city of evil
Did you know that you are living in the city of evil?
You can buy a mug or t-shirt to prove it if you won't take Ezra's word for it. Just log on this web address: http://cafeshops.com/CityOfEvil,PRI.
Or you can log on another address and send 10,000 volts of electricity coursing through the body of some poor conservative Republican poli sci major up at Cornell - Http://ithacasucks.blogspot.com .
The proof of evil is in the evil you do, not in the evil they say you do.
There's a cabal of wannabe Rush Limbaughs up on the hill, paying over $30K a year for an education, who came up with the slogan. You can read more - http://freepers.zill.net/users/fixit_fr/Ithaca/WhyEvil.html. Typically, some fool attempted to parley that illiberal sentiment into a marketing ploy, to wit the City of Evil merchandise.
Ezra has done his homework. Ithaca is not the City of Evil. It's na na land. A beulah land of make believe liberals, so called progressives, clueless college students, simple country people down on their luck, and hapless transplants looking for the way out. It's an American Potamkin Village.
Nor is thaca one of the most enlightened cities in America as The Utne Reader claimed back in 1997. Ezra happens to know that a large cash payment was made to the magazine's editors prior to that particular issue. A concealed line item in the Common Council's PR budget. Everybody is trying to put a spin on the place. Why is that?
Say 'City of Evil' and you conjure up Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Berlin in the 20's, Vienna in 1890's, Havana in the '40s.
Look around Ithaca lately? Would you say it's home to resident evil? Does it remind you in any way of the Weimar Republic? Let alone some Temporary Autonomous Zone, scintillating in the juices of wanton liberation? You wouldn't call the Lost Dog a speakeasy, would you? There are plenty of drugs circulating but no opium dens. Would you call the Commons a casbah? Have you checked out any good brothels lately? Ithaca doesn't even have a red light district unless you stand outside of the Chanticleer, close your eyes and catch the faint glow of the neon rooster sign.
So what's with the City of Evil crap?
Maybe we should perform a little exorcism, form a torch light procession up Buffalo Street to the Poli Sci quad, locate Joe Sabia and his dwarfs, tie them to an ATM machine, gather up back issues of the New Republic and have a little Auto-de-Fe. That would be evil.
Disclaimer: Ezra is not advocating a revival of the Spanish Inquisition, witch hunts, excesses of piety, actual burning of heretics. He's simply seeking vicarious thrills. There's a subtle difference.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 5:54 AM
