Category: Columns

Ben Rees
Columnist 

C’mon kids, run on over here and sit pretzel style on the alphabet rug. Uncle Ben’s going to tell you all a story. This is the story of Jake’s first summer at sleep-away camp. I was there for the entire time; it was the summer after fifth grade. Now pull out your Capri Suns and Fruit Gushers, and plan to be swept away, off to that first summer years ago …. Wooshhhh.

Jake was a chubby and goofy youngster. It was his first summer away at camp, and he was in Wisconsin, the land of cheese, for four whole weeks before going home. After a great week of swimming, crying over splinters and general camp shenanigans, it was time for our cabin to go on the camping trip. We were going canoeing down what seemed like a torrential river, but what may or may not be currently classified as a creek. That aside, we packed up our knapsacks, bagged our pretzel sticks and set off on our excursion as a group of wholly unsuspecting children.

The first two days soared. We had a blast canoeing and camping; the s’mores were perfectly melted and the mosquitoes were nowhere to be found. All was well until the third day. We arrived at our campsite and set up the tents. The sky was clear and we were all going to go swimming in the river. I put on my hiking sandals and sweet graphic tee, pulled out my SPF 70 sunscreen and prepared to have the time of my life.

While I was readying myself, Jake was getting into some mischief. As I said earlier, he was rather chubby. He also had an unfortunate affinity for climbing trees. Another complication for Jake was that the area in which we were camping had been subjected to logging; the trees that had grown back were stock, meaning they were rather skinny and insubstantial. As you probably guessed, all of this leads to Jake climbing trees that he should not have. The first one he scaled sagged under his weight to just about 90 degrees.

The second time Jake shimmied up a tree, he was not nearly as lucky. There was a dead birch suspended over the river, and he attempted to walk out onto it. While it may have seemed cool at the time, in retrospect, he looked like a rotund Spider Man on a flagpole. As he got out onto the end and roared like a pre-pubescent silverback gorilla, the tree trunk started to creak.

The tree snapped, sending Jake plummeting towards the river; however, he was stopped short of the water by a rather large pile of sticks. His legs broke through the mound of timber, and all of a sudden, he began screaming. We all ran to the banks of the river in order to observe a shirtless chubby child halfway submerged in a mound of mud and twigs.  Jake continued to scream, as something furry was pawing his thigh.

To be continued … tune in next week for the riveting conclusion!

Ben Rees
Columnist 

The world is a cruel place and this November, our nation has an election that many believe will change things. Both sides of the political spectrum have incessantly bombarded the populace with terms, ideas and goals that are supposed to make citizens feel like the situation will get better. The reason these promises mean nothing is because our nation is made up of embittered voters and non-voters who complain about every promise political folk fall short of fulfilling.

The general populace needs to be a bit more imaginative; maybe everything politicians say isn’t a lie, and even if it is, let’s go along with it for a little while. Perhaps, if I may be so bold, my loyal fans will oblige me and permit me to weave them a dream of what our country could be.

In my America, nobody sues for dumb reasons. If a woman spills coffee on herself while driving, she won’t be able to sue because the cup doesn’t say “Caution: Hot.” Rather, she will understand that gnarled, rheumatic hands should stay on the steering wheel of her Buick instead of holding a Styrofoam cup; cup holders exist for a reason.

In a perfect America, Christina Aguilera is still cool, and sharks have eaten the entire staff of TLC. Our nation’s goal is to propagate intelligence, and television like “Dance Moms” has a quota instated on it. This means that those who watch smut TV for more than 20 hours per week will be zapped with a cattle prod by a government-sponsored agent. That’s what I call welfare.

I believe in an America with change … machines on every street corner, so no person will ever have to worry about parking violations. I believe in an America where nobody has to hope that he or she will win Norah Jones tickets. Instead, we will all be able to sit and hear her warble.

In this dream, no longer is America reliant on fossil fuels because sustainable energy is synthesized from a mixture of wind, solar rays and Obama’s basketball game sweat. Milk and honey flows from every sink, while energy drinks have been banned from stores for causing long-lasting testicular shrinkage–people understand no drink is worth turning grapes to raisins.

I believe in an America where words really do matter. All campaign speeches have to start with an original joke, and if nobody laughs, they cannot continue. How much cooler would Romney be if we believed he wasn’t a robot? The word “gubernatorial” would also be scrapped from the dictionary because nobody wants to vote on a goober.

All these ideas would make America so much better. Things would run more smoothly, and I truly believe we would all be happier. This November, dream away, because no matter who gets elected, a lot of things will stay shitty.

Ben Rees
Columnist 

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do wholeheartedly believe in a good plan. I respect well-thought-out endeavors, and I truly relish when someone throws a bit of humor into the mix. This sounds vague, but in every good plan, there should be something funny. For example, on a main drag right by my house, there are three businesses built from right to left as follows: St. [insert saint name here]’s Animal Hospital, Burger King and a discount fur mart. Let that sink in. Sick/dying animals, sub-par meat and a discount fur mart. Whoever in the city offices let that combo happen deserves a bottle of wine and a chocolate cigar. There is no way that this ordering is an accident, and I can prove that my strange town is not the only place where hilarious establishments remain incognito.

Look around campus. There are plenty of areas that are too strange to be accidents. Take a gander at President Bravman’s home. It is a beautiful piece of property that is exceedingly well maintained, but when I look at it, I seem to remember the importance of the phrase “location, location, locomotion.” The train that runs right behind it goes no faster than three miles per hour, which is clearly justification for its aggressive horn sounding.

We all know that the statue in front of Vedder looks like a penis. Everyone sees it, and everyone should be over it; however, someone needs to explain to me why administration put this phallic structure in front of a dorm. Living in Smith as a sophomore, all I heard most nights were entire halls walking back from registers at 10:30 p.m., giggling about the huge rock member in front of their building. If I haven’t yet proven to you that upperclassmen are far more capable of being mature around something like a large, onyx penis, then you must be hardheaded.

The Christy Mathewson gates are hugely sentimental, and they clearly have a place in the history of this campus. That being said, what are they keeping out? Isn’t the purpose of gates, to close something off? This is the first set I have seen that isn’t even connected to a wall. I know that it means a lot to walk through the gates, but isn’t that phenomenon somewhat stifled by my ability to simply stroll around them?

Somebody please explain the abdominal alcove in the gym to me. I’m not much of a frequent exerciser, but on the rare occasions I drag myself to the Krebs Family Fitness Center, I have trouble comprehending the area dedicated to bettering my core. They gave us the Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs and a foul set of gym mats for an exercise that everybody wants to do before they saunter home in their sweaty Greek crewneck t-shirts.

Before my position as a columnist is revoked, I just want to reiterate my message: look around for once. If, while walking outside, you take the time to objectively gaze at things, you will undoubtedly notice happenings and structures that were once foreign to you.  There are some really funny things going on in the world and trust me, a huge stone phallus and some disjointed gates are hardly the cream of the crop.