Letters column 27: St. Scholastica fights back!

There are many things that bring me joy in life, but none as much as today's column, where I will print letters from St. Scholastica students who are angry about the column I wrote regarding their drug dealing professor .

The response to my column was quite amazing. Nearly 800 unique visitors read that column (I usually have about 50 readers), and most of the visitors were St. Scholastica students. I found out from a few inside sources I have at St. Scholastica that my column was originally found by the student in charge of media and public relations for St. Scholastica's student senate. That person e-mailed the link to all the student senators, who e-mailed it to all their friends.

One of the students who received the link happened to be the student in charge of St. Scholastica's daily announcements, which are sent via e-mail to every student on campus. He or she thought it would be funny to include a link to my column in the daily announcements. As you can imagine, dear reader, hilarity ensued. Or as one of my sources reported, "Wow, there is an uproar going on down here."

St. Scholastica's enrollment is 2,841, which means my column was read by roughly 30% of the campus. Now that's some great advertising value! Out of the 800 visitors, 14 of them e-mailed me nasty letters, and another 12 of them left nasty messages in the comments section of the column. I can only assume that the other 674 students thoroughly enjoyed the column, and agreed with every point I made. Funny as it may seem, one of the people who wrote nasty things in the comments section, a person who went by the handle "LPTF", actually came back later to write, "After delving into the archives of the website though, I have realized that Mr. Ryan is an equal opportunity satirist, and rather humorous at times." In addition, three of the students who e-mailed me nasty letters also ended up "turning to the dark side" and coming to their senses, realizing that the entire column was meant to A) be funny, and B) trick St. Scholastica students into writing nasty e-mails to me, so I could print them for the enjoyment of my readers.

Speaking of that, here are some of the nasty letters, and a little mockery from yours truly to make things all the sweeter. Our first delightful letter comes from Erica Hazzard:

Great article about St. Scholastica, really. I'd like to commend you on your thoroughly intellectual statements concerning the students of St. Scholastica. I'd also like to personally thank you for referring to me as a "pompous ass," and a "pampered preppy brat" while recomending that I "Suck it long. Suck it hard. Suck it while singing [my] school song." It is very apparent that your education benefited you tremendously, as you are now in the esteemed feild of whining out of your ass. I'm really jealous of your accomplishments. Congratulations on your achievements and keep up the good work!

Is that sarcasm I'm sensing? Goodness gracious! These rambunctious students can be coarse when pushed, can't they?

Speaking of "whining out of your ass", Erica seems to be pretty skilled at that herself. You know what I'm more skilled at than her, though? Baiting dumb people to get all worked up over some random webpage on the Internet. Congratulations, Erica. Only a pompous ass like yourself would be blind enough to fall into a mindless trap like that.

P.S. The word "recommending" has two m's, and "field" goes by the "i before e, except after c" rule. You're welcome.

Our next letter comes from Alison Stephenson. Tsk, tsk. It seems my trap has caught another naughty monkey. Irony seems to be lost on Alison, along with first amendment rights, personal choice, money management, and basic common sense.

I have this to say about your column it's immature and wrong. I would think a man as smart as you (as you claim to be with your big high paying job) would know better than to generalize about 2,000 students based on what you know of maybe 5 or 6. It's really no better than saying all black people are drug dealers, because you saw a news story about one black guy who was a drug dealer . . . Most students at Scholastica are not rich and have debts piling up from the students loans we have taken out. Mine are nearing the 75,000 mark . . . You can think what you want about paying as much as we do for tuition, but keep it to yourself.

My apologies, Alison, but I had to cut down some of your blabbering (hence, the ellipses) to keep my readers from falling asleep. Let's start with the irony. One big point I made in my column was the ridiculous cost of going to St. Scholastica. My comments were practically written with you in mind, Alison. The $75,000 debt piling up (wow! That's dumb!) is a perfect example of falling into that "it's expensive, so it must be good" state of mind. I said it a second ago, but I'll mention it again just to make sure you get the point: that's just dumb. Oh, and I never said St. Scholastica students were rich. I said their parents were rich. Big difference there.

