I am completely astonished at the venom being thrown about because of Patrick May’s column last Wednesday (“Silber dead after life bent on world domination,” pg. 7 Feb. 3). It’s remarkable that so many people are outraged by a hysterical column while so many sit by idly and let the others, who are so much more terrible, go unmentioned. I can understand writing to The Daily Free Press to complain that you read a column about pink books, soccer or the art of letter writing and it made you feel stupider than when you started.

Yes, I too have been enraged by that myself. May’s column was hilarious. I thought so highly of it that I posted it on my door. To this day, I occasionally open it to find random kids giggling outside of it.

I cannot imagine why anyone would be offended by what was obviously parody from the title. Secondly, it is not libel — for it to be libel it would have to be passable as truth. It wasn’t at all, and was therefore parody and therefore is protected by the U.S. Constitution. I think what he did was in the spirit of Jonathon Swift and George Orwell. It was a breath of fresh air in what has lately been a streak of forgettable and unnecessarily dumbed-down columns.

So can we please stop cutting down the highest reed and start talking about the columnists that actually deserve to get fired?

Laura Eloyan

CAS ’05