There was a Jesus freak standing in the middle of the Diag at noon today railing against secular humanism and the evils of going to college, getting an education, and “getting ahead,” which he described as self-serving folly and as a sure road to hell. Sounded exactly like every line I was fed by fundie churches and fringe cults in my teenage years. I never understood how becoming an itinerant missionary and eschewing an undergraduate degree (and thus not being able to get a job and support myself) was supposed to fulfill God’s plan.

Somewhat incongruously, his gigantic hand-painted sign advertising Christ’s blood sacrifice was colored in garish shades of blue and maize.

It’s somewhat heartening in the midst of all of the media-fueled speculation about the political and philosophical leanings of today’s youth to see that some college kids are still just old-fashioned loud-mouthed lunkheaded party animals who live to throw monkey wrenches into the proceedings. When the preacher man was getting to the best part of his stemwinder about the evils of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, a couple of frat boys wandering by roared “HELL YEAH!” at the top of their lungs and pumped their fists in the air.