I met her at a rest stop in Blandford, Mass. this past Sunday. I was standing in front of a wall of snack food at the gift shop when I saw her slowly pacing through the adjoining Sbarro’s, squinting through her glasses at the grease-soaked pizzas on display.

I went numb.

I’d caught just a glimpse of her, out of the corner of my eye no less, but I knew it was her instantly. It was a sub-conscious recognition, as if I’d already memorized her every dimension, as if hours of television exposure allowed me to keep a mental blueprint of each of her distinguishing traits.

Rogue, the X-Man, has the superpower of sucking the life out of everything she touches. Palin, the ex-governor, can relate.

The first time she unleashed her great power, you’ll recall, she killed John McCain’s 2008 election bid (albeit not an extraordinary feat). Then, mere months after returning to Alaska, she terminated her own governorship amidst mounting ethics complaints — and mounting speculation that her 15 minutes of fame might be up.

When asked a simple yes or no question — “Do you believe in evolution?” — then presidential-hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) responded with anything but his famed “straight talk”: “I believe in evolution,” he said, “But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

I’m thinking of creating a new t-shirt to compete with “Ithaca is Gorges.” It would read something like “Ithaca is the middle of freakin’ nowhere,” or “You know you’re in Ithaca when you get excited to go to Wegmans.” Beyond taking on the “Ithaca is Gorges” establishment, the shirts would prove strikingly illustrative of the fact that Cornell really is its own world.

My family is liberal. When I say liberal, I don’t mean they jumped on the Obama bandwagon in ’08. I mean really, really freakin’ liberal.

Depicting the President with a Hitler-stache is all the rage these days. During a recent health insurance forum in Dartmouth, Mass., a young woman asked Congressman Barney Frank why he supported President Barack Obama’s proposed “Nazi policy” of universal health care.

“Ma'am,” the congressman replied, “trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.” He asked, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

Had her mic not been cut off, the young woman might have replied, “Prison Planet” — the name of an anti-Obama website and online community helmed by talk radio host and professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

On Monday, the Cornell International Affairs Review held a panel discussion entitled “Tehran Divided: Iran’s Presidential Election and Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy.” The discussion featured three professor panelists, each from the Near Eastern Studies department. The panelists were Prof. Ziad Fahmy, Prof. Iago Gocheleishvili and Prof. David Patel.

Those young and inexperienced are ripe for manipulation. Santa, E. Bunny, T. Fairy, etc. Little kids will believe anything, and they’re cute that way. But we forget that youth and inexperience don’t end after we slip out of puberty. No, that manipulation continues, only this time it’s not so cute.

Manipulations cut deeper now. Our realizations are no longer about night-riding, jelly bean-giving bunnies; they’re about how honesty and hard work don’t mean anything. They aren’t about where babies come from; they’re about how that presidential candidate we believed in so adamantly, for whom we campaigned so tirelessly, turned out to be a total fuckin’ fraud.

To the Editor:

Re: “This Is a Column about the Holocaust, Not Gaza,” Opinion, Feb. 26

This article highlights a campus-wide rift that has been exposed by numerous recent events: the division between politically correct complacency and progressive dialogue.