Ragtime November 27, 2007: Afraid for our lives

After the jump -- Dartmouth police blog!!
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Blog Woman On Campus: I Hate Everything

As the name of her blog expressly expresses it, Eleanor Mulhern (P '07) hates everything. Except talking about how much she hates things. This blog is pure negative energy. The pattern is simple: begin with a question ("Why is there that cheesy side-story in Independence Day?", "Why is Lohengrin played at so many weddings?", "Why do people struggle at staircases?") and then answer that question in the form of a vituperative rant. Why is the internet so wonderful?

As usual, here are a bunch of quotations which may entice you to read more

"Why do middle-aged women dress like débutantes? Why do fat girls dress like thin girls? Why do women not know to buy strapless dresses a size down?"

"Irregardless" is a vile addition to the vernacular and should be expunged without delay. Failing that, people who use it should be shunned.

And really, with a name like D'Brickashaw, if you don't make it to the NFL, what can you do? Work at a bank? Seriously.

Turn signals are not just for fun. They are not just pretty flashy lights. They are in fact intended to help other people on the road figure out what you, with your tiny little pea-sized brain, are going to do with your automobile.

Hallowe'en candy does not make your kid fat. Do not make him dread Hallowe'en because you are simultaneously too lazy and too interfering to be a good parent.

The candy might make him sick for a day, or bounce off the walls. This is a small price to pay for his not hating you for the rest of his life.

Her blog can be visited here.

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Ragtime November 26, 2007

And a Happy Thanksgiving From the Worst Person in the World!

Happy Turkey, everybody!

 

Ragtime November 20, 2007:

Brief Zywicki Update

IvyGate has obtained a more complete transcript of Mr. Zywicki's remarks, as well as his responses during a Q&A session, from the educational conference which took place at the John William Pope Center in Raleigh, NC last month.

In addition to being frankly inarticulate, Mr. Zywicki displays a level of self-righteousness more commonly associated with the Gatorationist International students on hunger strike. Read his words and judge for yourself.

It's all after the jump -- and if you're the kind of person who's interested in this, you definitely know who you are. If you're not, ignore this post.
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Dartmouth Trustee Pulls a Coulter: Academics “don’t believe in God, don’t believe in country.”

Dartmouth Trustee Pulls a Coulter: Academics "don't believe in God, don't believe in country."

Recently surfaced on YouTube: Dartmouth trustee Todd Zywicki at this year's John William Pope Center for Higher Education conference, discussing his Dartmouth-leadership peers:

Those who control the University today, they don't believe in God and they don't believe in country. University is their cathedral. Their entire being, both those who fund it and those who teach within it, are tied up in the universities. It is basically their religion.

This should make for good small talk at the next trustee/administration cocktail party.

Zywicki, who is also a law professor at George Mason University, was part of the alumni-trustee power bloc that precipitated recent changes to Dartmouth's constitution. His massive CV includes titles like "Deadbeats Cost All of Us Dearly" and "Is Tony the Tiger Making Kids Fat?" (answer: yes, but it's worth it, because obese babies have extra-chubby-wubby cheeks!) Even worse, however, than fat kids and lazy people are liberal pansies and their Catholic-but-not-in-the-good-Jesus-way doctrine:

The establishment within these universities is vicious. They are vicious people. They have their own dogma. ... There is a new dogma that is environmentalism, feminism, and, uh, that is the dogma. And they will enforce it viciously. We have the Spanish Inquisition, and you can ask Larry Summers whether or not the Spanish Inquisition lives on academic campuses today.

Does that make Drew Gilpin Faust the pope? Or maybe she's Jesus, whom Zywicki namedrops later. Either way, it's a riot. Videos and partial transcript from the anti-Dartmouth and diatribe after the jump.

