BINGHAMTON REVIEW
Managing
Angelo DiTocco
Copy Desk
Midas Leung
Business Manager
Daniel Guido
Social Media
Amanda Weinman
Cover Designer
Amanda Weinman
Editor
Arthur O’Sullivan
Staff
Madeline
Shane Rossi
Liam Steele
Contributors
Nicholas Aparicio
Bren
From the Editor
Dear Readers,
Topo’ the mornin’ to ya, kiddos, welcome back to a brand-spankin’-new Binghamton Review, but Irish! If you end up getting plastered at your local St. Patrick’s Day parade and arrested for public intoxication, at least you’ll have a festive copy of the Review to read in the county jail!
In recent news, the University decided to ban balloons on campus, a truly deflating situation that’s taken the air out of the student body and sucked the last bit of color Binghamton sees every year. Now that balloons are banned on campus, the only things left inflated are the egos of the University officials who made the decision.
ANYWAY… you’ll all be reading this once Spring Break is over, a constant reminder that #ThePremierPublicIvy needs to have a different break schedule than every other school in the SUNY system. So, instead of having fun with your friends back home, you can have fun with your friends at the Binghamton Review! So, to warm your hearts and cheer you all up, we’ve got some very special things for you in this issue! For only the second time ever (in my shoddy memory), the Binghamton Review will be printing and publishing a 3 page article by Editor Emeritus Madeline Perez, joining the exclusive 3-pager club (it’s like the 5-timer club on SNL if anyone still watches that show) with current Editor Emeritus Arthur “A-dog” O’Sullivan. You can find her beautifully written and highly introspective article on page 8; it’s truly one of her best.
Now, the issue is divided into two halves: the fun and the not-so-fun. On the fun half, we have Angelo DiTocco talking about the frustrations the month of February can bring on page 5 and Liam Steele talking about the adventures of Tintin and how it reflects much of the 20th century in a nutshell on page 6. On the not-so-funny side, we have our new contributor, Bren Dover, delving into the disturbing world of furries on page 11, Nicholas Aparicio analyzing the situation in Gaza on page 13, and Shane Rossi on Al Sharpton and his problematic past on page 14. But just to cheer you all up, we have a fun little extra from Angelo to cap off our St.Patrick’s Day issue!
Other than our amazing articles, we also have some fun goodies for you in our St.Patrick’s Day issue! Make sure to check out our festive and relevant Advice Column on page 4. Also, be sure to take a peek at our “cop that fit: Leprechaun Edition” on page 7 and “Midas’ Drink Recipes” on page 12. And don’t forget the back cover, too!
Enjoy,
Our Mission
Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run news magazine founded in 1987 at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. The mark of true maturity is being able to engage with these perspectives rationally while maintaining one’s own convictions. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free and open exchange of ideas and offer alternative viewpoints not normally found on campus. We stand against dogma in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the tenents of free expression and believe all sudents should have a voice on campus to convey their thoughts. Finally, we understand that mutual respect is a necessary component of any prosperous society. We strive to inform, engage with, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.
Views expressed by writers do not necessarily represent the views of the publication as a whole.
Advice Column
I offered to give you all life advice. These were your questions.
Are they banning single use plastics here?
Yeah, my wife!
I was watching the Oscars the other day and realized Conan is Irish. Why?
Cause the Irish run Hollywood.
After watching Conclave and a long self-reflection session, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m the Pope, the supreme pontiff, as you will. If the Binghamton Review had to pick a current member to be the Pope, whom would it be and why?
Copy Desk Chief Midas Leung.
With the banning of balloons on campus, does that mean the Binghamton Review spy balloon is no longer operational? Or are they still observing which upperclassmen visit Oneida?
Big things are being done. Huge even
How can I convince my short manlet friend that he’s a leprechaun?
He’s already on his grindset to earn his pot of gold
How long does Bing Review have left now that it’s run out of USAID funding?
Not long :( gofundme.com/binghamtonreviewofficial
Do they make the Shamrock shake with Leprechaun jizz?
Shrinkflation has gotten so bad that they started using regular sugar instead
I’m English and my boyfriend is Irish. Will this work out?
Written by our Staff
Let’s just say your relationship will be… explosive.
My friend keeps getting drunk and passing out on Discord calls, and I’m concerned about him. What do I do?
Whisper “be a good boy for mommy” softly into the mic to wake him up
Where’s my beer money?
Sent straight to the Falklands to support the war!
Why don’t they sell booze at dining halls anymore?
They didn’t have any Chill Galactic Vibe flavors of beer so it didn’t sell enough.
I think the Chili’s waitress is hitting on me. What’s my next move?
Give her your tripple dipper ;)
When is GTA 6 coming out?
When there is peace in the Middle East
Can I re-use my leprechaun costume from Halloween last year on Parade Day?
That is cultural appropriation and it’s DISGUSTING. My culture is not your science-damn costume!
I don’t wanna pay the $225. How can I stay on campus during the break?
Just stay, lol. Squatter rights!
Need life advice? Email manager@binghamtonreview.com for more wacky, quirky, and zany responses.
February Frustrations
Angelo DiTocco
Every spring semester starts the same way. As I attend my first few lectures and meetings in late January, I think to myself, This isn’t so bad. The weather may be cold as always, and the professors may be breaking the Geneva Convention with their 8:30s, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with. Of course, there’s always one thing I’m forgetting about, and that’s the 28-day boxing match against God or the universe or whatever, where I just get pummeled to the ground over and over and over again.
