A couple of things:

First, and most definitely foremost, thank you cold weather.

I’m not fond of the chill, the snot-filled noses, the wind-burned cheeks, the frost-bitten hands, the great mitten hunts in the morning or the primal roommate begging process for rides to class, mind you.

But you’ve gotta like the fact that good-morning-to-you-too Arctic air has kicked the crap out of that vicious campus stench that engulfed our little university last week.

What exactly was that odor anyway? It wouldn’t have been so bad had the wind not shoved it up your nose like Mom did that cotton swab.

I tried looking for answers at the National Institute for Nasty Smelling Things Other Than Cow and Roommate Flatulence yesterday, but being a government agency, the Feces Whiff Division of the NINSTOTCRF was shut down.

The recording said the agency had already gotten several calls from Ames, and the agency’s top odor identifiers would be in town first thing Tuesday morning. Today, you see, is Veteran’s Day, a government holiday.

I tried telling the answering machine — a lesson in futility in itself — that we didn’t have the luxury of taking the day off, that we were doomed without a NINSTOTCRF disaster declaration.

The only comfort I got was when I dialed “3” for “Precautions in the event of an odor emergency.”

Suggestions included wearing the mitten you can’t find over your nose, getting a ride to class to avoid the odor altogether or — here’s where I breathed a sigh of relief — staying indoors until cold weather hits.

I guess it’s a scientific fact, discovered at the NINSTOTCRF of course, that most foul-smelling odor cells can’t survive on a college campus in temperatures below 40 degrees. This is why you don’t want to go to school in Florida.

Second, now that I’ve exposed the hottest issue on campus, how about them dorm doors?

Last week the Inter-Residence Hall Association unanimously passed a resolution calling for a new policy that would allow residents to decorate their doors, with some restrictions. That’s to be commended. I wish the measure went further.

We’re not talking about national security or save-the-world type stuff here. But what we have goes to the heart of who we are as citizens of a democracy, one which embraces free speech as the standard.

We’ve been weaned on the notion that the freedom to speak our minds is what makes us productive men and women. The university’s policy banning literally anything from dorm doors restricts that autonomy.

The policy stems from a dorm resident who posted Nazi symbols on his door a few years back. It’s my view that only a twisted mind would welcome Nazi ideology. It’s also my view that that twisted mind absolutely has the right to do so.

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” There it is.

It’s black and white in the First Amendment. It says nothing about “comfortable speech,” about “acceptable” speech, about “mainstream” speech, about “traditional” speech.

As subjects in the great American experiment we are duty bound to protect the Nazi’s right to put a swastika on his dorm door.

We are duty bound to protect the Communist’s right to burn an American flag in front of the White House.

University officials no doubt believe they’ve found the proper legal loopholes that allow them to ban free speech on a dorm door. But even if today’s judicial machine makes it legal, it cannot make it right.

I hope the IRHA resolution makes it through whatever university channels it needs to pass to take hold. But make no mistake, it is also an affront to the First Amendment.

According to the proposal, “materials found to be offensive to groups or individuals” can be removed by a simple one-fourth vote of house members present.

All it takes to suppress free speech at an institution of higher learning, one which is designed to be open, to be inclusive, to be a model of spirit and expression, is 25 percent.

Pretty good odds.

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Chris Miller is a senior in journalism mass communication from Marshalltown.