supposed to get from a state university,” Trask said. “People are careful what they say all the time; they’re careful what they write; they’re careful what they create in art classes because they don’t want all this outrage happening, and it really should be the opposite way.”

Tom Lingeman, an art professor at the University of Toledo, said the BGSU Firelands situation is “clearly” an example of censorship. Lingeman said he can’t be sure about anything specifically because he hasn’t personally seen the sculpture, however, “as far as [he] can tell there is a child sensitivity issue.”

Lingeman said he believes the BGSU administrators have to consider child sensitivity, but other choices could have been made to prevent closing the entire exhibit.

“If indeed the proximity of this to the involuntary viewing of children is a problem, then that needs to be considered,” Lingeman said. “In certain cases, censorship can protect those people who do not have the capability of accurately rationalizing what they see.”

According to Lingeman, the exhibit should have featured a warning label just as films or television shows feature parental guidance warnings.

“Censorship is practiced every day, and we don’t raise eyebrows about it all the time,” he said.

The exhibition policy at The Center for the Visual Arts in Toledo “promotes freedom of expression without restriction on content or form. The views expressed … are those of the exhibitors and may not be those of the department or the university.”

Lingeman said it is UT’s policy not to censor, and students are encouraged to freely express themselves through their artwork. In addition to encouraging UT students, Lingeman said he thinks Parlin should “make sculptures of whatever he wants and to show it. … However, the viewer should be warned that others have looked at the work and deemed it to be potentially … sexually explicit or violent.”

Sapp and BGSU administrators could not be reached for comments beyond the official news releases.

ACT I: A MODEST PROPOSAL

Pubic hair (barenakedlady)

Pubic hair (there)

re;Pubic hair

each to their ownAnd scene.

Yo Evan,

Some wild hearsay: Skorton and some other big higher-ups at Cornell scheduled a meeting with the chief Sun editors for yesterday afternoon relating to a big press release.  Apparently the shit is going to hit the fan at the end of this week, maybe tomorrow or Friday.  BUT at the last minute, Skorton canceled the meeting.  Speculations have been running wild.  Big budget cuts? He’s announcing his new concert series of jazzy flute-saxophone duets with Bill Clinton? Alien invasion of Goldwin Smith? Only time will tell.

I’ve also heard whispers of student activists who have talked about taking over Willard Straight. There was some meeting yesterday, relating to cuts in diversity funding (closing of LGBT center). There’s a bank in the Straight though, so a takeover might involve threatening federal property.  Back to AAP: the person in charge of diversity got moved to another college.  One diversity student says that this will cause diversity to plummet, says that this man was the only reason he came to AAP.  The associate dean (i think?) is now supposed to be the diversity liason, but the students are planning to flood him with diversity concerns over the next few weeks to prove that his support won’t be adequate.

Also, now that I’m dishing gratuitous amounts of gossip: some frat put little orange study pills in their official budget but backed out when they were too pricey. Ha!

Whispers from a little bird in the Sun newsroom: poster reading “Bitch Magazine” basically to the effect that Kitsch sucks, complete with the courier font.  Would’ve been funnier if they spelled it “Bitsch.”

English department in money troubles!  They disgrace the name of Cornell, and are superfluous anyways.

Language and its use thereof is SO superf. My gratitude transfigures itself into besottedness, tipster.

When the encounter involves some 1,300 black flags commemorating the deaths of those killed in the most recent flare-up of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as it did this Monday morning when they were installed, it’s a little harder to criticize the reality of the message or to exorcise it with a nap. Adding fuel to the fire, the flags’ accompanying signs — statements from the UN and Amnesty International about casualties and humanitarian aid — were vandalized by three seemingly “pro-Israel” students later that day. While that situation was quickly rectified and the signs restored, the worst was to come Wednesday night, when the flags were transfigured into a Star of David under cover of darkness, finally garnering the attention of President David Skorton. Here’s an excerpt of the statement he released this afternoon, which neglected to mention the whole, um, Star of David thing:

When legitimate forms of expression in our public spaces are vandalized or desecrated, respect for political and intellectual diversity is damaged and all other forms of expression are put in jeopardy. So, while we support the strong expression of opinion, we condemn the vandalism that recently occurred on the Arts Quad. The legitimate forum for expression provided on the quad and in other campus fora is equally available to all.

