I think the end of the world may be near.

Not that I’m some kind of religious fanatic, mind you. It’s just that some of the things that have happened over the summer simply defy any explanation except divine intervention (or possibly grotesque stupidity). It’s sort of God’s way of telling us to tie up any loose ends we may have and get ready for Armageddon.

For example, the Rhode Island courts decided this summer to uphold an 1896 law that makes sodomy and oral sex, between heterosexuals or homosexuals, a felony punishable by seven to 20 years in prison. This is so far from making sense that it has to be a sign of the apocalypse.

The idea that any consenting act between two adults in their own home could be illegal is ridiculous. And how is this law enforced? Is there a special division of the Rhode Island state patrol that peeps in people’s windows? Maybe some kind of hot line people who aren’t getting any can call to rat on their neighbors?

The fact is that this law was probably never intended to be enforced. It is a thinly veiled attack on homosexuality and has no place in state law books or in our society.

Now think about this for a minute. Let’s say a man in Rhode Island voluntarily commits the act of sodomy. He is caught, convicted and sent to prison, where the sodomy is, shall we say, not always voluntary. Irony can be pretty ironic.

Another court decision that defies all logic is the Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for mandatory drug testing of high school and junior high athletes.

Once again, the Court is endorsing the notion that if you’re not old enough to vote; you just don’t matter. The Court decided that the “War on Drugs” is more important than the rights of young United States citizens.

And as if the decision itself wasn’t bad enough, Lee Brown, a White House assistant, called the decision “a victory for kids.”

As if students all over the country were dancing in the streets and cheering, “Oh, happy day! I get to pee in a cup!”

The court ruled that a school officials don’t even need to suspect a student of drug use to test them. Who is this benefiting? Drug testing wouldn’t have made much of a difference at my high school because beer and chewing tobacco don’t show up on a urine test. The kids who are really into drugs are most likely not the athletes.

Having to give a urine sample at school would probably be stressful for many junior high or high school students. But the court ruled that the testing conditions, meaning having to urinate with other people around would not be unlike what you would expect to find in a public restroom.

I’ve been in many public restrooms in my day, but I have never seen anyone handing out Dixie Cups and taking samples. Well, maybe once, but I think that guy was just starting a collection.

Here’s something else that doesn’t make any sense. While flipping through the paper one day, I came across a story in which a member of our beloved state Board of Regents (I wish I could find the story to figure out who it was) said the three regent universities in Iowa should just stop asking for more money every year, because they don’t have any to give. This, frankly, was not a surprise, because the regents’ favorite budgetary policy is to combine a cut in services for students with a tuition increase. They do it every year.

Now this is the weird part. Farther back in the paper that same day, I saw the smiling face of Martin Jischke accompanied by a story about how the board of regents had just voted to give him a 4.3 percent raise, making his salary $190,000 per year.

It’s strange how the board can’t find more money for students, but they were able to scrape up enough to give our president a raise.

I’m certainly not implying that Jischke doesn’t deserve to make $190,000 per year ( I actually wrote that with a straight face) and quality administrators require a competitive salary, or else they’ll go somewhere else.

But I think a president who is truly worth having would be willing to earn a little less to work in a state where the students are the first priority.

Since these things cannot be explained logically, you, too, may now be convinced that the end is near. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bounce checks all over town. Pretty soon, it won’t matter anyway.

Steven Martens is a junior in Journalism Mass Communication from Cedar Rapids.