Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1997/05/28/week_in_review.php
Wednesday, May 28, 1997
Commencement Speaker Announced
Only two weeks before graduation, the College has announced that Dartmouth alum Paavo Lipponen'64, the Prime Minister of Finland, will be the commencement speaker. Lipponen is known for his leadership in forming the European Union. The announcement was reportedly left to the last minute because President Freedman feared student protests due to Lipponen's relative obscurity in the United States. Many students expected the commencement speaker to be a famous women to commemorate the 25th anniversary of coeducation.
Honorary Degrees
The College has also announced the recipients of this year's honorary degrees. Graduation speaker Paavo Lipponen'64 will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. Edward Albee, who has won three Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony awards for his plays, will receive a honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Sir V.S. Naipaul, author of more than 20 books, will receive the same degree. In addition, Professor Nell Irvin Painter of Princeton, former New Hampshire Governor Walter Peterson'47, President of Smith College Ruth Simmons, medical researchers Harold Varmus, and Kennedy School of Government Professor William Julius Wilson will all receive honorary degrees.
Five Years After Rodney
In honor of the fifth anniversary of the Rodney King riots, Dean Steven Cornish and Professor Vernon Takeshita spoke this Tuesday at a Forum entitled 'Five Years after the LA Riots... What Have We Learned?'
Cornish believes that the Rodney King verdict is an overly simplistic explanation of the riots and that the real causes are much more deeply rooted. Referring back to the Watts riots of the 1960s, Cornish placed blame for the repetitive pattern of civil unrest in Los Angeles on the Los Angeles Police Department,
which, Cornish believes, helped to create the civil unrest.
Cornish said, 'The LAPD is the most militarized police force in the nation.' In the time leading up to the riots and looting, the police ran aerial surveillance nineteen hours a day over South-Central and other perceived high-crime neighborhoods.
After Dean Cornish spoke, 4/29, a documentary about Korean shop owners during the looting, was shown. Recounting the experiences of Korean shop owners in the riots (including one whose son was shot by a Korean store owner who mistook the young male for a looter), the film expounded on the 'American Dreams' of Korean immigrants and their failed expectations in light of the riots.
Professor Takeshita spoke following the film, saying that he was not amazed at the extent of the looting and damage, but at the length of time between Watts and the Rodney King riots.
He expected these riots to occur much earlier, citing the policies of 'Reagan and Bush to reduce aid to these communities.'
We Couldn't Have Made This Up
The following invitation was sent out over the Women's Resource Center bulletin list. Like the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance, the WRC draws its funding from the college.
'You Are Cordially Invited
To A Reception for Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Alumni and Friends
Women's Resource Center
Saturday, May 24
4-6pm
Refreshments will be served. All are Welcome'
Fall Offerings
The following courses are being offered next year under the 'College Courses' department.
The Masculine Mystique
Why are so many boys and men fascinated by sports and war? Why are Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger cult movie heroes? Why are young boys more threatened by the term 'sissy' than girls are by the term 'tomboy'? What are the distinctive qualities of men's friendships with other men and of their intimate relationships with women? Why do so many men describe their relationships with their fathers as troubled? Are our conceptions of masculinity dominated by models of white male development? What is the connection of biological sex with contemporary western notions of masculinity?
Using gender studies as an enabling methodology and drawing on two academic disciplines—education and literary analysis, or, more specifically, adolescent psychology and literary criticism — this course will explore these and other questions. We will draw on contemporary research in the psychology of boy's and girl's development, case studies written by college students, and major literary texts. Readings from anthropology, sociolinguistics, sociology, and race and ethnic studies, and movies will also be utilized in this interdisciplinary and multicultural course.'
