Click for a larger image

Click for a larger image

To understand the full story I need to back up a little bit.  You see, as I was at lunch today, I was involved in a discussion about the wonderful aspects of the library, and the main topic was (drum roll please) THE CAGE!  Unfortunately, as a music education major, I do not have the opportunity to venture to the library on a very regular basis, and so I had never seen this masterpiece of modern ingenuity.  Thus I made the pilgrimage to the spot where I sit now, hardly daring to advance further toward the glory that is The Cage.

The Cage itself has a long and glorious history fraught with goblins, betrayal, true love and even a dragon.  That, however, was before Goshen College got ahold of it, where it earned a new position of protecting the rare and ancient tomes safely stored in the inner recesses of the library’s catacombs.  However, after a fluke incident involving a temperamental water heater and lots of spraying water, the need for our rare and ancient manuscripts to be protected was obliterated…along with the rare and ancient books, which after further investigation, turns out were not even rare–only ancient and unwanted in the larger librarying world.

Thus ended an exciting and new adventure in the life of The Cage, but as with many things, as one ends, another begins.  The Cage now adorns the wall of the “Cage Study Area” as a memento to the long and heroic history it has.  This area can be found by following the signs on the second floor of the library.  Although it is no longer used as a door to house ex-rare-water-logged tomes, it now functions as the door to the hearts and passions of many students here on campus.  When asked what it meant to him, Luke Zehr, a first-year, responded in a heart-wrenching manor.  “The Cage is like home,” he replied with a far-off look of longing in his eye.  Annali Smucker, a senior, is touched in a similar way.  “It is a place where I can get stuff done, yet still feel surrounded by people who love and accept me,” she said on the verge of tears.  Tim Blaum, senior, was so overwhelmed by his first visit to the Cage that all he could incoherently mumble was “There is no Cage. . .there is no Cage [like this one].”

Even as I sit here, I am feeling the draw of The Cage.  It understands and responds to my thoughts.  The Cage is like nothing I have ever experienced.  It truly is a study area with personality.   I now know, more than ever, that The Cage has genuinely brought change to this campus.

Fig. 1.1

All right, so if I’m going to make a conspiracy argument, then I’m going to need incredibly compelling yet ridiculously irrelevant evidence to back me up. First of all, the number 350 is awfully close to the number 360, which most of us know is the number of degrees for a full circle or a gnarly skateboard trick. So lets forget about parts per million and think of degrees. Take a look at figure 1.1 – if we are currently headed for the end of existence, then shifting ourselves 350 degrees will really only turn us slightly to the right, which won’t really do us any good. If we are really trying to save ourselves then wouldn’t it be better to do a 90 or 270 degree turn and leave our fate into the hands of the unknown?
Not convinced? Get out your calculator and try this one out for size. There are 365 days in a year; the difference between 365 and 350 is 15. 350 minus 15 minus half the number of syllables in ‘Bill McKibben’ (2) is 333. Times that by 2 (as in CO2) and you get 666! Coincidence? I highly doubt it! I’m on to you Lucifer; I know you’re planning something!
So maybe I haven’t quite pinned it down yet, but I just want you all to know the possibilities are out there and they are endless. If you think you have a theory on this whole 350 evil, then it’s probably right. Either way I think it would be pretty cool to live in a world that’s completely submerged (there would be jet skis everywhere!). So you better watch out 350, I’m keeping my eye on you.

For instance, let us look back at that first paragraph.  How many of you noticed a problem with the third sentence?  Well, there is one.  I ENDED THE SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION!  For this to be totally correct, one would need to change the order of things, but they cannot do that without it sounding like this: “English is the most confusing language of which I can think.”  Although not horrible-sounding, it does sound odd.  But the coup-de-grace comes when you realize that Goshen College breaks the same rule with our motto, “what are you making peace with?” See what I mean about the institutes of higher learning having problems with these things?  How can they expect us to learn proper English when they set an example like that?

