do you agree with dusty?

the leaves are turning.

I won't enjoy it much today, due to cold wind and whipping rain, but walking home from school yesterday gave me a chance to crane my neck at the trees lining University Ave., all in varying degrees of yellow and green. It doesn't smell like fall, though. Not just yet.

For the last two weeks, there has been a veritable plethora, an encyclopedia's worth of chalk drawing on every walkable sidewalk on campus. Until Friday, they were all the same: the cryptic message, "Do You Agree With Travis?" Although the buzz on campus was so thick you could swim in it, I knew immediately what was up: the Campus Crusade for Christ had engaged in yet another viral marketing scheme.

They do this every year. Tossing around someone's name, all over campus, on every sidewalk, in every newspaper, for a month leading up to a sermon or speaker sponsored by the Crusade and a few other virulently Christian organizations. They don't say anything about their purpose, or who their sponsor is... all they want to know is the answer to a simple question (that is unanswerable, of course): Do you agree with Travis?

Swami Dusty prognosticates once again: When an auditorium full of people show up to meet this Travis person and figure out if they agree with him or not, the lights will dim. A young, white man will strut on stage, emanating pure confidence and charisma the likes of which have not been seen since Dane Cook was here last spring. Applause and cheering from the crowd will be hushed by Travis's dazzling white smile. "Hello, friends!" he will say. "I have a few questions for you."

"Wouldn't you agree that dorm life is cramped and stinky?" cheers and applause.

"Wouldn't you agree that college is too much work, all at once?" cheers and applause.

"Wouldn't you agree that PeopleSoft is the Devil incarnate?" cheers and applause.

"Wouldn't you agree that murdering babies is a crime, and any mother that murders her unborn baby should get the death penalty?" scattered cheers, some confusion.

"Wouldn't you agree that evolution is just a weak theory invented by weak minds, and we should teach intelligent design in biology classes?" cheers-- wait, what? ...yeah, cheers. more scattered cheers.

"Wouldn't you agree that Christ is our savior, and all those Arabs and Jews and Hindus and whatevers need to SEE THE LIGHT??" MASSIVE cheers and applause.

I want to go to this stupid sermon so that during the Q and A, I can drop some real science on him. Ask him about the constant failure of the Catholic church to own up to the disgusting behavior of a few of its priests, and the even more disgusting coverups perpetrated even now by the bishops and the Vatican to keep pedophiles in the fold. I'd really like to ask him why Kate Moss was castigated by the entire modeling industry when tabloid pictures of her using cocaine appeared all over the world, while Brad Pitt was wrecking his marriage to Jennifer Aniston on the set of his new movie, with his co-star, and the Christians of the world remained silent. I want to ask him about Rev. Pat Robertson's decree that we should start assassinating foreign heads of state. I'd particularly like to ask him what Jesus would say about Rev. Fred Phelps and his congregation's deplorable practice of turning funerals of gay and lesbian people (as well as FALLEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS) into anti-gay protest rallies. I'm not going to do any of that, though. I learned my lesson when Dr. Budziziweski came to town to give a speech about tolerance (that was actually about not tolerating the murder of babies). Travis will be ready for any question I throw at him; maybe he'll be crass and cut me off, maybe he'll be glib and throw me a non-answer. Either way, I will be the spoiler of everyone else's fun, and it won't make enough of an impact for me to want to sit through whatever boiled tripe he wants to feed me.

I want to be offended, and I want to be outraged. The sneaky, underhanded way that Travis has been marketed to us is an affront to my somewhat-educated sensibilities. Unfortunately, I must choose to be tolerant - the real kind of tolerant, not the Budziziewski-Campus Crusade kind. Once this post is completed, I will bite my tongue and smile at the girls in the quad with a giant I Agree With Travis poster, complete with a hundred or so signatures of Travis-dittoheads, when they ask me if I agree with Travis.

The truth is... I don't. Not one bit. Thanks for asking.