The Amherst Hamster

San Francisco, CA - Aptly named Popsicle company “Popsicle” recently introduced a new line of advertisement aimed at adults rather than children. Company spokesman comments:

“You know, kids are gonna eat Popsicles anyways. It’s sugar and water, that’s what they do, they eat sugar. They don’t have jobs or anything else to do, they just eat sugar. We figured that we might as well target a new, older demographic with our latest ad. campaign. Though for some reason we’ve gotten heavy backlash from Christian moral groups. I guess they think Popsicles should just be for the kids”

A sample of their new campaign is show below.

Never Published.

Amherst, MA— Tuesday night, police responded to what seemed to be routine noise complaint call. Little did they know of the severity of the offense they were about to uncover.

The police opened the door to find three students snorting cocaine and engaging in illicit sexual activities with six underage girls (there are also rumors of one underage poodle though no hard evidence is present at the moment). Upon further investigation the officers found four unlicensed kegs, ingredients for a pipe bomb, and silverware stolen from Val. However, the real shocker didn’t come until an officer entered a student’s room, only to find him writing a history paper without proper citations.

“I feel really bad for the kid” commented Officer Orton, “He and his friends seem like really great kids, they had a great future, and they had to throw it all away for plagiarism.”

The Amherst Town SWAT team was immediately called in, and after a 16 minute standoff (in which the student insisted he wouldn’t come out until he finished using spell check) his door was busted down, he was mauled by SWAT dogs, and hauled off to the Hampshire County Jail.

His Class Dean commented, “Its about time that students learn that plagiarism doesn’t pay”

Students have begun to reassess the consequences of plagiarism. The perpetrator’s roommate, Eric, comments “Damn, I gotta rethink the way I spend my time at Amherst. Instead of smoking weed and sexually harassing Smithies, I should spend more time making sure to properly cite my sources.”

The student will receive severe punishment for his egregious offense. He has been suspended for one semester and placed at the bottom of Room Draw. (It should be noted that he will still be allowed to run for AAS President.) He must take an extended workshop on citation at the writing center, undergo drug and alcohol counseling as well as sensitivity training. He was also sentenced to 30 posts of ridicule on the Daily Jolt, most of which will falsely accuse him of being ‘fucking racist bigoted piece of shit faggot racist’ because he voted against the giving the Korean Student Alliance funding for ramen noodles while seated on the Budgetary committee. Despite all these punishments, most agree, justice has not been served.

Never Published.

Hours of intensive reading and hard work didn’t pay off for Valerie Parker ‘11. After reading all four court cases, totaling a hefty 378 pages, between Tuesday and Thursday, Valerie was distraught that Austin Sarat did not call on her.

It all started on Tuesday when Valerie skipped the reading to watch Season 6 of Sex in the City for the 9^th time. Assuming she would be able to hide among the hundred + students in LJST 01, she didn’t worry about sitting in the back row, unprepared. Then terror struck. Austin Sarat pranced up the stairs, looked around, and suddenly locked his gaze on Valerie, “Quick, what is Nunnan trying to say about the bureaucratic functions of the government and how does this tie into Justice Blackmun’s rulings in a case only mentioned in a footnote?!” Shocked, Valerie stuttered for a few seconds, and then confessed that she didn’t know. Sarat then proceeded to lecture the class on reading more closely, followed by jokes about people from Texas and a discourse on being Jewish.

On Thursday, Valerie was ready. She had gone home, and read all four assigned cases twice. She then highlighted all the important parts and scoured the internet for related cases and case analyses. “I want to be prepared for round two” said an excited Valerie in a pre-class interview.

When class came around, Valerie sat in the front row, waiting for Sarat to strike. She even used the age old act-like-you-didn’t-do-the-reading strategy, to encourage Sarat to call on her. But he didn’t take the bait. In fact Sarat spent much of the class joking about being old, telling thinly veiled self-referential anecdotes, and dropping the words “tingle” and “meshuggenah” while gushing with self-indulgent masturbatorial delight.

“Its just not fair” screamed Valerie in her post-class interview. “I totally deserved to be ambushed and intimidated with some complicated question.” Valerie has since resigned to sitting in the back and doing minimal reading.

Never Published.

Welcome from the Editor

Some of you seniors (and junior fuck-ups who got held back a year or two) may remember the Amherst Hamster, Amherst’s leading satire publication.

It was rude, crude and controversial. It was last heard of when the Asian affinity club tried to get it de-funded after it made fun of some horrible natural disaster in which hundreds of Asian people died. In short, it was awesome (the magazine, not the natural disaster).

It was part of an Amherst that is now long gone. We now live, nay, exist under a heavy curtain of political correctness and self-imposed creative and ambitious suppression. You may have noticed that people at this school either have no sense of humor or are afraid to speak openly for fear of ostracizion* or garnering labels of bigotry.

The Hamster once served as place where people could anonymously lampoon all the things that make the fairest college awful (there are a lot), things that should be addressed and dealt with, rather than swept under the carpet and ignored (the black hole in val anyone? [FTR MSimmons is the man])

If ever there was a time when satire and criticism was needed it is now. I urge any and all Amherst Students to submit any satirical or comedic articles to me at sangel10@amherst.edu (the Hamster email gets about 50 messages of spam every day, reading it is a fucking hassle) in order to bring back this most excellent of traditions.

Some history: I had some trouble getting the Hamster published in 2008 due to a lack of writers and content. AmhPub works to fix that little problem. I can now put up any content I see fit for publication regardless of whether we have enough articles to fill 8, 4, or 12 pages or not. So please, I urge you, as a responsible member of the Amherst community do your part in making fun of Tony Marx’s voice, or the Multi-Cultural Center’s seeming uselessness and drain on resources (some might argue). Do your part by telling me I’m an asshole and that the MCC is an integral and important part of the Amherst community. Do it comically and I will publish you online and hopefully (pending either my return to Amherst, or someone else’s initiative to take over editorship at Amherst) you will get published in the next hard-copy edition of the Hamster.

And of course, remember, all articles remain anonymous, the only person responsible is me, your fair editor.

So what exactly is my plan of action?

Myself and a slew of other gentlefolk actually wrote and laid out an entire issue of the Hamster that never got published in the Fall of 2008. I plan to post these articles and any decent articles I receive via E-Mail on this quaint little blog. Then, should we have enough content for a proper issue, I will attempt to bring the Hamster back to life in its original paper medium. (Online copies found here http://www3.amherst.edu/~hamster/)

I am eager to hear from any and all of you,

-Santiago Angel ‘10

*(a word whose origin, for the record, comes from the original Greek action of removing anyone vastly superior in a competetive sector to level the playing field for the other participants)