The Tale of the Tape, Chapter 2

This unbelieveable story continues and even hints at someone else’s even more unbelieveable story towards the end. Hideous! Many thanks to Kyle Wedberg for sharing this horrendous tale.
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Once at the hospital, I had to reiterate my condition and concerns to numerous personnel, and, after spending 5 minutes convincing them that I’m NOT gay and that the foreign matter ISN’T the result of some twisted homosexual escapade, it’s time to pull the shorts down. This was especially horrifying, because not only did I have a four-yard-long-slimy-doo-ridden-mystery tail, but in my panic, I never got around to wiping (never a wise choice, but after suffering the “green apple splatters”, it’s downright ugly.) I lie on my left side as two nurses unwrap and inspect the suspected organ, when one says “it looks like a tapeworm.”

I never thought hearing those words could bring such joy to my heart. I love sushi and spent a month in Mexico this spring, so MYSTERY SOLVED! Things are really looking up! Temporarily. They leave, and immediately I hear murmuring at the nurse’s station. The only words I can decipher are “tapeworm” and “parasite.” There’s a knock on the curtain. It’s a third nurse. “Can I see?” “Sure,” I say, “help yourself,” so she parks her ugly mug next to my splatter-laden, vermin infested keister. “Tell your friends” I add. Apparently she took me seriously, because two more nurses and one doctor took their turns stopping by to pay my lil’ buddy and me a visit. And, as no fine oratory lacks a coup de grace: Another knock on the curtain. (I should start selling tickets!) It’s one of the ambulance drivers. And behind him, the beautiful intern. “Hey, hot stuff, you come here often? Check out the big-ass worm coming out of my shitter which is decorated with dried-up shit. You a basketball fan, cause I have season tickets . . . ” Again, we joke. All semblance of dignity gone, humor is all I have left. Yes, I am the butt of the joke.

The original nurse returns, dons rubber gloves, and starts yanking on the worm. Unpleasant. Again, hand over hand. All I can say is that having inch after inch, foot after foot, of slimy twine pulled from it’s comfortable lair in my large intestine, through the colon, rectum, sphincter, and anus FEELS WEIRD!

It’s slimy, soft, and 1/4 inch wide, so it doesn’t hurt. And the experience is far too absurd to invoke any sexual association. It’s just weird. Especially since the “mouth” (scolex) is still attached to my large intestine, so the tugging I feel in my abdomen literally is someone trying to pull my large intestine out through my asshole. Despite already having extracted five or six more feet (we’re up to about 16-17 feet by this point), the nurse kept tugging. Something had to give. Luckily, it was the worm. Snap! Free at last!

Upon request, they rolled in a port-a-potty for round four, and I sat there, laughing, now blessing my wacky fast, as I let loose with a liberatingly noisy, smelly, public stewer, knowing that the rope-a-dope worked, that I had knocked, no, make that BLOWN, out my wormy opponent.

RESULT: I had to take deworming medicine to deliver the final blow to the scolex and remaining length of worm, and any other parasites I might have. I had to poop in plastic bags four times (it was supposed to be only three, but I accidentally pee’d a little in one thus rendering it superfluous) and dig around in my stool to retrieve a small spoonful (spoon supplied) from the front, middle, and end of each “log” to fill six sample viles to be tested for the presence of other parasites. I learned that, depending on the source, between 70 and 90 percent of the general population currently hosts some sort of parasite (I got mine [Diphyllobothrium latum] from raw wild salmon). I learned that Diphyllobothrium latum can live in their final hosts (primarily humans or bears), undetected (none of the usual tapeworm side-effects like weight loss or constant hunger-they subsist on B12) for up to three years and can achieve lengths of up to 32 feet. Best of all, I made new friends with my funny new story, and heard some in return. Once a friend of my sister-in-law’s was enjoying a movement, looked down, and saw about a foot of worm hanging out of his ass, only to see it immediately slither BACK UP INSIDE OF HIM!! Funny stuff. Sorry the story’s so long, just didn’t want to omit any of the juicy details. Be well.

The Tale of the Tape, Chapter 1

Everyone at work has been dabbling with the “Master Cleanse,” a new fad diet–NO, IT’S NOT A DIET, IT’S A CLEANSE–in which you consume nothing but a lemonade concoction with maple syrup and cayenne pepper for ten days. It turns out that this “new” fad has been around for decades, with some sordid results. Here is the story of my supervisor’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s experience with it…
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It was a beautiful autumn Saturday morning not three weeks ago. I rose early, excited to have the day off. I had been practicing a “cleansing fast” in order to rid my colon, bowels, intestines, etc. of 29 years of stagnant accumulation that results from a “healthy” American diet. This particular fast must last for at least 10 days, and it consists only of liquids, including laxative teas at night and chugging a quart of salt water each morning to help “rinse.” And, needless to say, a lot of delightfully explosive diarrhea.

