Et Cetera Demands the Respect it Deserves: None!

WKCR's Secret Wisdom Leads Lions to Victory!Help can sometimes come from the most unusual places. Such was the case with women's basketball Head Coach Jay Butler last week. After Columbia's Friday night win over Princeton, Butler took time out of his busy schedule to listen to the post-game show on WKCR radio.

Technical problems at the station led to an extended post-game show on 89.9 FM, so the studio team killed time with a discussion of the Saturday game between Columbia and first-place Penn. Brian Schaitkin CC '04 and Anand Krishnamurthy CC '07 spoke about the game as if it were a match up of stars--Columbia's very own Sue Altman versus Penn's Ivy Player of the Year candidate Jewel Clark. Schaitkin went as far as suggest that Altman should be guarding Clark.

Lightning struck Butler. He would later admit that he took Schaitkin's suggestion.

"When I arrived at the gym for the game," Altman said in a CTV interview after the game, "I was surprised to see that [junior forward] Nicole Lesko had been moved off of Jewel Clark, and suddenly I was guarding her."

Schaitkin's off-the-cuff strategy worked like a charm. Clark was constantly frustrated by Altman's defensive presence and played a lousy game--missing 14 field goals.

It made the difference in the Light Blue's shocking 74-69 upset of the first place Quakers.

"I'm always happy to help," Schaitkin said after learning Butler had credited WKCR with the move.

The Lions may need his help more in the future.

Dear President Bollinger,After last week's protests culminated in the Columbia University Concerned Students of Color presenting President Bollinger with a set of demands, from a Multicultural Affairs Office to an expanded Core Curriculum, other student groups have fallen into step. Apparently the Engineering Student Council is formulating a list of grievances concerning anti-SEAS discrimination. Members of Hillel are considering drawing up a similar list dealing with anti-Semitism.

In light of these increasingly demanding student groups, we can only imagine what will come next:

Coalition for the Advancement of Columbia A Cappella PerformersDemand: A separate but equal A Cappella House on 113th StreetResponse: Granted! Must have sound-proof windows nailed shut.

Anime ClubDemand: A statement from President Bollinger acknowledging that Spirited Away sold out the art form when Disney distributed it, and that Mobile Suit Gundam Wing totally went downhill after the first season. Response: Refused! Gundam is still going strong, according to Bollinger.

Columbia Atheists ClubDemand: The elimination of all works that reference God, Allah, YHWH, or any Greek or Roman deity from the Core Curriculum, leaving only Montaigne's "On Cannibalism" and the Warhol unit in Art Hum.Response: Granted! While we're at it, let's also ban references to Austin Powers, Office Space and your favorite Futurama episode.

OrchesisDemand: Fewer clothes. Response: Granted! Extra t-shirts and loincloths to be donated to local nursery schools.

Et Cetera Celebrates Columbians Ahead of Their TimeIn honor of the University's 250th Anniversary, Et Cetera offers its own tribute to Columbians Ahead of Their Time. Every week we will celebrate a remarkable Columbian whose achievements go unappreciated by the C250 committee and society as a whole. Join us in our celebration.

Pat Buchanan"Integration of blacks and whites--but even more so, poor and well-to-do--is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable."Flipping through the channels on any given night, you come to one of those 24-hour news channels. People are yelling at each other, hurling personal insults, oversimplifying complex debates to the point that they fit in 15 second sound bites: gradually, hour by hour, lowering the level of political discourse in this country. All of a sudden, you notice the familiar face of Pat Buchanan, Journalism '62.

This country has a storied history of politicians exploiting jingoism for political gain. During this generation, Buchanan has consistently fought on the front lines of that noble fight. He has referred to immigration as an "invasion from the South," and has argued for a "time out" on immigration so that the country can "assimilate and Americanize" immigrants currently in the country. His other causes include defending multiple alleged Nazi war criminals, questioning why the U.S. insisted on "ruining" South Africa's apartheid regime, and urging the NAACP to "close up shop" after what Buchanan saw as the civil rights advances of the Reagan years.

In a speech given to the Christian Coalition in September 1993, Buchanan said multiculturalism was "an across-the-board assault on our Anglo-American heritage." Recently, University President Lee Bollinger advocated the establishment of a Multicultural Affairs Office. Et Cetera hates to speculate, but we have to guess that Buchanan won't be on the top of the search committee's list.

Lights Out for Butler Lovers
Two dark bodies fumble nervously through the bookcases. Cloth shuffles quietly against cloth, the friction charging the air with passion. A hand works its way underneath layer after layer until one lover, unable to contain his passion, lets out a wild "Oh!" Suddenly the lights come up, throwing bright fluorescent rays upon the now squinting couple. The moment is lost, and the passion subsides. Butler Management: 1. Human Nature: 0.

The Butler Sex-Nazis must have been imagining this scenario when they decided to install motion sensitive lights in the Butler stacks. Extinguishing the passion of young lovers has traditionally been the job of killjoy security guards and grad students looking for first editions of Hegel. But now technology has joined the cock-blocking coalition.

The new lights are designed "to help people find books," according to Curtis Kendrick, Butler's director of access services. But if anything, Kendrick and his lights are preventing the kind of access students really care about. The recent renovations in Butler provide the perfect opportunity for sleepovers in the stacks (notice the plastic covering draped over the shelves to protect books from renegade fluids). With this new measure, the administration is sending a message to Columbia students: if you're gonna do it, at least let us watch.