Thursday, November 18 12:00 AM ET

Ents Protest Stanford University Mascot

Palo Alto, CA - TreeBeard, the President of the Entish Society for the Promotion of Arboreal Justice (ESPAJ), announced today a formal protest against Stanford University for the school band's use of a California Redwood as the unofficial school mascot.

"The Stanford band's use of a tree as a mascot is a complete and utter blasphemy against the prayer of Yavanna that created the Ents," said TreeBeard in a recent press release. "Every being in Fangorn forest -- from the mightiest conifer to the lowliest acorn -- stands united in our opposition to this egregious degradation of our branched brotherhood."

Other trees are less vocal about the official ESPAJ stance. "I wouldn't mind the Tree mascot so much if Stanford's basketball team had lived up to their expectations during the 2004 NCAA Basketball Tournament," said TermiteSlayer, a fellow Ent. "Instead, they took a nose dive in the second round, so I simply stopped following them. They screwed up my whole bracket, and I lost a lot of money in Vegas on 'em, those bastards."

As an alternative, TreeBeard suggested that Stanford should extend the school's official color, the Cardinal, to replace the band's offensive Tree mascot. "The color Cardinal has represented the school well since 1981 without offense or incident," said TreeBeard.

Xylyx, a hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional shade of red distantly descended from the Hoovooloo of the Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy fame, strongly disagrees with TreeBeard's proposal. "The noble history of the visible spectrum, comprised of diverse wavelengths of various backgrounds, should not be exploited for the exclusive gain of the lucrative arena of college athletics," said Xylyx. "If he does not recant his stated position, then photons of all frequencies will band together and boycott photosynthesis as a show of solidarity against TreeBeard's absurd and offensive proposition."