The final word, “Testicles,” had barely left President Hennessy’s lips before he was trying to explain himself. “No one understands the context of this announcement,” he yelled over the chorus of shouting reporters, “I’ll have to go back to the beginning.”
“I was sick with shame,” he said as the crowd settled somewhat. “I couldn’t stand to be seen in public.
Do you know what it’s like to be the president of a university whose motto is Die Luft der Freiheit weht? I mean—oh. That translates to ‘The Wind of Freedom Blows’ for you plebs.”
Hennessey began the story of his painful experience in intellectual circles. His fellow elite had been remarkably immature, snickering every time Hennessey spoke and occasionally calling out, “What’s that, Windbag? Does freedom issue forth from that blowhole?”
“That,” declared Hennessey, “is when I thought, ‘You know what? The wind of freedom does blow. We can live under the oppression of antediluvian German intellectuals and their damned catchphrases no longer.’”
He then immediately contacted the Design School and had them form a focus group of all the unopinionated but money-hungry students checking their university e-mails at 1 am. The participants, after an hour of overcoming intensive apathy, yielded surprising results.
Twenty-five percent favored “Knowledge is Good” for the new motto, twenty-three percent expressed an interest in “something in Latin, like those other schools,” and ten percent vaguely felt a sick and unnatural desire to “go with German again.” A solid fifty-two percent, however, staunchly supported “The Light Breeze of Liberty Tickles My Testicles.”
Hennessey admitted to mixed feelings at first. “I was horrified,” he said, “This was ten times worse than our original motto, but what could I do? Defy the focus group? Go against democracy? And then I realized—‘The Wind of Freedom Blows’ was embarrassing only because it was an accident, an inheritance of a bad translation. But this? ‘The Light Breeze of Liberty Tickles My Testicles?
’ This is a choice. This is ballsy.”