Already having shat twice that morning, I sensed another “rumble in the jungle,” so I assumed the position for round three. I gazed between my legs to inspect my creation, a fun and unavoidable practice because the product is always curious, always different, especially knowing that what lies beneath has been caked inside of me for years, possibly decades. I saw what I thought was a steady, liquid-y stream coming out of me. Only I didn’t feel anything coming out. And it didn’t stop.

I stood up. It stood up with me. I could tell now that it wasn’t liquid, but more like a soft, thin twine which extended down into the soupy slop. My heart skipped a beat. I wanted whatever this was (sausage casing from 1988, maybe?) OUT OF ME! I grabbed a couple squares of Charmin, reached down, and started pulling. I stopped pulling after a couple of feet came out, yet the item remained intact. Very scared now. Could this cursed diet, intended to free my organs of foreign matter, actually be ridding me of my vital intestinal system? It was very thin, transparent, and segmented, so I knew it couldn’t be artificial, yet it resembled no animal, vegetable or mineral I’d ever encountered.

After careful reassessment, I began retrieving it from the bowl. Hand over hand, I gathered it into the T.P.. About twelve feet of it. I didn’t want to cut it off in case it was something that had to be reinserted! Totally freaked out, I thumbed through the anatomy section in my MACMILLAN VISUAL DICTIONARY. Resolving that it COULD possibly be part of my insides that was now outsides and might have to go back insides, I dialed 911, and the ambulance was en route. Now gathered in the Charmin, I tucked my tickly little curiosity into my taint, and pulled on some spandex shorts, figuring if I wore my normal boxers, it might fall out.

I lit a smoke, recalling an episode wherein the sexiest woman in Minneapolis, incidentally an ear, nose, and throat specialist, pulled a dime-sized clump of waxhairdirt out of my ear. Smoking my smoke, I prayed that the ambulance drivers would be male.

They pull up. Out hop the driver and attendant, both middle-aged males. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then it happened. Out of the back of the ambulance steps THE SECOND SEXIEST WOMAN IN MINNEAPOLIS! “But on TV there’s always only two people in ambulances,” I thought. Damn it!! How could this happen!!

Unable to salvage any pride at this point, I answer their questions, hoping they won’t ask to see it. Then they ask how much I’ve excreted. “About 10-12 feet.” After a brief shocked silence, they rush me into the ambulance and off to the hospital, the four of us talking about the absurdity, and joking about the uniqueness, of my situation. The ride and the humor helped calm me. Even the gorgeous intern grasping my arm as she inserted the I.V. was soothing. Things were looking up . . . .

The Glory of the Greek Deli

I was witness to this “behemoth” of “lamb, sweet lamb.” Standard Blog Warning: Only fans of the fabled Greek Deli are likely to appreciate this heartfelt piece by Leon Morse, friend, co-worker, and survivor.
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Many of you may have noted on Kostas’ sandwich board, at the bottom, it says “All sandwiches on bread $8.25.” I had certainly seen that and thought “why in hell would I pay $2 or $3 extra for a sandwich on bread, as good as Greek Deli bread is, versus pita?” Well, there’s a good friggin’ reason. Read on.

Several months ago, before his departure, the incomparable John Ames decided to order a lamb sandwich at the Greek Deli, but get it on bread. A wry smile appeared on Kostas’ face as he reached back in to the kitchen and came out with an entire loaf of his bread. The result was utterly dumbfounding. It was piled high with lamb, veggies, tzatziki, and I knew not what else. It was spilling out of the box. John, Mikael, and I didn’t know what to make of this, and I don’t know how much of it John ended up eating.

Perhaps I thought it was all a dream, or perhaps I was simply humbled by its greatness and remained timid. I did not order one after that day. For some reason today I snapped out of my heretofore stupor and decided to order one. I could not contain my glee as I watched Kostas prepare it; it’s entirely possible I was rubbing my palms together and grinning like some tin-pot dictator planning to take over the world. He carved up some lamb and then grabbed a loaf of bread that had been sliced lengthwise and hollowed out a bit. Into this he ladled out tzatziki and feta cheese. He added the chopped lettuce and tomato mix that goes on all sandwiches. And then in what seemed to be an unending cycle of going back and forth between pan and bread, he piled on the lamb, sweet lamb.