'Science Fiction
Although scientific ideas may appear in science fiction only as decoration, they more often form part of the narrative fabric and have become a major factor in attracting readers to the genre. Taught by a computer scientist and a literary critic, this course investigates the interaction of literary and scientific agendas, giving them equal weight. Instead of trying to cover the whole history of science fiction or the whole range of disciplines it invokes, we have selected three areas where the influence of the sciences has been especially provocative: computer science in terms of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and world-wide networks of computers, physics in terms of the space-time continuum, and biology in terms of genetics, biotechnology, cloning, and identity. While the primary literary emphasis will fall on individual texts, we shall introduce some literary theory, paying attention to debates about post-modern consciousness, cultural politics, and the nature of artistic representation, which often take science fiction as their focus. Among the scientific authors we shall read are Dawkins, Einstein, Gould, Hawking, Lewontin, and Penrose; among the authors of novels or short stories, Asimov, Bear, Butler, Delany, Dorsey, Gibson, Le Guin, Lem, Moore, Niven, Tiptree, and Varley; among those who have written on the theory and practice of science fiction, Delany, Haraway, Hollinger, Le Guin, Scholes, Spinrad, and Suvin.'
Growing Up As A Person Of Color
While most of campus was enjoying itself this Thursday at the 'Rites of Spring' picnic, a select group of Asian, Black, and Hispanic students spoke of their humorous travails while 'Growing Up as a Person of Color in White America.' Speakers included 'bitter' campus agitator Unai Montes-Irueste '98, the twice defeated candidate for Student Assembly president. He spoke of his life as a light-colored Hispanic in Southern Illinois, Mexico, and California.
Yun Kyung Chung '97 followed with a discussion regarding her life as a model 'Korean young woman' — very quiet and studious. Then she went to an all-girls 'prestigious boarding school in Connecticut' which taught her the truths of feminism. After about a year, she became a 'raging femi-nazi.'
One of the final speakers, James Yu '99, spoke of his life in the United States. As a Korean he found his teachers to expect 'more of him' since he was Asian. He proved his credentials as a normal Asian-American by claiming that his family had a 'nice lawn,' much to the enjoyment of the audience.
Love On The Internet
A Washington judge has awarded Margaret Hunter, a 24 year old women living in Alexandria, VA., $264,000 in damages and expenses after Hunter discovered that the man of her dreams whom she met on the Internet and later wed was really a women. Hunter discovered her spouse's true gender over four months after they were married.
Hunter and Holly Anne Groves, 26, met on the Internet. Groves, who adopted the name Thorne Wesley Jameson Groves, told Hunter that she was a businessman suffering from AIDS to avoid engaging in intimate relations.
Hunter was tipped off to Groves' gender when 'his' mother called and asked for 'Holly.' A suspicious Hunter then searched for Groves' birth certificate where she made the discovery.
The Shack
The owners of 'Bianca's Smut Shack' are being sued by the Tandy Corporation for the use of the word 'Shack' in their title. The Smut Shack is a sexually oriented World Wide Web site that entertains more than 50,000 visitors every day. Tandy, the company which owns Radio Shack, holds the trademark not only for 'Radio Shack' but also for 'The Shack' and 'Shack.'
San Francisco Blowout!
The birthday of local Democratic guru Jack Davis was celebrated in San Francisco style earlier this month. The party, which was attended by many local politicians and 49er executives, started with 'male and female strippers gyrating to hard rock pumped through a sound system donated by Bill Graham Presents... Guests got tattoos, had odd things sewn onto their skin,' and waved 'plastic penises.'
But that was just to get the crowd ready for the main event. Rev. Steven Johnson Leyba of the Church of Satan, had a satanic pentagram carved onto his back. Then Leyba, who heads a performance troupe called United Satanic Apache Front, 'was sodomized with a Jack Daniels bottle by a woman dressed up like Pocahontas.' Leyba was then urinated on by several members of his troupe.
'[This] is a literal metaphor for how alcohol was forced on my people,' Leyba, who is a quarter Apache, later explained about his act which he entitled 'Apache Whiskey Rite.'
According to San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, 'It was so disgusting, I thought it was funded by the NEA.'
Leyba said he has performed this 'rite' at the San Francisco Art Institute, in Los Angeles, and at the University of New Mexico. Leyba was angerred that his performance was not more highly publicized. The Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance has scheduled Leyba for next fall.
