Thoughts On Diversity and a Message from the SU Website 

I went to my school's site to watch snow on the Quad Cam and found this item in the news section:

"For medical reasons, columnist Molly Ivins has cancelled her Nov. 18 University Lectures appearance at Syracuse University. The event was to start at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel."

I don't really have anything to say. I just wanted to post that. By the way, James Earl Jones is going to be here tonight (although I'm not going) to give a presentation called "The Cultural Conquest: How Culture Affects Us and We Affect Culture." What's interesting about this is an article by one of our old friends at the Daily Orange. Quotes about the appearance include:

"It's part of the university's effort to bring diversity to campus..."
"Our goal for this year is to bring diverse and talented speakers..."
"We wanted to bring a prominent and diverse figure..."
"...Jones will be discussing diversity..."

Gee, do you think they like diversity? I don't think they mentioned it enough! What does "diverse" mean? Why are they using it to describe one person? How can ONE PERSON be diverse? According to the Language Master (a computerized dictionary, in case you forgot), diverse means "involving different forms." Do they even know what they're saying? I can see the headlines: "Optimus Prime to Speak About Diversity at SU Next Week!" That's the only way you can have a diverse speaker according to the dictionary definition (Optimus Prime is a transformer, for those of you who either didn't know that or haven't seen the Family Guy episode entitled "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein"). I may be going overboard with this, but I haven't written anything good on here since "No Offense," and I feel like I'm slacking off. Anyway, one more fun observation. There's a full page advertisement for Jones' speech in the DO, and it features his picture, a smaller picture of Darth Vader, and a caption that says "The Dark Side." I'm just wondering how that would be taken if the picture of Darth Vader was removed and/or it was featured in a conservative publication (which the DO is definitely not).

Okay, I'm done now. I think that was one of the more parenthetically condescending posts I've written (because I explained the obvious and wrote like I was addressing an ignorant audience within parentheses...like I'm doing now...purely as an example...and with no intent to insult your intelligence...I should be doing real work now).