COMMENTARY Your Yard Gnome, Your Best Friend By Crispin Sartwell Capita) Times Advisor My life has been a nightmare. My father was a woman, and my mother was a fifteen-year-old French poodle who smoked dry wall. The fondest memories I retain from childhood were when the family came together in the evening for ritual satanic abuse. Otherwise, they kept me mana cled in the basement. My only companions there were a lawn gnome and his pet flamingoes. He was so non-judg mental. He accepted me for who I was. I was never not good enough for the lawn gnome. He was my best friend. I told him everything: my hopes and fears, my traumas, my loves. He in turn told me about his crash on the lawn gnome next door, which helped me accept my own sexual orientation toward yard orna ments. Since then, many of my prob- think so. actions on their example. Negro spiritual, free at last free lems have been caused by peo- Lawn gnomes are our moral It is true that lawn gnomes are at last, thank God almighty we pie. Every asshole I’ve ever met and intellectual superiors. If the inanimate objects. But to deride are free at last. TOYOTA THERE’S AN ECHO OUT THERE! Great looks on the outside, great room on the inside. Cruise the highway at 40 MPG\..very thrifty. Power? Plenty! It’s a 1.5 liter hi-tech 16 valve POCH engine with variable valve timing (new) that kicks out 106 horsepower any time you want it. And best of all, Echo is the lowest priced Toyota! was a person. Many things that people have done really suck. But name one evil, vicious, or stupid act ever performed by a lawn gnome. Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, Terrence and Phillip, Provost Leathers, Ann- Marie Newman: none of them, as far as we know, are lawn gnomes. Coincidence? I hardly l . ■** ‘-M «■# til* , New thru Toyota Motor Credit helps those with limited credit history buy or lease a new Echo or Celica. See dealer for details. - <<g) TOYOTA re<| l values, everyday. U.S. Senate was replaced entire ly by concrete dwarves it would, admittedly, be hard to notice the change. Yet they might accept fewer illegal campaign contribu tions. And if lawn gnomes replaced the faculty of Penn State Harrisburg, what a wonderful world it would be. In all honesty, whose lecture would you rather listen to, a yard gnome’s or Victor Viser’s? Certainly faculty meetings would make more sense. Lawn gnomes are role models. They don’t gamble or smoke cig arettes. They don’t exactly say “no” to drugs, but they don’t have to: their silence speaks vol umes. Have you ever seen an inebri ated lawn gnome? A lawn gnome with a hangover? A lawn gnome at a titty bar? Lawn gnomes aren’t greedy, duplicitous, or vicious. We should base all our MORE VALUE/LESS MONEY TOYOTA ECHO "EPA estimated 32/39 City/Hwy automatic, 34/41 City/Hwy manual. them on that ground simply betrays one’s bigotry. Inanimate objects are people too and should have the same constitutional rights as you and me, or, more deeply, as you and I. The history of our great nation has been a history of liberating the disenfranchised. We are in the process of extending the rights of citizenship to animals and the unborn. My friends: why not the inanimate? I have a dream. I dream of a world where the people have been herded into internment camps and the lawn gnomes are in charge. It’s a world where no one breaks those big glass purple balls or knocks the little jockeys off the rich people’s lawns. It’s a world safe for tackiness. I dream of a world that sucks much less than the current world. Then we’ll be able to say, in the words of the old TOYOTA-101 INTRODUCING the all new www.oattoyota.com ■ Letter to the Editor Editor: My name is Matthew Watkins. I’m currently incar cerated at Picaway Correctional Institution in Orient, Ohio. My reason for writing is my hope to find someone in which to correspond with. I am a white male, age 19, with blonde hair and blue eyes. If you would please place this in your school newspa per/letter. I would very much appreciate it. I will answer any and all letters. Thank you. Sincerely, Matthew R. Watkins 376-597 PCI, P. O. Box 209 (4C-24) Orient, OH 43146 Correction: Penn State Behrend was mis spelled in the March 15, 2000 edition of the Capital Times
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