Sowell Visits Campus
Well known economist and political theorist Thomas Sowell visited campus last week to hold a seminar with students. In his presentation, Sowell addressed cultural relativism and its chief fallacy — that all cultures are equal. To cite evidence for this Sowell said that German culture is obviously superior at making beer, the Swiss at watches, and so forth. Sowell pointed out that if all cultures had equal merit, the culture of the Nazi's could not be condemned.
Sowell then went on to address the education of minorities. Sowell showed how urban, predominantly Black schools in Washington, had historically produced some of the most famous and wealthy blacks including Colin Powell. He blamed the current problems with education of minorities on government, the educational institution, and affirmative-action.
Quote Of The Week
'If you don't consider what happened in Oklahoma City, Tim is a good person.'
—Michael Fortier; former army buddy of Timothy McVeigh.
Economic Development and International Trade
On Tuesday, May 20 at Hinman Forum in the Rockefeller Center, F. M. Scherer, Larsen Professor of Public Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, gave a lecture entitled 'Technology, Economic Development and International Trade' to the 40 students and townspeople in attendance.
Opening his lecture with a joke, Professor Scherer defined underdevelopment as a problem of getting too little output for too much input. Scherer argued that Research and Development (R&D) in manufacturing technology was the key to sustained development. R&D is done in the manufacturing industry, but trickles down to all the other sectors of the economy.
The measure of R&D — the number of patents per 100,000 population — is directly correlated to the number of science and engineering undergraduates per 100,000 population in a country.
Scherer discussed South Korea as a study in the success of Export promotion, but admitted that market forces were not allowed to work in South Korea during it's development, and that the command of capital allocation by government is not something he would recommend.
Scherer's take on China was that it would do no good to try and isolate the country. He argued that if we didn't trade high technology some other nation would. He said, 'I'd rather see a friendly growing China now then an angry growing China a hundred years from now.'
The Anti-Feminist
Christina Hoff-Sommers, a philosophy professor at Clark University, spoke Monday night to a packed house of over 100 people in Dartmouth Hall. Her speech, sponsored by the Conservative Union at Dartmouth, was entitled, 'How Feminism Hurts Women.' Sommers was introduced as a woman who had been called the 'biggest traitor since Benedict Arnold.' After her speech there were many who agreed.
Sommers began with humorous gibes and then moved into the main thrust of her argument. She attacked the faulty factual evidence used by many in the feminist movement. Talking about the wage gap between males and females, she claimed that the numbers are misleading and she went on to say that 'the glass ceiling is cracking.'
Sommers broke up her hour-long speech with a video segment from the television show, '20/20.' The segment was her interview with John Stossel on her book, Who Stole Feminism. She prefaced the segment with the comment that the show of her interview was the most watched '20/20' ever. But she said, it was not because of her presence but, rather the interview of Kato Kaelin.
After Sommers long speech ended, the real action of the night began. Many emotionally charged students questioned and opposed what Sommers had said. The questions turned ugly at several instances. One particularly, worked-up student, accused the professor of disregarding the questions of several, female students in the audience and focusing on the questions of the males. Another student accused Sommers of being condescending. When Sommers asked for an example, the student replied, 'Like that.'
After several hours the presentation came to an end. Little was resolved. However, the evening did lend credence to the charge that Dartmouth educates well with respect to 'aggrieved persons.' All the 'Studies' majors were out in full force — offended that someone would have the audacity to counter their lifeblood.
Our Last Asgard Update
Amidst the revelry of Green Key Weekend, Asgard threw a little party of its own on Saturday. We couldn't resist the offer to visit an Asgard function, so a Review staffer attended their recent 'Virgin Tails' incognito. Approximately 40 people packed Collis Common Ground, where two men clad in skirts performed the backspin and the moonwalk as D.J. Timber spun tunes from the Early Eighties. To the disappointment of all, President Freedman did not make an appearance.