With the big finale approaching in less than two weeks’ time, Professor Fee’s Medieval Drama (ENG 312) class looks forward to their play, “You’re Outta Here: The Story of Adam and Eve” with excitement and anticipation. Consisting of three parts translated from Middle English and reinterpreted by several members of the class, the production provides a comedic retelling of the stories of the Creation, Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. The audience should expect to laugh through the enactment of these famous biblical passages while also appreciating the social commentary found within the original material. Complete with semi-accurate portrayals of sibling rivalry and spousal issues, much of the humor we appreciate in our own modern comedy owes its style to the medieval tradition.

The class was broken into groups to divide and conquer the relevant aspects of the production: Directing, Staging, Props & Costumes, and Translation. In addition to these duties, the students have been cast to fill the various roles as well. With full course loads and different commitments for each member of the class, it has taken significant effort to put the show together, but the class is happy with the progress made and looking forward to the performance. We hope to see a large crowd for the show, so come out and support Professor Fee’s Medieval Drama class. The show will take place on the Servo-side of Breidenbaugh at 4:00 pm on Friday, May 3rd. For additional information you can find us online at: http://shatteredglass32.wix.com/english312. Be sure to attend the event on Facebook!

Here’s a photo of Adam (Joshua Hoh ’14) and Eve (Amanda Smith ’13) , with the star of the show!
Don’t listen to that snake! Don’t eat the apple!!

 Have you ever wondered why every night when you tune in to Gettysburg College TV network, all you ever see are Mike Altman’s Shots in the Dark re-runs from three years ago? Do you find yourself asking questions like “where does all that money from the senatorial budget go for GBurg TV?” or “why is it always the same skinny little guy running the GBurg TV camera at every event?” Well now The Forum has the scoop!

After years of investigation, an undercover journalist has got to the bottom of the mysterious entity that is the Gettysburg College Television Network. Claiming to be an above board, college endorsed association involved with filming and broadcasting programs on campus, the headquarters of the Network has been located in the basement of Plank Gym. Every year, the student network has received one of the largest budget stipends from the Gettysburg Student Senate, and the network’s head, a Mr. Dave DeBor, has been held up as a role model across campus. But behind this rose tinted view, a diabolical scheme has seen thousands of dollars’ worth of budget funds siphoned off personal gain and student trust betrayed.

For over two years now, Gettysburg College TV has, for all intents and purposes, been a defunct organization with no membership besides the network president. With no participants, the network fell into a slump of inactivity which has seen programs like the Shots in the Dark Christmas Special played on loop ever since. As it turns out, the network head has since used GBurg TV as a storefront cover to personally pocket the hefty senatorial budget moneys which have continued to flow to the comatose organization. The plot thickened when upon further research we learned that Mr. DeBor himself sat on the Senate’s Budget Committee which oversaw these transactions.

Mr. DeBor has allegedly been using the funds to line his own pocket and to provide for his own lavish lifestyle, which includes an extensive J. Crew wardrobe, luxurious French breakfasts, and a hairpiece which actually looks relatively lifelike.

As the story has broken, the Student Senate has formed an investigative committee to look into the matter. The college administrators have also taken a hand in the matter, stripping Mr. DeBor of his many accolades as more and more incriminating evidence has come to the surface. A leading Gettysburg lawyer, when commenting on the potential results of these investigations, agreed that “if the Gettysburg TV scandal does indeed prove to be simply an extensive Ponzi network, I would estimate its complete elimination from campus. Moreover, I would assume the network’s president would go away for a very long time.”

Food poisoning, that is. With all the hype surrounding the new Servo food truck seen meandering the streets of Gettysburg College and loitering outside the dining center, enticing students with its aroma of deep –fried goodness, it comes as a shock to many that the food from the truck seems to be linked to cases of extreme food poisoning.