Now for the common sense part. Your "black drug dealer" example is an example of racism, not generalization, as you were suggesting. Those are two different things altogether, and to try to pass them off as similar is, once again, just plain dumb. Finally, let's move on to the first amendment rights and personal choice part. Alison, I will not "keep it to (myself)", but you can feel free to stop reading my column. I didn't force you to read it. It was your own choice. If you don't like it, then don't choose to read it in the future. But whatever you choose, make sure to have a nice day. I don't want anyone going away from this column without having a nice day.

Our next to last letter is from Heidi, who seems to be a bit deluded and contradicting about her St. Scholastica experience, defending the college while also ripping on it. This is exactly the kind of person I was looking to get letters from. As Teddy Roosevelt used to say, "Dear me, another yellow fever victim."

CSS does charge a large amount of money for tuition, but compare it to any other private college and it is pretty comparable. What can I say, I find many of the people here well rounded, outgoing individuals, including myself. I am not stuck up nor rich. Ha, I didn't even want to come to a private college in the first place . . . I agree that CSS does send out a vibe of stuck up rich kids, but myself (myself alone) is paying for college and there are very many "good" kids here. You give the college a huge stereostype and it is the "non-rich and non-stuck up" people like me that have to put up with that crap. Everywhere I go I get asked the question of where I go to college and receive a different look than if I were to say I was from UMD-believe me I have tried it. It is just people like you that make the "good" people look bad. I, myself, don't like half the people here, but I guess I have to live with that.

So let me get this straight. You're writing this letter to me, defending your choice of colleges, and then you go on a long rant about how you know it's ridiculously expensive, you don't like any of the people who go there, and you don't like the image the college gives you. Well, we're a smart one, aren't we? I also find it amusing how you shamelessly flaunt yourself as well-rounded, and claim yourself to be the only student paying your way through the college (the "myself alone" comment), and then claim you're not stuck up. But kudos to Heidi nevertheless, for she has proven that you don't have to be rich to be really, really stupid. My mistake.

In order to keep this column from becoming a novella (it's probably too late), I'll only print one more letter. So our last letter is from Burgess Norrgard, who sent this letter to the Reader Weekly (I also printed my column there).

Your publication of Paul Ryan's article "Methamphetamines are a professor's Best Friend" has managed to alienate an entire campus community, a whole relgious order, and anyone who is remotely Christian. My point is, in the future I think it would be benificial to your readership to actually report news or something with the even the remotest bit of objectiveness. Rather than one author's personal bashing of a school, it's values, and all that attend that school.

I responded in the Reader Weekly with this little snippet: "My column is a humor column, and while I do sometimes hit on news items, everything I write is for the sake of a laugh. If that laugh comes at the expense of a professor who is a drug dealer, then so be it. I try to poke fun at all walks of life, and yours just happened to be the topic this week. It's really nothing personal. But I sincerely doubt my one column has destroyed the structure of the entire campus and it's religious order, and Christianity in and of itself. CSS will do just fine, as the school always has."

Whew! Longest. Column. Ever. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the lawsuit to come, so I can alert all the major news sources, and I'll be a star in no time. Ain't life grand?

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Reader Comments

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thejerk@dailyramblings.com                             Megan Simonsen      Nov 15, 2003 • 4:29am   Paul, you're fabulous. Good work. We still love you. Dennis Kempton      Nov 15, 2003 • 4:20am   oh and Katers, you forgot benificial. haha Dennis Kempton      Nov 15, 2003 • 4:18am   I suppose it doesn't help me very much that I am going to be enrolled at CSS to finish up a degree in psychology and health care management, does it? :( Ramblin' Man      Nov 14, 2003 • 9:13pm   I only done gone to one quarter at Normandale Community College and I'm laughing at EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKER here!

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