Editorial
An Inconvenient Truth
Heroes & Villains
February 9, 2007 - 1:38amDear Mother Earth,
To be truthful with you, we at H&V are desperate. This letter is a public plea for help; we are begging on our knees, if you will. Of everything we’ve ever seen happen at Cornell, never has there been such consensus of the masses: it’s too VILLAINOUSLY COLD!
We know (or hope) you are a reasonable woman, and will kindly take into account our feedback when determining the temperatures of cozy Ithaca for the next few weeks. Even HEROIC Punxsutawney Phil thinks winter should end early, and we respect his prognosticating skills. We’ve been fortunate to have HEROIC President David J. Skorton, who voluntarily subjected himself to criticism at a forum about the VILLAINOUS proposed changes to the Campus Code of Conduct. We at H&V commend the administration for being so open to feedback, and we hope that you will extend the same courtesy to us.
We also want to point out that the recent temperatures have been taking a frightening toll on our business. When the biggest news this week is the death of HEROIC Anna Nicole Smith or the alleged murder plot by VILLAINOUS astronaut Lisa Nowak, it’s pretty obvious that journalists are running out of news to report. H&V would hate to be printed in a trashy tabloid, and we’re sure you wouldn’t want that to happen.
What better way to prevent it than to make Ithaca 30 degrees warmer? C’mon, we’re just asking for above-freezing here. We nearly died on our way to attend the speech of HEROIC Gillian Sorensen, former U.N. assistant Secretary-General. Your VILLAINOUS weather ruptured a water pipe, practically making an ice rink out of Ho Plaza; as much as we at H&V enjoy ice-skating, we would much prefer the chance to listen to a former U.N. bigwig. Aside from her criticisms of the war in Iraq, she urged students to stay informed about the world. One woman who could use the world’s help is HEROIC Karnit Goldwasser, whose husband Ehud was kidnapped during a Hezbollah raid on northern Israel this summer; Karnit stopped at Cornell on Sunday, between meetings with Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
Back in Cornell politics, the HEROIC Student Assembly should be extolled for passing election reform. With the new rules against tickets, the S.A. says candidates will have a more level playing field in getting elected. We at H&V think this is great news for Cornell’s student government, but we’re also 100 percent certain that no one will want to go door to door in this VILLAINOUSLY inhumane climate to campaign anyway, making this change essentially meaningless. We don’t want to criticize you, Mother Earth, for our political apathy, but we’re not sure who else to blame.
In that case, we at H&V would like a huge helping of VILLAINOUS — or, in Ithaca’s case, HEROIC — global warming, please. It’s just too bad those meddling HEROIC Carl Becker residents are trying to make their house more sustainable, or that HEROIC TCAT and others just agreed to buy 561,000 gallons of biodiesel. Talk about self-defeating. Someone needs to knock some sense into those sustainability-driven activists.
Just kidding, Mother Earth. We just want Ithaca to be warmer. Is that so much to ask?
Faithfully,
Heroes & Villains