My parents bought me a video-game console for my sixth birthday or so. One of the first games I played for it featured a little blue robot who zoomed around and saved the world from a mad scientist's army of evil robots. Mega Man was the pint-sized hero's name, for those who know of him, and the one foe he faced that baffled me to no end was Wood Man.
Wood Man. Wood Man bounced around and threw leaves at Mega Man. At the time, this "power" baffled me a bit. After all, the mad scientist had made seven other robots, robots who attacked with steel saw blades, pillars of flame, typhoons, electrified boomerangs, and even time itself! So what good, I wondered, was a robot that threw leaves, albeit leaves the size of the little hero's head?
I forgot about Wood Man for a decade or so until one windy day last fall. I was late to class, as usual, and was running to a Calculus exam in Marston Hall when a great gust of wind rose, sending a huge, freshly-raked pile of dry, golden oak leaves at me. And as the sharp-pointed edges of the leaves raked across my face, I remembered how many times the blue protagonist had succumbed to Wood Man, and I suddenly realized that the guys at Capcom Software must have known a thing or two I didn't about villainy.
I bring this up because it again windy here in Iowa, and the little piles of leaves scattered across the foyers and lobbies on campus here reminded me that I forgot to share this story last year.

In other Iowa State news, there have been a number of debates on campus lately. Being a former debater and current debate judge, I try to go when I can; so far, however, nothing I've seen matches up to the spectacle I witnessed Monday night. The premise: a debate on same-sex marriages for LGBT Student Awareness Week. The participants: a top-circuit gay rights lawyer who has enjoyed a 90-minute session in front of the Supreme Court and a local legislator who, as the student newspaper's write-up put it, "has successfully argued against gay rights in his work as a senator for the past five years." Knowing that the only real arguments against same-sex marriages stem from either homophobia, usually veiled in religion; or "the natural order", a phrase which has spawned another closely related phrase, "naturalist fallacy"; and also knowing that any politician to debate such a position against such a skilled opponent would either have to be far too crafty to be stuck in Iowa or a damned fool.
Now, having seen State Sen. Steve King in action, I wouldn't say he was a complete moron. He made some... a decent point, and managed to not make a complete ass of himself. When his opponent and the audience questioners would not allow him to vilify gay rights groups, and the moderator (a professor of sociology) went after his claims about "how a healthy family is structured," he went to the "God hates fags" card. Nothing he said after that point made much sense, and watching the rest of the debate was a bit like witnessing a great carnivore, tired of toying its prey, go for the kill. The skull caves in, the flesh is cut, and the feeding ensues.
None of this, of course, was in the media write-up, as the Daily's writer/photographer left after the first fifteen or twenty minutes, as usual. No mention will likely be given in the Daily of tonight's debate about morality between Hector Avalos, a religious studies professor, and some sort of traveling preacher named Tom Short. In an interesting, though dated, article for Secular Humanism, Avalos describes himself as a "former Pentecostal faith healer." Short, meanwhile... I'll just call Short crazy and point you to his response to National Gay/Lesbian Pride Month. Crazy bastard. I would bet that the exchange between these two was pretty spirited, though.

665 words should be enough for now. In closing, I would like to point you again to the Peeps/Hidden Treasures thread on Boards of Omaha, where I will be posting updates on what may become a veritable Peeps saga! Stop by, sign in, and share your thoughts on cheap Peeps, pirates, and the dirty, dirty mouths of the French.