Well, in my haste to prove my point, I fell prey to another of the most classic pitfalls of the English language.  The old agreement error.  I foolishly started sentence five with, “one would need to change the order of things,” and then concluded with “but they cannot. . .” My problem is that “one” implies only one, where “they” clearly means more than one.  There are a few ways to rectify this.  I can either go with the traditional WASP idea of making everyone masculine, finishing the sentence with “but he cannot. . .” but that is not the best if I want to be politically and gender correct.  My new sentence must be “one would need to change the order of things, but he or she cannot. . .”  Without a gender neutral singular term, I can either sacrifice the sleekness of the sentence or the gender indifference.  Drats. English language 2, Aaron 0. . .

Guess what, I made another boo-boo.  Please review “sentence” two of the previous paragraph.  Did you happen to see that it is not a sentence?  I suppose that I should have hyphen-ed it to the previous thought, but that did not occur to me until too late.  Of course you all would never make such blatant errors when using our beloved language.  However, remember my tirade about our college motto?  Do any of you happen to recall the motto before our current one?  Let me refresh your memory. “The Joy of the Journey”… notice anything funny about this motto?  Just sayin’.

Last night, we came to a realization. Someone needs to invent a shirt that constantly gives a lower-back massage. They make shirts with flaps that allude to opening animal mouths, so surely we’re just steps away from a wearable masseuse. Would this not be the epitome of shirt engineering? (The answer, unless you love pain, is yes.)

Ideally, of course, if it’s anything like the advancement of the computer, this shirt should have already been in progress for at least 60 years. As it is, we’re going to have to put up with suits the size of Sauder Hall for quite some time. However, we are certain that the pay-off will be quite worth it for our grandchildren; “Willy, you don’t even know what a back pain is, but back in my day a sore latissimus dorsi basically had no cure. Now you can sit in your neural brain-space games for days on end with hardly a wisp of a symptom…except for the crippling brain spasms. Still, lucky boy.”

And in the short run, a little lack of fashion won’t keep the shirt-seuse from hitting the big time. The fact is we’re a society prone to back troubles. For better or for worse, once people feel the tingling relaxed sensation that an ever-present backrub can produce, there will be no going back (Whether or not that was a pun, be assured it was far from intended.) This shirt will be somewhat similar to the Snuggie, which, though fatally unfashionable, is slowly taking over the armed blanket market. Like the much-maligned cover, the shirt-sage will so drastically improve our lifestyle as to be utterly irresistible.

Some of you might wonder, if our shirts gave us massages, wouldn’t this be just another way for technology to remove real human interaction? To which we could reply, silly you, didn’t you know that in the future human interaction is obsolete? All this talking can be replaced with texts, which can sum up entire human relationships much more concisely. For example, “lol, jk, I rly dnt like u.”  But, to be quite frank, if you can understand that last example, you know all too well that replaced human interaction is already a reality. The shirt-o-rub will do no worse.

While the ethical issues may be mountainous, we hold to our conviction; a continuous backrub would be a mighty fine thing. Imagine a world where neither sitting idle for extended periods, lifting obscenely heavy objects, nor having a monkey on ones back (figuratively or otherwise) would have negative repercussions. This is, we think all can agree, a world worth fighting for.

Click above for larger image

click above for larger image

Now don’t preemptively call me a nay-sayer, but between you and me. . . you and I?. . .never mind, between us, I haven’t seen any changes yet.  Now, according to an article in The Record issue from September 24, President Jim Brenneman submitted our plan to the (and I am not making this up) ACUPCC, which I think stands for “A Complete Uninterrupted Profuse Contemplative Cognition”–in other words, a complete sentence.  FIICMLAAWAIMMLFTR?—For Instance I Can Make Large Acronyms As Well, And It Makes Me Look Fancy Too, Right?—would be another example worthy of the status of ACUPCC, not to get off topic.

As I was saying, I haven’t seen any changes, and if we are going green, I want results!  According to my calculations, we do not have a single green building on campus.  Well, if I know what’s up, that should be easy to remedy!  All we need to do is bust out the green paint!  Besides, if we want to be closer to the earth, brown would be a much better color choice, and it would also show less dirt.  Plus, brown would be an easy color to make!  We take all our old almost empty paint cans, mix them together, and voila! BROWN!

