Whew!

I can’t say how relieved I am that the 600-pound racist weather vane has been removed from Baker Library at Dartmouth College. May I humbly suggest that it be replaced with a Big Green square ... crossed by a wide yellow stripe.

Good News!

 ... for parents with kids who are approaching college age. The annual tuition and fees for Oxford University in England are about $14,000 ... whereas the tuition and fees for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA are over $55,000 ...  4 times as much! Even factoring in extra transportation costs, this is a no-brainer for parents of children who can tie their shoes.

A Coddle Cuddle

This piece on Dartblog caught my notice for its "truthiness" (a Stephen Colbert heyday construct) ... A Soothing Post-election Coddled Cuddle. This kind of stark imagery needs to be magnified and reflected back onto those snowflakes that comprise a too-large part of our simpering millennials. Ridicule and some hard knocks just might help them to mature intellectually and realize how very silly they appear.

Some self-reflection might also benefit the nanny administration at Dartmouth College. Perhaps less of this BS coddling might allow its graduates to leave its expensive nursery with a much smaller college loan burden.

Afterthought: If Dartmouth wants its students to act like adults, it should start treating them like adults.

The Grasshopper

The billionaire Arthur Irving, Chairman of Irving Oil, just announced a $100 million gift to Dartmouth College to fund the Energy Institute, see: Dartblog Entry. This news brings to mind an old chestnut, viz:

A grasshopper walks into a bar, climbs onto a bar stool and orders a martini. 

The bartender, as he delivers the martini, says, "Ya know, there is a drink named after you ..." 

To which the grasshopper replies, "You mean there is a drink named Irving?"

Badda Bing!

Dartmouth Dither

Last week I received an e-mail from Phil Hanlon, the President of Dartmouth College. The following image of it I have borrowed from  Dartblog's Joe Asch as it highlights the silly mind-set prevalent at this once-fine institution:

Now, I ask you, kind reader, does this scan like an epistle from someone of such stature?

Vox Clamantis

Here are some Black Lives Matter voices crying out at Dartmouth College. Please watch these BLM students at this prestigious Ivy League school express their racial frustrations into the Yik Yak camera while reading reactionary posts of their fellow students  ... see: Joe Asch's Dartblog Entry ... and see if you can generalize the gripes that these students are expressing. To me, it doesn't seem to be that black lives are being snuffed out by over-zealous police officers which I thought was the impetus of this BLM movement, but rather that white and Asian fellow students were making them "feel" uncomfortable. I'm not sure how this grievance is going to be remedied to the satisfaction of these "disenfranchised" students ... many of whom still proudly wear their school's name across their chests. A bit of a paradox, no?

I am rather disappointed that my previous thoughts on this BLM movement at Dartmouth were not included in this collective Yik Yak rant ... see: Student Racism.

Racism

Please read in detail about what recently happened at Dartmouth College where a group of black students went on a rampage denouncing their white classmates with profane vitriol ... see: Campus Reform Story. Now, as an exercise in turnaround is fair play, imagine that this was a demonstration of white students at Howard University ... and replace the chanted word "white" with "black" and you will see racism in its purest and ugliest form.

Yes, these black-student protesters at Dartmouth clearly do not have fully-formed senses of social consciousness ... and probably will eventually live to regret their impetuousness. But they nevertheless put a KKK stamp on their repulsive actions that will quietly resonate in the ivied halls of Hanover.

I do however doubt that the administration there will have the gumption to give them their due ... rather taking the attitude so prevalent these days that "blacks will be blacks." But, to me, lack of push-back against such disgusting demonstrations only makes matters worse ... giving these miscreants a sense of what they did was sanctioned and even encouraged. This is exactly the wrong message from a college that should know better.

Animal House

The Alpha Delta (AD) fraternity at Dartmouth has been derecognized by the college. For you of an age, AD was the fraternity which was the prototype for that very popular and raucous American movie "Animal House" back in 1978, This administration action was because of some hazing incidents that occurred there last fall and, by the tone of the indictment letter, it seems unlikely this fraternity will be reinstated ... see: Dartblog Story.

