Up in smoke. UMass Boston has suspended Michael Rhys, editor-in-chief of the Mass Media, the student newspaper, on a pot-smoking allegation. Needless to say, this is idiotic, but typical of the puritanical atmosphere that prevails in college campuses today.

The Mass Media's report on the suspension makes a compelling case that the administration doesn't even have any authority over the paper. But that didn't stop the just-say-no crowd from making an example out of Rhys.

Needless to say, Rhys's one-month suspension is a far heavier punishment than anything UMass president Bill Bulger received when he refused to testify before a congressional committee last year. On that occasion, the university board all but nominated him for a Nobel Prize.