COLUMN: Keeping students safe

From Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96 From Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96Attention freshmen: You have matriculated at Penn, where the thought police are eager to become yournew best friends. By now you've probably been welcomed to Penn by pretty much everyone except Ben Franklin his own bad self, so let me be among the last to say, "Welcome to Penn." But I don't want this to be an empty welcome. No, I'd like to explain to you just how your new siblings here at B.F.'s U. intend to keep you safe from the big, bad old world out there. And no, I don't mean from the big, bad old world of West Philly. All our neighbors can do is mug you and panhandle from you and hate you because of your parents' money. Nothing a healthy attitude, a pleasant smile and about a half-gallon of pepper spray can't handle, right? No, what your newest, bestest buddies at the University are going to do is protect you from things right here on campus! Some of them printed right here in this newspaper! You can't trust anyone in this world, no siree Bob or Roberta, not even pointy-headed Ivy League types. Sometimes especially not t0hose. However, administrators here at Penn don't feel they have any right to tell you what to do or think, and what's more, they don't have to! They know there are plenty of fine, friendly, concerned people here who will do it for free! That means the University can spend your hard-earned tuition dollars on important things, like more administrators. So, for instance, let's suppose somebody wants to put an insert in this very newspaper saying that abortion is a Very Bad Thing. Now, the people who run the paper aren't going to turn them away, because they're all Very Bad People who worship at the altar of this pagan god called the First Amendment. Why, they'd put just any old thing in their newspaper as long as it wasn't libelous or full-frontally nude. But your friends at Penn, now, they know that it's not good for you to be confused by people whose opinions aren't Politically Correct. They know you have many, many important things to worry about, like beating Princeton and finding the three functioning copy machines in Van Pelt Library, and you shouldn't be confused by Wrong Opinions. So when that ad about the Very Bad Thing appears, and when these new friends of yours write nasty letter protesting how this newspaper could allow such Wrong Opinions to be printed, just realize they're saying "We love you and care about you" in the only way they know how. You women, especially, should be very happy that your sisters here are looking out for you. For instance, you may have already noticed that they sell cosmetics in our just-recently-privatized University Book Store. You'd think this was a convenience provided by your benevolent University, wouldn't you? Wrong! Deception! Deceit! See, to you make-up may just be make-up, but your sisters know better. They know make-up is really a Political Statement. It's an omnipresent reminder of your inherent ugliness, that's what it is! What's more, your female siblings think you should be allowed to study and work and attend rallies without being constantly reminded of that fact that Bad Men think you are basically a piece of moth-eaten black velvet waiting to be painted. So, your sisters-in-arms have been trying to shut down the cosmetics counters, which really contain Political Statements disguised as eyeliner and lipstick. They even have a term for ridding the campus of Political Statements with which they don't agree: "Intellectual freedom." (In the words of humor columnist Dave Barry, I am not making this up. All of what I've just told you has been printed in this very newspaper, which as I said is a Very Bad Thing that will print anything this side of the Tibetan Book of the Dead -- and I hear that might be in the editorial budget for finals week.) Now, dear freshmen, clip out this column and send it home to your worrying parents, to let them know you won't be exposed to anything that might be Wrong or Bad or Conservative or Hateful or that might challenge you in any way while you're here. This way, you'll be able to spend your first year at Penn figuring out the really important stuff. Like how to hide your beer from the alcohol cops at Spring Fling.