Why the Dalai Lama's Visit is Important (Release No 2)

It's surprising that no one has asked Ezra what he thinks about the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Ithaca. Instead, they picked some cheese ball who takes a god awful picture to orchestrate the official sounds of self-satisfied clucking in an Ithaca Journal guest editorial. Yup, that guy looks like his picture was snapped after being arrested for having sex with an underage frozen butterball turkey in the men's room at Stewart Park. Not that there is anything wrong with consensual sex but, let's face it, that's hardly consensual.

Well, what makes the Dalai Lama's pending visit so important? First of all, it makes Ithaca look like it's some dime plated holyland, a spiritual place as it were. Instead of a wasteland of stoned out hippies and zoned out young people obsessed with personal shopping and owning the last techno toy to flip out at parties, Wow, man, I can push this button on my G-phone andsee, I can track what my dog in Wisconsin had for dinner as it sluices down Rover's gastrointestinal system. Aren't you terribly impressed?? Wanna see what this button does?

Wow, Ez is forgetting something. It's the time of year when everyone in Ithaca under the age of 25 walks around like they are in a state of perpetual heat. Which means you can catch all the wonderful varieties of sexual display. Gee, Myrtle, don't the kids in this town wear any clothes?

Do you think Carolyn Peterson reads this blog? That just popped into Ez's head this very second. Like maybe she's worried that Ez's campaign to unseat the Prune Queen is gaining steam. As if Ez was going to tip his hand, show what was tucked away in his bag of campaign dirty tricks. Yeah, Carolyn, Ez has the pictures. You know what pictures Ez means. Juicy juice. Carolyn riding around in a tank at the School of the Americas, shouting Whippee!

Yep, the Dalai Lama's visit is important because it elevates Ithaca above common cloth cities like Germantown, Pa and Yuma, Texas. The Dala Lama has, to Ez's knowledge, never made an appearance in Yuma. And, anyway, there are 2,262,000 hits for Ithaca New York on Google and only 1,640,000 hits for poor little eat-your-heart-out Yuma. We all know that the Dalai Lama checks those kinds of things out before he makes out his itinerary.

Only kidding, lamaheads. The Dalai Lama strikes Ez as an all right guy. Do you think he'll stop in Trader K's while he's in Ithaca to find something dressy to wear in saffron? He 's trying his best to save Tibet from becoming a big outlet for cheap Chinese products . MSN reported today that there are 1 billion Chinese shoppers scouring the planet for bargains on pink flamingo lawn ornaments. And he's also trying to save places like Ithaca from the devastating entropy of consumerism, the bottomless pit of yuppie narcissism and the narcolepsy of the high life. Oh please save us, Dalai Lama, from the frightening ordinariness of bouncing between Starbucks, Simeons and Felcia's Atomic Lounge. From the need to be cool and keep up appearances, from the compulsion to score the very latest gadgetry, from the need to increase download speed, and widen the income gap. That's a big mission. Let's hope he can do it.