LETTERS TO VOO DOO

Dear MIT Publicationally-Abled Groups:

Please inform your readers of an omission in our recently published booklet, ``Dealing with Harassment at MIT'' : It is also harassment to burn harassment booklets.

Thank you.

Committee Against Harassment and Freedom

Office of the Provost

Consider it done. Thanks for writing!


Dear Editor:

Do you want to see something really gross? Go into any Athena cluster, take one of the keyboards, hold it upside down about six inches off the desk, and shake it. So far, I've found sesame seeds, fingernail clippings, bread crumbs, scabs, insect carcasses, and a hairy dime.

Cool man,

Bud Melman.

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Dear Editor:

Could you kindly tell me whether your mascot, Phosphorous, or ``Phos'', is male or female?

You see, over the years I've become strangely attracted to him or her. I've finally decided that I'm willing to deal with the problems of a anthra-felina, reala-cartoona relationship, but I'm not sure if I can handle the sexual ambiguity.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sincerely,

Chris

Consider it done. Thanks for writing!


Dear Editor,

I would like to extend my gratitude to your staff for helping to make my freshman year a remarkable one.

The minute I got here I felt your presence. I thought MIT would be difficult, but I realize that this school is one big joke. It used to be a serious institution. However, with each issue of VooDoo, the students become more infatuated with the idea of humor and its involvement in science and engineering.

And I am grateful to you that I do not have to undergo the pressures of schoolwork. At least not as much as I would at a regular school.

As a matter of fact, MIT has become a bastion of humor. That is the sole reason that people come here (I realize this now).

To my surprise I am also intellectually stimulated by the work here, and the creative approach used by the school to make courses interesting.

This is not to say that work and humor are the only reasons I am enjoying this place. The beautiful campus and my beautiful neighborhood do help me enjoy the stress-free atmosphere.

The women here are amazing! That is the reason I came to this school. I knew it attracted beautiful women from all over the world. But I expected some hideous ones as well. But I just can't find one, no matter how hard I look.

Thanks to you, I can now see the best four years of my life ahead of me. Well, actually, maybe it's my great roomates. Particularly the one who watches TV twenty-four hours a day. His apathetic attitude is actually a joke. He leads a miserable life so that everyone can laugh at him! Wow!

Another aspect of MIT that I love is the clean dorms, and the fact that my dorm allows pets (roaches). Most schools have policies against this, but not this warm school I have already grown to love.

But I feel bad now. Reflecting on the great time I am having, I realize that there are starving people all over the world. And I am enjoying life so much. MIT's unique feeding system to make sure we don't put on the ``freshman fifteen'' is so appealing to me, it makes me feel like I am a spoiled little boy who has not seen the harsh nature of the world.

I am going to have to transfer. Actually, I think I'll drop out, become a farmer, and feed the masses. Now I feel better.

Thanks again, VooDoo for giving me the best ten weeks of my life. I am sorry I have to leave you like this, but I am left with no other choice.

Jason Silverman

Uh... consider it done. Err,... thanks for writing?


Dear Phos,

Your mag has reached new heights of hilarity! Your recent spoof, ``A Cartoon Guide to the Superconducting Supercollider'' was quite the biting satire! Bravo! High time you gave those mercenary physicists and money-grubbing high energy wankers the cuff! Give them all what-for, I say! I was holding my sides as I read your blatantly obvious lies about the SSC providing jobs! As if the average John Q. would even deign to apply to work at such a money-munching factory! The thought that anyone without a congenital or infantile-suffocation-syndrome-related mental disorder of the highest severity, with symptoms running the gamut from compulsive nose-picking to collecting stamps, and a lobotomy scar the size of Heathrow would ever give a soaring rodent's arse about a ``Hook moson'' or a ``hick's Nissan'' or whatever is entirely inconceivable to me, but not I suppose to our local physicists Jaguar payment!

Oh, and your clever fiction of the U.S. failing its children by sinking the SSC! I believe you wrote, ``If Congress kills the SSC, it will only conflict itself on its emphasis in getting children interested in science.'' Ripping good jest, chaps; we all know the U.S. conflicts itself all the time! Priceless!

My only complaint may be with the artwork. I only hope that in a later issue those vile little children from the Cartoon Guide have their little noggins and gaping mouths and adorable eyeballs smeared ever-so-flat by a Zamboni. I'm sure you'll come through for me. Good show, Phos and company, jolly good show.

Marshall Johnson

Professor of Oceanography

Can anyone say ``Freudian Big-Science Envy''? I knew you could.


To the Editor,

It has come to my attention that a mailing in Office of the President envelopes went out to members of the VooDoo staff. I must inform you that this practice is not allowed and that you must immediately return the envelopes to this office.

I'm sure that this was unintentional and that from now on you will purchase materials for future mailings. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours truly,

Laura B. Mersky

Administrative Assistant to the President.

Actually, Laura, we meant to do it. As an under- funded student group (without a $4,000 discretionary fund), we are appalled at the wastefulness we find when scrounging through the trash looking for food. We discovered your envelopes on one of these missions and rescued them from their land-fill fate. We are sorry if anyone was misled by our use of recycled stationery. In these tough economic times, it is understandable that students might actually believe that the President's Office had taken to addressing its envelopes in crayon. Remember: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.


Phos