And if I were Dartmouth College, I would not be participating in any festive parades anytime soon.

The Alpha of the Omega

The University of Virginia (UVA) has just suspended fraternities (usually titled with Greek letters) until the beginning of the Spring semester ... see: Breitbart Article for details. (Ironically, UVA was the birthplace of many fraternities.) And, at a faculty meeting at Dartmouth College recently, the vote was 116 to 13 to abolish the Greek system at this Ivy League school ... see: Inside Higher Ed Story. Is this the beginning of the end of the fraternity and sorority systems around the United States?

Reading the tea leaves, one would have to guess that this is the case. Tradition after tradition has fallen at Dartmouth as a genuflection to political correctness. Once Seniors there smoked clay pipes one last time before they ventured into the "wide, wide world" and then broke them on the stump of the Lone Pine as a symbol of their leaving their callow college days behind them. Then some general in the PC police decided that these pipes were "Indian peace pipes" and had to go. So they went. Tradition after tradition has met the dust bin there in much the same way during the last few decades ... all driven by similar misguided motivations ... not to be replaced by any warm-hearted and meaningful surrogates.

What is left? Insipid self-inspection and hyphenated curricula that have created an Inquisition-like frenzy at many colleges which, in turn, now paves the way for remanding fraternities and sororities "to the secular arm." (In Medieval Spain this was an euphemism for being executed.) So we soon will likely have one more legacy of college life that is to be recycled into an empty memory.

A New Station of the Cross

Apparently our modern society has become obsessed with our backsides. Witness Kim Kardashian's popularity (see: Juxtaposition LII) and a bunch of puerile Dartmouth College students' expressed curiosity about Texas Governor Rick Perry's anus (see: Bile Green). Now, some equally infantile feminists in Rome have decided that crucifixes make fine sex toys for insertion into their posteriors. A group of three topless oinkers from the Ukraine called Femen demonstrated outside of the Vatican protesting the Pope's planned visit to the European Parliament ... see: The Gateway Pundit.

Their attempt to rouse or arouse their onlookers with their 15th station of the cross certainly made international new reports ... but I don't think that Pope Francis was that impressed.

Cowed

The new president of Dartmouth College, Phil Hanlon was recently initiated into the ways of hyphenated student protests when the “Concerned Asian, Black, Latin@, Native, Undocumented, Queer, and Differently-Abled students” aka, Freedom Budget (a name as nutty as these students), recently occupied his office with a list of 72 demands … which apparently include some knee-slappers. For instance they insisted that Dartmouth must include one "queer studies" class in every department (such as “Queer Projective Geometry” and “Queer Inorganic Chemistry”). I say “apparently,” because I started doing research, trying to find their full list of 72, but then said to myself, “why should I indulge these children with my efforts? Isn’t this protest just an infantile cry for attention … which they clearly don’t deserve?” So I didn’t.

Anyhow, this was not a shining moment for Dartmouth’s pixy prexy … a Dartmouth-graduated math major like myself. He did not literally kick these militant students out of his office and have them sent to Coventry. Instead he and his Dean of the College, Charlotte Johnson, pampered these wing-nuts with negotiations and then let some of them bivouac in his office for 48 hours. How humiliating for him and for Dartmouth College … not a shining start for his new presidency. If you want to read more on this tempest in a teapot see the following from the Wall Street Journal.

I think that the real lesson to be drawn from this disruption … and other recent travesties … like the forced resignation of Mozilla’s CEO, Brendan Eich, for a single political donation (see: Information Week Story) … is that acceding to the irrational demands of those hyphenated groups only makes matters worse. Arthur Miller had it right when he compared the McCarthy era to the Salem witch trials in his play, "The Crucible." There are times when an illogical fervor grabs a society’s psyche and, if nobody pushes back, can result in very scary consequences. The unwillingness of us (I’m talking about you and me, friend … and President Hanlon) to push back against such blatant silliness only causes more silliness … and eventually, if not checked by some courageous souls, much more dire consequences.

