Sachs Machine
W ith the coming of spring—the season of rebirth—we are again reminded of the beauty of nature but also of the fragility of our earth. Global warming, acid rain, Hannah Montana—these all pose a grave threat to the environment. And yet even at Columbia, we sometimes take this ecosystem for granted. Also there is a lot of poverty and stuff in the world. But one man, one sexy, sexy man, is changing all that. Jeffrey Sachs, economist, playboy, whiffleball champion, and, now, advocate for a sustainable future, sat down with The Eye last week for an excellent lead story on the work he’s doing. Due to the rousing success of the article, this week, the humor section sat down with Sachs to ask him some burning questions in an exclusive (mock) interview.
eye: Top of the morning, professor!
js: Good morning.
eye: So, Jeff, do you have a nickname you’d prefer we use?
js: My friends call me “JStar,” because I am a star, and my first name starts with a “J.”
eye: Fascinating. We hear so much about all the work you do on sustainable development and poverty and all, but what’s it like to be Jeff Sachs?
js: Pulchritudinous! I am pulchritudinous. It’s fantastic. Sometimes, after heroically pulling an entire village out of poverty with my bare hands, I just get this tremendous rush, and I tear off my shirt to reveal my bulging, well-oiled pectoral muscles.
eye: Wow! That’s awesome! All that good work you do must make you pretty damn irresistible to the womenfolk.
js: Do you have some duct tape?
eye: Uh, let me look, uh—
js: Because I am ripped. (Sachs rolls up his sleeves and flexes his massive biceps.) Actually, I do get a tremendous amount of action, but I rarely hear ladies saying, “Oh Jeff, it’s so hot what you’re doing to alleviate poverty and the cycle of underdevelopment and de-development in the third world.” They mostly just want a piece of this sculpted bod.
eye: Did “shock therapy” destroy Russia’s economy?
js: Shock therapy! That’s ridiculous! What is that like from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? I’m going to end poverty. Even if I have to fight a pack of ravenous hyenas, I will end poverty. I don’t know “shock therapy.”
eye: I see. So you destroyed Russia’s economy?
js: Yeah, OK, but it was pretty messed up already. Besides, it was more of a youthful mistake. I mean, I was only 40. As I like to say, when Mozart was 40, he’d already been dead for eight years. Wait, that sort of contradicts what I was saying. Still, it’s catchy.
eye: Very true, sir. Anyway, our little interview hourglass is running low on sand, so we should probably wrap this one up. Final question: In a cage match between you and Bono, who would win?
js: Are you kidding? I’d shove my shoe so far up his Dubliner ass, he’d be shitting Jeffrey Sachs’ wingtips for a week. \\\