A while back, we had a guy on campus – in one of the public spaces – with a sign proclaiming that the earth was flat.

I don’t know if the same guy was back or if it was a different nutjob, but there was a guy in front of our building with two signs – claiming the moon landing was fake.  

He had a couple of people in front of him as I walked past on my way to lunch and a bigger crowd when I went past again on my way back. 

As I walked past, shaking my head, I heard him quote the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Californication”

Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement

as apparently a further justificaiton of his beliefs. Seriously.

I clapped my hand to my forehead and shook my head with disgust and quickly went on my way.

When I got back to my office, two of my coworkers told me they had been out on the balcony trying to hear what he was saying – and saw me being completely disgusted from three stories away.

Apparently, I was not at all hiding my feelings.

And, it really got to me.  I’ve managed to mostly ignore the Jehovah’s Witness folks that lurk near the student union, avoid the flat earthers, and tune out the anti-abortion shouters – but this hit me harder than usual.

We’ve spent the past year working on a rebranding and relaunch of our website to try and make it more engaging.  We want students with fresh ideas and big dreams to come to our school and go on to have successful lives and adventures.   It’s about knowledge and science and art – and this idiot has to set up shop right outside my office to spout the dumbest kind of misinformation.

He should have been ignored.  And I kinda wanted to punch him.

But I managed to do neither.

So he’ll be back until he runs out of steam or finally is disruptive enough that he gets kicked off of campus.  

Which can’t be soon enough for me.  There’s enough misinformation in the world – I’d like at least one place to be a place of information and education.