With all the discussion in this space about ways to improve this great University, I’d like to provide my own perspective on Stanford and help, in my own little private way, in building a better community to serve the United States and the entire world at large.

As I see it, this institution has been taking a turn for the worse, slowly but surely leading to the brink of collapse for the entire nation, perhaps. The problem here is not a lack of moral standards at Stanford, but quite the opposite. Maybe an example will help me explain what I mean. Let’s talk about the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

Where did they actually go? Why did they die off, leaving us a trail of old bones, tough questions, and a whole slew of entertaining but amazingly stupid movies? Being the scholar that I am, I’m going to put in my own two cents.

I know you’ve all heard this before but, with the future of Stanford University in mind, the theory takes a whole new importance. Long ago, in the grand age of dinosaurs, the forces of Darwininan evolution were doing their thing; there were girl dinosaurs and boy dinosaurs, and, of course, there was sex. But I have seen proof that dinosaurs didn’t just mate, smoke and run, like more primitive life forms, but loved. Loved with a passion. Loved with a fire that burned deep inside. Well, the inevitable happened.

I call it the Most Vicious Circle. Let me demonstrate it this way:

Rex is in love with Sally in love with Barney in love with Dino (a distinct possibility) in love with Pterry in love with Ronnie in love with Madonna in love with… (sort of like the “begat” thing, huh?)… in love with Hillary in love with Rex. Everyone was in love with someone else, encompassing the entire species. And because of the impeccable moral fiber of dinosaurs, demonstrated by the complete lack of any divorce records or paternity suits, everyone lived in an interminable Hell of pathetic unrequited love.

Excuse me. I have to go blow my nose.

What happened next is still unclear. The two leading theories coming out of the Department of Paleontology are (prepare to take notes): 1) All the dinosaurs died a lonely, miserable, woefully heartbroken, never one mating to continue the line, or 2) On Valentine’s Day, an unfortunately gloomy day all over the world, each dinosaur took its own life, leaving us a huge mass of suicide notes and pitiful love poems, fond, cataloged, hidden and the destroyed to protect us from the truth by the US government (though some were fond in Elizabethan England).

Apparently, small mammals, on the other hand, raised in an environment of less moral guidance and restraint, felt free to take complete advantage of the emotions of their warm-blooded companions. Minnie, though in love with Mickey, settled and slept with the ever-willing and droopy-eyed Stuart. The rest is history.

And with all great theories of science, this theory transcends the boundaries of just paleontology. Highly dignified, often-bought-but-never-read journals have published papers claiming that this exact effect accounts for the fall of the great Roman Empire, the disapperance of the city of Atlantis, and the slow but steady deterioration of the case of “Saturday Night Live” and the New York Mets. And also like all great theories, this one must be studied, understood and considered for the future.

So, my advice to Stanford University, kindergarten of the future leaders of the world, is NOT to make the same mistakes of the past, but to learn and to grow from the knowledge.

And remember: if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.