The Editor's Mess

June 7, 2012. Meadow's Alma Mater, Ravenswood, Connecticut

Thank you, Chancellor Banks for that wonderful introduction.  Only rarely have I been called both a visionary and a genius so soon after sex, and my ego thanks you.  Dean McDonald, thank you as well for inviting me back to my alma mater -- at an embarassingly increased honorarium -- to deliver this commencement address before another gaggle of wide-eyed ingénues about to drunkenly stagger into the jobless wastelands.  We'll cover that in a few minutes.

First, let us reflect upon the last four years at this crotch-grabbingly expensive institution, that remains much less well-endowed than I am, as Chancellor Banks can attest.  It started back in September 2008, and what a fantastic month that was in American economic history.  You'd have to study the Great Depression's WikiPedia page to find a worse time to be racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to finance an education that will place you only a slim paygrade above the most slack-jawed yokel with a fresh H-1B work visa.

Yet against all good judgement, you took the plunge mere days following the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Fannie Mae, which sounds like your great grandmother's stripper name, along with Freddie controlled most of the real estate in America.  Predictably, panic ensued, much like what happened when you realized that the girl you hooked up with after the freshman mixer was Dean McDonald's neice. 

But probably less panicked than you were a week later when you realized those burning red pimples all over "Little Bill" weren't heat rash.

Suffices to say the economy of the United States all but collapsed before you knew your way around campus, including, unfortunately where the free condoms were.  Granted a lot of that was related to bath salts and bong use, but also because things were falling apart quickly.  Things falling apart would turn out to be a recurring theme during your time here at Yalvard.

By the time 2009 reared its powerfully ugly gob, your legendary Nobel prize winning professor of economics Dr. Charles H. Drasser II -- the bellwether of conservative politics and posterboy of Reaganomics -- had been indicted on 41 counts of soliciting sex from male prostitutes in a four state area.  This sent a powerful chill through conservative circles, all but ending Dr. Drasser's "Traditional Biblical Values" campaign so admired by talk-show hosts across the nation, not to mention destroying the brisk little cottage industry the L.G.B.T. community had created based on hating this guy.

[inset side="left" title="The Hefner Effect"]Our endowment was starting to shrivel up like Hugh Hefner in an ice-cold jacuzzi.[/inset]In July 2009, you had another campus icon skewered when Head Coach Irving Teewinkle, who had taken our own Yalvard Greenbacks to the Cranberry Bowl 23 times in 25 years, revealed a particularly pervy prediliction for farmyard animals and Twitter.  Another one bit the dust, and several other organs.  Indeed sexual misconduct among the sports staff would remain a sticky issue for years to come.  That was also the name of my college grunge band, I'll let you figure out which phrase. (It was "Sticky Issue.")

Right about this time, our endowment was starting to shrivel up like Hugh Hefner in an ice-cold jacuzzi. Seeing our venerable institution more like a haven for sexual miscreants than a paragon of higher learning, our one-percenters took their fat checkbooks and, I'm happy to say, invested their dollars into profitable ventures like my new Facebook-heavy international hedge fund.  But I digress.

Meanwhile, outside the walls of this incredibly expensive daycare slash brothel, unemployment ran rampant while our political leaders continued mortgaging the nation to support wars they didn't even understand.  Employers struggled to employ people as business dried up, slashing already slashed wages and bennies in a desperate punt toward a slightly less grim future.  Somehow, despite being lavished with tax breaks, our one-percenters failed to shock America's still heart into throbbing action.  For the first time in history, America's limp and languid recovery made Bob Dole look like Ron Jeremey.

Just then, when America really needed a boost, along came British Petroleum with the answer: we'll carelessly dump enough oil into the Gulf of Mexico to power Venezuela for a year, making sure to tap the nails into the coffin of what little economy was left after Katrina.

Nevertheless, no matter how dim the lights of American progress glows, there is one inexorable axiom that will stand the test of time: America will always prevail over less organized and sophisticated countries, particularly when those countries are rich in natural or human resources.  This describes most of the world's population, and so there is hope.  Thankfully there are still plenty of countries to exploit.

As I look out over this vertible sea of traumatized faces, the full shock of my message only now beginning to seep into your pickled, dope-addled craniums, I see that like former President George W. Bush, my mission is accomplished.

Regents, assembled faculty, Dean McDonald and Chancellor Banks: I present to you the Yalvard graduating class of 2012 for your inspection, except for you Dr. Gibbons, who I know has already personally inspected many of those here.  I'll leave you with the immortal words of Donald Bitters, Yalvard's first President in 1793:

"When all is darkness, make sure to start your journey with clean underwear and a supply of torches.  But if you can avoid it entirely, do that." 

So I say to you: do that.