You've all been waiting for Ithaca Sucks' 2004 predictions. Wait no longer! Get in your zingy new SUV, beat up Volvo sedan, rusted out VW bus with the panoramic dayglo scenes from the life of Jerry Garcia on the side, and head out while the going is good. Because 2004 isn't going to be any bed of roses around Ithaca. We're talking Apolcalypse now. Armageddon. Trouble up ahead. You know. Another bad year in a town where reality is a nasty little secret.
Predictions
12 Tribes Buy out Ithaca. Yep, those masters of the heterdox do it again and make a $125 million offer for the whole kit and kaboodle. Not satisfied with the Ithaca Health Center and the Home Dairy, the Tribalists makes Mayor Peterson and the Common Council an offer they can't refuse. And you know what, her honor accepts! Cayuga Lake is drained and replaced with millions of gallons of Mate Factor. A city ordinance is passed, requiring all men over 17 to wear a beard and women to wear long dresses. Upstate New York Gothic! Everyone in Ithaca has to work at least 15 hours busing tables, washing dishes and working on the construction of a 400 ft high golden calf.
Cornell University changes it name to Larry Ellison University. The computer mogul drops $6 billion on the table and CU gets a makeover. Statues of Ezra Cornell are torn down all over campus , Day Hall becomes the Oracle Center, the football team changes their name to the Larries. What those people on the hill won't do for money.
CU scientists clone the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Thousands of plump, fluffy dough boys graze peacefully on the slopes of the Plantations. The Bush administration hands LEU (Larry Ellison University) a big contract to send a couple of hundred dough boys over to Iraq in a pilot program to replace relcalcitrant Shi-ites with more compliant marshmallow-like citizens.
Paul Glover joins Smith, Barney as a day trader. Ithaca's feisty anarcho-Green activist decides to put his experience running the Ithaca Hours currency program to work in order to make some real money. Wall St meets the Farmer's Market. Paul junks his bike for a BMW and picks up some Armani threads.
Wal-mart opens up a 200,000 retail megacity. All the other retailers in Ithaca go belly up. Ithaca discovers its destiny in the bosom of that old smiley faced price chopper.
Have a nice day! Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:05 AM