Now, the problem with brown is that it is kind of a hard color to have as a team color.  Prime example: the Cleveland Browns.  Can you think of a worse mascot name?  It is almost as bad as the—and I am not making these up—Butte Pirates,  the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly, or the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes.  If we really want to kick things into action, we should go with a crazy color: for instance, hot fuchsia or my personal favorite “Anti-Establish Mint.”  Green is cool, but there are some really good other choices as well.

Taking all this into consideration, I really don’t see the point of “Going Green.” It is almost as if the powers that be were referring to something more abstract than a color change.  It is as if to “go green” had another meaning.  Well, in any case, my vote is that we leave purple alone and start using our hard spent tuition money towards something that will help prevent cancer or something like that.

As a veteran Goshen student with a full year under my belt, I knew better than to be taken in by the seemingly nice weather granted to us as a maniacal twist of fate designed to ruin lives and make babies cry.  For all of you less-experienced first-years, heed my warning! Soon your prayers for nicer weather will turn to cries of anguish as you realize you would settle for the weather of Tuesday.  Before you know it, you will be begging for the warmth of 50 degrees with drizzle.

With the unsettling knowledge that Goshen weather is about as stable as a nuclear reaction, you may find yourself slipping into Goshen Depression.  This is an odd phenomenon that happens in Goshen that is similar to Seasonal Depression, except Goshen Depression lasts for approximately 11 months of the year.  It typically ends in July, the month when the weather is nice, and starts again around the first of August.

DO NOT BE ALARMED!  There are ways of combating this! And I am about to let you in on some of the secrets that helped me learn to be an OGSGD, or Optimistic Goshenite who Suffers from Goshen Depression.

1.)    Imagine you are at a beach on some island in the Caribbean.  *Disclaimer: if you are actually from a place like that, it may only strengthen the symptoms of GD (Goshen Depression).

2.)   Sleep a lot.  (To improve step 2, sleep with a picture of a sunny day under your pillow.)

3.)   Find creative ways of keeping warm, i.e. that crazy guy who wears a green bathrobe.

5.)  Never look out the window.

6.)  Repeat step 4.

With all of these foolproof tips, I am confident in your ability to overcome GD and not care about the rain…and snow…and cold…and months of no sun…and fog…and general feelings of gloom…and dementors (just ’cause you don’t see ‘em doesn’t mean they’re not there)… You can do it! Don’t mind the wind blowing at hurricane speeds! Keep the faith, hold on!  The cloudburst will…pass? …united…we…can…AHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

click me for a larger image

image1.1

If you ask me, there are two different types of people in this world. There are people who will laugh at image 1.1 (see right) and there are people who will not. The people who will not, just so happen to be the people who have had a mother or father join Facebook and then had them request their friendship on Facebook. Last year, by some cruel twist of fate, I became one of those people. Facebook, which used to be a fun social tool I could use to keep  in touch with (and to exclude) my close friends who know the ‘real me,’ has now become a spy tool for the parents who, dare I say it, are starting to figure out how to use the Internet.

If you think you have the option to ignore this friend request, you’ve never been more wrong. The ignore button is there, but you can’t click it! What do you say at the dinner table when your mom asks you, “Why didn’t accept my friend request?” You don’t, because the 11th commandment says, “Thou shall not deny thy mother or father on social networks.” They brought you into this world and they can take you out! We have no choice; Facebook just gave our parents a golden pathway into our social lives.

Some of you might think, “What’s the big deal? I have nothing to hide from my parents whom I love oh so very much.” You think so!? You won’t be saying that when you get 4 wall posts every week from a concerned mother telling you that you’re not eating enough vegetables. What’s the number one rule of college? No Parents. This is a total violation of that rule! Not only are you opening the door to the embarrassment that your parents can wreak on your social life, but you’re also giving them unrestricted access to your private info and pictures. Think about these possible scenarios:

• “I read your status about how ‘last night was off the hook,’ where were you? You were in bed by 11, right? Did you take a coat? I don’t want you getting a cold.”
• “Who’s that girl in your profile picture? Is that a nose ring she’s wearing? You two aren’t dating are you? What’s her name? Are you sure you’re not related to her? You would tell me if you were dating, right?
• “How come you’re not wearing any pants in these photos?”

