Last night, my OTR editor brought to my attention a September 23rd post on the Daily Pennsylvanian’s opinion blog entitled “Best Places to Kill Yourself on Campus.” Basically, the post suggests that it’s “too hard” to kill yourself at Penn and offers four ways to get the job done (including jumping off the top of the newly-built Radian).

Now, it’s pretty clear that I am sarcasm’s Number One Fan (read any of my posts, literally). I try to squeeze in a bit of ironic cynicism in most everything that I write, and I do realize that the author of the post, Will Steinberger, wasn’t being serious with his “pro-suicide” claims.

It’s very difficult to keep one’s balance on the line between facetious and inappropriate, and I think that Steinberger unfortunately stumbled onto the side of the latter. Suicide is obviously not something to joke about, especially on a college campus full of stressed and over-worked students. It takes pretty poor judgment to apply such a blatantly glib attitude to something that’s a true and quite possible tragedy.

The opinion post was particularly tasteless considering the fact that a girl attempted to jump off the roof of the Fresh Grocer on 40th and Walnut last fall, which only proves how real and awful suicide is.

My principle worry is that truly depressed students could potentially take Steinberger’s “comical” list seriously.

So on that note, if you are worried about any of your friends (or yourself), don’t hesitate to call Penn’s suicide prevention hotline (215-686-4420) or seek counseling from CAPS at 36th and Walnut (215-898-7021).

And please try to take the DP’s suicide post with as many grains of salt as you can find (an entire shaker of salt would be preferable).