The month of February started off nice and great with a good ol’ snowstorm. The school responded to this as they usually do: by looking up my schedule in particular, finding out when my first class is supposed to start, going 10 minutes earlier than that, and then cancelling class right up until then. So I begrudgingly started walking through the snow and slush to the Classroom Wing, and halfway through, I checked my email. It read, “Class on Zoom today.”
So I attended (one of) my virtual classes, produced the Bing Review Sex Issue, and went back home. As I got ready for bed that night, I noticed myself coughing. Uh oh. Please just let this be a minor cold, I hoped. But in Bing? No way!
I woke up the next day nearly unable to move with how exhausted and achy I was. Now, I don’t have a perfect immune system by any means, but this was the sickest I’d been in a few years. Once I realized it wasn’t going away anytime soon, I figured I should go to the store and get some medicine. But then I got yet another alert on my phone: “No bus service tonight due to weather conditions.” This wasn’t going to be easy.
Not sure how many “understandable, have a good day”s I got left in me
The next day, I went to where the RRT was supposed to pick me up, only to have to wait another 30 minutes in the freezing cold because the bus broke. But to make a long story short, I got my meds, skipped my classes, went to urgent care, and finally got better in a week or so. But the month was only halfway over. There were still a lot of tests to endure.
The temperature had dropped to unfathomable lows. “Feels like -5°,” my weather app kept telling me. Although there were
many days in which I was freezing my cojones off, one moment stood out in particular. It was 3:45 PM on Monday, 2/17. I was at the ITC (that’s a building off campus for you freshies) doing project work when I realized I had a class at 4:25 in the Classroom Wing. If I waited for the bus, I’d be late. So I decided to do the 30-minute walk there instead. I had done it many times before, so it couldn’t be that bad, right?
Wrong. I was immediately met with wind in my face, which persisted the whole way through. On top of that, they also did quite a mediocre job of salting the sidewalks there. Some sections of the path were just big blocks of ice. But the real threat to my balance was the pure wind speed. It was so strong that it had to be legally classified as a hurricane or something. I knew the weather was ass when I applied to this school, but when the hell did it get this bad? As I opened the door to the Classroom Wing, and those painful 30 minutes finally came to a close, I resolved to never do that again. Attendance means nothing if I can’t hear the lecture because I’m comically stuck inside an ice cube.
I understand that complaining about the weather is about as original as the essays I copy and paste from ChatGPT, so I’ll bring up one more annoyance. My cybersecurity professor told the class that February is “Change Your Password Month” and encouraged us all to participate. Although I agreed that updating my pre-COVID passwords would be a good idea, I still did what every student does and waited until the last few days. Either way, it still took way longer than it needed to. Some sites would email me an authentication code to log in, only to recognize I hadn’t been on in a while and force me to check my email AGAIN for another code to “verify my identity.” Some sites required me to do this for both my email and phone number.
Perhaps the most infuriating site was Snapchat. I hadn’t used the app in years, so I decided I wanted to just delete my account instead. I tried to log in through the browser, only for it to force me to download the app on my phone and log in there for my two-factor authentication. I did that, clicked the notification, and was then told I had to switch browsers. Thanks for letting me know now, asshole! And after all the hoopla I had to go through to actually get access to my account, they told me to wait 72 hours before I could delete it for “security reasons.” Bitch, it’s me! What else do you need to prove it? A blood sample?
But the worst part about this whole process is that each and every site has its own random and obscure place to hide the “change password” option. Maybe it’s in the Security tab? Nope. Maybe the Privacy tab? Nope. Profile? Nope. If I have to Google where to change the password on your site, you should resign as a web developer. Maybe you were meant to put the fries in the bag after all.
February is an absolute shitshow. It’s the coldest month of the year, everyone gets the plague, and we still don’t get any breaks from school. And yes, even if I had someone special to share Valentine’s Day with, my opinion wouldn’t change one bit. No amount of wilting flowers and Red 40 chocolate would bring this month out of the F-tier where it belongs.
The Adventures of Tintin: A Caricature of the Turblent 20th Century
The 20th century goes down as one of the most influential chapters in recorded human history, with technology advancing at absurd rates and global connectivity approaching what it is today. That said, much of this technological advancement came because of how turbulent these times were, seeing the two bloodiest major conflicts in human history and the rise and fall of several empires. Clashing political ideologies, strained colonial relations, rebuilding after the hardship of war, and the fear of total nuclear annihilation dominated the global consciousness.
One Belgian political cartoonist stood in the midst of all of these imposing themes and produced the adventure comic series beloved by all of Europe, The Adventures of Tintin. Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his pen name, Hergé, struck gold when he created Tintin in 1929 at the age of 22. The series started as a segment of Le Petit Vingtième (“The Little Twentieth”), a youth segment of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (“The Twentieth Century”).
The titular character, Tintin, is a famous reporter, despite almost never being seen actually reporting, as more often than not, he’s busy getting dragged into all manner of dicey foreign affairs. He’s often accompanied by his friend, Captain Haddock, a disgraced drunkard ship captain living off the mansion and wealth of his pirate ancestor, likely ends up being the one funding all the adventures he’s dragged into. Also in the supporting cast is the deaf and aloof Professor Calculus, a nuclear physicist who is often more liability than help, and Thompson and Thomson, two idiotic Interpol agents whose bumbling undercover work often allows actual villains to escape, or even directly harms Tintin, a trend he’s somehow just okay with??
By Liam Steele
The comic is set in what one might assume to be the same time period it was written in, but details throughout the comic reveal that it’s a tasteful blend of all parts of the century; Tintin sets foot on the moon (Explorers on the Moon) and steals a T-55 tank (The Calculus Affair), all before the invention of the first color television in-lore (Tintin and the Picaros) by his friend, Professor Calculus. However, even at around the same time as these, Tintin dives to the ocean floor in a 19th-century diving bell suit attached to an air hose, as opposed to a SCUBA system that would have existed for at least a few years at that point. This unique blended setting sets Tintin apart from other similar graphic novels of the time and allows Hergé to tell stories on many themes without restraint.