My suggestion to Dartmouth’s Phil Hanlon is don’t be cowed … do your best to purge your campus of such “diverse” detritus and start emphasizing a new diversity … a diversity of true liberal (small “L”) thought. Encourage rational and studied debate on any subject … but do not pamper the childish confrontations and loopy demands of any hyphenated radicals. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference.

Afterthought: Some might say that all this carping on my part is easy since I do not have to deal with a self-perpetuating and incestuous Board of Trustees who might deny me my next budget request. True, but then, if those in lofty positions are not willing to stand on principle, then their imagined positions are really not that lofty after all.

Hazing

Navy SEAL hopefuls in the surf

I find it interesting how the purposeful shifting of semantics is often used to achieve social and political ends.  There is currently a brewing brouhaha at Dartmouth College about hazing ... spawned, in my opinion, by a vindictive fraternity member who was ratted out by his brothers for his drug use and then, also in my opinion, concocted a bizarre story about his hazing experiences.  He has now gone national with this narrative and, as a consequence, hazing is rapidly becoming a cause célèbre.  The word "hazing" is taking on a relatively new and ominously pejorative tone that is being used not only to bash such previously tacitly accepted practices ... but also to attack fraternities in general.

Let me be clear, initiation rites when practiced with sadistic intentions are wrong, but finding a bright line between cruelty and those ordeals designed to encourage institutional loyalty and unit cohesion is sometimes difficult to define.  May I present some examples to illustrate my point:

- The Navy SEALs undergo extreme and rigorous "training" (see: Navy SEAL Training) in which the drop-out rate is about 90%.   This training is quite successful ... witness the series of dramatic victories this unit has achieved in recent years.  However, this training does include one section that one might classify as somewhat sadistic, viz:

Another important part of basic conditioning is drown-proofing. In this evolution, trainees must learn to swim with both their hands and their feet bound. To pass drown-proofing, trainees enter a 9-foot-deep pool and complete the following steps with their hands and feet tied: bob for 5 minutes, float for 5 minutes, swim 100 meters, bob for 2 minutes, do some forward and backward flips, swim to the bottom of the pool and retrieve an object with their teeth, and then return to the surface and bob five more times

- The Stations of the Cross that Jesus Christ had to endure ... possibly even endorsed by God himself ... have always appeared to be a bit sadistic. Flogging, spearing, a crown of thorns, a vinegar drink, etc. ... as well as the crucifixion itself, may all have been ordeals ordained to create a cohesive empathy among the Christian community.  I think it has worked.

- Discipline aboard British naval sailing ships was quite brutal and often sadistic.  However, it did help propel the English navy to world dominance.  One needs only read some of Patrick O'Brian's books such as Master and Commander to understand how the savage discipline aboard these man-o-wars was required to insure that the crew acted as a well-oiled unit when the bigger tests came ... naval battles when all their lives were on the line.

- Even though it is just mythology, the Twelve Labors of Hercules were ordeals mandated by Hera to test Hercules's strength and make him atone for his crimes. However, being made to clean the Augean stables in one day seems a little over-the-top sadistic to me.

There are numerous other examples of initiation ceremonies ... such as the sometimes weird Neptune frivolities celebrated when crossing the equator aboard ship, "boys will be boys" pranks in English public schools (read a few Harry Potter books), the current exposure of bullying in U.S. High Schools, and even that which is shown in al Qaeda propaganda training films. 

Although a noble objective, the current mania to banish sadism from the human psyche may (hopefully) cause pause among some initiators ... but I seriously doubt that "hazing", under whatever semantic form, will ever disappear entirely from our societies ... because it sometimes does seem to have a meaningful purpose.