“It’s just a shame,” says one student. “It had so much potential. I mean Servo is pretty awesome, but Servo on the go? Even better. I never even had the chance to try anything from it…but I guess that’s a good thing now.”

Students and staff are baffled that anything bearing a trusted name like Servo could cause harm. However, the cases of food poisoning linked to food served from the food truck are anything but harmless. “I thought my hamburger tasted a little funny, but I didn’t think much of it. Then I was puking like non-stop for days. I could barely move- I like literally thought I was going to die. I didn’t know what it was until I found that other students were experiencing the same symptoms after visiting the truck”, says student Amanda Moss.

Starting towards the end of last week, the health center started to flood with reports of severe stomach pain and projectile vomiting. The culprit was soon discovered when the students were all diagnosed with food poisoning, and they all reported to have ordered a meat item from the food truck within the past day.

The Servo food truck has been suspended from operation while it undergoes thorough investigation. Students suffering from food poisoning are advised to visit the health center if symptoms worsen or persist, and to only eat light foods in minimal quantities as they recover. Professors have been informed of the campus-wide outbreak of food poisoning, so students who have been affected will be issued notes from the health center automatically excusing them from classes until they fully recover.

Although nothing has been confirmed, the food truck investigation reveals that the Servo food truck may not even be affiliated with the college. When interviewed, none of the Servo employees could identify where the truck came from or who runs it. The truck, whose meats have been found to be the cause of the cases of food poisoning, bears the iconic nickname of Gettysburg College’s dining center, complete with cute pictures of Gettysburg landmarks such as Pennsylvania Hall and Glatfelter Hall adorning its exterior. However, no one has been able to identify its origins. “I just assumed it must be approved by the college and linked to the dining services here in some way since it looks so official. I didn’t think it was my place to question it,” said a Gettysburg dining services worker.

Investigators are researching reports of banned food trucks in nearby cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, believing that the truck may actually be a banned city food truck in disguise, trying to earn a profit, despite serving contaminated meat.

More information to come! In the meantime, BEWARE THE FOOD TRUCK.

Never underestimate the value of an Independent Study. This past weekend, after hours of toil in the lab, two students have managed to create a new species of lizard that has not been present on our planet since prehistoric times: Velociraptor monogliensis.

Biology majors Anne Teak ’15 and Dinah Soar ’13 were working on a project for Professor Kay Etheridge when the two started to experiment with lizard and bird sample body parts, which were stored in the freezer for dissection assignments. After messing around with some stolen electrical equipment from IT (needless to say, Teak and Soar smuggled more than a few wires into the Bio lab), the critter they’d constructed began to twitch and chirp.

The species is well known to paleontologists with over twelve complete fossil skeletons discovered, more than any other dromaeosaurid. Velociraptor monogliensis is a bipedal, feathered carnivore about 1.6 feet high at the hip. It is most famous for its role in Jurassic Park, although the species was portrayed in the film without feathers and was shown to be much larger than its life size.

Gettysburg’s velociraptor, nicknamed “Janet” after college President Janet Morgan Riggs, enjoys munching on leftover meatballs and “cannibal cookies” from Servo. Although she has been officially confined to the lab upon her birth, it has been reported that she likes to fly around the stairwell of the Science Center and hang around the various fishtanks in the Science Center study rooms.

Although Janet has presented no imminent threat to students, it is rumored that DPS has enlisted the help of actor Sam Neal to keep the antics of the velociraptor in check. Who knows, maybe Gettysburg College will be making an appearance in the upcoming Jurassic Park IV…

It was a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas indeed when Elvis Presley passed away and left this world feeling so lonesome without his soulful tunes and sinfully swaying hips. OR WAS IT??

While the world was still reeling from the reported news of The King’s supposed death, he was in fact hustling away as fast as his oversized body and too-tight bejeweled spangly suit would allow. For years, The King had dreamed of abandoning his life as a shake, rattle, and roller, and turning to more simple pursuits. He dreamed, as sources close to him at the time confirmed, of serving the public in a less prominent manner.