The most prevalent premise for Tintin’s more grand adventures is him interfering in the regime change of various countries. Tintin defends the monarchy of the fictional eastern European nation of Syldavia amid a coup staged by a bordering totalitarian fascist nation, rather creatively named Borduria. Tintin’s interference here sets up the entire Bordurian high command as major antagonists throughout the series, where they seek to sabotage the moon landing to create a WMD from the rocket plans. They even capture Professor Calculus to use his research in ultrasonic technology to, yet again, attempt to develop a sort of WMD (The Calculus Affair). This pseudo-stereotyping of the themes of the century are a window into how the average person of the time may have interpreted the affairs that surrounded them.
Among those in Tintin’s rogues gallery, a standout figure is Roberto Rastapopoulos, the billionaire leader of a worldwide cult-like organization involved in opium smuggling, war profiteering, government destabilization, and human trafficking. To the public eye, however, Rastapopulous is simply the owner of a large film company. Perhaps the most comically evil thing Rastapopoulos’ organization has done was to fool refugees of the country they were in the process of destabilizing and exploiting into paying their life’s savings to escape to America in a cargo ship, only to attempt to blow it up before they even enter international waters (The Red Sea Sharks). The conniving billionaire repeatedly escapes justice and continues his global scheme throughout the series, only ever coming to an end in the final volume of Tintin, Tintin and Alph-art, where his new identity and art forgery scheme are inevitably being foiled by Tintin, and he plummets to his death in a gorge. Unfortunately, this ending to the character was never fully breathed into life by the series’ creator, left only as rough sketches later finished and published by fans due to Hergé’s sudden death in 1983. What an amazing concept though: a major figure of the entertainment industry secretly being a downright evil person. That would definitely probably never ever happen in
real life.
Perhaps the funniest and most tragic background occurrence in the series is the turbulent state of affairs in the fictional South American country of San Theodoros, where the country tumbles between the same two foolish dictatorial warlords with regular coups that are either mentioned in passing or are major plot points through the course of the series. Tintin sides with the seemingly fair General Alcazar, to topple General Tapioca, whose administration has ties to fascist Borduria. Alcazar is first introduced as an ally in The Broken Ear, where he has recently overthrown Tapioca, as San Theodoros is at war with neighboring Nuevo Rico over disputed oil-rich land. This parodies a real-life conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay in the 1930’s. Later, in The Seven Crystal Balls, he reappears as a knife thrower in a circus act, clearly having been toppled in the time between these stories.
The icing on the cake of Alcazar’s presence in the series is his final appearance in Tintin and the Picaros, where Tintin
seeks to reinstate him as ruler, though seemingly only because it would save Thomson and Thompson from execution by the Tapioca regime, not because he saw Alcazar as a more just ruler. At the end of the book, where Tapioca is successfully overthrown, and Tintin heads home for Belgium, our last look at San Theodoros is exactly as it was at the beginning of the book, down to the posing of the characters in the comic panel. Regardless of which warlord is in power, the situation does not improve for the San Theodoran people, and Tintin’s happy-go-lucky ass seemingly could not give less of shit about this. Bringing this further, Tintin’s insistence on Alcazar’s coup being a bloodless one was likely also for nothing, as Alcazar is left with Tapioca in his custody with very little reason to not kill Tapioca the moment Tintin leaves the country. The regime change in this story was almost meaningless, a matter of the same wolf with new sheepskin, truly embodying the reality of the times these books were written.
As they say online nowadays, “Nothing ever happens.”
The Immortality Curse
By Madeline Perez
Like many twelve-year-olds, I was accosted by my own mortality one day with heart-attack seriousness. The feeling of years passing was physical, visceral, as I imagined I was losing something infinite every second with no way to bring it back. It took a while for me to learn this infinite, magical thing was time itself. I felt an evil, magnetic pull to leave an undefinable imprint on the world while the tsunami-high challenge of doing so threatened to overwhelm me, much like the ocean will do to you when it tumbles you like a vertical Beyblade, getting sand and salt water from your sinuses to your asscrack. Any “mind-blowing” thought I had (for a literal 12-year-old), or made-up piano song I played (again, 12), or “feeling of happiness” taunted me with the fact it was priceless because it was fleeting. And I wanted to hold on and strangle the life out of it. This, was my manifestation of an eighth-life crisis.
The obvious answer here would be to document things, but that always felt like more trouble than it was worth. How do you start documenting before you know something is worth the recording? How do you take away from a special moment by attempting to record it when the fact that you are living it is what makes it special? How do you attempt to recreate something that, in your head, cannot be recreated? Photos, recordings, and productions for me were often painful, time-consuming, and never felt good enough. But how else can you say “I am here” before time kills you and replaces you with a new-yet-older, different version? Don’t be fooled, this is a how-to guide for achieving immortality, but you must be comfortable with dying first.
Okay, what did I mean by that? Well, if you imagine immortality as staying the same way forever, this is not for you. The first mistake I and many others have made once we develop an ego and the ability to be self-referential: Now this is who I am, and it is inherently special because it is me. Newsflash, liking manga is not “who you are”, and if you keep forcing your old hobbies from a simpler time onto yourself, you won’t have any room to develop completely new ones. I feel that facing challenges at a young age
is an easy way to get stuck, either by the notion “I survived by being like this, so I need to stay like this,” or more subconsciously; Mentally at the age where the challenge occurred, only ready to move on when you have closure, which is never going to happen because that hole kept fraying and now you’re going to need to “let go” and repurpose the material into Jorts.
