I recently got a spam e-mail touting free “career planning” advice from some lady claiming to be my “academic advisor.” I quickly deleted it and thought nothing of it. But when it was followed up by a call from my mother spouting esoteric jargon like “graduation,” “future,” and “job,” I became worried. To compensate, I have been dawdling on the internet all day, avoiding reality like a plague-infected cougar corpse.
The infidels blew up my homework
The decreased violence in Iraq has hurt many people – students like you or me, and hardworking men and women who just want a day off from the demands of living in a war-torn country. As the real violence dwindles, it’s becoming harder to make up believable excuses of bomb blasts to skip out on school or work for a day.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 provided that country’s citizens with an impeachable lie for missing work: a roadside bomb has closed the streets leading to work; my cousin is in the hospital with gunshot wounds and I need to look after him; or my personal favorite, “Clashes between the militias and the security forces right outside my door. Can’t leave home at the moment.”
But now, bomb and rocket attacks that destroy roads are down by 77 percent since February and closed roads are being reopened.
“I only invent an excuse for important things…such as if I feel very tired or there is a special family occasion,” said a 27-year-old administrative assistant at Baghdad University.
Of course such tales can backfire, as it did for a teacher in Baghdad. After the teacher told her boss that she had to go home to take care of her husband who’d been hit by a roadside bomb, the concerned manager assured her he’d bring the rest of the staff over to wish the husband well later in the day. She definitely earned her day off as she spent it in search of bandages and blood to make her husband look injured.
More practical advice for skipping class: pretend to be Superman.
You can run a marathon, but you can’t hide
A suggestion was made during a sports and ethics conference in Iceland last month to outfit elite athletes with global positioning system devices, such as bracelets or cell phones, to make them easier to find for random drug testing. (The World Series of Beer Pong doesn’t test players for drugs at least).
It would be like Mary Desler forgoing the alleged facebook stalking and jumping straight to implanting GPS tracking chips in students to alert her every time they got close to something fun. If you don’t see the obvious civil liberties concerns here, there are still spots open in Professor Daniels’ fantastic “Constitutional Law II” for Winter quarter, so sign up.
The current rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency say that if an athlete can’t be contacted on three occasions for a random drug test, it counts as a failed test. Dr. Ashenden, who made the suggestion, claimed that with the tracking, athletes “do not need to spend time informing the authorities where they are. The GPS system will do it for them, so this would be a help to both.”
I not only throw the full weight and credibility of this column behind the valiant suggestion, but I propose we extend it. Athletes and actors and hell, even politicians, get paid exorbitant amounts of money so we can be amused by their antics. In our culture of on-demand entertainment, isn’t it obvious we should be able to control these people at all times?
If Dubya goes to the Spice Girls reunion concert in February, I know I for one am going to want to know about it.
Unaccompanied Minors: world leaders edition
The Spanish king told Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, to shut up at a world summit, an insult so grave that Chavez has said Venezuela’s relationship with Spain is being reviewed.
It’s not as if Chavez has taken particular care not to offend his fellow world leaders. At the United Nations last year, he called President Bush the devil, said he could still smell the sulfur from when Bush spoke the previous day, and then proceeded to cross himself.
At the summit of Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish leaders in Chile last Saturday, a meeting whose theme was “social cohesion,” an argument broke out between Chavez and the Prime Minister of Spain. (Watch it here).
Chavez called the former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, who was a close Bush ally, a fascist. “Fascists are not human, a snake is more human,” he continued.
Current Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero objected and called for Chavez to be more diplomatic, but Chavez continued interrupting the PM to the point where his microphone was shut off. Spain’s King Juan Carlos jumped in, putting up his hand and saying to Chavez, “Why don’t you shut up?” using a term normally reserved for talking to children.
The row has escalated with Chavez threatening Spain, a major investor in Venezuela, and saying he will review all Spanish businesses in the country.
You’d think world leaders could be big boys and trusted to travel around the world by themselves, but apparently their emotions are still fragile in the early stages of dictatorship (sorry Chavez, but it’s true).
But I swear, we can all get along, as we’ve demonstrated on our own Northwestern campus. If it’s possible to both serve on ASG and mock it in The Chronicle, then anyone can get along.