‘Elvie was tired of living as hounddog, stuck forever on the top floor of the heartbreak hotel’ cited an anonymous fan who managed to wriggle her way into the upper tier of The King’s close-knit family and friends. She explained to us here at The Forum that The King had decided to turn to the fast-food business as a way to fill the void he felt growing within him in the later years of his performing career. We doubted her credibility at first, especially considering she was crocheting a dish towel from what she claimed were the clippings of hair from every hair cut The King had ever had—but then we spotted The King Himself flipping burgers at Gettysburg College’s own Bullet Hole!

While to us it may be a revelation that someone so famous has been hiding behind the glass partition of the sandwich line all this time, it makes a great amount of sense that The King would choose this relatively unknown and definitely uncared for liberal arts school to hide himself away from the rest of the world.

Since our breaking news regarding his sequestered status here at Gettysburg College, The King has retreated from working the front grill, but he can be heard humming happily to himself as he assembles the sandwiches we consume daily…and we just can’t help falling in love with him all over again.

A casual early morning glance along the sinuous coast of Seaside, New Jersey greets its viewer with a collage of colors, the clipped exchange of aquatic soundtrack, and the hum-drum stampede of determined runners. It is in large part a tranquil scene, slightly nauseating but nevertheless suburban and comfortable. While such seems the work of an early spring, an eerie calm has materialized as of late over the coastal town that has little—despite the continued assertions of the Environmental Protection Agency—to do with its perennial inhabitants. The atmospheric clubs, the pockmarked beaches and odd array of entertainment pastimes all stand stilted and soldiery, wary that something wicked looms on the horizon.

No. It’s not a bird, or a plane, or even Superman in the stereotypical fashion of Saturday morning cartoons. In another stunning New Jersey upset, akin in amplitude to Chris Christie’s stint as Attorney General and John Corzine’s William Hurt from The Village/Charles Grandison Finney beard (seriously, look it up), the state is now home to a newly birthed anti-Christ, giving an all too real dimension to its trumped up mascot the Jersey devil.

“I just knew somethin’ like this would happen,” exclaimed concerned resident Evangelica Perinetti. “I was sittin’ here the other day, sittin’ here next to my husband Charlie, isn’t that right Charlie, and gettin’ ready to make some fresh moozarell (real Italians don’t use the “a”) for an afternoon get-together with my Jersey girls, when I stopped dead in my tracks like that Long Island medium, you know that crazy woman out in Hicksville, well as I was sayin’ I stopped dead in my tracks, isn’t that right Charlie, I stopped dead and had this idear that the anti-Christ was going to be born today. I said, Charlie, you knows what, the anti-Christ is comin’ today. We gotta call the Pope.”

The cute little tyke came parading out of his mother’s womb, incidentally that of television-personality Nicole Elizabeth “Snokki” Polizzi, in the wee hours of April 1^st, 2013. Public outrage has prompted statewide demonstration, and zealous New Jerseyan’s have done what they do best: arranged a formal ad hoc committee to scream loudly at passing New Jersey 12 news vans.

“I’M JUST SO ANGRY,” contended Freehold resident Edward Taterella. When asked why, Taterella provided the following addendum. “BAGELMASTERS IN SHREWSBURY WENT OUT OF BUSINESS.

Concern has been far from localized, and national pundits have been summoned by Fox News, MSNBC, and HBO respectively to weigh in on the frightening situation.

“You know,” gurgled Sean Hannity, “Nostradamus said that the third anti-Christ would come from the East. We just weren’t expecting it to be THIS close to home.”

Taking up a similar strain, Anne Coulter echoed the sentiments of the GOP.

“You know, ladies and gents, I blame this on President Barack Obama. He’s not a citizen, and somewhere, I’m pretty sure, in the Bible it makes mention to what will happen if the US President is not a citizen. The Bible or the Constitution, one of those things,” Coulter noted soberly.

