Week in Review

Monday, April 1, 2002

Total Disconnect

Sports Illustrated, in a method TDR pioneered in 1984, recently conducted some novel reporting on the question of 'offensive' Indian mascots: They talked to actual Indians. SI and the Peter Harris Research Group surveyed 351 Native Americans and published the results in the magazine's March 4 issue. The poll, reports SI, discovered 'a near total disconnect between Native American activists and the general Native American population on this issue.' In fact, Native Americans overwhelmingly support the use of Indian mascots in high school and college sports (81%) and in professional athletics (83%). Activist Suzan Harjo, no stranger to Dartmouth, dismissed the findings out of hand: 'There are happy campers on every plantation,' she insisted. Even if one accepts Harjo's inane comparison of mascots to slavery, we somehow doubt slavery was ever that popular among American blacks.
College Curfew

Boston University students are pressing President Jon Westling to relax the limits on dormitory visitations. Westling received a fifty-page complaint from student leaders urging him to review the policy. The current policy forbids guests of students from visiting after one a.m. on weeknights and 2:30 a.m. on weekends. Students may only receive guests with permission.

Students see a repeal of the policy as beneficial to their education. According to students, the policy forces them to limit late-night study sessions and discussions. Their request is not about sex—as some administrators have suggested.

University Chancellor Joel Silber recently defended the current policy in a letter to the BU newspaper. He claimed that students sought 'sessions of fun and games.' 'It never occurred to us that [BU] was in the business of providing weekend love nests for our students,' he added. However, the intent, according to Silber 'is not to make virgins out of [students], although that wouldn't offend me.'

A recent poll of BU students showed that nearly all students favored amending the policy, although most did not want it eliminated completely.
Take a Stand

The popular men's magazine Maxim named the Greatest City on Earth in their latest issue. Detroit came out on top, but so did Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Miami—Maxim dubbed thirteen cities the 'Greatest.'

'We just couldn't bring ourselves to tell the Southies in Boston that they weren't number one or the people in New York that they weren't number one,' said senior editor James Heidenry. 'So like a guy juggling different girlfriends, we told them all they were number one.'

Although each city gets its vote of confidence in its own issue, the twelve runners up get blasted. The issue praising Detroit compares the city to the Coupe de Ville automobile and asks, 'What American guy doesn't love Detroit?' However, in the twelve other versions of the issue, Detroit is called a 'dismal wasteland of abandoned warehouses and Kid Rock wannabes.'

Maxim's plan backfired, however, when the magazine heralding New York was accidentally sent to Philadelphia. The issue, of course, was very unkind to Philadelphia.
Girls with Guns

'I'm at a women's college and they talk about empowerment,' Christie Caywood says. 'We shouldn't have to depend on others to take care of ourselves, and that's what it's left at right now.' Caywood, a Mount Holyoke junior, considers female empowerment to be a matter of extreme importance, and The Week in Review fully supports her.

Following a string of rapes in the five-college area, Miss Caywood has decided to empower herself and to help her colleagues do the same. Believing that the women of Mt. Holyoke are 'almost completely helpless' and that campus security is under-prepared to defend them, she has brought matters into the hands of her fellow students and has started the Mt. Holyoke Chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters. She is not trying to arm students at this point (Mt. Holyoke is in Massachussetts, and it's all but illegal to defend oneself in the state), but instead is campaigning to arm campus security. She has not, however, lost hope for full student empowerment and says that 'if [Second Amendment Sisters] can get campus security armed, then maybe we might be successful in trying to start a campaign to have students be able to arm themselves if they're properly trained and licensed.'

The Mount Holyoke student handbook still clearly bans the 'possession of all firearms' on campus.
A Little Goes a Long Way

Research at Northumbria University has shown that beer can improve brainpower. A half pint of beer can improve brainpower by twenty percent. Researchers did, however, concede that alcohol in large quantities can cause one's memory to fail. Small quantities of booze have the opposite effect. An earlier study showed that one in four people experienced memory loss, injured themselves, or missed work after a night of drinking.
Weird Science

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have been getting monkeys wasted—all in the name of science. Scientists gave alcohol to 1,000 green vervet monkeys, many of which developed a taste for alcohol, according to the study. The boozing monkeys fell into four categories: teetotaler, social drinker, steady drinker, and binge drinker. The majority of monkeys were social drinkers.

Five percent of the monkeys tested fell into the 'seriously abusive binge drinker' category. These monkeys started fights and drank until they passed out, according to researchers. 'The binge drinkers gulp down the alcohol at a very fast rate and pass out on the floor,' said Frank Ervin, the leader of the study. 'The next day they do it all over again.'

The actions of the monkeys mirror the actions of humans. 'A cage full of drunken monkeys is like a cocktail party,' said Ervin. 'You have one who gets aggressive, one who gets sexy, one who thinks everything is funny, and one who gets really grumpy.'

Vervet monkeys have DNA very similar to that of humans, and the research hopes to discover a gene that causes alcoholism in humans.
Like Mother, Like Son

Sarah Brady, gun control advocate and wife of former Reagan press secretary James Brady may soon face some legal problems. The trouble stems from a possible gun-law violation she may have committed.

In Brady's soon-to-be released book, A Good Fight, she tells that in 2000 she purchased a hunting rifle for her eighteen year-old son at a Delaware gun store. Brady describes in detail the events of the purchase, including a personal background check. However, she neglects to reveal if the shop ran a check on her son.