When people or little monkeys or whatever have external support, they feel free to explore new environments knowing they can return to Cloth Mother if they’re startled (you guys remember Cloth Mother, right?) When they grow up to be adult monkeys (humans), they then have the confidence to explore because the support is now inside of them, called “healthy self-esteem.” Low self-esteem has a way of keeping you in that “comfort zone,” (or as I like to call it, an “uncomfortable zone”) where change is so much harder because you’re already free falling down a waterfall. I can’t teach you how to develop healthy self-esteem right now so uhhh, get good?
You know that thing about the man stepping into a river twice? (It’s not the same river and not the same man SPOILERS.) But how do we measure change in the self? Is it the majority of your cells replacing themselves? (Notice how I’m NOT saying all your cells are replaced within 7 years, which is an oversimplified misconception as that can be better understood of the AVERAGE lifespan of all the different cells in your body, which I’m not even sure is an accurate approximation.) Is it your personality changing? Is it life experience? Is it natural growth away from things you once enjoyed or suffered from, to new likes, new dislikes, and new life challenges? Well, the good thing about metaphysics is that everyone can be right and we all get a participation trophy with a little soccer ball on it.
“I’m no Alcoholics Anonymous but my pithy slogans ring pure and true.”
It’s different for everyone. I think change is the healthiest thing a person can do because it shows you’re open, humble, and have access to your own potential. That you don’t think you “have it all figured out” because there really is nothing to figure out, there’s just existence and experience. The world and everyone else is going to change around you, and you may find that your old place doesn’t fit you anymore, even if you’ve stayed the same. Again to reference Heraclitus, the only constant is change, but here’s a better one I found recently: “If I can fall in love with impermanence, I can be in love forever,” which I found in a PowerPoint on Yoga philosophy I was turning into a Quizlet (and there
is no citation, so I have no idea who said that and neither does Google.) So, here is the concept of dying over and over again to make room for yourself to grow. If we’re holding on with both hands to everything we associate with ourselves, which is not our true self, we’ll have no hands free to climb a mountain or a ladder or whichever metaphor is going to make me sound smart. Opinions, beliefs, and values are often used interchangeably, but they’re not all alike. For example, if you have a value of wanting to protect the people close to you, you may have a belief that it’s up to you to protect them, or laws, or congressmen, and your opinions may change based on arguments you hear that then align with the belief. Harmful opinions that may be against someone’s own self-interest or society’s best interest can be born out of misled beliefs. Everyone knows someone who, from their point of view, is misdirected. They all say the same thing: “Their heart’s in the right place…” My point is that we need to be familiar with our own core values and that it’s okay to keep them with us as we grow, but your beliefs and opinions are not inherently sacred and should be challenged, whether by you or externally. We shouldn’t be scared of these changes because our values can always find another way to manifest. And if our values change? Pay attention and try to keep in mind if these new values can fit into your life, or if you need to change your life to fit the values. Mind = Blown. I’m no Alcoholics Anonymous but my pithy slogans ring pure and true.
Many people haven’t really thought about their values too hard, and if you ask them they’ll either be indecisive, make something up on the spot, or list too many things. It’s easy to remain unaware of core beliefs if life doesn’t find a way to drag them out of you, so be thankful if you don’t immediately have an answer. Listing too many normally arises from aligning yourself with something external rather than internal, then you find that you care about every issue the same amount, which is to say you may not care for any of them too deeply. When it comes to values against injustice, our hearts can only bleed so much; choose the ones most important to you and do something about it rather than aching for everything that is hurting. Stay knowledgeable but remind yourself that authentically, empathetically caring for every injustice on a global scale is the quickest way to give yourself care burnout and making you essentially worthless to each cause. Put your oxygen mask on first.
Wow, can I yap. I’m trying not to come off as too pretentious or preachy but I feel like I’m failing on both fronts. So I discussed how we can retain our own self-concept through values while constantly changing as people, and sometimes our values change too, which is okay because there’s nothing inherently more valuable about the person you are now as opposed to the
person you can become, only delusions of external things you believe give your life meaning (when really the meaning is inside us all along and the friends we made along the way). Holy runon sentence, Batman! So by conceptualizing the self in simple terms and as ever-changing, we can become totally different and still understand ourselves as “me,” bypassing the first round of death and becoming one step closer to full-fledged immortality.
But I can’t ignore challenges to accepting growth, or “aging” as some people like to call it, because not everyone is allowed to enjoy aging. I’m not sure about you guys, but I feel like we often have more pressure on girls to grow up quickly, then abruptly stop when they hit 25, or 23, or 17, or whichever number it is this week. All I know is that the number keeps getting smaller, and eventually women will be forced into arrested development while living the womb life, and still be expected to fold the entire family’s laundry.
When I was younger I thought about this a lot (no I wasn’t an only child, why would you say that?), namely how men had the privilege of being old, ugly, or morally bankrupt in movies and television, but I couldn’t think of female characters who had the right to even have wrinkles except for Aunt May (Spiderman, 2002), AND SHE WAS ONLY 53! Why were certain women seen as intrinsically less valuable, even to be represented to the public, when men could lose the genetic lottery and still become famous actors? Even at only nine years old, I had invented feminism.
“How could you miss individuality if you transcended and are no longer you, you’re us, and we’re a giant sea of Orange Fanta!”
