Artists' conception of Harvard's new gas-free Allston campus

All Nature Rejoices

HARVARD TO CUT
EMISSIONS OF GAS

By Charles van Doren
Education Editor

ALLSTON, Mass. –  Like Hedley Lamarr, Harvard University sees only one obstacle standing in the way of achieving its visions of grandeur for lowly Allston, Mass.: the rightful inhabitants.

With Harvard unable to bulldoze any more land in flossy Cambridge, it's quietly assembled several hundred acres of land on the wrong side of the Charles (that's Allston) by purchasing it on the sly from poor, dumb schmucks like Boston University and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

Despite Harvard's position that it never needs no stinkin' badges to erect whatever monstrosity it chooses to inflict on the locals (and Allston certainly must be enjoying the Pyongyang Revival Graduate Housing looming over Soldiers' Field Road), apparently not everyone in the City of Boston agrees.

So, before Harvard can build its three million square feet of laboratories, offices, dormitories and other civic adornments, it needs to make some token gesture to appease the locals.  New housing for Allstonians?  Maybe a park or two? Free admission for Allston kids? A decent downtown? Where the f*** do you think you are – New Haven?

No, in its wisdom (isn't that how it does everything?), Harvard has promised Allston that in exchange for building an impenetrable fortress of academic and research facilities, Harvard will agree to cut its gas emissions, by 50% or more.

In particular, Harvard will take steps to ensure that its most dangerous gas emitters never set foot in Allston, including ex-President Larry "the Ladies' Man" Summers, Professor Harvey "Manly" Mansfield and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (who may soon be distracted by some lucrative legal business in the Las Vegas Criminal Court).

"By keeping these huge sources of hot air out of Allston, we will reduce our production of noxious gases by over fifty percent," vowed Harvard Vice President for Community Demolition [Surely, Development? – Ed.] Robert Moses.

"They will be replaced by soft-spoken researchers and hard science nerds who emit virtually nothing, other than the level-five biohazards they are busily splicing at their lab benches," Moses added.

But Boston authorities aren't satisfied by the University's promises.  They note that Harvard has made no commitment regarding notorious psychology gasbag Harold "Stinker" [Surely, Steven? – Ed.] Pinker or the prolifically sincere Dr. Lenny Groopman.  "It doesn't do any good to keep Mansfield from pouring out hot air if other emission 'hot spots' are allowed to set up shop in Allston," complained the well-spoken Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino.

And Harvard's promise to keep Allston gas-free has not gone over well in Cambridge, perpetually choking on the hot air constantly pumped into the already-overheated atmosphere by hundreds of overinflated Harvard gasbags. "Why should we have to put up with Mansfield?  Maybe Harvard should move him somewhere where he can't harm the environment further, like Belmont," said Cambridge City Councilor Al Velluci XVII, the latest in the Vellucid dynasty to reign over Cambridge city government.

Moses, however, has pointed out to Cambridge's town fathers (and mothers) that by substituting the virtually emission-free Drew Faust for Zeppelin-sized gasbag Larry Summers in Massachusetts Hall, Harvard has already cut gas emissions over Cambridge by 35%.  "That should hold the bastards a little longer," Moses diplomatically told the Spy.