Delaware Justice Department spokesman Lori Sitler said that if Brady did not say the gun was a gift—and did not provide background information for the recipient—she may have broken the law. 'You can't purchase a gun for someone else,' Sitler said. 'That would be a 'straw purchase.' You've got a problem right there.'

Brady's organization promotes the view that 'the safest thing is not to keep a gun in the home'—advice that seems not to apply to her family.
Correction

Alert reader Jim Giles brought a twenty-two year old error to the attention of the editors. Giles found a mistake in the Review Credo, which has run atop the masthead since the third issue of the Review. The incorrect part of the Credo read, '...than to rank with those poor spirits.' The correct version reads, '...than to take rank with those poor spirits.'

For Giles' efforts, he will receive a complimentary Indian t-shirt, the style of his choice.
Harvard Lite

Why is it that every grand new idea the College comes up with to 'ensure that Dartmouth remain an institution at the forefront of ... teaching and research in the United States' is taken directly from the Harvard-Yale-Princeton crib sheet?

James Wright's strategic plan proposes to create College-wide professorships. These professors would not serve a single department and would focus on teaching more interdisciplinary subject matter. Such professorships would aid in recruiting 'faculty of the highest distinction,' according to Wright.

Granting university-wide professorships to scholars is the pinnacle of the huge research university model of higher education. Essentially Dartmouth will hire big names to teach a few interdisciplinary classes of dubious academic merit in between talk show appearances, all in a desperate quest for institutional prestige. Has the entire notion of Dartmouth offering a unique educational experience based on the teaching of undergraduates been rejected in the new strategic plan?

On the bright side, if we're all very lucky, maybe Cornel West's next rap CD will be produced in Hanover.
Clowns Protest Injustice, Discrimination

First there was the 'Million Man March.' Then there was the 'Million Mom March.' Now there is one more to add to the list.

On March 16, eighty clowns, many blowing on kazoos, gathered in Santa Cruz, California for the 'Million Clown March.' The clowns gathered to make known their frustration at a world so cruel to clowns and also to protest discriminatory hiring practices against clowns.

'You are born a clown,' said event organizer Rico Thunder. 'And for those brave enough to be out as clowns, the world can be a cold and unwelcome place.'

Thunder went on to state that the plight of clowns affects humanity as a whole. 'As long as one clown is oppressed, no man is free,' he said.

The clowns marched at a popular Santa Cruz shopping strip and held signs bearing messages like 'What's So #@!** Funny' and 'Don't Be A Bozo.' They also chanted, 'No more chanting!'

While far short of one million, the march did garner the attention and bewilderment of passersby. Used to protests which have become common in the area, one onlooker commented, 'At least at this protest you can actually see who the clowns are.'

At the conclusion of the protest, the clowns retreated to a local hangout for 'clowning, drinking, and karaoke,' according to march organizers.
This is News?

The Dartmouth College news website (www.dartmouth.edu/~news) currently features a student's Oscar picks—for no apparent reason. The website informs us that Tommy Dickie '05, a movie fan and member of the Dartmouth film society, offered his picks during a conversation with Dartmouth Medical School professor Madeline Dalton. Dalton is a member of the research team looking into the effect movies have on the behavior of teens. The purpose of this discussion is never stated.

In addition to the Oscar picks, parts of Dickie and Dalton's conversation are transcribed on the site. Here, they are discussing product placement in movies.
Dalton: Did you see In the Bedroom? What did you think about the Marlboro pack?

Dickie: I don't remember it?

Dalton: You're kidding?! It was with Sissy Spacek in her bedroom.

For what it's worth, Dickie missed on his predictions for Best Actor and Best Actress—he picked Russell Crowe and Sissy Spacek, respectively. The awards went to Denzel Washington and Halle Barry.
Look Away

The recent outbreak of pinkeye among Dartmouth students—and now apparently Princeton students—has led Dartmouth to take numerous preventative measures. Antibacterial soap was placed in each student's mailbox and signs with tips for preventing the infection have been posted throughout campus. While most of the tips are helpful, one seems quite strange. A tip on the poster encourages students to 'Avoid unnecessary eye contact.' Nothing more.

While obviously done in the best interest of those in the Dartmouth community, one must wonder if eliminating pinkeye at the expense of hindering communication is really a good thing.
Students View Classic Porn

Students at the University of Pittsburgh recently viewed vintage Seventies pornography as part of Sextravaganza Week 2002. The Campus Women's Organization sponsored the event, which was called 'Feminism and Porn.' The discussion sought to answer the question, 'What is feminist porn?'

The event planned to feature a guest speaker, but the speaker cancelled, leaving the status of the event in question. But the CWO stood unfazed and held the discussion. 'We were going to cancel the meeting tonight, but it's still an issue we wanted to discuss,' said CWO secretary Alison Bodenheimer. 'And besides, we're all about watching porn.'

The twenty-four students were unimpressed with the decades old pornography. Students commented on the dialogue during sex scenes and the lack of oral sex and visual penetration. Students even laughed and derided the sex scenes.

'Oh my God! This is so boring,' said one audience member, echoing the sentiments of the others in attendance.

The question, 'What is feminist porn?' was not answered.
Policing the Greeks

In a meeting with Greek leaders, Deborah Carney, Assistant Dean of Residential Life, announced that Greek Life Committee student monitors must start accompanying Safety and Security officers on fraternity and sorority walkthroughs. Under the current GLC policy one Greek student is supposed to accompany the Safety and Security officers when they conduct their walkthroughs of houses holding 'tier III' social events. This policy was largely ignored during fall and winter terms of this year. Carney, however, said that she would not register any parties until the student monitor system was back in place.

Week in Review

Article Tools

Related Articles