On the walk back to the office, the aroma of the bread was almost overpowering. I opened the box, which had not snapped shut due to the size of this behemoth, and admired this thing of beauty. Fortunately Anna at the cash register had provided a knife and fork. I had to pull off the top slice of bread—there was no way I could eat this by hand. But even that slice could have been a meal in itself, for it had already absorbed lamb gravy and tzatziki. I simply can’t describe how good this sandwich was.

I could only eat half.

It is entirely possible that having eaten this sandwich will kill me. But living without having partaken would have made for a hollow existence indeed.

- Leon “The Prophet” Morse

Loaded Stasis

Apparently, I didn’t get the message from Professor O’Connell, and I just had to test the limits by handing in my “book report” to Professor Rybcynzski three weeks late and twice the maximum length. This was grad school, when I was supposed to be on my best behavior, not my worst. Then again, this was grad school: book reports?! Here is his reply.
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Buried within this overlong and sometimes tediously argued (and sometimes quite funny) paper, is the assignment I asked for, so, except for tardiness, you have done what I requested. On the other hand, to follow your metaphor, fast-track writing means starting to write before you are finished thinking. A little more thought might have suggested that the over-burdened professor, reading 64 essays, might not have appreciated spending twice as much time on an essay, however amusing the author’s conceit.

18/20, late = 17/20

The Evolution of Percy Calhoun?

An article for sister-site the Pseudointellectual Web Journal.
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Das Kommodifikacion: Were Marx alive today, he would have oriented his theories towards the means of consumption (commodification) rather than the means of production (capital). Although he recognized the dangerous commodification of labor (transforming it into a form of capital, controlled and exploited by the bourgeoisie), he did not realize the process of commodification would have to extend through the entire economy, from production to consumption. Only when all facets of the economic experience have been commodified–community, air pollution, bandwidth, the color of my brother’s home-brewed beer, happiness, etc–will a true communist revolution be ready to occur.

The Digital Revolution: Recent progress in information technology not only addresses one of the primary weaknesses of the free market system (lack of information causing market failures) but also makes possible the complete and total commodification of everything. Within half a century, we will all have cerebrally-implanted digital utility account keepers, like a master credit card in your brain. With these devices, you will be charged for the enhanced flavor of hot chocolate in cold weather, tickle-induced laughter, or the smell of fresh-cut grass before a thunderstorm and likewise compensated for inhaling someone else’s bad breath or the risk of heart failure resulting from almost getting hit by that jackass who ran the red light. Universal, world-wide market equilibria will be instantaneously reset after every single human experience, which will be recorded as transactions in a Matrix-like master database.

Minimizing Our Enslavement: The commodification of everything and thus our total enslavement to those who control the “invisible hand” of the market are inevitable. Our goal should not be to resist this process but rather to accelerate it that we might feel the pain of it to a lesser extent, like ripping a bandage from a boo-boo–just get it over with. We will soon be publishing a Consumptionist Manifesto, the necessary prelude to The Communist Manifesto.

Why President Bush Is a Visionary: Leftists hate Bush for his unilateral imperialism, but the sooner American (note the flagrant abuse of that contested word here; we will not put it in quotes, qualify it with “North”, or replace it with “United States”) hegemony has been extended to all reaches of the world, the sooner Coca-Cola is the beverage of choice for all humankind, the sooner the complete commodification of human existence will be complete. Beyond this, only once we have united ourselves as one humankind will we discover alien life. Unfortunately, at our current rate of unification, Richard Carneiro estimates that there is only a forty percent chance that a world-state will exist by 2125 A.D. and a ninety-five percent chance such a state will exist only by 2750 A.D. Why wait for centuries for our revolution? We should unite behind our President’s belligerent empire-building; let’s get it over with.

Bye Bye

When it came time for me to write the traditional mass email farewell to “All Staff” after 3+ years of service at City Year, I just couldn’t do it. Was it because I was so choked up that I couldn’t see the typeface as I poured out the last dregs of my soul onto the computer screen? Maybe. Or maybe it was because I knew I just couldn’t hold a candle to a prior ode to irony, a sarcastic toure de force that says more about City Year culture in a few dry paragraphs than any info session or visitor day.
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So, this is the famous “I am leaving City Year. I have to email everyone and let them know how special they are to me. Goodbye. See you soon. I am going to miss this place. This place has shaped my inner core. I have been transformed into a super idealistic, powerful, piggy backing, point person, heading west, but sometimes south, even north, wait a second I am also an east, 360 degree Big Citizen.”