The statement also neglected to mention the fact that, by around noon today, the display had been rearranged into a peace sign by what might be called a coalition of the willing.

Khullat Munir ‘09, outgoing president of the Islamic Alliance for Justice, said that she and fellow organizers of the display learned of the reconfiguration around 8am and assembled after that to decide between taking the flags down altogether, putting them back in their original place, or repositioning them in the form of a peace sign.

“We didn’t want to see the Star of David exploited like that in an act of aggression,” said Munir. “Today was the last day of our display, so we knew we had to do something that would bring resolution. The peace sign is inclusive of many people. It’s a good way to show the perpetrators that we’re still resilient and that they haven’t intimidated us.”

Alexandra Perrotti ‘10, co-president of United for Peace and Justice in Palestine, was not involved with the original planning and installation of the display, but was in the text message loop. While she was happy with the number of “random people passing by” who helped out just out of concern, she said that she didn’t “think anybody expected this kind of vandalism from such an intelligent community.”

Perrotti and Munir both commented that Wednesday’s editorial in the Daily Sun mischaracterized the IAJ as the sole sponsor of the display: out of 12 people involved with the planning, less than half were involved with the IAJ. In addition to the student leadership, various administrators and professors supported and funded the display, namely Dean of Students Kent Hubbell ’67, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Michelle Moody-Adams, and the Alice Cook House, which makes the editorialist in me wonder whether funding such displays implies a certain stance on the topic — especially after D-Skortz has stated that the University will not take a position and accordingly neither divest from Gaza nor Israel. (Somehow, I feel Cornell’s investment is slightly shifted toward the latter, but I have no way to spy on their closely guarded balance sheets.)

An additional issue at hand is whether the display could’ve been handled in a better way; namely, that the display was presented as one of “humanitarian awareness” of the Gaza Conflict, but in reality neglected to show the greater picture — Israel’s side. While he didn’t feel that the display was pro-Palestinian, Hillel president Jacob Shapiro ‘10 said, “We felt that it was pretty anti-Israeli. It was certainly a one-sided presentation of the facts.”

Munir, on the other hand, openly admitted that the display was “pro-Palestinian” and that invitation to help plan the display was extended neither to the Cornell Israel Public Affairs Com­mittee nor Hillel because “we did not expect a pro-Israeli group to have sympathy toward the disproportionate losses on the Palestinian side.” She said, however, that the biweekly meetings between the groups intended to foster dialogue about these issues, however, have been ongoing since the beginning of the semester.

The primary problem seemed to be not with the black flags but with the accompanying posters, which quoted statements from the BBC, the UN, and Amnesty International on the number of casualties and other related facts. In response to the feeling that the posters were one-sided, Munir said that “we did not point a finger at any country. We took internationally recognized sources and put them on these stakes. The purpose of this was to encourage awareness of the issue. spark interest, get people talking.”

The above sign quoted the BBC on the number of casualties, which agree with what UN Under-Secretary-General Holmes has reported. While he didn’t specifically doubt the overall number, Shapiro confesses that “it’s all so confusing and gray. The UN defines a kid as anyone who’s under 17. Certainly there’s kids that are firing rockets into Israeli territory. Even if it’s a Hamas militant, my heart breaks that he or she had to go down that route.”

Others who are uninvolved with the IAJ or Hillel have commented that the credibility of the casualty number is solid. Wasif Syed, a member of the Cornell International Affairs Review and the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association, stated that “the United Nations and Amnesty International are reporting from the ground. It’s a sour pill to swallow, but whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, whatever affiliation you are, we need to facilitate a discussion on campus of these issues.”

