Dear Pennizens,

You won’t be keeping that title much longer if one ‘92 alum has his way! To rescue our noble institute of higher learning from the dregs of the US News and World Report college rankings, Penn grad Noam Harel thinks we should change our name to either Benjamin Franklin University or – even better! – to the name of the highest bidder.

You thought the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Ben Franklin Parkway, the Franklin Institute, Franklin Field, Franklin Square, and the Franklin Mills Mall weren’t enough Philly institutions and landmarks named after the inventor of the catheter? Do the countless local statues, urine-encrusted and not, constitute insufficient fellating of America’s most obnoxious moralizer? After barely surviving the nonstop Franklin-worship of his birthyear tricentennial, we still can’t escape the endless idol worship of our most famous almanac writer.

Or, conversely, is Penn’s endowment so small that we should sell ourselves like the Whore of Babylon? Why get hung up on our – snicker – small endowment (ahem)? Penn is envious of the endowments of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. No problem – we could be called Costco College, University of Golden Palace or Trojan Condom University. A good complement to our expanding endowment! After all, there’s no better way to increase alumni contributions than change our name to something even more phallic. The only question: will the name change come before or after the class of Penn ’15 enters its freshman year?

Naturally, such a piss-poor argument begs for rebuttal faster than a gay hustler on crystal meth. Freshman Dan Brickley was up for the challenge. Penn’s lack of name recognition is a blessing in disguise, he says, because the “people who matter” know the difference between Penn and Penn State. Naturally, though, Brickley’s elitism is hidden by a veneer of exactly the opposite; he likes Penn’s name because “blue-collar” people are, apparently, too ignorant recognize it. Nothing like reverse snobbery to unmask a true snob!

Here’s what we think, and you Penn/Franklin/Trojan students listen up. You. Didn’t. Get. Into. Harvard. Or Yale, for that matter, or Princeton. Penn isn’t in the US News top 3, and whether Penn is ranked 4, 7, 47, or 470, your college experience will be the same. In class, the same non-English-speaking TAs, the same barely-English-speaking math professors; at parties, the same diluted beer and creepy frat guys; on the streets, the same random stray bullets  and 3-dollars-a-Hershey’s bar fundraisers; on College Green, the same speechifying Christian evangelists with bullhorns and earnest Darfur activists with leaflets. You will still leave Penn with a marginally useful degree and mountains of debt – unless you’re in Wharton or are a third-generation legacy from Great Neck, Long Island.

Oops on that last one. Not everyone from Great Neck is a ludicrously-privileged asshole, as Benny Laitman writes in this issue. Read on for more: how American Apparel ads promote reality porn, how music today couldn’t hold a raised lighter to that of the 60s and 70s, and how progressives can subvert political discourse in order to overthrow the conservative political machine. Kate Bracaglia interviews Jackass’s Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera (even after 34th Street uses other reporters’ questions in its “one-on-one” interview). Kiley Austin-Young tells us when drinking has led to alcoholism, and our First Call Dispatch compares sunny Australia with gloomy Philadelphia.

Turn the pages, crazy Pennizens – as long as you can keep the title.

Isaac Katz

Assistant Editor