There are many of you on this email list I don’t know. But it is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure–for those of you not hip on the lingo) to email everyone in the organization everytime something happens. Also, keep this email, it will be worth something someday.

For those of you who don’t know, I am moving on to be the Shrimp Pimp of the world. I am going to be the IT (short for “your company’s computer guy/gal”) Manager for a shrimp aquaculture company that farms shrimp in Belize Central America and then pimps it to all shrimp loving people around the world. If you were thinking of getting free shrimp from me just be aware that we deal in 5000lbs minimums. You would need a big freezer for that one.

The company is called Bluewater Aquaculture. Visit us on the web at www.bwaqua.com and learn about the exciting world of shrimp.

No, I am not selling idealism, power, or other world changing concoctions anymore, but I will certaintly be taking this organzation and its beliefs with me.

I will be sure to implement PT, Power Tools, Founding Stories and the like to the shrimp industry. Although, I will have to adapt a few things. The Starfish story will obviously be edited to the Shrimp story. However, none of our shrimp fair well in the end. So maybe I will skip that one.

I will work hard every day towards the future when my company becomes the official shrimp sponsor of City Year. Of course we would require the organization to implement the powerful standard of a shrimp only diet. But shrimp can be prepared a multitude of ways, so it should not be a problem. Here is a url to many shrimp recipes to get you prepared for the National sponsorship http://recipes.wenzel.net/display_category.epl?cat=Shrimp.

This is a great organization because it has great people. To me that is what makes an organization great. I certaintly don’t see myself working anywhere else in my lifetime if I don’t respect, enjoy and care about the people I work with. This is one really huge thing that I am taking with me from this place.

In this way, each of you have meant something to me even if I never met you. The sum is greater than all its parts. But the parts make up the sum and the sum couldn’t exist without them.

For those of you that have been SUPER important to me, I have approached you personally and told you so. Or I will be approaching you shortly and telling you so. Or I will be emailing you shortly and telling you so. If you feel you are one of these people, you might want to let me know so I don’t forget you. I have a terrible memory. If a month goes by and you don’t hear from me and you were sure you were one of these people, don’t wait by the phone. I probably won’t call. But that doesn’t mean you are any less important. You are as important and meaningful as you make yourself.

Just look in the mirror and repeat after me. “Hello, ‘insert your name’. CJ didn’t call me to tell me how important I was in his time at City Year and thats….OK. This doesn’t make me a bad person. I just need to focus on being the best ‘insert your name’ that I can be. Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and gosh darnit people like me.”

Good luck and make sure that CJ girl’s status as the only CJ at City Year doesn’t go to her head,

CJ shrimp pimp

The Four Steps

A sense of irony sometimes makes the idealistic pursuits of service organizations like City Year a little hard to take seriously…but it also knows when it has been outdone. This letter from one of our kids was probably the best thing I read in 2003, though it’s date makes me wonder: was sixth-grader Mark Hobbs perhaps being…ironic?
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Mark Hobbs

5815 Willow Avenue

Philadelphia, PA 19143

April 1, 2003

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Mark Hobbs; I am a sixth grader at Turner Middle School in Philadelphia. This is what I have to say about the war in Iraq:

I don’t think it is right that the U.S.A army can go over to (IRAQ) and bomb their homes and schools. They should be able to come over here and bomb us too, but no one should be bombing any one. If you have issues with someone, here are the four steps to conflict resolution:

STOP: to make sure the situation is safe for everyone around you.

LISTEN AND TALK IT OUT: If you have a problem, you both need to hear each otherís side.

PLAN: Make a plan to fix the problem. For example, if you have something like oil, why donít you just split it?

TRY IT OUT: Seeing if the plan actually works. If that doesnít work, then you need to try something else; but donít hurt anyone around you.

So I really hope you take into consideration what I have said here. If you have time, I would like you to write back.

Sincerely,

Mark Hobbs

Holla back.

