Editor’s Note: Student Association elections are in full swing. Le Orange, a satirical blog, made a bid as a write-in candidate. Here, Le Orange talks candidly to The Daily Orange about its plans for presidency. We dispatched humor columnist Danny Fersh to provide insight into the minds of comedy writers with political intentions. Look out for Fersh’s humor column in tomorrow’s paper.

As a fellow humorist, when I first heard of Le Orange’s bid for the SA presidency, I was skeptical. After all, if there are two things I know about funny writers, it’s these: We look good in skinny jeans, and we should never, ever be given positions of power.

Then, I read what this funny blog had to say about the issues facing SU’s campus today, and I realized that I couldn’t care less who gets elected to the post.

I mean, sure, the SA president has some real responsibilities, like — oh, who am I kidding? I have no idea. And, chances are, neither do you.

So here’s a special Q-and-A session between The Daily Orange and our French cousin, Le Orange, spelling out all the blog’s grand plans for the coming academic year.

The Daily Orange: a. Why did you decide to run as a write-in? b. What do you think you can bring to the position that Lustig and Carr can’t?

Le Orange: a. As Van Gogh said, ‘The work is an absolute necessity for me. I can’t put it off, I don’t care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can’t go on with my work.’ Also, we wanted to f*** with people. b. Well, mainly a set of big man balls. Corruption. Rooms full of cigar smoke.

How have you been trying to campaign? 

We have a dwarf named Donny who threatens to strangle people who don’t vote for us with his strong, tiny hands. Also, have you seen the blog?

What are the promises you plan to follow through with if you’re elected? 

Aside from what we have already published on the Le Orange blog, we make the following additional promises:

• More unicorns, less centaurs
• Increased visibility of ants on campus
• Free copies of Phenomenology of Spirit by G.W.F Hegel for all students
• A free happy ending at Healthy Mondays
• All free issues of The New York Times will be replaced with Mad Magazines.
• Everyone will have to wear britches.
• People who have sex will have to wear scarlet letters. 

What are some things you want to see changed on campus?

• We’d like to see a student use the library books.
• The objective realities of the production of mass culture and its effects

If you win, how will you be present in SA meetings?

We will build a panopticon to observe SA meetings. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. According to the ideas of panopticist Michel Foucault, if discursive mechanisms can be effectively employed to control and/or modify the body of discussion within a particular space (usually to the benefit of a particular governing class or organization), then there is no longer any need for an ‘active agent’ to display a more overtly coercive power (i.e., the threat of violence). 

Why should people vote for you?

We’re very good at sex.

Anything else you feel like mentioning?

You’d better eat dinner with your real father, I think. It would be more pleasant. (F. Kafka)

Dwarfs. Britches. Unicorns. I’m sold.

 

I hereby give my endorsement to Le Orange as a write-in candidate for the SA presidency. No offense to Dylan Lustig and Taylor Carr —I’m sure you’re great guys —but this campus needs a change. And by a change, I mean an anonymous blog with a mustachioed orange for an avatar.

 

As for you, readers, I highly recommend that you shun your better angels and cast a ballot for that devil on your shoulder. Write in your vote for a campaign that is so nonsensical that it actually makes sense.

Sure, a Le Orange SA presidency could have negative ramifications. It could mean the end of our student government as we know it. It could force us to spend our days staring at its ‘big man balls’ swinging from a podium. It might even start a war with the centaurs that go to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

 

But, if nothing else, electing Le Orange will prove that even a panopticon is a better running mate than Sarah Palin.

 

—Asst. Feature Editor Colleen Bidwill contributed reporting to this story.