Bile Green

This blog was originally published in Fletcher's Castoria.

Can Dartmouth sink any lower? For a rarity at the college on the hill, a conservative was invited to speak to the undergraduates. Apparently the college Republicans had invited Rick Perry, outgoing governor of Texas, to speak at an open event and he drew a number of anal-sex questions from the audience ... some of which were printed on a flyer that was passed out by a sophomoric sophomore, Ben Packer. A typical example was, "Do you [Rick Perry] dislike bootysex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?"

Another green weenie in the audience, senior Emily Sellers, asked the governor if he might engage in anal sex for a large campaign contribution. Wow … such disrespect from seemingly liberal artists! And freshman, Timothy Messen, snidely queried if Rick Perry thought that homosexuals were equivalent to alcoholics. Obviously not everyone in the audience was so crass, but to read more of the details of this sour event see: Breitbart Story.

Because of a recent similarly scatological story coming out of Harvard ... see: UK Daily Mail Story, and an overwhelming vote of the Dartmouth faculty to abolish fraternities and sororities, I was commenting to my wife that college professors must live in a parallel universe ... and she agreed. They must have dispatched pedagogical space ships to bring some of their more naively insipid students along with them.

Obviously, the Dartmouth administration cannot and should not punish these miscreant students like it once attempted to stifle campus conservatives for "vexatious" speech. But it surely would be appropriate to embarrass them (and a few of the more notorious faculty members) in some public way.

Afterward: Here is a link to a related article: Powerline Piece.

Happy (at Dartmouth)

For a upbeat view of the old college on the hill please view: Class of '16's Jake Gaba's take on "Happy" (at Dartmouth).

(Tip of the hat to Rick Roesch).

Afterward: To see what happens to six Iranians who try this same lip-syncing trick ... see: Powerline Blog Video.

Phil Hanlon's Challenge

The following rant was recently posted on another of my blogs: Fletcher's Castoria.

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.