Another sign reported that the UN has denied humanitarian aid to Gaza, which Shapiro said is true insofar as they have done so because they have defined Hamas as a terrorist group.

In light of this controversy, Syed is planning a faculty panel on Wednesday, February 18th at 6pm in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall to address these issues. While he was not involved with the display, he envisions the panel as less of a debate regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more as a way “to bring to light the humanitarian element of the situation.”

Both the IAJ and Hillel have declined to participate in the panel. Munir believes that the CIAR panel will not alleviate the situation or speak to the more complex issues surrounding the conflict. “As far as I know, the panel is planned to pit Muslims versus Jews. I don’t think the debate should be as simple as that.”

Shapiro felt that “next week just wasn’t the right time. People are really on edge and I don’t think we can thoughtfully prepare a productive event in only five days.” When asked about the peace sign, Shapiro saw the reconfiguration as an “appropriate response to the vandalization. I love peace and I’m not going to have problems with any symbol of peace. I think it would’ve been cool if that had been the original idea and we had worked together, but oh well.”

So, that’s about as much reporting as you’re going to get from me on a Thursday night and probably in a long while. Enjoy it! Also, the same exact story will probably appear in the Daily Sun tomorrow… but, don’t forget, you heard it here first.

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Unfortunately, it seems that the lofty ideals to which ACB aspires are undercut by the petty lowliness of its denizens. Take, for example, this mildly sexist, intentionally harmful, and fairly incomprehensible post about one “Katie Bard”:

HOTTTT HOTTT HOTTT

Posted by anonymous guy 02/07/2009 05:56 PM | Last Reply 02/08/2009 12:06 AM

omg Katie Bard is such a horny easy sleezy biotch. she’s so loose its i feel like im wearing wants and i lost 200 pounds. She has more STDs than she has white bloods cells. Theta! She asked me to have butt sex.

More venereal diseases than white blood cells? If one were to indulge “anonymous guy” with any level of seriousness, one would have to hope Ms. Bard has a terminal case of leukemia. Despite these minor pitfalls, head admin Peter Frank claims in his grand opening press release that ACB “is quickly becoming the central hub of college campuses around the country, giving students the freedom to voice their opinions and ask questions about any facet of college life… the ACB is a website that helps build community and engenders the open exchange of information.”

Okay? The fact that JuicyCampus redirects to ACB assumes that the audience will be the same gossipy malicious bunch. Somehow, I fail to see how following in this salacious tradition will ever breed the positive “exchange of information” to which ACB aspires. But good luck, ACB. If anything, you give me something to blog about. I look forward to writing your elegy in the same poetic tradition as Juicy’s.

Since the moratorium only lasts one semester and deadlines for starting a group and picking up and handing in the Office of Assemblies’ trusty carnelian folder have past, I guess I’m overstating with the whole abortion metaphor. There is, after all, one good thing that has come out of the resolution is the Registered Student Organization Auditing Task Force — but this should’ve been in place long, long ago, and it ought to be a permanent police force. The idea that any dumbass with two or three dumbass friends can start their own group and apply for and receive S.A.F.C. money ($204 of your/your parent’s money per year, in case you were wondering) is patently, to put it impolitely, idiotic.

Case in point: I have a certain friend who started a group called Scooby Jew. Scooby Jew is a student group for Jewish people who are interested in scuba diving. They go on trips to the Caribbean and scuba diving and pray at underwater synagogues. Why should the rest of us fund a bunch of Jews who happen to enjoy donning Self Contained Underwater Breating Apparati? Beats me. But yet they categorically received funding from the S.A.F.C. I can understand Scooby Jew being absorbed under some general Scuba Diving Club Sport Team thing called just Scooby. Or maybe Scooby Doo-ing Things Underwater. But just because you have a clever name and can fill out forms and turn them in on time does not mean you should steal some of my money to go on a nice little vacation. In fact, if you can do all those things, Scooby Jew, you should be sitting in an office figuring out how to make me more money.