Forget aging, it can be hard enough for women to feel their life has value without relation (or potential relation) to another person: She’s somebody’s daughter, somebody’s wife, and if everything goes to larger society’s plan, she will be someone’s mother. This is the offer of immortality society gives to women (and sometimes men, but let’s be real here): create children and never die. Oops, I’ve created a cycle of women attempting to live vicariously through their daughters while also resenting their youth, so the only chance they have at a childhood is robbing one from their future daughter, and so on and so forth. Yes, I saw The Substance. It was amazing. But how can women approach aging with a bottle of gift wine and an open mouth kiss when societal devaluation is down the path? How can they achieve immortality when not even granted mortality, the ability to lead their own lives as the main character, without sole emphasis on how they can benefit others? How can they appreciate the moment when
it’s been predecided that their best moments were blacking out at a college party in ‘03 and vomiting all over their crush, Ryan Jacobson? These are all great questions. I’ll make sure to share with you all if I ever find the answer.
I’m not going to pretend I know how to fix this problem, but I do know that for me, it was helpful to loosen my grip on looking or being a certain way. To reframe aging as a positive opportunity to grow and to remind myself of what truly matters to me. I’m not perfect at this. I’m not above losing my cool when I can’t fit into a pair of jeans at TJ Maxx, or when I get sent an unflattering photo of myself that makes me want to be like Peeta in the Hunger Games and use my skills as a baker to blend into forest foliage.
I still haven’t explained how to achieve immortality. God, I suck at this.
Ok, so to re-cap again, we need to accept change and stop incorporating the external into our self-concept, while also being mindful of challenges, both internal and external, that limit our growth and self-acceptance. Did I lose anyone? Now I need to ask, do you really want immortality? Really, really want it? 80% of immortality-related media has a montage of the guy killing himself like 200 times in a row. Do you want that montage? What happens when you feel you have lived enough and you watched your true love grow old and die ad nauseam? Are you still aging? If not, how does that work? Are you infertile? And, not to mention, as Cracked After Hours so eloquently put it, “living forever means the odds of you becoming somehow immobilized jump to 100%.” Yeah. That’s going to be you trapped under a rock living immortal hell for the rest of all eternity.
So, does good immortality even exist? Yes. It’s called The Human Instrumentality Project.
Let me explain. This concept was not invented by the anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it was my first exposure to a dead, fictitious version, like a vaccine. (WAIT WAIT WAIT. I’m not a Neon Genesis apologist. (Okay maybe I am a little bit.)) Basically, the goal is to dissolve all personal boundaries between all humanity, transcend mortal form, and become a more evolved singular being, which in itself cannot fully be defined because there
would be no concept of “singular.” I cannot go further into the lore because I took an oath to do no harm, and it would probably be the most painful thing you could read. Anyway, when I was watching Season 2 of Arcane (HOLY SHIT???), there was a similar concept regarding the character Viktor, who essentially becomes God. (There was a great big flash, everything just changed. His molecules got all rearranged. You know how it is.) With his new powers, a big stick, and a new purpose to “evolve humanity,” he’s able to dissolve others’ mental boundaries and basically add them to his chill hive mind. No more insecurity, addiction, pain… And I can’t stop thinking about it. The concept of this seems “too good to be true.” BUT IS IT? I understand how this concept in media is supposed to have the takeaway, “anything too good to be true probably isn’t good or isn’t true, and if all of life on earth became a collective consciousness, there would be no individuality. Sure, there would be no pain and suffering, but there would also be no triumph over challenge, which is ultimately the human spirit!!” SHUT UP, are you listening to yourself?? There’s no more pain and you get to be ‘one’ with the universe, vibing to the frequency of Existence 111.2. How could you miss individuality if you transcended and are no longer you, you’re us, and we’re a giant sea of Orange Fanta!
The more I learn about Taoism and Buddhism and other “Eastern religions,” the more I’m learning about goals of “oneness” that are not perceived as too good to be true, but as sacred. But I’m already cooked, I was kinda lying in that last paragraph—I don’t want to become Fanta!! I want to be me! Then I ask myself, what is it about me, about my culture that makes us so fervently against “oneness” or “the Way” or “Human Instrumentality” or any other way you want to put it? It probably has something to do with big, polysyllabic words like individuality or atomization IDK I’m just a girl. I’m still figuring that one out, but I think it has to do with letting go.
Furry Kinks: A Scholarly Review
By Bren Dover
There comes a point in every person’s life where we must ask: how woke is too woke? How much acceptance and tolerance can we have before it turns into blatant disregard for human decency? It’s a strange balance. Too little and that would classify you as bigoted. Too much and now you’re uncomfortably hugging a man in a purple wolf suit named Moonpaw. Yes, peers, I am talking about the furry epidemic. A fandom consisting of surprisingly wealthy individuals who partake in making and wearing anthropomorphic suits and indulging in all manner of “uwuing.” While this is the surface level of furryism that many are aware of, there is a deeper and darker level that this community is built upon. Beneath the giant paws and fluffy tails is a world of freaky and vomit-inducing activity. I have crafted a simple yet effective diorama of the different levels that make up the kinky side of furries. Now it is my privilege to share it with you, the viewer. I was once like you: innocent, blissful, and unbeknownst to the kinkshit of the furry community. It wasn’t until I was sucked into a rabbit hole of video essays exploring the various fetishes and stories of this community that I realized the true depth of furries. If I have to suffocate under the sheer weight of this knowledge, so do you. I give you my submission of academic research: The Furry Kink Iceberg.
LEVEL 1: FURRY PURIST
We start at the tip of the iceberg with the faces we all know and love. When you think of a furry, you think of the furry purist. These are the people who go to their conventions, buy their $5,000 fursuits, and occasionally refer to themselves in the third person. They make their fursonas (furry personas) and are really just there for the community. Online, these fursonas flourish as they create multitudes of digital art pieces and upload them to websites such as X, 4chan, DeviantArt, e621, Tumblr, and more. While they are still defined as an oddity, that’s the deepest this level goes.
