Dear Morrie

This letter doesn’t have much to do with finance but I’m very disturbed about something and I don’t know anyone else to ask.
I am a first-year commerce and economics student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
I am writing on behalf of my fellow students to see if you can redress a horrible wrong.
Recently I found out that the student union at uni had banned the newspaper for which you write, The Bug.
I was shocked and made some enquiries.
It appears certain people in the union claim your publication is “sexist, racist and homophobic”. Can you believe it?
I look forward to reading your column each edition as I believe you are the only financial commentator with any sensible thoughts to offer.
All those wankers in the Murdoch press are too busy talking up the News Ltd share price to even bother considering what is going on in the real world.
You always make perfect sense to me and my classmates. You put theory into action and show us how it works.
Put simply, we need you Morrie if we are to graduate with anything more than a useless, text-book knowledge of the world of high finance.
What can we do to get you back on campus?

Distressed
St Lucia

Dear Distressed

Thanks for your letter and your very kind thoughts.
I’m most grateful for the sentiments you’ve expressed on behalf of your fellow students.
I must say I hadn’t caught up on the news about the ban.
But then again, I’ve been hopping faster than a frog at a yum cha, stitching up a few nice little deals with some Indonesians interests.
To be quite frank, I didn’t realise I had such a following among youngsters like you.
It just goes to show, doesn’t it? The old Morrie can’t always pick ‘em.
I always thought you kids out at the uni were only interested in was techno music, drugs and getting in each other's pants – if you’ll pardon the lingo.
Admittedly, I have based my previous assessment on the academic record of my wife’s daughter by a previous marriage. A few years ago Sophie enrolled at uni in something called women’s studies.
Next thing she moved out of home and shacked up with some sheila 10 years her senior.
Turns out she was one of her classmates – a mature age student, no less.
The old bag used to follow her over to our place when Sophie would deign to visit her poor mum and stepdad.
Icy bloody visits they were, I’ll give you the tip.
The old sheila – dressed all in black like a Greek widow and wearing sunglasses whatever the bloody time of day – would just sit on our red velour Graceland lounge suite and look down her beak at us.
Hardly said a bloody word except to Sophie – and that was always: “Let’s go.”
This went on for a year or more, then bugger me if Sophie didn’t tell her mother and me on Christmas Eve that she was “coming out”.
Seems her and the old bat had been doing a bit of home renovating – working the old tongue and groove and mowing the lawn, if you get my drift.
This came as a bit of shock to her mother and me – especially since Sophie had – according to other parents in the neighbourhood - given a creditable impersonation of the village Malvern Star while still at high school.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against lebanese. In fact there’s a pair of them that put on a pretty decent routine at my club. And most blokes I know get turned on by the thought of two sheilas chowing down on a fish taco.
Incidentally, they’re still together – in India doing a PhD in something bloody useless.
They’re even talking about having a baby. Christ knows how they’ll do it. Whip out the old turkey baster I suppose.
I still believe young Sophie would not have turned out the way she did if the old bag hadn’t led her astray – she harassed the poor girl and poisoned her mind until it wasn’t her own.
I always said to the little woman that Sophie wasn’t thinking for herself, the old sheila was doing it for her.
The unthinking bastards who’ve slapped this ban on this publication are just as bad.
Decent kids like you and your chums shouldn’t have to put up with other people telling you what you can and can’t read.
To answer your question, I reckon the key is to regain control over your own lives, to stop the sort of harassment that led young Sophie off the straight and narrow.
I’m so committed to your freedom of expression – and mine – that I’ve started a new group to agitate for greater freedom of speech and for young kiddies like you and your mates to shake off the heavy hand of those who want you to fit into their way of thinking.
But, like any organisation that sets out to change the world for the better, it needs a pretty big cash injection to get off the ground.
So if you, or your parents can afford to donate a few hundred or a few thousand, it’ll make our work a lot easier.
So dig deep and send in as much as you can afford. Send cheques because I want everything to be above board.
Make them out to Campaign Against Student Harassment.
Bugger it, to save your time and mine, just make it out to CASH.
I’ll be in touch.

Morrie

Morrie Bezzle is registrar of Oxford University (Tasmania) Pty Ltd, principal of the Laurie Connell College and in 1992 received an honorary doctorate in business ethics from Bond University.