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Valentine's Day, 2001 (Reuters)-- The Minister of Propaganda for the Fayerweather Liberation Army released the following statement to the press early this morning: "Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the information purification directives.

The Fayerweather Liberation Army, the military wing of the Fayerweather Liberation Front, announces an immediate and unconditional call to arms. Our conditions are as follows:

*The Abolition of the Brebner Reading Room and its immediate replacement with a 24 hour massage parlor.

*The creation of a free limo service from Butler Library to the SoHa pub from 5 PM to 4 AM.

*Socialization of "Tom's Coffee Shop" in the Fayerweather basement, the immediate removal of all architecture and art history students, and the installation of a dozen self-service kegs of imported beer.

*You know those Twilight Zone study cubicles on the top floor of the library? Batting Cages, man!!

*The establishment of a mandatory, bi-annual, fully funded "research" retreat in the virgin islands.

*The annual generation evaluations and arbitrary rankings to determine "who's hot and who's not" among Columbia's faculty.

*Free dry-cleaning for all Columbia Graduate Students.

Our Demands grow in number every day. Should you have a demand you think is important, let us know.

Gold Star: I rather like the abolition of grades suggestion made by the Minister of Recreation (goldstars dispensed for snappy remarks, seems a bit over the top). But how are students "evaluated and ranked (against each other?)" Is some arcane statistical formula used to create power rankings? Is an RPI factored in? Maybe a regular feature of the CHR could be power rankings, a professors' poll, or a "who's hot or who's not" listing. Why keep these unique facets of "education" in the closet? Let us celebrate arbitrary rankings. We could even earn extra rating points for "snappy" comments (instead of those gold stars).

All is One: As Heraclitus, in his first fragment from "On the Universe," noted: "It is wise...to confess that all things are one." i.e., performance in the first-year (and overall) is a multifaceted animal, and every facet and contour necesarily comprises the totality of one' performance as an evaluative concept. We may have all our various and assorted lacunae, but such is the nature of the game. The discussion here has centered on outward manifestation of the underlying matter at hand.