LEVEL 2: BASIC FREAKS
We now start to dip our toes into the crystal waters of our iceberg. This level consists of simple and basic kinks that aren’t necessarily defined by furries, but still get general usage from them. This includes your run-of-the-mill foot fetish, bondage kink, and other miscellaneous acts of B.D.S.M. It’s pretty tame and overall pretty mild compared to the rest of the list.
LEVEL 3: BASIC FURRY FREAKS
A little underwater, this level starts to contain the kinks that are defined by furries. Like level 2, these are the very mild and very basic foundations of furry kinks. The difference is that these are a little more spicy and much more visually distasteful. In this level, we have femboys (people who identify as male and present in hyper-feminine attire), bara (insanely and unrealistically drawn muscled furry men), and all shapes and sizes of phallic prosthetics.
LEVEL 4: SEMI-UNDERSTANDABLE KINKSHIT
Now that we are submerged, allow me to introduce the more comprehensible kinks that are integrated into the furry fandom. These kinks are obscene, to say the least, but at least they make sense. These kinks are mostly expressed through online art. When I say they make sense, I mean that the sexual nature is apparent. One can look at these works of “art” and see very clearly that they are sexual, freaky, and completely insane. In this category, we see macrophilia (a sexual attraction to kaiju-sized individuals), microphilla (a sexual attraction to gerbil-sized individuals), and monster love (straight tentacle porn).
LEVEL 5: THE ABSURD
I will elaborate on why there is a difference between level 4 and level 5. Whereas level 4 has kinks that are clearly abhorrent, level 5 throws any sort of logic or sense on the ground and milly rocks on it. The absurd shows us how far one can go to bust one out, especially if they are mentally deranged. If you think I’m being harsh here, please consider the fact that millions of dollars are spent on the commissioning of art pieces. There is a multitude of just confusing kinks but my personal favorites are inflation (an individual being blown up like a balloon), transformation (where an individual transforms into a separate entity like a diaper for example), fat knees (self-explanatory), and Wonder Bread (Google it, it’s so funny).
LEVEL 6: EYE GOUGING
The joke ends here. We are now drowning in our iceberg water, and no one is laughing. This level consists of major degeneracy, and simply the sight of these images is enough to put one in a mental hospital. Here I want to differentiate the drawing and the act of the kink. Drawing something is atrocious, but acting it out with a real person is abominable. This consists of vore drawings (eating someone whole and keeping them in your stomach), feces/urine drawings, impregnation (usually male), and diaper play (the act of living every day wearing a diaper and acting like a baby).
LEVEL 7:
WATCHLIST-WORTHY
We are now nearing the bottom of the iceberg. Hope is dwindling, and God cannot find us here. This level is the Rubicon before actual criminality. I’ll keep it brief. The act of eating bodily excrement. The desire to have sexual relations with a sentient 4-legged animal. Drawing gory pictures of characters, specifically of them being decimated by a cheese grater. Inserting a live fish into the anus of a living person. All things that make me think, this could not possibly be worse. Don’t fret! It most certainly can.
LEVEL 8: LIFE IN PRISON
Kero the Wolf. Brown-Nosed Pup. Skuff and Lucky. Zel the Wolf. Khord Kitty. Growly. Mr. Teriyaki and AcidRainCloud. ShadowWolffes. Tonya and Jacob. Levi Simmons. To the aforementioned, I hope you rot in hell. These are the darkest names that are associated with the furry community. They involve themselves in circles that promote zoophilia, pedophilia, necrophilia, and even murder. To those who argue that this is merely a few bad apples, I fear the orchard is rotten. They build communities for their sexual crimes and post dastardly content to alleviate themselves. The big problem is that the wider furry community is an uplifting place for them. They find solace and acceptance amongst them. I want to make it clear: this is a part of their culture, and not a small part either. Every layer of this iceberg will be attending the furry conventions. You never know who’s behind that snout.
CONCLUSION
This scholarly article serves as a cautionary tale. Beware these furry freaks. The furry fandom started as a kink. People buying fursuits to diddle each other in them has now turned into a worldwide phenomenon. But these roots have not been lost. Not even close. The very clear problem that stems from this community is the lack of shame. I honestly think people would not have problems with them if they simply kept it in the bedroom. But these people post these kinks and seemingly self-report themselves on public websites and expect acceptance. My resolution? Stop accepting. Kink-shame. Bully. Whatever you must do to reinstill shame. These woes that have been ingrained into my very soul could have been avoided if the world was just a little less accepting.
The Binghamton Review: Kiss Me, I’m Irish (And Possibly Drunk)
We asked Copy Desk Chief Midas Leung what his favorite St. Patrick’s Day drinks were. Here were the results:
1. Guinness Stout - The classic Irish dry stout, known for its dark color, creamy texture, and roasted flavor. It’s often enjoyed on its own or paired with hearty Irish food.
2. Irish Coffee - A warm cocktail made with Irish whiskey, hot coffee, sugar, and topped with whipped cream.
3. The Green Cat - Take bagged Red Cat wine, Shamrock shake, Dr. Pepper, and mix together well, top with cinnamon.
Why Taking Over Gaza is a Terrible Idea
Whilst sparring with Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican Presidential Debate, Donald Trump famously said, “The Iraq War was a big, fat mistake.” These words ring ever louder today in the wake of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict absorbing the Middle East. Fast forward nine years later, and President Trump has floated the idea of the U.S. annexing Gaza in order to rebuild and “bring peace” to the region. As of the end of February, President Trump shared an AI “reimagining” of a future Gaza, which looked nothing short of a shitpost. History would show that this idea is terrible not only for the people of the Middle East but also for American interests.