I think you get the point: instead of slashing and burning the potential creation of more “ludicrously awesome” peeps like us, weed out the insufferably redundant, laughably ineffective, and frequently idiotic of Cornell’s 900 (!) total groups from spoiling the pot. Holla back in the commz, yo.

The meeting was convened in the wake of Douglas Lowe ’11’s drowning in the Fall Creek gorge. Presumably, the University Council Office is the Cornell University Council, “an organization of selected alumni and friends who are leaders in service to the University,” but it could also be “university council” a la Big Red Lawyers. And the two individuals who presided over the meeting were “Executive Vice President” (Stephen T. Golding, the Samuel W. Bodman Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration) and a “member of University Council.” Whenever there is a student death at Cornell since 2001, the source said, a meeting of this nature not as a witchhunt but as a way to seek preventative measures. In this case, it seems that an ugly fence was the preventative measure decided upon, at least for the time being. Some of the attendees (rightly) predicted that students would find ways around the fence, like the gaping holes that have popped up in recent days.

Whether or not the decision to put up the fence was truly unanimous is hard to tell. Considering that attendees predicted people would cut holes in the fence, it’s almost certain that there was at least some concern and perhaps some opposition. So at the end of the day, an angry mob of pasty Cornellians might have to ask for the heads of Stephen T. Golding and that random University Council member.

That angry mob might have more than just the fence to complain about: the University has shown an utter lack of transparency about the decision.  One admin at Environmental Health & Safety said that he was not involved but, sounding a little annoyed, that he also was “not authorized to talk to the press about any topic.” The Press Relations Office, however, has not released an official press release as they have for past gorge path closings. In fact, the only on-the-record comments from admins on the fence (from Press Relations Director Simeon Moss ‘73) exist on MetaEzra and the Daily Sun.

And the statements he has made are of a strange flavor. Consider his ultimatum on taking the fence down: “Fall Creek Gorge will be reopened when the community realizes the dangers of the gorge.” He demands of us, like a schoolmarm taking away our cigarettes, that we naughty college kids come to terms with the hazards of our extracurricular activities. If Cornell controlled the supply of alcohol in Ithaca, would they cut us off after a binge drinker alcohol poisoned him or herself?

It might be the administration itself that needs to realize the dangers of setting a precedent with their prohibitive, reactionary response to Doug Lowe’s death. There is certainly a possibility that his family pressured the University with legal action unless something was done, as was suggested to me by three officers on guard at the fence (who also told me inaccurately that two people had died swimming in the gorge this summer). Yet it’s in these highly charged situations where the University has the most stake and the best opportunity to hold true to their principles: as MetaEzra has pointed out, the principle that “Cornell never has been an institution of in loco parentis.”**

At the end of the day, will the “community” be required to take a GorgeEdu online course in order to matriculate? How will our level of “realization of danger” be quantified in any meaningful way? And how do we deal with the fact that college kids have always and will always take risks and do stupid shit?***

Maybe the fence is a way for the University to exhibit its sympathy to Doug’s death, or maybe just to show his family and friends that they’re listening. One poster, Elgguj, suggested on College Confidential that the University would need to do something only a week after his death:

“i think dragging out the issue is the only way to make sense of doug’s death. i wasnt as close to doug as [other College Confidential user] laurstar was, but the three of us all talked to each other and knew each other before we even got to campus our first day. we were all so dedicated to cornell. and to see cornell let down a great kid like doug is reason to drag the issue out for as long as it takes for someone to listen. cornell needs to get the message that gorge jumping/swimming needs to be made into a huge issue on campus. and students need to get the message that they should never chance their life to the gorges, no matter how skeptical they may be of the risks. and until that message is made crystal clear, i hope all of doug’s friends will keep talking about it.”

If this is the way the University wants to get the message about gorge safety out, they’re sending mixed signals; perhaps they’re–so to speak–on the fence. A fence is much too easily climbed over or cut through or toppled over. Something more permanent must be instituted, but the best idea is probably not, as elgguj suggested, education. It’s no secret that the gorges are potentially dangerous; but there are ways to mitigate that danger and people will always take risks.

