Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2007/10/20/the_week_in_review.php
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Colors Change, Peepers Pervade
The concept of “leaf peeping” may be new to some, i.e. freshman, but to the rest of the Upper Valley the turning of the trees advents a season of clueless tourists and their even more clueless driving habits. While locals owe these autumn sojourners gratitude for sustaining the New England tourist industry, they still bear mixed feelings toward them: In the past few years, suspected leaf peepers have been known to turn onto freeways in lanes of incoming traffic and drive in the wrong direction around roundabouts. Their tour buses occasionally stop right on highways near local farms and take photos of the “quaint” houses and rocky pastures so typical of New England. Some locals remain merely amused, but others prefer privacy to these peeping paparazzi.
Peeping has evolved with the years with resources like cell phone foliage updates, offered at http://www.visitnh.gov. The leaf-viewing season usually begins the first week of October and continues as long as the leaves last. Peak week is usually a few days after October 12th—a week also notable for its influx of jaw-droppingly slow-to-pay diners in Food Court.
Be Aware
David Horowitz is at it again. Not content with writing meaningless and inane drivel, Horowitz is returning to his roots: academic activism. Together with a motley crew of talking heads, he plans to sponsor a nation-wide educational program started at the “grass roots” by undergraduates in the form of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” So far, events at 147 colleges have been planned to raise awareness of islamo-fascism, and of David Horowitz, amongst students. He will travel from coast-to-coast preaching at campuses about the need to get active in the fight—and to make sure that it’s not just liberal students on street corners yelling while holding poorly written signs, but conservatives as well. Of course, never one to pass up taking a last swing at a dead horse, Horowitz also has been encouraging students to voice complaints about Women Studies Programs, only those without significant programs on Islam that is. So for all you aspiring activists or Islamo-Fascists, get ready for some awareness, October 22-26.
College Now Favors
Grimness in Basements
The Dartmouth Independent reported on October 15 that Wenda Gu’s human hair montage in the Baker-Berry Library was partially manufactured by child labor. At least one minor, purportedly 13 years old, was employed at Gu’s Shanghai studio, where the piece was assembled from hair collected in the Upper Valley. Employees at Gu’s house worked long hours in squalid conditions, sleeping on makeshift beds and urinating into improvised facilities in the unfinished basement of Gu’s multi-million dollar mansion. Considering the College’s heretofore anti-grim basement policy, it remains a mystery why they commissioned a piece from Gu in the first place.
Gu achieved international notoriety for employing unusual media such as placenta powder, human menstrual fluid, and semen. One such exhibit, which consisted of used sanitary napkins sent to him from women around the world, was attacked by many feminist organizations. Gu’s attempts to publicly exhibit the work were universally spurned. Rumors place the price tag of his Dartmouth exhibit anywhere from two million to fifty thousand dollars.
Irish Pres. Visits, Leaves Leprechauns Behind
Montgomery Fellow and ex-president of Ireland Mary Robinson addressed a crowded Moore Auditorium on Tuesday, October 9. After an introduction by Provost Berry Scherr that rivaled the actual address in length, Mrs. Robinson began a speech that was startlingly devoid of cheerful anecdotes concerning the Emerald Isle, and focused instead on her work with the United Nations as chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. She was particularly adamant about the need for the global community to renew its commitment to a document to which many in the room were doubtless oblivious, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Robinson covered many of the pioneering (and bureaucratic) initiatives the UN has recently produced—including the Global Elders, a group thought-up by Sir. Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel, founded by Nelson Mandela, headed by Desmond Tutu, and consisting of President Robinson as well as several other well-seasoned statesmen from around the globe. Impressive.
Robinson lived up to her reputation as an eloquent speaker, and her evocative stories of some of the suffering she had witnessed in Africa and elsewhere left the stunned audience in silence. She was even able to transcend her personal politics in order to make an effective appeal to humanity over partisanship—at least until the question-and-answer session, when a member of the audience asked her what on earth America could do to overcome Bush’s follies in Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay. Robinson thanked her for the “difficult question,” and responded that our national security processes needed to be overhauled. Robinson did not elaborate. Nor did she elaborate on any possible connection between the Global Elders and the Bilderberg Group.
Rushing Around
Fall rush ended this week, with 284 men receiving bids at Dartmouth’s thirteen fraternities and 251 women receiving bids at seven sororities. Numbers for both fraternity and sorority recruitment were higher this year than last, leading to larger pledge class sizes and, for women, a more competitive rush process as houses quickly reached their callback and bid limits. The week-long recruitment process for women, involving short parties hosted by each house and multiple rounds of callbacks, lost 53 rushees between round one and bid night—most having lost interest somewhere between days four and five of the process. New members of fraternities are now beginning their pledge term, at the end of which they can become full brothers of their houses and reacclimatize to the outside world.
Truth, As U See It
Indoctrinate U, directed by Evan Coyne Maloney, is a recently released documentary that examines the infusion of politics into the education of university students. Footage is taken from UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State, Cal Poly, University of Tennessee, University of Michigan, Yale, Duke, and Columbia. The film investigates institutional mechanisms such as speech codes, asking what happens when political correctness goes too far. The documentary uncovers instances where universities filter out and exclude freedom of thought and speech, preventing students from making statements that contradict the university’s views and ideas. On top of this, politics are brought into classes where they simply don’t belong. As one student in the movie says, “I had no idea that carbon chains had anything to do with politics.” Another says he was taught in his geography class that gender is socially constructed. While political debate and gender discussion definitely have a place on the modern college campus, that place is not within classes that are meant to focus on other topics. As one university official mentions in the preview for the film, “They’re quite ruthless about their desire for a kinder and gentler world.”
Stanford Students Sue Spammers
A lot of people are sick of spam, but two Stanford students took matters into their own hands. Joe Wagner and David Cannon have sued numerous spam companies, forcing the offenders to give money to charities like the Darfur Stove Project. Many of the companies settled before they were brought before the small claims court. The initial trial has convicted all the other companies, but the verdict has been appealed. $40,000 has reportedly been “donated” so far.