Punishing the Fools

It has always been the goal of the Harvard Lampoon to be the laughingstock of campus. And these days, they are doing remarkably well.

The semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occassionaly publish a so-called humor magazine is in hot water with the fire department and the Harvard police for repeated fire code violations this month, the latest coming after the Cambridge Fire Department caught 'Poonsters starting a fire inside their own building. And what were they burning? A newspaper. Imagine that.

It's hard not to feel bad for Stephen C. Hely '02, the Lampoon's president, who now may face charges of arson and criminal negligence, not to mention disciplinary action from the College. The Cambridge Fire Department (CFD), fed up with repeated calls to the Lampoon and the organization's arrogant response to requests they bring their building up to code, seems intent on throwing the book at Hely. There have been 13 calls to the Lampoon so far this year, up from "only" 10 all of last year, and the police, the fire department and the Lampoon's neighbors have had enough. There is even an outside possibility that the city will seek to evict the Lampoon from the castle is has occupied for 90 years.

The Lampoon's conduct is inexcusable, certainly. The editors of the magazine seem to believe that their building is a privileged enclave where they can harass their neighbors and break the law with impunity. Adams House residents have had to deal with loud parties at the Lampoon all semester. The magazine staff, presumably all decent people, have nevertheless been incredibly inconsiderate to their neighbors, and only after Associate Dean David P. Illingworth '71 met with Hely did the Lampoon quiet their parties.

And yet, while the Lampoon has certainly provoked the fire department, punishing the president of the Lampoon for burning a copy of The Crimson seems comically unfair. It would be like telling a bird not to sing.

It is perhaps unprecedented for The Crimson to say this, but we hope the city and the College treat the Lampoon with some leniency. The Lampoon claims that the repeated false alarms at the castle have been due to a faulty fire alarm. (Although, of course, that wouldn't explain the burnt newspaper the fire investigator found after the May 16 call to the 'Poon.) The Lampoon's current predicament is funny, in a hapless, pathetic kind of way, but their antics aren't so grave that the editor of the magazine deserves to have a police record for arson for the rest of his life. A criminal prosecution in an attempt to make an example out of Hely and the 'Poonsters is neither warranted nor necessary.

Perhaps the fire department's threats will scare the magazine's staffers into acting like responsible neighbors and members of the community in the future. We hope so; the rest of campus would be thankful if it does.