“Donald Trump was reelected for his America First platform, not to follow the post-Cold War playbook of foreign interventions.”
Nation building has historically not been a strong suit for the United States, often entailing drawn-out support of failed states, which ultimately ends with America indebted and tired. The only two truly successful cases of nation building, Germany and Japan post-WWII, were already industrialized, prosperous countries. Those projects were rebuilding efforts, not creating new states from the ground up. President Trump has proposed a total demolition of Gaza and for America to start a major construction project. This would only be possible with the relocation and potential displacement of roughly 2 million Palestinians. Although Jordan and Egypt are now more open to receiving the Palestinians after previous stonewalling efforts, it remains to be seen if they will truly help. Aside from most nation building efforts being unrealistic, relocating millions, demolishing thousands of structures, rebuilding said structures, and managing the territory for an unforeseen amount of years is very foolish.
In addition to already being industrialized, Germany and Ja-
By Nicholas Aparicio
pan had cohesive nation states for Germans and the Japanese. Afghanistan failed because its multiple nations felt more allegiance to their ethnic and tribal bonds than to a weak government. Palestinians are a strong nation, but so long as Israel exists, that national identity can never form a successful state. This isn’t to say Israel should disappear, but simply to discourage America from med-
dling in a complicated foreign question we cannot answer. The Gaza-Israeli war dominates American news, but what relevance does it truly have to America? What benefits from Gaza will the taxpayers see that outweigh spending trillions of dollars? Donald Trump was reelected for his America First platform, not to follow the post-Cold War playbook of foreign interventions. It may benefit Israel, but its interests are not always aligned with ours. In 1996, current Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu had been presented the “Clean Break Strategy”. The strategy advocated for Israel not to forge new Middle Eastern peace treaties, but to instead contain and destabilize threats who opposed Israeli interests and supported Palestine. Two of these threats were the dictators Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad, who, for all their faults, ran mostly stable countries. With American intervention in these countries, the Middle East experienced many unnecessary deaths and wars. AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) heavily lobbied for the Iraq War. This isn’t a grand conspiracy; countries are allowed to advocate for what benefits them, but America should also operate in a fashion which benefits itself. President Trump’s legacy is something he almost certainly values heavily, and betraying his voter base with an egotistical construction project will definitely hurt that. It remains to be seen whether his statements will transform into intervention and policy. If Trump does decide to fully go through with this, he would be sandbagging his successor with a large burden in fixing a 100-year conflict. The United States is not good at nation building and will only further drive itself into debt in a Middle Eastern quagmire.
The History of the Disgraced Al Sharpton
Few in the City of New York have garnered as much attention as “Reverend” Al Sharpton, famous for stoking tension and racial hatred within America and inciting riots within the city.
Childhood
At the very young age of 4 years old, Al Sharpton began preaching. I have no clue how this is even possible or how it happened, but it sets up a very bizarre image of a 4-year-old preaching to a crowd of older, wiser Christians when he cannot even reach the pulpit. In school, he referred to himself as “Reverend” on all of his classwork and insisted on the title. Should someone his age even be giving speeches about basic addition, let alone complex ideas like theology or faith?
Al Sharpton started his political journey idolizing Adam Clayton Powell, who was a very popular Baptist pastor in Harlem during the civil rights movement. He saw the way Clayton spoke, as he was seemingly able to move people to start cheering and say “amen” during an otherwise mostly silent congregation. At age 10, Al Sharpton became a bishop, giving him the power to bury the dead, marry couples, and influence church leadership and its laws. He had begun to make a name for himself as a preacher and had gotten the attention of Jesse Jackson, another prominent civil rights leader. Jackson convinced him to join his organization, “Operation Breadbasket,” which was based in Chicago and focused on keeping wealth within the community.
“His life’s work has been dedicated to misrepresenting tragic events and stoking violence, racial hatred, riots, and chaos.”
Sharpton gained considerable influence during this time among his fellow youth and was already staging protests and shutdowns in his school. If students complained about the dress code or the quality of food, Sharpton would lead protests and shut the entire school down until there was change. It got to the point where Principal Shapiro had to call his mother to ask if he was showing up (“How is Alfred doing today?”), hoping to get on his good side. This helps us paint a picture of someone who, at a very young age, is not only narcissistic and power-hungry but also takes pride in causing chaos over seemingly minor issues.
After an internal dispute within the organization, Jesse Jackson left and founded Operation PUSH, while Al Sharpton left to create his own organization, the National Action Network. This was essentially a youth spinoff of their earlier work. He would later use this organization to organize his various appearances and protests throughout the years.
The Subway Incident
In 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot four black men, leaving three injured and one paralyzed on the 2 train line in the New York subway, after they approached him and attempted to rob him. However, Goetz was acquitted of all charges except for possession of an illegal firearm. Many supported Goetz’s actions because
By Shane Rossi
they felt that the police were not doing their job, while others opposed it because they believed in gun control and stronger gun laws. Al Sharpton led massive protests in the wake of the shooting, calling it a racially motivated attack. Not only was this untrue, but none of the conversation and debate around it had anything to do with race.
The Howard Beach Incident
In 1986, a couple of white youths in a pizza parlor chased down two young black men in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. One of them was able to get away after brandishing a knife, but another was hit by a car and killed trying to escape. This crime was condemned by the mayor, and an investigation and trial put all the men responsible behind bars. However, for Al Sharpton, this was not good enough. He urged people to boycott white-owned businesses and encouraged riots and violence in predominantly white areas. This further stirred racial tensions in Queens as white and black residents faced off with bats, tire irons, and other weapons. Instead of calling for justice for the specific incident, Al Sharpton used it to promote hate and riots in the City of New York.