Contrarily, HBO’s Bill Maher has used Snooki’s devil-baby as an appropriate political platform for self-aggrandizement.

“This whole thing is religulous,” quipped Maher. “It’s preposterous, incredulous and downright Spartacus. If I were to write a book about this, I would have a lot of information which indicates, because I would most definitely develop a movie or documentary from my concept, that it’s not the baby who is the anti-Christ but its mother. At least, that’s how I feel when I am talking about the matter out loud.”

Snooki attributes her recent birth to “too much smushing with the wrong people” and hopes that little Mabus will weather the blows dealt by what is sure to be a traumatizing childhood.

“Although he, like, fell out of my vagina unexpectedly today, I love him,” said Snooki peremptorily. “I just, like, hope that he doesn’t try to enslave the human race because that just wouldn’t be cool, just as mean-spirited as when Roger waited for ever to propose to Jenny.”

Nevertheless, we can all take solace in one incontrovertible fact: We are all—now and forever more—in troubled waters. The United States government has already mobilized the National Guard, and is currently in the process of outfitting Guantanamo with new anti-Christ containment mechanisms. If Snook’s baby does not kill us, we can count on the red-tape.

“You know, it always has to be New Jersey,” sighed Delaware Governor Jack Markell. “Selfish-bastards with the hurricane, and the community, and the love, and the television show, and that governor, and his SNL skit, and his skintight windbreaker, and that devil-baby. All Delaware has is the sixth least populous state, some candy corn, and Joe Biden.”

This week, it was announced that the Art & Art History Department will be hiring deceased painter Bob Ross for a full-time tenured position.  Ross, who gained fame as the host of the long-running PBS television program, The Joy of Painting, is expected to teach a full course load and will even be donating new paintings to decorate campus buildings.  Gettysburg College will be assuming full costs for the exhumation of Ross’s body, as well as the necessary surgeries to reanimate him.

“It’s going to be a long and extensive process to get Bob painting again, but his talents are worth it,” says Dr. Esther Basket, an assistant professor in the department.  “We know that Bob’s soft voice, gentle touch, and unbelievably positive attitude will enable his students to achieve the very happiest of ‘Gettysburg Great.’  We’re just so happy to have him.”

Possible classes that Ross will teach include ART 201: Happy Trees, ART 307: The Wet-on-Wet Technique, and a cross-listed course, PSYCH 354: Joy.

When asked if anyone felt it was a mistake to hire a dead person for a tenure-track position, Dr. Basket responded, “Well, as Bob would say, ‘We don’t make mistakes; we just have happy accidents.’  The mission of Gettysburg College is to provide a happy and inclusive place for young minds to grow, and to discriminate against Bob on the grounds that he is dead would go entirely against the College’s values.”

Now that’s a happy little tree.

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Last week a raid led by the Student Conduct Review Board confiscated hundreds of documents from the Honor Commission’s records.  The Forum has learned through an internal leak that many of these never before seen papers reveal a highly complex power struggle between the Commission’s administrators and the leading students.  Our unnamed source reports that the Deans of Academic Advising are having a difficult time halting the growing influence of Co-Commissioner David R. DeBor, who is now styling himself “High Inquisitor of the Most Illustrious and Holy Commission for Honor.”  The documents show that DeBor has gathered to himself a group of highly loyal members of the Honor Commission, who are known to most as the “Teal Shirts.”  One or two were spotted on campus wearing belts across their chests and ridiculous hats last week.

When first-year Walter Melon got lost on his way to the bathroom in the middle of his ANTH 103 class, he had no idea that what he would find was the farthest thing from a toilet.

In the basement of Glatfelter, Walter came across a small door next to the offices with a number of strange markings. Intrigued, he took a closer look and touched the markings, only to see the door fall in with a cloud of dust. Forgetting his bladder and his class lecture on ethnographies in Cameroon, he crept into the dark set of stairs below.