From the Annals

I’d heard of “drunk dialing” before, but I didn’t realize I was so susceptible to “inebriated emailing.” I pounded this one out at the crack of dawn, sent it to my entire address book, and collapsed into a stupor until noon. [12 August 2005]
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Last night, I played my first game of “Pub Golf” with a group of co-workers. I drank more alcohol than I have ever drunk at a pace that defied my competition. As the evening wore on, I made about twenty phonecalls to half a dozen victims selected randomly from the numbers recorded on my cell phone. If memory serves me correctly, all messages and conversations contained the sentences “I do not know why I am calling you” and “Please disregard this phonecall”. I hope my listeners took these comments to heart. The night concluded for me when I puked eight steamed dumplings, two hot dogs, eight ounces of Szechuan Beef, and a gallon of beer all over a rustic (that’s putting it nicely) tabletop of “Dirty Frank’s Pub”.

This morning, I woke up at 5:30 AM. Convinced that I shouldn’t have done that until the clock clearly said “PM”, I tried to pass out again, but something in me told me that getting up with the sun (even though it’s pouring rain) is always a good idea. I ignored that “something” for about fifteen minutes and then arose to the joyous new feeling of freedom that comes when a stick has fallen out of your ass.

At first, I was not sure what exactly I was experiencing. I attempted to go about “normal” Floodian activities: I turned on my computer; I checked the Fantasy Baseball scores; I conducted some sophisticated analysis to determine how I should prepare for the upcoming game against Bodidharma’s Shag Carpets; I wrote in my diary extensively about a conversation I had yesterday, examining it from several angles; I checked the scores again, just in case. When these standard activities were complete, I seemed to have nothing left to do, so I lowered my head to the pillow for the descent into dreamland that I expected after completing a series of mundane but slightly tiring mental activities. I did not get it.

When sleep fails, I usually lie semi-conscious in bed daydreaming and forecasting the scenarioes that overload my day-to-day encounters with pre-conceived expectations that result inevitably in awkwardness and sometimes hostility, whether the scenario is professional meeting or a personal conversation. This unfortunately habitual pasttime also seemed to elude me this morning. I attempted to construct several imaginary scenarioes, but one singular visual memory from last night kept interrupting my train of thought. I will now proceed to describe this picture in my mind.
Either the alcohol or the sleepiness it caused had disabled my peripheral vision, dissipating the edges of this image into a husky sfumato. The background at the center of this image is simplified to a pitch black, in front of which stands stands Jim Balfanz, Executive Director of City Year Greater Philadelphia. He is looking directly at me and is laughing his ass off. Although he is essentially a buffoon (and looks it in this image), he is also my boss’s boss’s boss, a fact that has born far more weight in my mind than I had realized. He has just leapt up from the table to avoiding getting blasted by my next heaving wretch. Having fled to the other side of the bar, he stands directly in my line of vision, and, as he is cracking up, you can also see shock and concern mingled in his eyes as I sit in a puddle of my own puke. As I alternated between looking down to clean my shit up and looking up to pitifully observe the reactions ensuing around me, I believe I saw this image two or three times, emblazoning it clearly in my mind.

It is not the vision itself or even the events it summarily represents that caused me to chuckle with some mad glee everytime it popped back into my mind this morning. I laughed because each time I saw this picture, I felt an increasing sense of freedom. Last night was so inanely embarassing, from the bartender’s “Get the hell out of here, fucker” to making a wretched fool of myself in front of my co-workers and superior, that there is absolutely no way to redeem myself. Redeem myself? From what? Who cares?

That’s exactly the point. I have always, many times without realizing it, completely avoided drinking the way I drank last night because I refused to become “one of those fools”. It was a cheap way of keeping something I could hold over other people’s heads. Whether they realized it or not, I knew that I was better than them. I remember cleaning up some hallmate’s barf during Senior Week thinking “this damn pitiful shithead…who was he trying to impress?” (The fact that he also participated in the annual SWIL-sponsored “Pterodactyl Hunt” also increased my scorn.)

Now, I’m “one of those fools”, and my self-constructed esteem built around a stubbornly condescending (and simultaneously frightened) viewpoint of my fellow man has taken its fatal blow. It is unbelievable to me that I would ever think that last night’s debauchery would somehow dramatically ruin others’ opinions of me, but I realize, now that the tenet is banished from my mind, that it was there all along. In fact, all participants in the game of “Pub Golf” are probably thrilled to have such a raucous story to tell. The only person who would have once found such a scene dispicible, somehow telling of the low character of the participants, was me.

