Jay On March and April
By Jay Buchman '07, Columnist

MARCH

March 2

Twenty-three female college students are expelled from DePauw University's Delta Zeta sorority, including every member who was overweight or a racial minority. The sorority has also changed its motto to: "Pretty White on the Outside, Ugly on the Inside."

March 3

Drew Gilpin Faust becomes the first female president of Harvard University. This comes as a huge surprise to Harvard trustees, who mistakenly thought from the name "Drew" that they were appointing a man.

March 4

Students give "Junior" Misael Gonzales rave reviews as the new pizza chef, but many question the rationale behind Valentine's new appointments of a "milk chef" and a "napkin chef."

March 5

Journalist Joe Klein delivers a lecture at the College entitled "War in Iraq and the U.S. Presidential Election: Two Things Amherst Students Probably Won't Participate In."

March 6

Labor activist Linda Foxvog urges Amherst students to help shut down sweatshops. Closing sweatshops will have two beneficial effects, she claims: raising the price of clothing and putting thousands of poor women out of work.

Mega Millions sets a new world record for the highest jackpot with $370 million. The odds of winning are about 1 in 175,000,000, which are also the odds that Bob Dole will be named next year's Miss America.

March 12

The Recording Association of America (RIAA) begins a new crackdown on illegal downloading aimed at 400 students at 13 universities, including UMass. As punishment, it will turn them on a spit over a large fire and make them sing "This Is Why I'm Hot."

March 13

The Stardust Resort & Casino in Las Vegas is imploded, after it refers to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hoes."

March 14

The Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) is formed in an attempt to improve relations between athletics and academics at Amherst. The committee will try to find a better idea than last year's "WAGS faculty/varsity football team tug-of-war."

March 15

The new Williams College student center, Paresky Hall, opens its doors for the first time. The expansive building includes a juice bar and TV lounge, and according to students, it "very nearly compensates for the fact that Williamstown is a desolate hellhole."

March 16

For the first time in the 23-year history of the popular gameshow "Jeopardy!," a three-way tie occurred. It also happens to be the least exciting three-way in the history of mankind.

March 23

Iran seizes a dozen British Royal Navy personnel in disputed Iran-Iraq waters and holds them captive. Iran tortures them, forcing them to act carefree and happy for two straight weeks.

March 25

Daylight savings begins in Europe. Like it does every year, Iran sets its clock back 2000 years.

This day marks the 200th anniversary of the finalization of the 1807 Slave Trade Act, which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. President Bush movingly pays homage to the act, calling it "you know, a good thing."

March 29

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchú-Tum speaks on "Healing Communities Torn by Racism and Violence," helping dozens of Amherst students to realize that there exist worse problems in society than Valentine food.

March 30

Sony's seventh-generation console, the PlayStation 3, is launched in Europe. Popular games include "Ace Combat 6," "College Hoops 2K7" and "Virtual Tennis 3: Just Like Virtual Tennis 2."

March 31

Sydney, Australia, turns off its lights for one hour between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. as a political statement against global warming, or as its known in Australian, "towie scrag."

APRIL

April 2

The Solomon Islands are shaken by a magnitude 8.1 earthquake, and hit by a subsequent tsunami. Mel Gibson doesn't understand why God would do this­-after all, not that many Jews live there.

April 3

The Amherst College faculty meets to reflect on the College's mission. The faculty declares that its mission is "To give our students the best possible education by engaging with them in small classes (except for the psychology department)."

April 4

Iran announced it will release the British sailors and marines captured on March 23. The captives fly back to England the next day on Allah Aboard! Airlines.

April 7

RecycleMania 2007 officially comes to a close. Tony Marx pitches in, vowing to recycle several of his speeches.

April 8

Amherst College's MASSPIRG chapter lobbies Senators and Congressmen in an attempt to further its main goal: to continue to get AAS funding.

April 10

DNA tests reveal that the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter is her ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead. Americans are shocked-both that Birkhead is the father and that this passes for news.

April 11

As part of an emergency preparedness drill, the WAGS department practices what it would do if gender ceased to be socially constructed.

April 12

CBS fires Don Imus from his radio show, eight days after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hoes." Civil rights leaders immediately called for his resignation, right after they determined that he wasn't black or a rap artist.

April 16

The Virginia Tech massacre occurs when Seung-Hui Cho, a psychotic student, shoots and kills 32 students. To ensure that such a tragedy never happens again, political activists vow to push for a ban on guns, being shy, being Korean, majoring in English at Virginia Tech and breathing oxygen.

April 17

The Amherst Office of Admission announces its lowest admit rate in its history, 17 percent. Katie Fretwell perhaps overreached, though, when she released a list of all the current students who wouldn't have been admitted if they had applied this year.

April 21

A Blue Angels plane crashes during an air show in Beaufort, S.C., killing the pilot. The Blue Angels decide that "play dead" isn't one of the tricks they're very good at.

April 25

Professor Catherine Epstein gives a talk entitled, "A Model Nazi?" about anti-Semitic undertones in the movie "Zoolander."

May 3

Jay's last column is published. Thanks to all of my fans!

Issue 25, Submitted 2007-06-12 19:38:28