“Honestly, I completely forgot about class,” Walter admits. “This was way more exciting.”

Later it was discovered that the secret passage found by Walter led to a number of caverns beneath Glatfelter Hall, which contained thousands of Native American artifacts, including arrowheads, skeletons, weapons, and religious items.

“I mean, it was creepy,” Walter shrugs. “I got chills everywhere. The place is probably haunted.”

It’s unknown what tribe the artifacts come from, but Philosophy, Religion, and Anthropology Professors alike are biding caution to students and staff. Burial grounds like these tend to have lingering spiritual energy, they say, and the slightest disturbance can trigger a negative response from Native American ghosts.

“We’re closing the basement again until further notice,” a DPS officer who wishes to remain anonymous reports. He explains that the classes formerly taught in those rooms will be moved to the trailers until a team of excavators can analyze the site.

The upcoming renovations on Glatfelter Hall, to be completed this summer, will include the placement of talismans in appropriate places throughout the foundation and new walls. Advised by Professors Julia Hendon and Amy Evrard in the Anthropology Department, the college hopes the talismans will prevent any trouble from malevolent spirits.

Today, Gettysburg College’s own president, Janet Morgan Riggs, scheduled an open office hour for faculty and students interested in hearing the true story of her recent “encounter” with extraterrestrial life forms inside of a UFO hovering above Pennsylvania Hall.  The Gettysburg Forum’s own Ann Sirdafone was on hand to document the President’s incredible experience in her own words:

Ann Sirdafone: What were you doing in the minutes leading up to your abduction?

Janet Morgan Riggs: I was in my office, you know, performing my usual presidential duties.  Cross-stitching, smoking my pipe, burning cease-and-desist letters…

AS: So there was no warning of your impending ordeal? No suspicious sounds or anything?

JMR: No, not that I can recall. There was a distinct smell of formaldehyde in the air right before I was beamed up, but I suppose that was just Pizza House. The flash of green light came quite unexpectedly.

AS: My gosh, you must have been terrified!

JMR: Not after I realized that the aliens did not want to hurt me.  I never even lost consciousness.  After I floated up through the cupola and entered the mothership, my abductors proved to be the epitome of Gettysburg Great.  There were no Honor Code violations from their end, I can assure you.

AS: Can you tell me a little bit about these extraterrestrials? Their appearance, demeanor, etc… ?

JMR: They’re Jerbaderbs from the planet Xuqyrjinxys.  Big, grey fellows, almost like humanoid rhinoceroses.  Now their people are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that planet, or any planet so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.  After they scanned my body for parasites I was escorted to the chambers of the Jerbaderbian emperor, Qilzyxxxq, to discuss the terms of my surrender.  He knew things about this college that nobody else knows.  Like what percentage tuition is going to rise next year, right down to the thousandths place.  Without a doubt, he could read my mind.

AS: Did they say what they want from us?

JMR: They don’t want anything from you at all.  It was only me they needed.  My dear girl, everyone knows that I wear the pants in this town.  You see, they want to harvest the souls of soldiers who died during the battle, in order to export them to their own planet to help stop the bloodshed that is decimating their countrymen.  They needed my explicit permission to start tearing up sections of the campus to look for bones.  I agreed that they could begin lifting up Glatfelter Hall’s foundations as early as this June.

AS: How are you in contact with these beings? Will other members of the college get to meet them?

JMR: A tracking device installed on my cerebral cortex allows me to keep in constant communication with the Jerbaderbian fleet.  And I’ve already invited the Emperor and his entourage to attend Commencement in May.  Believe me, all of Gettysburg College will soon know the truth!

AS: One last question.  Are you sure you’re all right, President Riggs?

JMR:  I’m fine, darling. Come to think of it though, my chest is hurting a little bit…

 One brave student captured what MAY BE a picture of that mysterious flying object…