image 1.2

The list goes on and on! Most of us students believe that college isn’t really about learning; it’s about having fun and NOT having parents around. Did you know that before Facebook, 100% of parents actually thought we were spending long hours in the library studying? I know it’s crazy, but it’s true! Take a look at image 1.2 (top-right), these stats, based off of very real research, don’t lie!  So what does this mean?
Well, it means a few things. It could mean that a small amount of parents still like fun or that a small amount of students don’t like fun, but more importantly, it means we need to start tagging more photos of us studying and less photos of us having fun. Last night I uploaded several pictures of me with a variety of books in both of my hands while wearing reading glasses (I don’t need glasses) and looking slightly unhappy and stressed. Within the hour my mom made a comment on my wall telling me how proud of me she was and how I’m the best son she could possibly ask for. I’m expecting a care package in the mail sometime this week.

So while we may have lost our Facebook freedom, we have not lost the war. Who knows, maybe someday the youth will be able to connect privately once more, until then, don’t tag me.

By the best of it, I mean transform part of the funnies page. I am proposing—and since I am the editor, me proposing means too bad for you because you don’t get a say—a weekly column where I (call me big-headed if you want) talk about travel. I mean for real, we don’t have a travel page, and being a college full of GCGCs (that stands for Goshen College Global Citizens), we need more emphasis on the fantastic far-reaching foreign countries like Texas, Alaska, and Germany.

Seeing as how I have never been to Texas or Alaska, I plan on focusing all of my forthcoming Travel Articles (from here on called TAs) on Germany, where I have traveled. For those of you who don’t know, I spent approximately three months, one day, five hours, seven minutes, and twenty-six seconds (give or take a tenth of a second or so) this summer on the last Goshen College SST to Germany. Es ist traurig. For those of you who don’t speak Deutsch, that means “It is traurig,” and also, Deutsch is German for . . . well, German.

Now, many of you supportive readers might be thinking, “Oh dear! How dull my life will be with fewer funnies!” But don’t be led astray! Some day—maybe even soon!—we may need to actually know about a nation other than our own. For instance, with Sweden trying to conquer us by implanting the idea of universal health care into our president’s brain, we need to start compiling knowledge of the strategies of other nations! I am offering you a head start on the competition; by really knowing about another country and understanding its people, we may be able to stave off this battle of minds that is infecting our country!

Okay, enough of the scare tactic. LOMGS, what’s with that darned H1N1 (from here on called Swine Flu) thing infecting people?  I don’t need to terrify you by giving you actual facts. Now that we have gotten that all straightened out, I just want to warn you one last time: all of the events that will be in the following TAs are based on at least 24% fact, and real events actually took place to inspire them. In a nutshell, that means that they are 100% serious and will not be funny at all.

There are a number of reasons for this re-establishment of the old column.  For instance:

1.)    Last time there was an alien invasion, we were all warned by an astute Inside/Outside Voices contributor.

2.)    Who doesn’t love calling in and pretending to be someone from the Brenneman family?

3.)    As long as you are civil tongued, you pretty much get in print—unless we have an abundance of callers, in which case you only get in if you talk about grade A funnies material.

4.)    It’s ridiculously easy. So easy, in fact, that not only could a caveman do it, but the ancestors of cavemen could do it!

6.)  You do not have to base your “facts” on a fact.

7.)  When I run out of things to talk about, I will have something to fill my page.

Oh deary me! Here I have gone and jumped the gun! “What is Inside/Outside Voices?” you might ask. Well, it is a chance for anyone and everyone to express their life-long desires via telephone! This may seem like an obvious question to many of you older more experienced Record readers, but we must also cater to the first-years who make up approximately 5/4 of our school this year.

Unfortunately, we have been running into some slight hitches in the technical aspects of this fantastic Record tradition. Our voicemail account has closed, the computer it was running on blew up, and zombies ate the Keebler elf we hired to monitor the language of the recordings. Once all of these problems have been fixed, I will let you (the eagerly waiting public) know the mystical magical phone number to call!

**NOTE TO EDITORS**

I meant to skip 5 in my list.