[video]

Leave it to the University to send us piles upon piles of the long-awaited task force reports on a Thursday night. We thought we had made it through yet another treacherous week of sleepless nights ... and then this hit our desks! The nerve of them VILLAINOUSLY transparent administrators! Down here at the bat cave we’re hard at work as HEROIC minions scour through these top secret documents to bring you, dear readers, some very, very important news you probably won’t bother reading on a Friday afternoon anyway. In any event, a lot else happened this week we’re sure you’re more interested in ...

The ringing of the phone tore through the silence of a small hotel room in Washington D.C. and woke Bob Richardson up from his sleep. It was 5 a.m. Richardson picked up the receiver, only to hear an unfamiliar voice speaking in a Swedish accent.

The reality of Bryan Christy’s life may be stranger than fiction.

This reptile boy turned lawyer turned journalist turned author presented a reading from his debut book, The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers, to a crowd of fans and curious Cornellians last Tuesday in Uris Auditorium. Christy discussed the peculiarities of his life, his research and the illegal business of reptile smuggling.

According to Christy, The Lizard King is the product of two passions: reptiles and writing.

“When I was a boy in South Jersey, what I cared about was reptiles,” he stated. “On my street, if you had a snake, you were king.”

The word “autismus”, which once described the symptoms of schizophrenia, was coined in 1910 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who may have referred to modern day autism without even realizing it. Today, scientists certainly know more about autism than they did 100 years ago, but the demand for further research remains high. Organizations throughout central New York have been working persistently on research regarding the disease for years. With a recent lecture “Autism in Central New York: Research and Practice” and a new study being conducted, Cornell University has become a welcome addition to the group.

Students comprise 98 percent of Ithaca’s fourth ward, the district which encompasses Collegetown. Due in part to student apathy and to the disproportionate political influence of the neighborhood’s small minority of permanent residents, students living in Collegetown frequently find their voices marginalized in city politic — an unfortunate reality for a population that contributes so much to the local economy. This is reason alone to fully endorse Eddie Rooker ’09 to represent Ithaca’s fourth ward on the Common Council.