Several weeks ago, I happened to stop by the Colgate Inn, pick up a copy of the Colgate Ma­roon-News, and find your column “Minus the City.” I was deeply saddened. In my work with high-risk kids, I read a lot of studies about where this kind of behavior comes from and it is primar­ily because of too much media, too little parent­ing and/or addictions to alcohol, drugs and/or pornography. The American culture has become a deadly concoction for far too many people and we are seeing the results in headline after headline of scandals which are destroying families, homes, careers and businesses. We are also witnesses to such horrors as the one that was on the news re­cently of the disappearance of the college-age niece of a friend of mine in Syracuse. Is this really what Colgate students want for their futures?

The Harry Potter saga is hardly what one could label great literature, but it does contain elements of what constitutes every great story – universal truths. Harry is the hero of this story because he is loyal, brave, true and willing to sacrifice himself for his friends. He understands real love. People in ev­ery culture and in every age recognize and admire those qualities as being heroic.

“Minus the City” unfortunately, seems to be try­ing to glorify the exact opposite of heroic behavior. One has to wonder, why is it in the Maroon-News? Is it a good reflection on an elite college? Is this a glimpse into the lives of typical Colgate students? Will it inspire confidence in future employers,customers, consumers or patrons?

In the real world, we have witnessed the top­pling of even such icons as Tiger Woods, Al Gore, John Edwards and Chris Brown, essentially for the kind of behavior you immortalize on the Internet and in print in “Minus the City.”

Sex and the City is a fable created to line the pockets of jaded moguls. To try to imitate it is neither practical nor wise, and to broadcast such behavior? Colgate students, parents, faculty, administration and alums should be the judges.

It is interesting to note that when we parents get letters about the “Passion for the Climb,” or from the Parents Fund, or copies of The Colgate Scene that we never, ever hear about the “extra­curriculars” being touted on campus. College is a breath away from being in the workplace. Colgate is supposed to be grooming future leaders. Should this not be causing someone out there some concern? People who speak so callously about other human beings are not funny and there is little hope that they will mature into thoughtful, responsible adults either.

Ninety percent of all cohabiting adults break up. Children raised in single parent homes are more likely to live in poverty, and have physi­cal, mental, emotional and academic problems. Multiple intimate partners are the reason for the STD/STI epidemic that is sweeping the nation. Twenty-Five percent of all adults by the age of 25 had or have a sexually-transmitted disease, many of which are symptomless or uncurable, some of which can be transmitted to unborn children. They cause cancers, HIV/AIDS, herpes, infertili­ty etc. More than 40 percent of all college women have abortions. Abortions raise the risk of breast cancer by 193 percent, increase the likelihood of premature birth for future children and can cause infertility. There are many mental and emotional consequences as well, not the least of which is in men who have multiple intimate partners. They suffer a gradual destruction of the male bonding mechanism, resulting in the inability to form an attachment to anyone.

There are a lot of people making a lot of money in promoting a profligate lifestyle to the Ameri­can public. But, at least at the moment, we have the ability to make our own choices in life. Those choices will be the basis of our futures as well as that of America. Hopefully, Colgate students will at least take into consideration where some of their present decisions may be leading them.