America loves fads.

According to Peter Buck, guitarist for the rock band R.E.M., and Jefferson Holt, the band’s manager, no one remembers little memorabilia like the Edsel, Nehru jackets, hula-hoops and celebrity bowling.

More than that, look at the comics. Someday, Bart Simpson will be on the re-run circuit with “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Or Doonesbury, the hip comic of the ‘70s, was replaced by Bloom County, the hip comic of the ’80s, which was replaced by….Calvin and Hobbes?

Yes, Calvin and Hobbes, the tales of a six-year-old precocious brat and his stuffed tiger that comes to life when no one else is around. A seemingly harmless comic, it’s nothing like the social and political satire popularized by Doonesbury and Bloom County.

But last week it made more of a comment than cartoonist Bill Watterson likely intended. Here’s what happened: at a meeting of GROSS (Get Rid of Slimy girlS), Calvin decided that he and Hobbes should kidnap the doll of Susie, Calvin’s neighborhood nemesis. It was an easy way to make some money and bug Susie.

So the two GROSS men kidnapped the doll, sent Susie a ransom note and waited. But the ever clever Susie kidnapped Hobbes in the process. In the end, Calvin was forced to return Susie’s doll and pay ransom for Hobbes. Oops.

Relations already were strained between the two, yet Calvin’s actions served only to inflame matters. And look who lost.

It’s time to switch gears, because it’s sometimes funny how art imitates life. In a time of tension on campus, spurred by the murders of five University of Florida students in Gainesville, college students everywhere are feeling the security pinch. Students there are buying shootin‘ arms like NIU students buy kegs.

The rate of students scrambling home on weekends there makes NIU—which some of those “Choose a College” books call a suitcase campus—appear like the place to be on weekends.

And although Florida is in a bottom corner of the United States, it’s hard to deny that some sick serial killer running around a college campus doesn’t strike some sort of fear into students on any campus. It does.

So it was probably a badly-timed move on the part of the NIU student who two weeks ago claimed she was raped. The unidentified student told police she was raped in Katz Park.

The fear of rape, attack and sexual assault flooded NIU. The Sexaul Assault Response Team whirred into operation. All of a sudden, it was time to worry about rape again.

But then police decided she was lying. The whole rape charge was a hoax, they said. The police thought they might press charges against the woman for falsely reporting a rape. So far, nothing’s happened.

And while NIU was able to breathe a guarded breath of relief, the vision of a helpless student in a dark secluded area remained. Was there a chance of another Gainseville here in DeKalb?

Thankfully, no. But hopefully the lesson sunk in: don’t stir up the pot when it’s already boiled over. Just ask Calvin.