My Single Request

Those of you who read my column last year will undoubtedly recall my partner in crime on these pages, Mr. Ari Rabkin ’06.

Ari and I published together every Thursday, and our columns were, consequently, never more than a crossword puzzle away from each other.

Both regular patrons of Risley Dining, the two of us would often run into one another at different times throughout the week in this shared domain with copies of a given day’s Sun and our respective demitasses in hand.

Conversation inevitably ensued.

I will never forget what Ari told yours truly during one conversation in particular.

“I have to tell you, Mark, that I rather enjoy seeing what you have to say every week. It seems,” my comrade-in-arms observed, “that there is a common theme running throughout — namely, well, calm down.”

Indeed.

Granted, this was not the summary I would ever have thought to offer up on my own work, but Ari was right.

What he meant, of course, is that there is, in each of the pieces I submit for your consideration, a single, albeit implicit, request: a supplication my fellow opinionator styled calm down, but one I would, after much consideration, word a little differently.

Don’t kill each other.

That, at least, is the short version. You wouldn’t think that it is too much to ask.

I didn’t think so, either, until I picked up the Sun exactly one week ago and just about sent my beloved coffee mug spiraling to the floor and, thus, to an early death.

It was Ben Notterman’s piece, “Svante 4 Councilman,” (Sept. 26) that brought my trusty companion to the brink.

“To the extent that children mirror their parents,” Ben began, “Svante Myrick ’09 is about what you’d expect from the offspring of Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela — an extraordinary model of compassion and moral vigor.”

Quite the opener.

And the remainder of the column certainly did not disappoint. By the time I had made my way to the last paragraph, I knew where the man behind The Scorpion King was coming from: Svante, as Ben described him, definitely sounded like one heck of a guy — and one heck of a candidate.

Then I got to the big finish.

“In an environment geared toward personal advancement,” my cohort asseverated, “Svante reminds us that selflessness and success are not mutually exclusive. What makes him so extraordinary is not his intelligence or even his stunning charisma (Svante is a self proclaimed ‘lady killer,’) but simply that he is willing to give more despite having less. When I asked Svante what he thought the three biggest problems in America are today, he answered quickly and confidently: ‘Public education, wealth inequality and Republicans.’ ”

Quite the closer.

My jaw, I soon realized, had completely unraveled and was hanging somewhere off the other side of the table where I was sitting.

Really? Republicans, one of the three biggest problems in America today?

Just what is it that Ithaca puts in the water?

I’m starting to think that my Coke addiction — that’s with a capital “C,” you with the furrowed brow — might, given the circumstances, not be such a bad thing.

Svante, after all, is not the first Cornellian to speak in such (unfortunately) broad terms.

“These people are not only traitors,” another Big Red alum once quipped, “they are gutless traitors” — Ann Coulter ’84 on Democrats.

To be fair.

Svante is no Ann Coulter. Far from it, especially if Ben’s description of him was even halfway accurate. But that’s what makes it all-the-more painful to read a statement from him — or, to be sure, from anyone on any side of any aisle — that reeks of Miss Coulter’s brand of, erm … humor.

Remember this knee-slapper — “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for?”

That was Democratic National Committee Chairman — and M.D. — Howard Dean circa 2005, aiming to keep more than his patients in stitches.

Get it?

No? Why not? What’s not funny about an obiter dictum that manages to derogate and denigrate roughly 55 million Americans — or, in Coulter’s case, roughly 72 million Americans — in a single shot?

Everything.

We need, quite simply, to demand more from our pundits and politicians at every level.

That, needless to say, includes city councilmen, both present and prospective.

So.

Mr. Myrick, this newspaperman has a challenge for you: make a visit one of these Mondays to Rockefeller 102 and the Cornell University College Republicans who meet therein.

“You will find,” promises CUCR Chairman Ahmed Salem ’08, “that we are a group of intellectually diverse students who, like you, want to make a difference in the world around them.”

As for you, Dear Reader: don’t be surprised to find that this is usually the case with most everyone you meet, no matter their preferred political nomenclature — and don’t be scared to confront anyone, pol or otherwise, if you feel the difference that he or she seeks to make will hurt more than it will help.

Just stay calm — and, yes.

Don’t kill each other.

Mark Coombs is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at mcoombs@cornellsun.com [1]. If You Can Keep It appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.