Crown Heights Race Riots
This incident took place in 1991 after a Jewish man got into a car accident, which hit and killed a 7-year-old Guyanese boy named Gavin Cato. A private ambulance was ordered on the advice of the police, and it took away the man who hit him, fearing people would attack him out of anger. This ambulance notably did not take Cato, which sparked rumours about why he was left for dead while the Jewish man was taken away. Huge riots broke out by Caribbean and black residents in which they targeted Jewish neighborhoods, breaking into their businesses and beating them on the street. In one instance, a mob encircled a Jewish woman and stabbed her to death while chanting anti-semitic slogans. During the riots, Al Sharpton led protests down Jewish neighborhoods and said he was ready to “get it on” and fight the Jewish people. Yet again, this is another incident where Al Sharpton rushes to judgment and uses the opportunity to stroke violence and racial hatred.
Conclusion
Al Sharpton declared his mission: “The Black people are my people and serving them is my life’s work.” This is a direct contradiction to the belief in the American interest and ideals, as it is fundamentally rooted in identity rather than nationality. His life’s work has been dedicated to misrepresenting tragic events and stoking violence, racial hatred, riots, and chaos. He has even been able to use all of this for media attention and financial gain. Instead of being condemned for any of his actions, in 2007, he hosted most of the Democratic presidential candidates, including President Obama. He even has a show now and is a frequent guest on MSNBC and other networks. Sharpton is a despicable person, and he has done immense damage to race relations in the City of New York and the United States.
Local Student Caught SIMPing
By Angelo DiTocco
BINGHAMTON, NY, FEB. 9 – Although we often try to stay on our best behavior and give others the fairest treatment we can, there are times when we inevitably slip up. One such incident happened recently on campus, in which a junior by the name of Clyde Stevens caught himself in a heated moment of SIMPery. “I can’t believe I was acting like that! What was I thinking?” confessed Clyde.
It all started in the 9:40 AM session of CHEM 333, or Inorganic Chemistry III. On this day, the class was getting their grades for a difficult test that had been returned to them. The usual pop-offs and sighs of disappointment could be heard throughout the rooms as students retrieved their tests from the front desk.
“Perhaps he panicked and forgot Avogadro’s number during the exam. Or maybe he just thought the whole grade-sharing thing was stupid.”
Clyde was quite a strong student in the subject of chemistry, so although the test was challenging for him, he still did pretty well on it. As such, he had no worries about other students knowing his grade. When his peers asked, “What did you get?” his answer was plain and simple: “93.”
However, his friend, Ted, had quite a different story. Perhaps he was too busy with other classes, and he forgot to study. Perhaps he panicked and forgot Avogadro’s number during the exam. Or maybe he just thought the whole grade-sharing thing was stupid. Whatever the reason may be, he refused to share his grade with anyone.
Normally, Clyde would have had no issue with this, but there was another detail of the story that complicated things a bit further. “So uh, there’s this girl I really like who’s in the class, but I have literally no idea how to talk to her,” he explained to the Review.
The conflict started during a group conversation in the University Union hallway after the class ended. This conversation included Clyde himself, his friend Ted, the girl he liked, and a few others. For some unknown reason, this girl whom Clyde so fancied (he refused to tell us her name) really wanted to know what grade Ted got on the test. So, naturally, in an effort to side with her, Clyde joined her in bothering Ted about the manner. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad,” he repeated. But Ted proved to be quite unyielding. Unlike Clyde, he was not willing to bend his values just because a pretty girl wanted him to do so. Clyde’s love interest eventually left, but it seemed as though he was suddenly changed by that interaction. It was as if he was so blindly attracted to her that finding an answer to her question became his new number-one priority. If only he could get the grade out of Ted, he deludedly reasoned, he could use it to start a conversation with her some other time. He would finally have a way to talk to her.
So he persisted in asking Ted for the grade he got. Unfor-
tunately for Ted, the two had the same classes for the rest of the day. As they went from chemistry to statistics to their philosophy gen-ed, there was no end in sight for the poor victim of this relentless interrogation.
But in said philosophy class, the two sat with another friend of theirs called Kyle. Unlike Clyde and Ted, Kyle was an English major. He had absolutely nothing to do with that chemistry class. He didn’t know how hard the test was. He wasn’t there when everyone else was sharing their grades. And most of all, he had no idea what Clyde’s true motive was for wanting to know what grade Ted got. It’s safe to say that he was quite confused by the situation. So as he sat through the endless pingpong of “Just tell me what you got” and “I don’t want to,” he butted in to ask Clyde, “Why do you care so much anyway?”
“And then I just froze up,” Clyde explained to me. “What was I gonna do, just tell them the truth?” Not only was he hesitant to reveal his infatuation with his classmate, but the idea would sound so stupid if he said it out loud anyway. “Like, would I really say, ‘Oh, my crush also wants to know what grade he got, and I want to use that as an excuse to talk to her?’ I would never hear the end of it!”
It was at this moment that the cruelty and pointlessness of Clyde’s plan dawned on him. He was going to throw his poor friend under the bus, and all for what? A single conversation with a girl he liked? Would she even care anyway? More likely, she would just find it weird that Clyde would go to such great lengths to get the grade out of Ted.
All Clyde could say was, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just being stupid.” He promptly shut up and apologized to Ted, but he figured that justice had not been done. Clyde then went on to share his story with me so that I could publish it to warn you all. Don’t make the same mistake Clyde did. Put the bros first.
