Summer time is fast approaching and soon we will all burst forth from the Whitman bubble. With papers to write and final exams to take, it’s easy for us to complain about how hard our lives at Whitman are. The truth is that for every problem we have here there is a bigger, crazier problem in the real world.
1. Swine Flu
While you might think that your professors have sentenced you to eternity in the library with all the papers they’ve assigned, Hong Kong is holding 300 people in a hotel as prisoners for a week simply because the originator of the disease, a 25-year-old traveler from Mexico, had stayed there for fewer than seven hours. That’s kind of like if George Bridges had locked in everyone in the Reid Ballroom on Thursday night because he was worried that Francis was real.
2. Ski Team
While you might be tired of hearing the skiiers complain about their team being cut, or even worried about what a bunch of angry, hulked-up people with sharp poles will do to you with their spare time, MIT has worse problems to deal with. Not only was their ski team cut for budgetary reasons, they lost their pistol team too. Yes, a pistol team, that’s a thing. In fact, it’s a thing that MIT was very, very good at. They were NRA Intercollegiate Champions twice in the last four years, maybe because they are so good at channeling their pent-up rage.
When the MIT varsity teams were cut, those athletes successfully kidnapped the school mascot, held him hostage for hours and finally ripped off the beaver-head and placed it on a statue in Harvard Yard. All our athletic department had to deal with was a auditorium filled with frustrated and well-spoken students. At least none of them were holding glocks while they made their points.
3. Freedom of License Plates
Although the Whitman Art Department is small, Whitman seems to have a plethora of interesting art. Whether it’s making Facebook pictures of unknowing Whitties into advertisements, sticking themselves in air-tight boxes for two hours on Ankeny or using license plates to write poetry about salmon, Whitman tends to let people express themselves pretty much however they want.
In the real world, the Supreme Court spends decades deciding what can or cannot be put on your license plate. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that New Hampshire could not force George Maynard to drive around with plates bearing the state’s motto, “Live Free or Die” because Mr. Maynard said he was not satisfied with those options. He would, he said, choose life, “even if it meant living in bondage.” Thirty years later the Supreme Court is debating whether or not to allow license plates that say “Choose Life” on them.
In states like Florida, Illinois and Hawaii, groups on both sides of the pro-life issue are spending huge amounts of energy and money trying to prevent the other side from being able to order license plates that support their message, even though vanity plates of both varieties raise tens of thousands of dollars at a time when state budgets are at their weakest. What we print on license plates may not be DMV certified or make any sense at all, but at least we can do it.
4. Rubber ducks vs. Wooly mammoths
On one of her tours last week Lisa was asked why Whitman seemed to have such a fetish for ducks if our mascot is the missionary.
Choosing not to explain that watching duck rape is an entertaining Whittie pastime, much more exciting than plain old missionary, Lisa instead tried to explain the thought process of the Campus Activities Board (CAB). CAB had likely decided that since so many Whitties are vegetarian, they’ll take duck hunting in whatever fashion they can get it.
Imagine that if instead of finding little yellow rubber ducks, we were finding 40,000 year old woolly mammoths. A one-month-old female woolly mammoth nicknamed Lyuba was recently discovered in Siberia. Her skin and organs are said to be in perfect condition, and scientists have been able to extract from her stomach mother’s milk that Lyuba consumed prior to her untimely demise. Imagine what kind of raffle prizes CAB would have to give if Whitties started finding 40,000-year-old ducks at the bottom of Lakum Dukum.
5. Twitter vs. listserv debates
Okay yes, so every time that you say anything on the listserv, 18 people want to let you know what they think. Looking to sell your 1997 Frigidaire from your apartment? That sophomore who wears new age scarves in all weather will let you know that you’re a manatee-strangling son of a bitch with a carbon footprint ALMOST as big as his dick for having ever used such an outdated appliance. We may be the happiest students in the country but nobody said we were nice about it.
Still, imagine if you were Ashton Kutcher posting on Twitter and had a MILLION people respond to you and tell you how dumb you are. At least listserv debates aren’t as crazy as Twitter.