The best solution will probably be lifeguards and student attendants at the Fall Creek gorge, along with proper signage that has a daily indicator of the water flow level. What better way to temper the danger of the gorge with prudence and to enjoy its natural beauty?

In any case, please don’t mistake my criticism of the University’s response as a criticism of Doug Lowe’s family. A memorial service for Doug Lowe is being held this Monday Sept. 1 at 6pm at a location to be announced. (Um, get on this Cornell?) To his family and friends, CornellWatch sends our condolences. We lost not a member of our community but also a fantastic dancer.

*The source said that in order to quote him/her on the record, we would have to conduct a separate “formal” interview. So know that these statements are pure business casual.

**If you doubt this, consider the fact that Cornell did not originally offer housing to male students, which is the reason nearly a third of the population is affiliated with Greek life. Or just picture Collegetown on Orientation Weekend.

***The source said that kids used to climb UNDER the old Thurston Ave. Bridge. Srsly!

But we want to know: who is the author, the so-called “Cunnilingus Cowboy”? The Sun provides these little hints at the bottom of the story:

The ‘Cunnilingus Cowboy’ is a senior. The Sun granted him pseudonymity to protect his identity, but has verified, to the best of its ability, the facts of the article. The article is printed with Jenna B.’s permission.

Pseudonymity? Fuck that shit. We faithful readers want answers.

After the break: a poorly thought out theories of mine as to who this disrespec’in’ cowboy is.

Possible Bachelor: Mark Coombs

Because his whole journalistic identity can be summed up as: I’m-such-a-Southern-Republican-that-this-unseasonably-large-cowboy-hat-is-permanently-glued-to-my-head. Mark also says “y’all” a lot. Mark writes choppy sentences that make him sound like you’re back in the good old days when everything was simple and colloquial. Here’s a little sample of his Southern hospitality:

Whoa, whoa, whoa — wait a minute. We’ve been back for two weeks and I haven’t once dropped by the Opinion section to give you even the tiniest tip of the Stetson yet?

Well.

Aren’t I the rude one.

Let me start February off right, then, by forgoing a tip and taking my hat off to you entirely.

I have, after all, been slanting the same sombrero in your direction for almost two years; that you want to keep me around for long enough to make that a whole two years surely deserves a little more than the standard salutation.

Marky Mark may have disguised his choppy sentences by leaving out the adorable paragraph breaks that so defined his Texan accent, but there may be some traces:

I got a drink and went over for the obligatory greeting plus boob graze, and we were off to the races. She started regaling me about some book she’s gonna write and slugged back another double V&S in about 3.8 flat. I thought to myself “now’s as good a time as any.” We left.

The walk home was an exercise in personal strength and agility. I had to try to balance my own drunk ass, along with hers, while she tried to rip down her third cigarette over the course of about 20 minutes. Danger.

So after nearly getting stabbed in the face with her Marb Ultra Light and dragged to the sidewalk because her heel broke, we made it to her bedroom (I’m guessing this is where one finds the notorious “Bedroom Eyes,” but no such luck). She said something odd to one of her roommates and the bedroom door sealed us in.

Blah, blah, blah, undressing, kissing, slightly ripped undershirt.

The first two paragraphs end with those short conversational flourishes that Mark seems to usually break off into its own paragraphy. The third one’s flourish is separated off like his usual syntax.

Before I overanalyze anymore, let’s just say Coomb’s Facebook profile pretty much pronounces this theory dead on arrival: his “Conservative,” “Southern Baptist” personage is dating a UMiami co-ed who seems to be his high school sweetheart. Besides, he’s a sworn “Huckabeliever.” Would he really cruise a one-night stand in ‘Rullies’? I faintly recall there’s something in the Bible against that….

Thoughts on who our real Slim Shady is? Email us at watch@kitschmag.com.