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Rhodes Rhound-Up

Rhodes Rhound-Up

Every year among the dozens of prestigious scholarships pursued by ambitious Ivy League seniors, the Rhodes is unquestionably King. Past recipients include David Souter, James Fallows, Peter Beinart, Bill Clinton, James Searle, and multiple bedroom partners of Hillary Clinton. It's easy to see that Shayak Sarkar (H '08) has the coolest name of any Rhodes Scholar of this year, but let's see how the Ivies (and non-Ivies) stack up with one another in an only slightly less pointless way:

University of Chicago -- 3 (Nadine Levin, Isra Bhatty, Andrew Hammond)
Stanford -- 3 (Laurel Gabler, Scott Thompson, Aaron Polhamus)
Harvard -- 3 (Clara Blaettler, Shayak Sarkar, Sammy Sambu)

Princeton -- 3 (Sherif Girgis, Brett Masters, Landis Stankievech)

Columbia -- 2 (Jason Bello, George Olive)
University of Georgia -- 2 (Deep Shah, Katherine Vyborny)
St. Olaf College -- 2 (Ishanaa Rambachan, Nicole Novak)

Yale -- 1 (Benjamin Eidelson)
Dartmouth -- 1 (Adam Levine)
University of Pennsylvania -- 1 (Joyce Meng)
Swarthmore -- 1 (Rebecca Brubaker)
MIT -- 1 (Melis Anahtar)
United States Naval Academy -- 1 (John Blaine Moore)
Florida State University -- 1 (Joseph O. Shea)
UT at Austin -- 1 (Sarah Miller)
Ohio State University -- 1 (Jessica Hanzlik)
Caltech -- 1 (Todd Gingrich)
United States Air Force Academy -- 1 (Hila Levy)
Georgetown University -- 1 (Pravin Rajan)
University of Oklahoma -- 1 (Andrea DenHoed)
United States Military Academy -- 1 (Jason Crabtree)
University of Southern California -- 1 (Reede Doucette)
University of California-Berkeley -- 1( Asya Passinsky)

Trivia: which Rhodes Scholar went on to become a Nazi general?

UPDATE: This post contained many errors. For some reason, the PDF supplied by the Rhodes Trust seems to be incomplete. I'm never making a post with information again.

Ragtime November 19, 2007: Let’s Brag About How Many Rhodes Scholars We Have This Year

Great Moments in College Journalism: Prince Drops Even Pseudo-Journalism Ball

Great Moments in College Journalism: Prince Drops Even Pseudo-Journalism Ball 

Look, just look, at these people "embracing their cultural differences." Literally. The picture comes from an article in yesterday's "Street" section of the Prince which describes an "an unconventional kind of celebration." organized by an enterprising Londoner and his "close multicultural friends." The article explains:

With a small group of other international students who had stayed behind for the holiday, [the Londoner] decided to create a new tradition. For an unconventional Thanksgiving dinner at a local student's house, students embraced their cultural differences by dressing in the traditional formalwear of their respective countries.

OK, Prince, my only question is this, "In what possible universe would international students actually do this?" You mean they were so broken-up about "missing out" on Thanksgiving that they decided to stage their own multi-cult version? Really? To be perfectly frank, I don't  think I want to attend a university where these sorts of brochure-able celebrations of diversity spontaneously take place.

Many of them also prepared a native dish to bring along.

Really?

It was great. We had people from Germany, Argentina, Nigeria and a bunch of other places,

A bunch of other places, huh?

the nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner gave him and his friends an outlet to discuss the traditions of their countries and learn about the customs of others. The dinner was such a hit that it is now a ritual among [the Londoner] and his close multicultural friends.

Really? really?

Let's take a closer look at that picture. Why is the "Scotsman" rocking a blazer with his kilt? Who is the fellow wearing what appears to be an inside-out Burberry jacket? Is this the rarely-glimpsed British "native dress"? What kind of cross-cultural embrace exactly is going down between the Slav and the Arab, the latter of whom, I see, has brought his culturally-emblematic hookah to this postmodern T-giving.  Finally, why does every single person in this parody of a candid appear to be trying desperately not to laugh?

In case it's not obvious at this point, the picture is staged, and the event in question never took place (so our tipster informs). But maybe the real travesty is that the Prince chose to devote its entire "Street" section, which is ostensibly a register of cultural life at Princeton, to Thanksgiving recipes ("This week, 'Street' brings you the dish on Turkey Day at Princeton.") That's like the 3rd food-themed "Street" this year.