Ithaca is... fences?

And it's another beautiful day. I'm beginning to worry here. A couple more and I will think it the end of the world. Or maybe Mother Nature has decided that since no prospective Cornell students will be coming here (as soon as they see the fences, that is), it may as well rain during Cornell Days anyways.

The other day while walking to college town, I saw a sign up which was advertising a competition to design a more permanent fence replacement. Now, I'm all for taking down the fences, but now they're trying to create some sort of permanent solution? I mean, I suppose it only makes sense that they want to keep people from falling and/or jumping off of the bridges, but still- they don't exactly have their priorities straight if you ask me. It's quite simple:

If people didn't
Want to jump off of bridges,
They really wouldn't.

The way I see it is we really wouldn't need to worry about having fences around the bridges if we didn't have people who wanted to jump off. Here's a metaphor for you: if a bull is charging someone and runs them off of cliff- the solution isn't to build a fence, they'll still get gutted. The solution is to stop the bull. But obviously the administration doesn't understand that. If they did, we might have the most important Jewish holidays of the year off. Or maybe the occasional national holiday? Give people a chance to take a breath of fresh air in between drownings.

Oh, or here's another idea: give us a fall or Thanksgiving break that's longer than a local high school's. Really, our breaks are pretty much 3-day weekends when you factor in travel. Or maybe they could just ease up on requirements so people don't have to be taking 5 science classes at a time and not sleeping. And honestly, if people aren't sleeping and are working on Friday nights, you know you have a problem other than a couple of exposed bridges.

The title comes from the architects' ingenious giant poster with that phrase.