Class, take your seats. The bell has rung; school is in session. Our first lesson of the year will be on Heroes and Villains. A hero is someone who does something good, like help people fix their mistakes after they’ve had unprotected sex. A villain is someone who does something bad, like rape or murder.

To help understand the difference between Heroes and Villains, we will use some examples from recent news. Be sure to write all of this down — there will be a test at the end.

Insulting an innocent person when he or she is in a period of mourning is usually considered a VILLAINOUS act. Ann Coulter ’84 made headlines this summer when she VILLAINOUSLY commented that several New Jersey wives of 9/11 victims behaved as if the attacks had happened only to them. The VILLAINOUSLY deranged Coulter said that she had never seen people so enjoy the death of their husbands. She also suggested that some of them could have been on the brink of divorce prior to the attacks. Coulter is a VILLAIN.

President Skorton is a HERO. In response to a VILLAINOUS campaign of rape and murder by the janjaweed militia in the Darfur region of the Sudan, Skorton is HEROICALLY selectively divesting from Sudan. He has barred investments of its endowment assets in oil companies currently operating in the country, whose VILLAINOUS government has killed thousands over the last three years.

The Food and Drug Administration HEROICALLY approved over-the-counter sales of the “morning-after” pill yesterday. The pill, known as Plan B, is an emergency contraceptive manufactured by Barr Laboratories that essentially serves as a method of immediate abortion. Opponents say the switch to over-the-counter status may lead to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, but we say, HEROIC work, FDA!

Sometimes a situation can be both HEROIC and VILLAINOUS. In that case, we call it VILLAINOUSLY-HEROIC. Take, for example, the magazine U.S. News & World Report. Every year, the VILLAINOUSLY-HEROIC U.S. News & World Report ranks major research universities and liberal arts colleges across the country. And just like that, image-conscious attendees and alumni of schools nationwide are basing their self-worth on how many centimeters down the page their alma mater appears. It’s a VILLAINOUS phenomenon they’ve created, especially when one considers that no set of criteria can truly compare one school to the next.

But assuming we have to live in a US News & World Report world — and we do — then we might as well call them HEROIC this week, as Cornell finally moved up the rankings for the 2006 edition. That’s right, kids — this little vocabulary lesson is coming from attendees of a school that is no longer 13th best in the country, but 12th! (Knowing Cornell’s ranking will count for extra credit on the quiz.)

And if the US News & World Report college edition is of any importance to anyone, then a true HERO of the week is Cornell News Service’s Blaine Friedlander, who was crucial in making Cornell one of three colleges profiled in the issue. Thanks to Friedlander, prospective college students reading the mag will see some of the strengths of the Big Red not otherwise captured by the rankings.

Well, class is just about over and that should be enough examples of Heroes and Villains. Now everybody take out a pen and paper.