As I realized this freedom this morning, I noted a distinct increase in my energy, the production of which should be the topic of an entirely separate essay, the title of which will be “Happiness Is a Decision” or “Depression Is a Choice”. (What do you think?) Although I resisted doing PT on my rooftop deck, I felt happily carefree for no apparent reason other than the fact that I had woken up. On my way to the gas station at 7 AM, I ran into a reincarnation of One String (the fellow who–according to legend–played a guitar made out of a plank, two nails, and barbed wire and sang the memorable line “Wael, mah behbeh’s gahteeth like da litehouse onda seee; an evrytahm she smahl man she throw down her lite own me”). His new body is that of a homeless man who hangs out by the local dry cleaners and heckles passerby with incomprehensible jargon drawn from the arcane lore of the urban Huta. Usually, I ignore him because I am “on my way to work”, and only sometimes do I pause to hear what spell he will cast upon me that day. This time, however, I wanted to help this dude out. I’m not saying I’ve turned into Jesus or even Rufus Christ, but in my high spirits I realized I kind of like this guy. In exchange for hearing him tell me “Nah ah no yew wen to ‘mercin Univuhsty an studied ‘mercin histree” several times and “an ah no yew din care bout dat fo nuthin”, I bought him a cup of coffee with “a lil cream an ten shugahs”. This might not have been a service to other passerby, as this fellow is perky enough without boiling caffeine-laced sugar water, but it’s what he asked for. As we parted, he informed me that I have a “lib-rated mind”. He might be right, but for the sake of this story I should have told him I had a liberated ass.

Does deep-seated anger dissipate slowly over time? Yes. Do people change gradually in ways barely visible to present companions, if they change at all? Yes. But these shifts are made up of tiny turning points, places where little things happen with a particular clarity after which there is no looking back.

I’m not going to play Pub Golf again anytime soon, at least not the way I played it last night. I will probably also continue to have some difficulty getting up in the morning as I try to smother a bad attitude with too much sleep and self-defeating daydreams. Who knows if I’ll ever talk to One String again? But I feel like last night changed me for the better, at least on one count. As proof, go to Dirty Frank’s. Amidst the high-character/low-quality furnishings covered with an invisible film of filth built up from decades of puke-not-quite-completely-cleaned-up, there lies a 25-year-old shit-encrusted stick, right where it belongs.

Loaded Animus

As the Philemon entry made clear, I really kind of got into bullshit in college. Nobody called me on it until Professor O’Connell in his economic development seminar. Here are his remarks to my third and final paper, when he just couldn’t take it anymore.
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Chris,

I have to come clean – I find your style of argument in this paper, while often informative and entertaining, ultimately and cumulatively irritating. Here’s why: you spend 90% of your energies “complexifying” yet in the end your conclusions – from so superior a position – are not only facile but (in your last sentence) self-negating. I can only take a certain number of levels of irony!!

In the end, understadning Kenyan exceptionalism is more important – for Kenyans and Tanzanians – than you make it out; but more importantly decisions have to be made based on the
weight of evidence, not on certainty!*

Prof. O’C A-

* To expand slightly – you write REALLY well, and overall the paper is very good. But really good criticism takes more work than you think.

Katzism

To the Editor:

I have never written a letter like this before, but never before have circumstances urged me into such an impassioned response. I am writing to protest the recent plastering of Communist propaganda around this campus and to urge my fellow students to join me in confronting the totalitarian menace known in these parts as “Katzism.”

“What Communist propaganda?” you may ask. Well, the fact that you do not realize its existence is part of the problem. I refer to the menacing Red banner that scars the pristine wall of Parrish, our oldest and most sacred building. Not only does this Red banner suggest the revival of a form of government that I thought had been eradicated long ago, but its portrayal of one ever-watching face is reminiscent of the “Big Brother” of Orwell’s 1984. Not to mention this face belongs to none other than the notorious would-be Dictator and self-proclaimed deity “Neven Katz.”

Despite the fearsome aspects of this propaganda, perhaps you are wondering what, if anything, could come of this? I will tell you. Katzism has already attracted a large following of Swarthmore students, not to mention “Fords” and “Martyrs” who seek to overrun our campus. These students meet regularly to worship and pay tribute to this one man and they seek to take over our campus, starting with Parrish, the vital nerve center of our precious way of life.

For those of you who understand my concerns, and I am sure that it will be very few of you, for Katzism has already infiltrated the very pores of our thought in indescribable ways, I urge you to band together in protest of this vile form of totalitarian propaganda. We must remember that democracy and capitalism are the greatest social systems to grace humanity, and that there are others like you who will stop at nothing to see the virtues of the free market and entrepreneurial enterprise bless all the people of this earth.

Sincerely,

Chris Flood 99

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Grafted from the Phoenix Online.